Mallorca Spain: Lost Journeys and Coincidences Found

I catch a glimpse of my face in the mirror; It is noticeably glowing with a heavy coating of sun, happiness, sand and salt.  We just came off the most wonderful adventure into the local climber beach life of a Mallorca native/knowing traveler.

Cala Varquez: a secret kept by locals and climbers in the know, is a beach on the East side of Mallorca. Actually the only beach on that side of the island that isn´t dotted with perminant umbrellas and touristy edificios. After close to 50 hours of traveling via plane, bus, subway, train, car, taxi (and soon boat) we found ourselves slinging our backpacks down in the sand and heading for the ocean, the slackline, pleasant conversation, and smiling welcoming faces. 

We didn´t move anything for the first two nights. 30ft from where we dropped our packs we unrolled our bedrolls and watched the sunset turn into the milky way, and then slowly rotate and fade back into a sunrise.  The natural pattern of the place was infatuating, and had we not ran completely out of water and food (except for a half a jar of mustard) we would surely still be there now and probably many days to come.

The climbing was fantastic! Today I finally sent a crazy tufa-laden overhung route that meandered from the left side of a cave across a multitude of limestone formations guarding the main entrance to the natural cave, spiralled across a gnarly roof and than vaulted up some big moves to a 40-50ft top out all over a turquoise mediterranean cove.  Definitely some of the coolest moves I´ve done, with some incredible no hands rests partway through, and the added bonus of a jump back into the ocean after the top out.

Lovely.

So, you ask, why no photos.  My camera had an unfortunate encounter with with a lotlot of sand, and then was mercilessly flung off a large cliff into the ocean in my board shorts pockets. It´s not happy.

So, I sit here and write, as James and Heather return to the PMI airport to reclaim Jame´s bag, which was lost (yes, only his was lost) on the short flight from Madrid to Palma.  Ryan Air is cheap, but so so so disorganized. 

Speaking of which, I lost my wallet (or it was stolen) in Denver just as I was boarding my flight to Atlanta.  Poor luck and beginning to the trip.  My mom has (one of the only numbers I have memorized thanks to modern phonebooks) has been amazing dealing with cancelling my cards while I have been totally unreachable by anything short of a carrier-comet. 

In short, it has been a trip of paring down to the necessities of travel, while looking anything not directly connected to me with a string along the way.  Getting past the physical loss of ¨stuff¨and taking a deep breath as it flows away into the world has been one of the biggest challenges so far.  However, like a distracting thought, once it is gone I am left with peace, love for the world, and a giddy happiness of ¨new and amazing¨ knocking my undistracted soul for quite a ride. 

As the three of us move through this new world, aware, happy, integrated, coincidences and amazing timing become more and more common. We dance lightly through the difficulties of changing cities, lands, sleeping places, eating places, and life falls into a wonderful puzzle taking us through a waterslide of an adventure.

Heather and James have been incredible to travel with.  No two people I´ve met (besides my brother who rocks the socks of ease of travel) could be so much fun, and positive to spend a miserable, exhausting day of getting-from-one-airport-to-another with.

I suspected we´d all get along well, but it´s awesome seeing the synergy of the three of us exploring a new world, and I suspect it will happen again

Well, we head now on the midnight ferry to Valencia, the mainland, Tomatina, and a new and wonderful adventure.  I really wish I could bring you each here for a moment to feel the energy and aliveness of this place who calls 6am a regular bedtime and completely closes down for 3-4 hours mid day for a siesta!  For now, I send you a smile, and a taste of the glowing time I´ve had so far. 

Larkin, Heather, James, and the Spanish Island of Mallorca