Reasons to be Cheerful

 

It was a shock awakening. My plan had been to turn up for breakfast at 8am sharp WITH my backpack, ready to make an early start. As it was, a half-opened eye happened to spy 8.00am on my watch, and it was then a race to get that 5-star breakfast inside me, and myself on the road in short order.

Fortunately, I had packed my back-pack the night before, and had just a few extras to attend to. I filled my camel-back with the hotel's chilled supply, put it in a carrier back and slipped that in my backpack, along with lunch in a Tupperware, an orange, some toasted almonds and fruit pastilles. I was set to go.

Getting out of the town and to the start was easy, but the first section was a shock. A narrow rocky track runs alongside the chainlink fence that forms one boundary if a conservation area. Ironically, it was provided with a silky smooth tarmac drive – the hikers path being a rocky afterthought – literally marginalized… but I was being conditioned for things to come.

One of the great gifts bestowed by el Arxiduc (Archduke Lluis – Lewis or Ludwig Salvator of Austria) was in the form of “rides” (one imagines principally for himself but in truth they are open to all) to explore the untamable countryside on horseback. Where they are maintained, and in fact extended, they are an indispensable asset to the footslogger!

Today’s circular walk, from Valdemossa, was made up, in parts, of the Archduke’s rides. Having used the exact opposite, paths that were little different in texture to the rugged landscape around them,  every step I took on well-made Archduke trails was with a prayer of thanks to men (his vassals presumably) who made them, and those who came after with the wit and means to repair and maintain them.

Another godsend to  walking this route was the abundant  coverage of the valleys, and lower hillslopes with Holm Oak. Having seen these only as specimen trees in parks and gardens my impression of them was limited. Now, I realise what survivors they can be, clinging on and growing little by little, throughout the year, in poor soil and conditions of meagre and inconsistent rainfall.

The great thing for the walker (me!) is; that what they lack in stature they make up for in numbers. The hillsides in which I was walking were peppered with spindly, diminutive Holm Oaks, whose sparse foliage cast a patchwork of dappled shade that kept the floor cool and airy. The poor soil (and perhaps the carpet of dried evergreen leaves) effectively denies opportunities for any under-storey species. This not great for biodiversity, perhaps, but what else might populate these limestone rockeries?

With pleasant shade thus created, I soon got out of the habit of wearing a hat, though I had come equipped with a state-of-the-art SprayWay high SPF peaked cap with a “Beau Geste” neck-flap. This was purchased at no small expense (despite the 60% discount) in the days before I left London ,. Imagine my dismay when, after a little detour where I “lost” the path, regained it finding myself on a  section I had walked half an hour previously, and was then distracted by a family of wild goats that HAD to be photographed… I found it was no longer with me!

Necessity is the mother of invention, and now, emerging from the tree line was now the mother of a sloppy headscarf, tied from a sample of cotton/linen donated to the school.

(I’ve just noticed a little triangle of red on my neck, that might have slipped out of a Russian futurist painting, but actually it corresponds to the gap left between my impromptu headscarf and the neck of of my tee-shirt. Scalp, brow and eartips-wise it seems to have escaped without Soviet propaganda.)

The walk took to high places, where the Archduke’s rides though brilliantly engineered, were bounded on each side with a vertiginous drop. But, oh, such jaw-droppingly splendid views out over a blue, blue Mediterranean. They led on up to summits Es Caragoli (a name which, for me, evokes French snails, Hungarian owls, Welsh corracles, and Mr Godbole from A Passage to India) and Puig (“pooj”) Gros. I attempted panoramic photos form the top of these but seem to achieve the opposite of the sensation of grandeur and freedom that standing on these peaks brings.

The descent was long, at times enchanting, picking ones way down through enchanted woodland of more grand mature trees, at times boring, like the long almost level and seemingly eternal stretches of straight, level drives. Finally signs of civilization started to appear and “plop!” after crossing the main road I dropped straight back into Valdemossa – like a frog into a pond. Indeed almost the first thing I hit upon was a spring with a basin right beside the passageway. Naturally I dived straight in a nd washed off the grime of the walk, leaf debris, flecks of resin, dust, sunblock and insect repellent.

 

Thus purged, but struggling to stay awake I changed into more formal clothes and joined the onlookers at the procession for Santa Catalina Thomás. Born in Valdemossa, she is the town’s patron Saint. Her childhood home in the narrow and verdant Calle de Rectoria, is now a shrine. Illustrated plaques on every doorway in town present her as as a child blessed with a vision. It is well documented that she was sent to be a servant in Palma, there learned to read and write and became a nun in the convent of St. Augustine there. According to legend she was visited by angels and demons, though the naïve depiction of these in a house window-box are sadly infected with celebrity culture and racism.

 I was stunned by the number of townspeople turning out in rustic costume of the era of her childhood for the procession, following a mass on her name-day. If nothing else it speaks of a powerful local solidarity focused on the myth of one of their own granted religious status.

Please have a look at more pictures, with video and music here