Descanso Loco

The following is a description of my latest break and vacation in Spain. There are 4 parts: Crazy Times in Mallorca, Getting Cultured in Madrid, Sevilla Futbol Club, and Feria: Tulip Festival x100! The first section is really long so the short version is that I spent 6 days on an island in the Mediterranean with Tyler, hiked a lot, got lost a lot, experienced beautiful sights, ate poorly, experienced some good and bad things for the first time, and had a trip that I’ll never forget. You can read on for details.

Crazy Times in Mallorca:
The plan for Feria break was simple: spend 6 days hiking on a continuous trail on the island of Mallorca, 2 days in Madrid checking out the sights, and the final 3 days of break relaxing in Sevilla. Of course, nothing is ever simple…
After packing 2 shirts, a jacket, jeans, a pair of shorts, a tarp, some rope, a thin sleeping mat, and a sleeping bag I was ready for adventure. Tyler and I took an overnight bus to Madrid on Saturday at 1am, bad idea #1. Neither of us got much sleep; we started our journey excited but tired. Saturday at 4pm we arrived in Palma, the capital of Mallorca. There we ate supper, bought bread for the morning, 4 oranges, water, and some crackers; then we took a scenic tourist train to the coastal town of Sollier, a rather lovely ride. After arriving in Sollier we opted to find the beginning of the hiking trail and find a place to sleep rather than stop at the grocery store for more food and water, bad idea #2.
Because of our late arrival in Sollier we found ourselves searching for the trail, hiking on the trail, and setting up camp in the dark of night with one flashlight; it reminded me of vacation with my family. That night I slept about 4 hours, Tyler maybe ½ an hour: the stars sure were beautiful though! Despite being quite tired we got up in the morning ready for a big day of hiking and a healthy portion of fun. If we only knew what the day would hold!
The morning went great: five hours of hiking (most of it up a mountainside), gorgeous views of mountains and the Mediterranean, blue lakes lying in a valley, climbing and bouncing around on boulders like kids on a jungle gym, and good conversation. Upon arriving at the lakes in the valley we decided to take a trail around the lake, opposite the road. Our trail map said that it ran along a canal and there was a spot to get water, which was good as we were both almost out. After an hour of hiking along the canal, which ran half-way up the side of the mountains beside the lake, we came to a grave set of discoveries. First, the canal turned into a pipe and dropped down a cliff, this meant we couldn’t go down and connect with the road as we planned. Second, we then realized that the continuous trail which we planned to hike for the week wasn’t a trail at all, but a highway. Third, we had to hike back an hour to get back to the road. And finally (remember bad idea #2), we just ran out of water and food. Things weren’t looking up.
The rest of the day involved the following: hiking back to the road, hitch-hiking to a town we had never heard of in the center of Mallorca, waiting in that town (Inca) for 3 hours to catch a bus to a city on the northern coast of the island (Port de Pollenca), arriving after dark (once again like childhood), hiking along the beach for an hour to find a good sleeping spot, and finally laying down on top of the tarp 75 yards from the road and 25 more from a hotel. Not the day we planned.
The next morning we woke up before the sun rose so we wouldn’t be seen, this resulted in us being blessed by a magnificent sunrise over the Mediterranean. Despite the mishaps of the day before, and the fact that our plans to hike a continuous trail had been shattered, we were positive. In the morning we hiked out to a crystal clear cove, climbed some razor sharp rocks, and swam in the frigid waters of the Mediterranean. Awesome! Then we hiked/got lost and blazed a trail through a creek bed to a town called Siller; this town just happens to be in a cove of the island and looks out onto the kind of bay that is only seen in the movies, wow. Finally, we bussed from there to another town and hiked for 2 ½ hours, the last 35 minutes of which wound along the side of a cliff, to get to a secluded cove/ private beach to camp at. At last we had a good spot to sleep! We set up our tarp/tent, ate supper and relaxed by a fire; a great end to a long day.
Tuesday morning we got up after the sun, a good idea, and decided to sleep in this same cove again that night because of it’s distance from people and it’s beauty. The plan for the day was to simply hike back into town, get food for the night and next day, hike back toward camp and take some side trails for fun, and then relax on our beach. For once things went according to plan. The day was a lot less eventful, but nice, and we ended it by building an enormous bonfire with all of the wood we could find; I don’t think playing with fire will ever get old!
Wednesday we got up early again and were blessed again to experience a magnificent sun rising slowly out of the still waters of the Mediterranean. The plan after that was to hike back to the town of Alcudia, take a bus to Pollenca, and hike a trail that would bring us past a castle and end at another cove. After arriving in Pollenca we found ourselves back in the wreckage of crushed plans caused back our lack of research. We discovered that the path we wanted to hike was private: we would not be able to hike it without paying and we couldn’t camp along it. That was a definite disappointment, but we simply decided to hike another trail. Unfortunately the other trail ended up leading to a big house and not being much of a trail at all. Another disappointment, but we simply decided to find another trail. This was followed by more bad news, the new ‘other trail’ went along the road the whole time and wasn’t much fun to hike or sleep beside. By this time Tyler and I were a little frustrated, so instead of looking for more trails we decided to spend the day in Pollenca and find a place to sleep in town. We spent an hour in an internet café, ate our supper really slowly in a plaza in order to pass time, got some beers in a tiny bar filled with retired men playing cards and speaking catalan, and finally after dark we walked around town looking for a place to sleep. After walking around town for an hour and not finding a good place to sleep we laid down in the park; that day was the closest I’ve been to being homeless and it was not very fun, relaxing, but not too fun.
The next morning started out humorous for me, but not too good for Tyler. Apparently Tyler hadn’t slept much again; along with the streetlights, cars, and voices, he was joined on his mat in the night by several snails. As he was telling me this I saw a nice blob of bird poop on his sleeping bag, great start to the day! I think he would have been quite angry but today we were flying back to Madrid where he knew we had a roof to sleep under and better food to eat (in comparison to the simple bread and fruit we had been eating for 5 days). The rest of the day was filled with traveling, arrival in Madrid and at the apartment of Kelly and April Krull, our first showers in a week, and some awesome pizza at some little local place. The crazy adventure of Mallorca was over and a little stability returned.

Getting Cultured in Madrid:
Friday morning, after a great night of sleep on an air mattress under a roof, Tyler and I made French toast! It’s impossible to explain how good that tasted after a week of plain bread. Following breakfast we headed off to the Prado, one of the most famous art museums in the world housing paintings by artists such as Goya, Michelangelo, Velázquez, Greco, and Ruebens. We started out looking carefully at each painting as we knew this was the Prado filled with magnificent pieces and felt like we would love them. Then, we began to move a little more quickly as we felt like we should like them but weren’t loving them. Finally, we began going through the museum rather quickly as we both admitted that the paintings were great, but realism was not our favorite style. The only painting that I really liked was The Garden of Delights by El Bosco.
After the Prado we ate lunch in Madrid’s famous, and gorgeous, Parque del Retiro. After exploring that a while we headed to another art museum, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. The Reina Sofia is filled with more modern art and was amazing, I loved it! The artists included Picasso, Dali (possibly my favorite artist with Picasso), Miro, Man Ray, Santos, and others who used varying styles including cubism, surrealism, and some really abstract stuff that I don’t understand at all. The colors and style of Dali were incredible, Picasso’s Guernica was magnificent along with all his other stuff, the photos by Man Ray were intriguing, and the temporary exhibits were really odd but interesting. I know many people would yell at me for not liking the Prado, but I love the Reina Sofia and the more modern artists and their styles.
Later, when we were heading toward the Plaza Mayor, we ran into Kelly and 2 of his friends from church as they were visiting some of their homeless friends and handing out food. We decided to hang out with them for a while, it was good to see the relationships they had with the people and how they were not only touching the lives of the people but also being touched.
After our culture from the museums and meeting some of Kelly’s friends, Tyler and I had some squid sandwiches followed by some falafel for supper. It was really good! That night we went out with the Krull’s for drinks and took in a little more of the sights that make up Madrid.
Saturday we ate Frosted Flakes (amazing), went to the cathedral that was built in the 1970’s (you can tell by some of it’s funky colors and stained glass), visited the Palace (very gorgeous and elegant), the royal armory (swords, horses, and armor: every little boys dream), and took the bus back to Sevilla. It was a great 2 days in Madrid.

Sevilla Futbol Club:
Sunday I finally experienced what some young men see as the most precious thing in Spain, professional futbol (soccer). Tyler, Ray, Jake, and I went to watch Sevilla F.C. play a conference game against Espanyol. Sevilla is currently #2 in their league: one point behind F.C. Barcelona and a little bit ahead of Real Madrid (that just means that they are a really good team in comparison to some of the best teams in the world).
Our seats cost 35 euros and were 2 rows from the very top on the south end of the stadium, but they were still pretty good. The north side contained the craziest fans I have ever seen: the entire game they waved flags, blasted air horns, and led chants--it was awesome. The first half of the game involved a lot of close chances for Sevilla, but ended scoreless. The second half Sevilla was going toward the goal closest to us and they scored 3 goals, the fans were crazy and the play was magnificent. The game ended in a 3-1 victory for Sevilla and left a sweet taste in my mouth of Spanish futbol.

Feria: Tulip Festival x100:
So the reason why I had this fabulous break for the last part of April was because Seville hosts a 7 day fair (feria) during which they celebrate their Spanish culture and enjoy life. The location for Feria is only one block from my house and is simply a large open area where individuals and businesses set up “tents” to hang-out in for the week. In these tents there is often Spanish food, beer, flamenco music, flamenco dancing, and men and women dressed in classic Spanish dress. It is similar to the people of Orange City wearing Dutch clothes, except these people are all Spaniards in Spain. There are also fancy horse drawn carriages that gallop through the lit up and decorated streets that make the atmosphere of the night perfect for celebration. Of course, along side all of this great Spanish culture is a large temporary amusement park, again similar to Tulip Festival. I was able to experience Feria for about a day and a half; it was a really fun environment, but if you can’t get in to one of the tents it wouldn’t be super fun.

With the combination of these 4 things my break has been a crazy blur of many incredible experiences that I will never forget. Now I only have 5 days of regular class, 2 days of presentations, a review day, and a final test separating me from being a college graduate, crazy!