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Mar y Cielo, Port de Soller Mallorca 1985 |
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While I was working on this drawing I thought of it as Mary Cielo which would be a name like fishing boats on Cape Cod have. Even when I did the little y I thought the same. It wasn’t until I was almost done that I realized it was actually “Mar y Cielo” which means “Sea and Sky”.
We loved the time in Mallorca but I should have researched the weather a little. The first three weeks in August were incredibly hot. By the middle of the third week a hot wind started blowing in from the Mediterranean. Even the water seemed hot.
I decided this wind must be coming from Africa. It made everything hotter. We found one little shop on a side street that had air conditioning and would decide we needed something from it ten or twelve times a day.
By the end of the third week I wasn’t sure we wanted to stay but it finally cooled off and the last week was beautiful. One of the locals told us that there was a saint who blows out the fires of August after three weeks.
We came across a lot of American school teachers that trip. Costs at that time were so low that they could buy property cheaply and spend their summer vacation in Mallorca. It seemed like a great idea.
We would often have lunch at the Hotel Generoso on a terrace just across from the beach. Amy got fond of Chateaubriand. With a soda and dessert it came to the equivalent of $6.00. Luckily Amy didn’t carry her newfound taste for expensive steak back home with her.
The drive from Palma includes navigating the “Col” which is a series of 43 hairpin turns up and down the mountains on a very narrow two lane road so we didn’t do much exploring. We did drive to the town of Inca one day because I wanted to buy a suede blazer and Inca is a leather center. There weren’t 43 hairpin turns but there may as well have been. My memory of the drive is Gerry and Amy remarking on the fantastic scenery we were passing. I would hear things like; “Neil you’ve got to look over there on the right, it’s just beautiful’. I knew I just could not take my eyes off the road. It seemed like there was an unending series of gigantic tour buses coming the other way on the narrow turns.
We loved the beach in Port de Soller. There is a little railroad that travels from the town of Soller to the Port de Soller and it skirts the beach. Adam would jump up and yell “train” every time we were on the beach and it went by. On one occasion his attention turned to the blanket next to ours. The family was in the water leaving the grandmother who was sitting next to a gigantic bottle of soda. I was behind Adam so I didn’t see his face but I realized he was looking at the grandmother and she at him. She filled a glass with soda and held it out to him. I thought that was really nice and he really enjoyed it. This may have been the beginning of Adam’s love of Coca Cola.
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I believe we’re searching the sky to find the moon. |
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We were here to see the sunset. |
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All material copyright 2008 Neil Borrell |
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