Finca Ses Fontanelles to Banyalbufar 04.03.2024
Breakfast at the finca was ok, nothing compared to the dinner the night before, we hung out with Cat and Phillip again at breakfast. Mallorca seems to run late (although possibly just because it’s off season), breakfast is at 8 everywhere, but it seems dinner is later too. As hikers, we usually like to be on the move by 8, but food is important.
We started at 9, Unfortunately the wind had not died down overnight, and I regret my decision to leave my fleece at home, it’s much colder than I thought it would be, but the trail went up quickly so at least it felt somewhat warm. Up and up the trail went, we were able to look back and see where we hiked the day before, now far below us.
We came to a side trail which went up to the top of Mola de l’Esclop, since we were marking decent time and saw a trail going down the other side that appears to meet up with the GR 221 again, we decided to give it a try. The trail up to the top was steep, and I remember seeing the contour lines for the trail on the other side being closer together, so I realized it was going to be even steeper going down and maybe we’d need to backtrack.
The top had amazing views both north to where we are going as well as south to almost where we started, we could see the Mediterranean to the north as well as much of Mallorca and the sea on the other side to the south. The wind was much stronger at the top, enough that we didn’t want to wait around at all. The trail down was steep as expected, but very doable, we just took our time.
We reconnected with the GR 221, which wandered a bit through the higher mountain valleys before descending down back into the trees, which blocked much of the wind.
Cat and Phillip manager to catch up with us, partly because they are young and fast and party because of our detour. So we all had lunch together. After lunch they opted for a nap (some of us didn’t sleep so well in the bunkhouse), they are staying the night in the next town, Estellencs, which was only a couple hours away, so they had time to nap, but we had another two and a half hours to hike to Banyalbufar in the next valley.
The rest of the hike to town was uneventful, a good amount of road walking and going through town.
We scoped out which restaurants were open in case everything was closed in Banyalbufar, luckily there’s a bus that goes between them so we could get back rather easily if we needed to.
The walk form Estellencs to Banyalbufar was nice, more uphill than I expected, but it wasn’t much street waking and even had some occasional views through the trees. The hike was 20.5 kilometers and took us 7 hours and 23 minutes.
We got to Banyalbufar, checked into our hotel. The hotel owner said the only thing in town open for dinner was the pizza place and offered to make a reservation for us and a German couple that came in right after us who was passed on the trail earlier when we did the side trip. However the pizza place wasn’t open until 7, so when went and took a much needed shower, then because the hotel had a large bath tub we took a bath as well. As much as I love camping, I could get used to this kind of hiking.
By the time we got dinner we were starving. Dinner was fine, the owner was friendly, and so were Thomas and Simone (the German couple). After dinner we were very sleepy, we didn’t go straight to bed, but we definitely didn’t stay up long.