Wednesday, March 27, 2013

radio silence, silencia del ràdio

Sorry about the radio silence of late, end of term and t.i.r.e.d.  I'm committing to be a better blogger!

I've just come back from four days in Mallorca walking the Travessa de la Serralada Tramuntana.  I have to recommend it enormously, though I also have to say that with the exception of one stellar person, the Mallorquins were, uniformly, *ssholes.  The ones we dealt with in the hotels and taxis were fine, but the ones who weren't making money off of us, again aside from that one individual who I'll tell you about later....meh.

Ho hum.

HOWEVER

We arrived there Friday night and stayed in a nice place, had a good dinner there, and early in the morning we were off.  We promptly got lost because the land owners in that area, where the designated trail goes, don't want the trail to exist, so they've taken down the signs, hidden the trail markers and made it as difficult as possible.

We ended up putting in an extra 4 hours of walking on this section because one of the people we met actually deliberately sent us the wrong way, a long, intricate long way.  Niiiiiiiiceeee!

The second person we spoke to as we were finding our way out to the next town essentially told us to F-off, and the the third, with incredibly unbelievably bad-humour angrily told us the right way.  At least.

Today Youngest did the translation while I made a dinner the she had wanted to make in the first place and then got bored.


Perdó per no escriure, però he estat cansada gràcies al fet que és el final del trimestre. Estic intentant ser una blogger més dedicada!

Acabo d'arribar de quatre dies a Mallorca caminant la Travessa de la Serralada Tramuntana. Ho recomano moltíssim, però també haig de dir que, menys una persona, tots els Mallorquins eren "jilip*llas". Els dels hotels i els taxis eren normalets, però els que no estàvem pagant... (menys aquell únic individu).

Aaaaaiiiiiii...

A L'ALTRE BANDA:

Vam arribar allà al divendres i ens vam quedar en un hostal maco, després d'un bon sopar i dormir vam marxar. Ràpidament vam aconseguir perdre'ns perquè els amos del terreny, per on el camí passa, no els hi agrada que passin els excursionistes, pertany havien tret les senyals, i havien amagat les fites per fer-ho lo més complicat possible.

Vam acabar afegint-hi 4 hores d'extra en aquell dia perquè la primera persona que ens vam trobar ens va enviar en la direcció contrària.

La segona persona ens va dir que ens anéssim a la merda, i la tercera ens va dir la direcció, però de molt mal humor. Que maco....

Avui la Petita m'ha fet la traducció mentre jo feia el sopar. 



The flight into Mallorca was like a postcard with the sun going down.  Quan vam arribar a Mallorca, amb la posta de sol, era com una postal, no?

See?


Una oca que ens va saludar.  Lovely goose, isn't she.


The Catalan in Mallorca has some modifications, most strongly noticed in the articles, instead of 'la', you get 'sa', 'el' goes to 'es' I think, and 'en' to 'na'.  'Tis a might confusing.



The hills there are full of these huge pits lined with clay, that we think were used for storing ice to sell later in the summer in town.

En les muntanyes hi ha moltes d'aquestes estructures, fet, ens semblem, per guardar gel en l'hivern per vendre a l'estiu.


Here we are frankly bushwacking to try to find a way out of the mountains to where we needed to be.  Aquí estem intentant de trobar una ruta, a on gairebé no hi havien cap.


Mallorca is filled, at least this region of Mallorca is filled with the most amazing mile after mile of drystone wall, beautifully put together.  If you ever need a really skilled mason, this must be the place.

Mallorca està ple de parets fet en sec, impressionant.  Han de ser una colla d'experts per la illa.


We found this spring.  Hem trobat aquesta font.


Oliveres, molt antigues i molt fascinants.  We found ancient gnarled olive trees.


Dry stone bridges, ponts de perdre seca


Donkeys, burros, 

Also throughout the mountains there are these flattened circles, built up, always with the remains of a house beside them.  We were pretty sure that these were for making charcoal.

Les muntanyes també són plenes d'aquestes cercles planes i ben fetes.  Pensàvem que estaven fet per fer carbó.


Una de les cases, one of the houses:


A view from the mountains.  We had actually started to go down the wrong way, after someone very kindly misinformed us of the route, here's hoping it was accidental.  We had gone down a couple of hundred meters at least, and been chased by goats fleeing a dog when the kind Mallorqui caught us up. Seems he has been a guide in these mountains for 30 years, and we were going the wrong way and would have to go up again.  I am so grateful he told us or we would have missed the most spectacular part of the journey.

Una vista...vam haver començat de baixar una parella de cents de metres per una ruta MIS-recomanda (espero que no hagi estat fet expressament) quan el mallorquí maco ens va trobar i ens va explicar que vam haver de pujar amunt un altre cop.  L'home ha estat una guia per aquestes muntanyes per uns 30 anys i estic molt agraïda que ens va explicar la ruta correcta perquè si no, hauríem hagut saltat el part més espectacular de tota la recorregut.


See those cliffs on the right?  We got to walk along the ridge there.  La ruta correcte va per la carena d'aquestes muntanyes a la dreta.


Aquí som amunt.  And here we are at the top.


Looking ahead, mirant endavant


a baix, down,


and back.  If you look closely, you can see some people on the route.  I enrere, si mirés amb molta atenció pots veure algunes persones pujant.

A view looking ahead, una altra vista mirant endavant,


Una altra olivera amb una forma excepcional.  Another olive tree, with a truly amazing shape.


These are called 'fites' and they mark the route, normally they are a pile of stones, but here whoever made it was pretty talented!  Una fita, que normalment són simplement una pila de pedres, però aquesta fita té un punt especial, no?


It was really very green and lovely as we got further down.  Més avall, és molt verd.




We spent that night in a refugi, it was fine, mostly filled with Germans, a LOT of germans, and in general, we slept well, though one man had a mattress on the floor so we could all fit into the same room together. Ready for the next day.

Aquesta segona nit vam passar en un refugi, força bona i ple d'alemanys, però PLE!  En general, vam dormir bé, encara que un home havia de dormir amb un matalàs al terra per quedar-nos tots junts en una habitació.  Llest per el dia seguënt.





3 comments:

rob said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Those are amazing pictures. Too bad the locals weren't so friendly, to say the list...

oreneta said...

It was an amazing trip and it is hard to take really awful photos in these places. The locals, meh. Now I can see why the right wing party always wins there.