Vam anar a Mallorca, Days 1-3: Transit, El Toro, and Llucmajor coast

There was a coup at the last Bathhurst conference (normally held in the UK) and the next one was to be held in Mallorca, Spain, an island in the Mediterranean Sea.  As soon as Laura found out, she told me that I would have to join her when that time came.  Yeah, count me in!

I had never been to Europe, or really to any countries that didn't speak a ton of english, so I was excited for the trip and did my usual overplanning and researching. We booked the flights on airline miles, so that was really helpful!

Laura found this article in the in-flight magazine on the plane.  How serendipitous!

Awesome architecture in the Madrid airport.  We booked through Madrid because the extra fees through London were outrageous!  We managed to get through Madrid at least one of the ways to save some money.

We had a very long layover.  We had been on the fence about touring around town a bit during the layover.  Had we known our flight would be delayed out of Madrid, we definitely would have.  Instead, we toughed it out sleeping wherever we could when we weren't eyeing the Iberico hams hanging up in the restaurants.

A little late, but we made it to our AirBnB that night.  We were introduced to a few facts of life in Mallorca: one positive, the others adaptable.  Even though it was near 2am, we found a cafe a block away that was still open.  The late mealtimes there were convenient!  We also learned that service is different.  I don't want to call it slow, because that's relative to our standard.  But it took much longer to get a meal, pay, and get out than in the US.  That's not necessarily bad, as most folks were enjoying the relaxed experience.  We eventually learned to be a bit more vocal with the waitstaff if we wanted to move along on our normal timeline.  That worked fine and they never seemed disturbed by it.  Just a different approach.

The other necessary adaptation was to "European" A/C.  Despite being advertised as having A/C, the apartment had two A/C wall units, one for one bedroom, the other for the shared living spaces.  Neither got us anywhere close to the temps we were used to, and our room wasn't the one with the A/C.  It was pretty hot outside (upper 90s) during the start of the trip, so we had to adjust.  Laura and I eventually slept in the living room on nights where the breeze wasn't enough.  Bonus: doing so put us right near the window and this view!!!

The next morning, we went grocery shopping.  Man, oh man, were there some incredible options!  So many fresh pastries and so many chocolate things!  We got some of the must-do staples, like milkbread, Iberico ham, many canned seafood options, fresh melons, and pastries.

Calla and Ted met us at the hotel. Laura was really jealous that I was going to gallivant while she attended the conference, so she asked if we could do one of the adventures that afternoon.  Ted and Calla joined us as we headed off on one of my typical "out-of-the-way" tours. 

We drove through Palma and over to Punta de El Toro, the SW-most point on Mallorca.  I had previously found information about diving the island offshore of the point, which is a marine reserve, and had been brainstorming how I might be able to swim out to the island to snorkel on my own.  On the flights over, Laura reminded me how much I love diving, and by doing so convinced me to book a dive instead.  So this time, no risky swim out to an island.  Instead, we'd hike out and snorkel near the point.  We had snorkeling gear, but Ted and Calla did not, Laura wanted fins (smart girl), and I wanted some dive weights (smart guy).  It was a bit of a trial getting the gear, as the first place would not rent to people who weren't touring with them and the second was waaaaay back in a marina, far from any parking.  But we pulled it off and were thankful that the days stayed light so late.

About 200 yards into the hike, this fence greeted us.  Luckily, I had already read about other people ignoring it and jumping the wall and barbed wire.  So we did the same.  Bunkers, tunnels and other fortifications had been built into the cliffs during the Franco regime to defend against possible Allied invasions during WWII.  Spain had maintained various degrees of neutrality during the war, but was concerned about invasions from Allied forces from the south and the Axis forces from the continent. But all that is left is the stone infrastructure and it is no longer an active military site.

I had found some vague trail maps online and had also seen some paths on satellite maps, so we just started working towards the point.  Many of the paths were likely maintained by goats, not humans!  We hit a few spots with precarious descents, but made it down to the water through trial and error.

A trio of fishermen were on the windward side of the peninsula but we were otherwise alone out there.  We donned our gear, delicately crossed the rocks into the water, and then entered another realm.

We saw plenty of these pink jellyfish, aka mauve stinger (Pelagia noctiluca) on our trip.  Some beaches had none and others many, just depending on the wind, currents, and shape of the beach.  I got zapped several times during the trip; it stung pretty bad and left welts, but I didn't experience the nausea or muscle cramps that can also be associated with their sting.

After snorkeling, I did some long exposures and then we headed back.

Ted, Calla, and Laura had been reading about the local geology and had noticed that some of the cross-bedded rocks on the hike down to the point had small rounded fossil fragments in them.  They speculated that these were aeolianites, formed from shelly sand being blown up from an ancient beach.  On the way back, they noticed this puzzling white clay layer that seemed pretty out of place, so that led to some nerdy discussions.

The next morning, we did a boat tour of the south coast near the district of Llucmajor to view the ancient Miocene reef formations that are now seaside cliffs.  Laura has been excited to see this area because she has been comparing her southern Australian rocks to these in the literature for years.  These cliffs expose the lagoon, reef, and aeolianite sequences in 3-D because the way that the cliff have eroded allows you to see the sequences from the side and from the ends.  This boat trip was not as exciting as we anticipated, though, because we never got off of the boat.  We just looked at the layers of rock from the boat with the trip guides trying to explain what they were over the sound of the waves and the wind.  Laura's poor handlens was never put to use, but we did meet some nice people on the trip.  I decided that we would be sure to come back so she could see the rocks up close.  

At least we did see some fossils from the boat!  Some of the largest fossil coral heads from the Miocene reefs had eroded out of the cliffs, leaving large holes, as can be seen below the lighthouse in the next photo.

Laura had a welcome reception to attend that evening, so I went back to Punta de El Toro to photograph the sunset and some night scenes.  Some rain was coming through in patches, and I was blessed with some great skies.  When I first arrived, I had to wait out a storm in my car, but was ready to emerge and capture the storm as soon as the rain stopped.

Then I made a break for it, trying to head out toward the point before dark.  It got dim, so I didn't make the trek all the way down to the water again, choosing these elevated shots instead.  

I stayed out a bit past dusk to catch the moon, and then headed back for a late dinner.  Luckily, that's not uncommon in Spain, so I was able to get great food just after 10pm.

 I drove back out to the scenic outlook just in time to capture this thunderstorm rolling past the lighthouse on Isla de El Toro.

The trip continues here...