Driving a windy coastal road up to the to Cap de Formentor, windows open to appreciate the sea breeze of the fading summer day, looking down at the majestic cliffs crumbling into the Mediterranean; we saw it, a hidden cove with a rocky beach and an unbelievably aqua-blue bay, a private treasure on an island otherwise crowded with tourists.
“Can we go there?”
It was at the bottom of a steep gorge and I did not see how we could access it.
“Sure. Tomorrow, maybe.”
Teenagers are hard to deny, and so the next afternoon we found ourselves on the same scenic road, looking for our canyon beach. We drove out of the Port of Pollença, past the main tourist areas, onto the Formentor Peninsula, winding up to the entrance of Hotel Formentor, a luxury resort on a strip of pale, sandy beach, secluded amid the pine forest. The renown hotel was immortalized 70 years ago by Hollywood’s elite — Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Charlie Chapman and Grace Kelly who spent her honeymoon with the Prince of Monaco there.
The road to the northeast end of the island stopped abruptly with a barrier blocking the way we had taken the night before. A parking attendant waved tourists into a giant, paid parking lot with a bus stop, and a steady stream of tourists with their colorful inflatable floats and beach towels parked their rental cars and headed down the wooded path to the famous beach.
“The road is closed to traffic during the day,” Kip reported after consulting the parking lot attendant. If we wanted to go further, we had to park the car and wait for a bus. It would be 20 minutes or more. Should we go back? Mallorca is full of amazing beaches. Was it worth the trouble?
This summer has been full of decisions like this. Do we continue? Do we turn around? Should we stay in Sweden? Move back to California? I am the family planner, and I have the minor talent of being able to do a mental cost analysis on the spot. My repressed inner accountant loves calculating wages, taxes, costs of living, risks and benefits; but it doesn’t really help us with making decisions because there are always hidden costs and risks to everything. The heart needs to lead the way.
So after a typical crisis of vacation indecision, we decided, in part because we did not want to disappoint our 17-year-old son, to wait for the bus.
It was the right decision.
We rode the bus packed with tourists wanting to ride to the end of the peninsula and see the lighthouse with its epic, edge-of-the-world views. We apprehensively got off at the first stop, found an ill-marked trail and started picking our way through the overgrown path, down the canyon. I was glad I was wearing sports sandals, but despite the heat, I wished I had worn pants to protect my legs from the sharp, dry grasses that grow along the hillside and into the path.
The trail opened up to cliffs small enough to scramble down and then a rocky beach of smooth, hot stones. A handful of other people had found the beach already and they had set up shelters using rocks and driftwood, towels and lightweight beach sheets.
A few people were snorkeling in the crystal-clear water and others were settled into the rocks, caves and coves nestled around the bay. We set up camp with our own driftwood and towels and jumped into the water. No, my men jumped in; I slowly immersed into the cool waters, mindful of the slimy rocks and pale fish that populated the shallows.
Like always, it took me awhile to get into the water. But once in, the water was amazing — calm, clear, clean, cool, but not cold. There were no waves, due to the protected bay, and when I treaded water several meters deeper than my height, I could see my toes perfectly, still painted pink from a month ago.
River and Kip found a small cliff to jump off and made Mallorcan friends, chatting with a group of locals who had come to swim in the cove. They jumped with them, tossed a football with them and they even lent us their face masks so we could see the fish swimming below us.
Curious mountain goats, sensing we had abandoned our lunch, emerged from the brush to investigate our bags. The must have been hungry, but not as desperate as California raccoons, because they did not chew through my cloth bag to get to our green Spanish olives and our jamón-and-Mallorca-cheese-on-crusty-white-baguette sandwiches.
Please, can I try your sandwich?
We stayed in the cove for hours, swam longer than I had in years, and finally packed up our things and picked our way back up the mountain to the bus stop. We lost the trail at one point and got a thrashing from the dried grasses as we bushwhacked our way to the top of the canyon. But we made it, in time to catch the bus back to the crowded parking lot and our rental car, back to the tourist crowds and a late-night dinner, Spanish style, under the stars in the fading heat of the day.