ElRemaro

A friend in Palma took me to Valldemosa, a beautiful mountain village in the Sierra Tramuntana. It is a very photogenic and romantic place. It is also a good place to find traditional crafts and gifts for people that didn’t get to come with you. My friend introduced me to a friend of hers who designs and makes clothing. I saw some very artistic quilts as well. We stopped at a café before returning to Palma. Elena ordered a coffee and I an horchata de chufa, a drink made from tubers that grow on the roots of a plant much like the nut sedge that grows in the vineyards of the San Joaquin valley in California where I grew up. These tubers are much larger than those on the sedges of California, and are grown in Spain and Africa.

The train ride from Palma makes getting to Soller easy, and everyone who goes to Soller should take the train at least once. I hiked north out of town and hiked to Biniarix, and up the barranco de Biniaraix. I met Tomas, an Austrian businessman on a mountain bike near the foot of the trail. He was unable to ride the bicycle up the stone steps, so we walked together for several hours. He offered to give me a ride back to Palma if I would meet him near the train station in Sóller at 1700. At 1400 I turned around and walked back to Biniarix. I stopped for a while in the shade of a venerable old olive tree to dry out my books and maps that had become wet from the sweat that soaked through my day pack. There is a water pipe along side the trail with a faucet every few hundred meters so I didn´t need to carry so much water. I arrived at the train station at 1650, and ordered a jar of beer at a table near the train station. Tomas arrived at 1720, and we had a nice ride to Palma. I gave him my email address, but haven’t heard from him.

I spent a week in February 2005 at a ranch, Cara del Indio, several miles downstream from the border town of Futaleufu. I really liked the experience. I spent much of my time kayaking in the Rio Futaleufu. I also did some horseback riding, and rock climbing. The scenery is beautiful in spite of the fact that most of the trees were burned less than a century ago. The river is very big water with some very challenging rapids. My body was barely able to recover enough to paddle every day. The wood fired hot tubs, sauna, and wonderful massage by an Australian lady helped to keep me paddling every day. I slept in a cabana constructed of local materials and equiped with a bench for my sleeping bag. Local people cooked and served our food in a quincha, a building something like a gazebo with a fire pit in the middle. They grow most of their food, and make most of what they have from local materials, for example, buildings, saddles and bridles.