Last night’s forecast for today indicated some early morning rain ending not long after sunrise, followed by dry but windy conditions for the rest of the day.  Rachael assumes she’ll take a last walk, hopefully all the way up to Alaró Castle - the destination I was working my way toward yesterday.  It really does look like a fantastic destination - the views must be breathtaking at the top, and pictures we’ve seen of the castle ruins make it look well worth a close look.  I show Rachael the photos of the castle I took from below, and caution her to stay well back from the edge.  Covid is one thing, but a five hundred foot fall would be a definite trip ender.

That plan goes by the wayside when we wake up and see that the rains are due to persist until at least eleven.  Assuming we want to make lunch the main meal for the day, that precludes a hike to the castle - there won’t be enough daylight hours on either side of lunch to fit it in, and food is the priority.  Instead, we hang around the room keeping dry while we do some logistical work and planning.

The first task of the day is to arrange a taxi for our ride to Palma tomorrow.  The weather then really looks to be terrible all day, and even if our health wasn’t an issue we’re not interested in a fifteen mile ride in a downpour with a 20 mph wind blowing in our faces.  It takes a few tries - the first company we call takes bikes for an extra €5 each, but they only do service to and from the airport.  That would be an improvement over starting from here, but it’s not good enough.

Our second try, with Alaró Taxi, is a success.  It sounds like a smaller establishment, and maybe just a single cab and driver.  After a few exchanges on WhatsApp we get a thumbs up response to picking up us and our bikes at 11:00 at our hotel here and delivering us to the one in Palma just up the hill from the port where we’ll catch the ferry back to the mainland. 

So that takes up a small part of the morning.  The rest of it goes to discussing the state of our health (especially mine; Rachael’s having issues with dizziness and her ribs still hurt, but overall she’s recovered much better than I have so far) and what it means for the tour.  I’m definitely getting my health back, but in a slow two-steps forward one-step back sort of way.  Looking ahead to our return to the mainland we’ll have less flexibility with our itinerary and more challenging days.  Neither of us is really sure we can make some of these rides, and are afraid of setting ourselves back in the attempt.

There’s a long version of this discussion and a short one, so let’s go with the short one for a change.  When we reach Alicante a week from now, we’re going to pick up a rental car and use it to move from base to base for the following four weeks.  We’ll return it in Badajoz right before we meet up with our friends in Merida, and assuming we’re fully back to normal by then we’ll switch back to the original itinerary.

We’re both quite happy with this solution.  We’d rather bike the whole thing of course, but this feels like a smarter approach and gives us more control over the situation.  We celebrate by going back to La Bufala for lunch, splitting the goat cheese salad again and remembering this time to photograph the gut-busting mains.

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Patrick O'HaraOh yeah!
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9 months ago

Bob KoreisAt least your health issues aren't standing in the way (too much?) of enjoying the food. That's some beautiful leopard spotting.
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9 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Bob KoreisYes, that’s true. Lunch has been the one reliable highlight of the last two weeks.
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9 months ago

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Afterwards we walk back to the room and continue with the planning activities.  If we’re moving from one base to the next with a car for four weeks, the itinerary we’ve got now doesn’t really make much sense.  We’d rather have our stops spaced out more widely and be staying at them longer, more or less like we travel when we reclaim the Raven and go south for each winter.  

So we start in on the process of completely reinventing a month of the tour.  A lot of cancellation, a lot of staring at the map for inspiration and finding new bookings.  We’ll be at it for a day or two, and will report out the results when we’re done.

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