Majorca 2004 - Day 11

Today is our big day out. Pauline has planned it very carefully, We get the 10.15 bus to Palma and then get a 12.15 train in a –

“Journey back in time. Experience the magic of a railway at the beginning of the XX century, Travel in a vintage train that has covered the marvellous Sierra de Tramuntana route from Palma to Soller since 1912. Afterwards go on the first electric tram in Majorca and enjoy the sights of the charming Soller valley with its orange tree orchards on the way to the magnificent port.”

We then get the 14.00 train back from Soller to Palma, have all afternoon to have a look round, a bite to eat, shop and then it’s back on the bus home to our resort. This doesn’t give us much time at Soller but there aren’t any trains from Soller to Palma between 14.00 and 18.30 and if we got the 18.30 we wouldn’t really have any time to look around Palma.

The 10.15 bus stops just around the corner from the hotel and we’ve decided to be at the bus stop at 10.00 just to be sure we’re in time. Maybe a slight overkill but you can never be too careful can you? As we stepped out of the hotel at 09.55 a bus went hurtling past us. “I think that said Palma on the front,” said Emma. “Couldn’t have done,” I said. We turned the corner to the bus stop and seeing a couple waiting there, Pauline casually asked if they were waiting for the Palma bus.

“Yow joos meesedit,” the man said.

“What did he say?” I whispered to Pauline.

“We’ve just missed it,” she said.

“Woive bin waitin ere fer it an e joos droive past the stop e did. Deedn bother to stop or even sloiw down or enythink. The troin boos ad stopped an whether e thought we wuz all getting’ on tha’ I don’ knoiw. ‘E joos didn’ stop.”

“What did he say?” I whispered to Pauline.

“He said they’ve been waiting here for it and the bus just drove past the stop.”

We then spent a good five minutes or so checking and re-checking the bus timetable while the man kept saying things like, “Oi don’ beloive it” and “Joos droive past e did, joos droive past. Weer meetin oor daugh’er in Palma an we woin get theer now.”

“What did he say?” I whispered to Pauline.

“He said they’ve arranged to meet their daughter – oh never mind, just shut up,” said Pauline.

None of us could believe that a 10.15 bus could arrive at 09.55 and then not stop to pick up any passengers who were foolishly at the bus stop twenty minutes early. Then a Spanish lady with a small son came along and said to us, “Palma?”

“Noiw, eet’s gon,” said the man, “eet’s gon, vamoose, deedn even stop.”

The Spanish lady looked puzzled.

The man started to shout at her, “Eet’s gon. Oi don’ believe eet, vamoosed it as, vamoosed. Oi don’ believe eet. No stopo. Too late.”

I smiled at Emma, “How the hell will this lady know what he’s going on about?” I said, “we can’t even understand him and we’re English.”

It was becoming apparent that now we’d missed the 10.15 bus at 09.55 we’d have to wait for the next bus at 10.45, a 45 minute wait for a bus that would take twice as long as the one we’d missed because the later bus took a more circuitous route. This meant too, that we’d miss all the carefully planned connections that Pauline had sorted out. Bloody hell.

The 10.45 bus arrived dead on time, it was predictably crowded, full of all the people who weren’t at their bus stops 20 minutes early for the earlier bus. We just managed to get a seat but after about two more stops the bus pulled in and some of us were ushered off the bus and on to another one which had turned up as an empty relief bus. This made both buses able to pick up more passengers on the way without cramming them all in like sardines. The journey took 90 minutes and we arrived at Palma station just in time to miss the 12.15 train.

It was time to rethink our schedule.

We decided that the only way to see something of Palma and still get the train to Soller was to aim for the 15.30 to Soller and get the first train back from there at 18.30.

So we only had just over two hours to sightsee Palma and get back for the train.

The very first clothes shop we passed, Emma walked into. I think we’d explored about 100 yards of Palma by then so with our few hours to kill we should be able to see at least to the end of the street and back. It was very hot and while Pauline strolled outside in the sun I went into the shop and sat down on one of two chairs to wait for Emma in air-conditioned comfort.

The other chair was just a yard or two in front of me and sitting on it facing me was a big fat man surrounded by bags of shopping. There was Spanish dance music coming from the shop speakers and I sat there gazing around tapping my right hand on my right knee to the intoxicating Spanish flamenco rhythms. It was then that I noticed the big fat man opposite was tapping his left hand on his left knee. I gazed around some more, my left foot now tapping a counter rhythm to my right hand. I looked across and the big fat man was doing the same with his right foot. My head started to bob up and down – and so did his.

Then a searing Flamenco dance version of Donna Summer’s Hot Love came blasting through the speakers, our shoulders started to twitch, our legs started to boogie and in a sudden mirror image of each other we were up dancing around the shopping bags. As I effortlessly segued from a boogie into a rhumba the big fat man threw his arms in the air and started to limbo under the clothes racks.

By this time I’d rhumba’d around the other side and without missing a beat I extended one arm behind and above my head, lent back and with the other arm outstretched down in front of me I pulled the fat man out from under the pile of clothes that covered him on the floor.

Holding hands we shimmied across to the jeans and tops section, our feet kicking up and behind us in perfect unison. With a leap I was on the stairs to the top floor swimwear and perfumery and shaking my shoulders and wiggling my hips I clambered onto the chrome polished handrail. With one foot poised in front and the other poised at the back to preserve balance I stood and slid down the handrail into the waiting arms of the big fat man who was now doing a salsa round the cash desk. What a mover he was and what a pair we made as he casually shimmied back to his chair with me in his arms resting on his huge stomach which was incredibly, wobbling in perfect time to Donna’s lead vocal.

The big fat man lowered me onto my chair and sat down opposite me. We both sat there exhausted but happy tapping our feet until a woman with two small children came up and bustled the big fat man away.

Not a word had been spoken between us but I secretly hoped that we would meet again sometime, somewhere in another shop further down the street but it was not to be. Even though, to Pauline’s surprise, I kept going into every clothes shop I passed, I never saw the big fat man again.

Time was pressing and we wanted to walk around as much of Palma as we could before rushing back to the railway station to catch our train. The trouble was we couldn’t really do very much in the time we had left. We made for the cathedral but panic was setting in as we couldn’t find it and our damn train was due to leave at 15.30. All of a sudden the cathedral loomed into view but we still didn’t have time to look inside, all we could do was walk around the outside walled perimeter, take a few photos before glancing at our watches and deciding we had to rush back to the station grabbing a quick snack from a kiosk on the way.

We eventually got back to the station, the ticket office was crowded but Pauline managed to get our tickets without any problems and we stood on the platform waiting for the vintage train and the magic of a journey back in time. As you would expect from a turn of the century train, everything about it was quite small. The carriages were small and the seats were small, wooden slatted benches crammed into each carriage so that you couldn’t sit on a seat without your knees pressing hard up against the person in the opposite seat. This coupled with the ninety degree straight wooden slatted backs to the bench made for an extremely uncomfortable ride unless you had legs twelve inches long and a backbone made of jelly.

The journey to Soller took about an hour and we travelled inland through some remarkable scenery, climbing slowly through mountainous regions until we finally descended into the town of Soller.

As I tried to get up off the slatted wooden bench at the end of the journey I realised that this ride on the vintage train had given me a hell of a vintage backache to remember it by, but never mind we’d arrived without being derailed down the side of a mountain and I was grateful for that.

It was now 16.30 and the magic vintage train back to Palma was leaving at 18.30 so we had two hours to get the magic vintage first electrical tram in Majorca down to Port de Soller, have a look round and get back on the magic vintage first electrical tram in Majorca in order to catch the magic vintage train to Palma.

Bloody hell, the day was turning into a race against time everywhere we went.

We finally got the magic vintage first electrical tram to the port. It took 20 minutes and they ran every 30 minutes. So by the time we got off the tram at the port it was about 17.00, we didn’t want to miss the train back to Palma at 18.30 so we thought it would be wise to get the 17.30 tram back to Soller that would get back before 18.00 giving us 30+ minutes before the train left for Palma. Still with me? If you are then you may have realised that doing all this, only gave us 30 minutes at Port de Soller. Just enough time to have a rushed drink in a bar and then back on the vintage first electrical tram in Majorca again.

Bloody hell, I’m going to need a couple of days to recover from all this rushing about.

Anyway, there we were, back at the station at Soller waiting for the vintage train to take us back to Palma. There was no sign of the train yet when Pauline said, “Hang on I need to go to the loo,” and off she went. As soon as she’d gone the train came into the station. Meanwhile, Emma, Dan and myself were standing there like lemons watching all these people getting on the train and slowly filling up the seats. I couldn’t face the hour long journey back standing up so I said to Emma and Dan, “Let’s get on while mum’s in the loo, we’ll make sure we at least get a seat and we can save one for mum once we’re on.”

We climbed on board, found some seats and waited for Pauline.

Suddenly Emma shouted, “Dad, dad, I think the train’s about to go!”

“Don’t be daft, it’s not due to go yet, it’s only 18.15, there’s fifteen minutes to go,” I said.

“No, it is, it really is,” shouted Emma, “what are we going to do? Where’s mum? She’s not on the platform yet.”

“Put your head out of the window and see if you can see her,” I said while some Spanish guard was obviously shouting something like ‘All aboard’.

Then I saw Emma waving frantically out of the window shouting, “Mum, mum, we’re here, we’re here,” and Pauline came rushing into the carriage.

A few seconds later the train started to move.

“What would you have done if I hadn’t caught the train?” Pauline said.

“We’d have waited at the other end for you. There’s another train after this one,” I said.

“But I’ve got the tickets,” Pauline said.

“Ah, well I expect I would have had to pay the ticket collector for a set of new tickets,” I said.

“But you haven’t got any money, I’ve got it all,” said Pauline.

“Ah…………………well…………….um……….anyway it doesn’t matter does it? You got the train anyway so all this is by the by isn’t it,” I said.

Bloody hell! What a narrow escape eh? I could have been writing this from a Spanish cell awaiting sentence on fare evasion but it all turned out right in the end didn’t it?