Don't mention the Wasp

Really didn't want to get up but once the initial standard objections had been overcome, sang hits from Annie and Pirates of the CurryBean at the closer local poolbar for breakfast. Battled with the toaster and croissants.

Got to the Taxi rank as planned but there were none to be had so we got reception to phone for one. Waited outside hopefully but all the passing cabs weren't for us. Turned out we should have waited at the Taxi rank all along, time is not of importance here. Even reception doesn't have a clock.

We gave up on the 1030 boat trip (numerous glass-bottomed boats ply the coasts of Mallorca, hopping from Cala to Cala, sometimes stopping for swims) from Playa Romantica and hit the pools with a new watergun which broke after an hour. During this time we managed to persuade Jof to go down the waterslides. She has fear-of-getting-stuck (Gluphobia?) and proceeded sedately down the first one but shot out of the second, dishevelled.

Wasps abound in our local poolbar, we had to scrape them off the sliced meat and book time at the orange juice dispensers to avoid them. As far as I was concerned, the spectre of wasps is casting a shadow over the whole holiday thing, even though my first real encounter with a wasp was at Calshot Castle, only 30 miles from home.

So after lunch we finally located a taxi who drove us on a lengthy convoluted route to nearby cove 'Playa Romantica' which was rather similar to our own but with taller cliffs. She charged us 4.65 Euros for the privilege of riding in her pleasantly air-conditioned car.

Climbing to the landing stage and glass-bottomed boat ticket sellers, we bought an hour on "Moonfish" for 46 Euros and had 30 minutes to kill. I'd strenuously refused to take swimming trunks as this was supposed to be a cave-investigating trip not a diving-in trip, so I went in the sea in my pants and trousers and Jof got humorously soaked and big waves knocked me over in the surf and my underwear got full of itchy sand.

Because this was my fault, I embarked on a regal huff of quality and determination, lasting until we'd boarded the boat, a task in itself given the swell and moving walkway. I descended into the bowels of the vessel to look at sand through the windows and to sulk about my own sandy crevices. Meanwhile, the boat went up the coast, parked in a sea cave (have volume on for this video) and reached end-of-the-line Porto Cristo, where we were joined by 3 other glass-bottomed boats on different routes.

 

At this point I was persuaded to come upstairs but I was still in Sulk Mode so Jof abandoned us in despair and I stared at my own leg for most of the way back, because I was in a huff that I'd missed the only sea cave while I was in Huff #1. These circular self-reinforcing arguments don't help anyone and I emerged, blinking, into a whole new world when we saw that Cala Mendia (our beach) was separated from Playa Romantica (boat stop) by only one short headland, and we could see a cliff path.

So Bud got us to climb the vertiginous cliffs and walk home in a blatant attempt to save 5 Euros on the cab ride but boy was it worth it with the views and the sea breezes and the sense of achievement, Jof does not normally hike up cliff paths through thorny bushes but she did not complain. At one point we walked through another hotel. I de-sanded at last and spent so much time in the local pool that it closed (which is how we knew the time, for clocks are outlawed in Mallorca).

Last night, we'd booked a table in 'Fifties', the 1950s themed mini-restaurant with burgers and milkshakes and rock'n'roll entertainment. Left on my own after they'd Prosecco'd themselves up, I checked into Fifties and there was a car on the wall and a petrol pump by the door and lots of sticky diner seats and we ordered complicated burgers that were too tall to get your mouth round. During the meal, some brat had her birthday and 2 Spaniards sang the special song, and then moved to the empty area in the middle and brandished knives at each other menacingly. They defused this situation with hits and dancing from 'Grease' and we all applauded and laughed.

Our local poolbar had advertised entertainment called 'Celtic Nights' (Aer Linctus Nights, more like). By 10pm the stage was dark and the audience thinly spread because technical difficulties had held the show up for 45 minutes, Spanish fingerprints on the CD of doom. 5 times the soundtrack started, and 5 times the CD skipped and stuck amusingly giving us some Transylvanian trance music, the stage lighting imitating the traffic lights in The Italian Job. Eventually they decided the show must go on, and the highly competent Lead Dancer #1 came on and tapped away dry in the dark with no music, but he suffered from insufficient legs. We called him Brucios Springsteenios for dancing in the dark. Gradually the lighting system booted up and 2 other dancers joined in.

Their legs were almost on fire: Fuller-Figured Dancer #3 was much more fun as she improvised Moulin Rouge-style dance moves and ethereal aerobics and laughed her way through Taps 3-7.

The Red Thermos Flasks of Infinity with Satanic Funeral Music seemed important as a lot of the impenetrable storyline seemed to revolve around them, and with limited dance staff it was a case of Different shirt/same feet but eventually the rib-cracking torture finished and we returned to the Lower Bar to recover, get a snifter and prance the night away with Michaelos Jacksoniu and his fluorescent dancing 4 year-olds. Bed 1127. Question: Where are the hotel cats?