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Published: April 21st 2009
Well, I have to admit that my first attempt at blogging was a little disastrous. I started typing about our time here in Mallorca only to have my computer lose the wifi connection and could not find what I had typed. Enough whining. Our flight from NY to Madrid was uneventful in the sense that we had dinner and then slept. Dinner was good, which surprised both of us because we were expecting it to be pretty bad. Since we did not eat prior to boarding the flight we were pleasantly surprised. I took Advil PM as soon as the flight took off so by the time they served dinner I was literally falling asleep in my crab cakes. I slept soundly until thirty minutes prior to landing. I am getting ready to take my Advil PM tonight so who knows how the blog will sound. Ed took his Ambien at the right time and made it through his dessert on the plane. We both slept well and Ed woke in time for breakfast. I missed breakfast but they were nice enough to bring me yogurt and fruit prior to landing. Once we got to Madrid we hopped in a taxi and headed for Plaza Major, which is the only name Ed could remember from the tourist book. He was one step ahead of me, until the day before we left I thought we were flying to Barcelona. It was Sunday morning so there was no traffic. We were both impressed with how clean Madrid is and how many trees line every road. On Sunday morning they have a flea market in Plaza Major that deals mainly in coins and old post cards. We were in the market for neither so we set out walking. After walking several blocks we noticed everyone headed a certain direction so we followed. Guess where they were headed, yep another flea market. This flea market was huge and went on for blocks and blocks. This market did not seem to have a specialty they had tons of junk, you name it they had it. Betty Bop T shirts, Mick Jagger T-shirts were common sightings at the market. We were surprised they did not have any Obama T-shirts, but we did finally see one shirt that said Yes We Can. We assume it was an Obama reference and not the catch phrase for Madrid. At this point Ed needed a restroom, this happens a lot on trips with Ed but since there are no public restrooms that we could see it means we have to stop for a coffee. This means that we stay very caffeinated on our trip. We stopped and had coffee. After our decent walk around Madrid we hopped in a taxi and headed back to the airport. We spent the rest of our time in Madrid in the airport club lounge where they had clean bathrooms and I fell asleep. Ed was not in favor of my sleeping because he was very worried about my ability to adjust to Mallorcan time, but I fell asleep anyway. I woke up and they called our flight so we got on the plane for Palma where I promptly fell asleep again. Notice a pattern…
Ed actually fell asleep on the plane for 5 minutes then we hit turbulence and he woke up and stayed awake in case the plane went down. I would much rather be asleep if the plane goes down. I woke as we were landing.
Finding our luggage ended up scaring us half to death because we waited and saw everyone else on our flight collect their luggage and leave. When we checked with the airline we found out that non-European citizens collect their luggage from a different location and then go through customs. That was great news. We grabbed our bags and tossed them into the tiniest Mercedes you have every seen. Of course once in the car I almost nodded off but managed to stay awake for the short ride from Palma to Santa Maria del Cami, Read’s Hotel. If you check it out you will see that it is quite lovely, and we have a very nice room. Ok it has a few ants but we put in a RAID plug in and like magic the ants disappeared. I can’t read the label on the RAID plug in but it worked really well.
We were both getting sleepy but the goal as stated by Ed was that we stay up until at least 9:30. We went to dinner at our hotel. The dinner was very yummy with the bread they served a pesto spread. Let me just say pesto spread is divine. We had not really had anything to eat since breakfast so we almost actually ate the basket the bread was in. After dinner, yea! Bedtime. I promptly took my Advil pm and fell asleep. Ed also indulged in Advil PM and we slept until our alarm woke us at 8:30.
Breakfast was good and uneventful except for the cute glass jars that Dannon yogurt is sold in.
After breakfast we found Malcolm the bike guy and he put our pedals and seats on our bikes while we chatted with a nice couple from England. They are not into cycling but had gone on a pretty challenging ride on Mountain bikes so it was fun to hear about their experience. They asked us if we liked Obama, of course we said that we like him very much. They said they like him, but think Michelle is great! They liked that he helps give people hope. They were not so thrilled with their own Prime Minister.
After Malcolm set up the bikes, gave us a very simple map and a couple of directions we set off in the direction of Binnsallem. Ed just game me the update that we should have spent more time in this town. We stopped at the bike shop looking for a specific item and went on. Apparently it is a lovely town with many old mansions, we might have to go back. After Binnsallem we headed to Selva and kept going with a destination of Campanet for lunch. We arrived in Campanet via a lovely bike route. When a road is marked bike route it generally means good pavement and quite narrow for cars. Not so say that they do not allow cars, they do but you will only see a few. What you will see are olive groves and citrus groves on either side of the road. I was quite tempted to steal a lemon but the very smart Mallorcan farmers have fences around their groves. Apparently I am not the first person to think of taking one. The other things you find in fields along the ride are the cutest sheep with bells around their necks. Which sounds like a little song when there are 30 or 40 of them milling around.
For lunch we stopped on the piazza right in the middle of Campanet. We ordered the locally specialty which is bread with olive oil, tomatoes, thinly sliced ham and olives and peppers. It was quite yummy. The other upside was the clean bathroom at the café.
After lunch we were feeling as though we were not ready to turn back to our hotel so we looked at our map and decided to ride Alucidia, which is on the north shore of Mallorca. We were not sure which road to take out of town so I asked the German cyclist at the next table, they said they were headed that way and we could go with them. Sounded good to us so the five of us set out. I was a little concerned because I was afraid I could not keep up. Let me just say I was fine. They took a wrong turn, which involved us backtracking up a somewhat steep hill, but I made it. On the flats I kept thinking they could go faster but didn’t want to insult them. Luckily we were with them because in Sa Pablo it started to rain and they stopped and ducked under an awning. Of course if it had just been the two of us we would not have stopped but after waiting only 10 minutes the rain stopped and they saved us from getting soaked and being uncomfortable the rest of the day. We headed out and made it to the north shore where we said goodbye to our biking companions. They asked where we were staying when we told them that we were staying in Santa Maria they seemed shocked that we were going back there in the same day, which worried us a little. I told them danke shin. I had been practicing my German thank you for the last 10 kilometers. We stopped and had an orange juice, i.e. bathroom break. The server was very nice and had great English so we looked at the map with him to make sure we knew which way to go. We headed out going towards Cap Picafort. Guess what … every country has a Jersey Shore and we had found the Jersey shore of Mallorca, complete with Video arcades, cheesy hotels and snow cone stands. They were only missing Bruce Springsteen. After turning from the shore we headed for Saint Margalidia. It was a nice ride and our next town was Llibu, I think that was the name but I am working from memory I don’t have the map in front of me. We stopped on the outskirts and met another cyclist on his own going the same way, he pointed to a bike path and we followed, he was right but the bike path had lots of bad spots and it was the worst pavement we saw all day. We made it to a town call Cotitx which must mean straight up in Spanish. I thought I would die before we reached the top, but obviously I didn’t. The good news is that after we reached the top I wasn’t even tired, but I just hate climbing. But felt great at the top, because everything that goes up must come down. Ok Cheyenne, I admit I used my brakes on the downhill more than once today. We ended up headed towards a little village called Sencelles we had to stop and ask directions once prior to finding the town and once we made it had to stop and ask again. The good news is almost everyone speaks a little English and those who don’t seem fluent in map pointing. After heading out of Sencellese we assumed we were at least 20 or 30 kilometers from Santa Maria but to our amazement we were only 10 kilometers. We started with me in the lead and once I realized there was an Iowa like headwind I quickly urged Ed to take the lead. He did and I slid right behind him and drafted all the way home. For those of you who cycle you will know how wonderful those last 10 kilometers were for me and how bad they were for Ed. The lead person is taking all the wind and the back person feels as though they are being pulled along. For every 10 pedal strokes Ed would make I only had to do 3 or 4 to avoid hitting his back wheel. We came home and took very well deserved showers and slathered our legs with Active On and went to dinner as Ed said smelling like grandpas. So if anyone talks to my dad, tell him to grab a tube of active on. It has some menthol in it and I froze during dinner. Ok. I am now tired and still need to slather my legs yet again, but this time with Arnica gel. Sleep get up and repeat. Actually we are headed on a different route tomorrow and I hope I will have new things to report.
Sorry for the play-by-play, but this way if you are interested read and if not I completely understand and you can just pretend you read. I will not conduct a quiz.
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Bernadette
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You should be a writer
Becky, this was great! Save these blogs cuz I think you should write a book. You have a witty style that keeps it interesteing.