Distance walked: 7 miles, Time taken: 6 hours (including lunch stop)
I slept badly last night. I'd taken so many cold tablets my heart was racing so it was hard to go to sleep - but on the plus side I could breathe. Eventually I dropped off but ended up oversleeping. When I looked at my watch it was 8:45am and the group was due to set off at 9:30am. I flew into the shower, then into my clothes, then inhaled an inadequate breakfast (only 1 course) but made it to the meeting point on time.
I severely disappointed the waitress in the breakfast room. I was supposed to sit down, be greeted, order juice and coffee and then go to the buffet. After that I was supposed to order eggs cooked in some way. Immediately going to the buffet and helping myself was definitely low class. I'm not sure I like this hotel. I keep feeling I'm not living up to their standards. I had a muesli bar, a packet of biscuits and the opened box of cold tablets on the coffee table. When I got back from today's walk they were all neatly piled up by the chambermaid. She had even put the foil strip of tablets back in the box and closed it!
There are advantages to staying here though. I fly to Seville tomorrow with Air Berlin and got an email inviting me to check in online. It makes things easier so I prefer to do it but I was worried about how I would get my boarding pass. However, according to their website one option is to check in online but get boarding pass at airport so I went to for it. Then, when I got to the final screen it said for people on my (lowly) class of fare picking up the boarding pass wasn't an option. It had to be either downloaded and printed out or sent to my phone as link that I pull up in a browser at the airport (at $20 a MB since I'm global roaming). In a panic I rang the, at least trilingual, receptionist (I've heard him speak Spanish, English and German) and he let me email it to reception and they printed it out for me. I wonder what would have happened it I'd never read the email and just turned up at the airport tomorrow for my flight?
I did the full walk today and it was hard work. We climbed around 950m and it took us around 3 1/2 hours. I definitely was at the rear of the pack this time. Lack of sleep and lack of lung capacity really told. I now have a deep, personal appreciation of the phrase "toiling to the top of the slope". When we got there we had our packed lunch. I was almost too tired to eat anything but felt much more human once I had.
As we were sitting at the top we saw clouds boiling up from the valley we were to descend into. We quickly piled on every piece of clothing we had and braced for a downpour. However, the black clouds came overhead, let off one bolt of lightening (far away) and then poured down the slope into the valley behind us, leaving us in sunshine. A very odd experience but a pleasant outcome.
After lunch we descended into Valldemossa which is the village in the next valley over from Deia where we were met by Sarah and the van. The die-hards then walked on to a monastery while the rest of us pottered about the shops briefly before being driven back to our hotel. I would have liked to potter longer but the rest of the crowd was keen to get back to hot baths. The drawback of being in a group.
Tonight's dinner was the first I haven't liked. It was strongly fish based which isn't really my thing. To begin with we had a small vol au vent topped with some fish pate and capers which was a pleasant mouthful. Next was an equally small mouthful of raw salmon chopped up with fish roe which was just too fishy for me. Next was the official first course of fish soup, which this time was too spiced for my taste. Too much paprika - it just swamped all the other flavours. Next was turbot with an orange sauce accompanied by asparagus and two prawns. This was good except for the prawns which had a slightly bitter taste. I think I'm spoilt by Australian prawns which are better. Dessert was pancakes with fresh strawberries and raspberries and vanilla ice cream. The pancakes were too thick and had been pre-cooked so were cold and a little leathery.
Tomorrow I'm off to holiday on my own. I really should have been practising my Spanish.
Can't believe you had turbot. Was it Falco-sized?
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