The March to Deia

It's our third day in Mallorca and Timi and Michael have granted Donna and me "a pass" for the day. We wake up refreshed and decide to forgo a day of yoga and shopping and make a hike over the mountain to the coast.

The guys take the kids into the town of Soller to ride the tram. After a quick glance at the guidebook, we trot off to find the path to Deia. We had some navigational difficulties at the roundabout and managed to waste the better part of an hour trying to find our path.

My stomach rumbles and I suggest maybe we should go into town for shopping after all. Donna dismisses my idea and waves to a local hanging out her wash and asks for directions in her newly minted Spanish tongue. I'm awed by Donna's perfect pitch as they carry on discussing roads for several minutes.

We finally spot the trailhead tucked behind some shrubbery and set our course along a 13 km, rambling stone pathway through half-century-old olive groves and over the hill to the shoreline.

The trees were an enchanting support cast...

...but Donna's new life took center stage. I had plenty of kilometers to catch up on stories about settling in in Mallorca, including the harrowing episode about how her brakes gave out on her one afternoon while driving home from horse-back riding with the kids, who kept chattering away in the back, in total ignorance. Despite being new to the roads and unaccustomed to a standard automobile, Donna gracefully downshifted them all home through steep and narrow two-way streets to safety.

We heard the sheep bells from the distance. Must be lunch time for the sheep--which reminds me I'm hungry. We've been walking for an 1 1/2 hours, and the sign we just passed said we still had 2 hrs 45 minutes left. Donna says not to worry, she has two oranges in her pack. I quickly calculate how many miles an orange will hold my cafe-con-leche flooded gut and contemplate swiping a bit of soggy bread from the sheep.

Donna exchanges pleasantries with this friendly woman in yet a second new language, Catalan. I'm impressed. Hmmm...wonder if she has any sheep's milk cheese.

This must be the sheep-herders house. Donna muses that maybe she and Michael should start a green olive farm. From this perspective, it sounds like a great idea.

Carrying the pack is nothing compared to my normal resistance training: hauling a 35-pound toddler on (insert: hip, back, shoulders).

I've always enjoyed trees, but the knarls and knots of these old guys are way more compelling than your average trunk. Donna explained that they started grafting olive trees in biblical times. A branch from a good olive tree is transplanted onto a wild olive tree to help it start producing.

We chug up the path, and are dumped out at a crossroads in front of this lovely old sanctuary. Where to? We take a break and study the guide book for clues. I'm wondering if I can snag some communion crackers from the cupboards.

We veer right and a few minutes later stumble on this place. Voila! A chalkboard by the front door. This must mean food!

We peek in to see if anybody's home and hear a delightful greeting: "Bonjour."

We decide to forgo the savory...

...for the sweet. This french lady made the lemon meringue herself.

And the chocolate cake too. I'm pretty certain I need both.

Donna feels right at home jabbering away with the french mother-daughter duo. I try to open my ears wide, and what I think I hear is that the mother is very proud that her 10-year-old Basque granddaughter has learned to speak Basque, Catalan, Spanish and French. Now I'm feeling really guilty about my lack of progress in German. I make a silent vow to find a new German teacher (I thought the last one was going to hit me with her pencil when I told her I didn't think I could learn the cases) the moment we get home to Vienna.

We drink fresh-squeezed orange juice, cafe con leche and eat our desserts. I forget how pleasant it is to sit down to a meal without having anybody interrupt my sentence or ask for warm milk in the mug with the yellow Swedish propeller plane on it. My stomach sated, I can now relax and enjoy the view.

The march continues, post pie, underneath this canopy of wisteria.

And through this gate.

The next section is supposedly dotted with newly-constructed homes of the rich.

Still our first glimpse of the Mediterranean is pristine and stunning!

Wouldn't it be nice to swim out to that little crop of rocks.

We hike down to a little cove called Cale Deia.

It's good to be nimble. You find these rustic-wood ladders all over Mallorca. When we saw one two days ago, Parker said: "me hold de ladder."

This is when you know you're not in Kansas anymore. One of the locals mentioned that the water was 20 degrees (that's 68 fahrenheit), which I realized was about the average temperature of Attersee in summer. Not bad. Plus the sun was still high, which meant we had ample time to kick out toward the arete and dry off in the sun afterwards. The water was calm and, once I adjusted to the cold, the texture was so luxurious I felt like I was being wrapped in fine silk feathers.

We dried off and picked our way back up the path and on toward Deia.

I couldn't stop staring at the endless walls of stone, terracing they constructed to farm olives on.

Now if only this tree could talk.

These hanging melons gave me a chuckle too.

Plus, I felt like giggling: three hours and forty-five minutes into our journey, we had finally arrived in Deia! Thankfully, there was still one restaurant open (we were between lunch and dinner), and we sat down to beers, bread, cheese and ham. Then it was time to start back and pitch in with dinner and bedtime.

Here's our bus stop. It's a far cry from the Port Authority don't you think?

Well there's no bus running to Soller today, and I'm not walking. Looks like we're hitching. Two cars pass, and a guy in a minivan slows down and rolls down his glass. I'm almost bowled over by the oily fumes, but Donna stays composed and asks in Spanish for a ride to Soller. The smelly-car driver nods, and I settle down in back next to his very forward Great Dane, who immediately claims my lap as the very pillow he's always wanted. Amped up on fumes, smelly-car driver cranks the tunes, lurches into 5th, and we hang on for our swan song: a wild descent down winding shoreline roads back into town. I just hope he can brake.