Banyalbufar to Deià 05.03.2024
One of the reasons we chose to stay at the hotel Son Borguny in Banyalbufar is the breakfast was rated very highly, and sure enough breakfast was spectacular. In particular they had an onion and goat cheese variation on Coca de Trampó, which is sort of like pizza, although distinctly different. The oranges were fantastic, I grabbed one thinking we’d seen plenty of orange trees, so I should try them and that was a good idea, absolutely amazing.
On to the hiking. The stretch form Banyalbufar to Deià is very long, too long for our taste, so we decided to take advantage of the bus system and grab a bus form Banyalbufar to Esporles and hike from there to Valldemossa, then on to Deià. We knew this would be a long stretch when we booked the trip, but we didn’t like the accommodation in Valldemossa, it turns out it was the right decision as Valldemossa was much more of a tourist town than we realized, and Deià was perfect.
From Esporles the trail wanders through town, then into farmland and eventually starts gradually climbing. It was a nice shaded trail, which is good because the wind was still an issue. I had some chafing issues and had to switch out of the running shorts I wore and into hiking pants that I originally intended for town. The water we grabbed in Banyalbufar had a funny taste so we tried not to drink it (having one bottle of non funky water left from yesterday). There are basically no water sources on the trail, almost everything we had was bottled water we picked up in town.
Trail times seem highly variable, one source says the whole day to Deià should be 6.5 hours, another said 3,5 to Valldemossa and then 5 hours to Deià.
The trail led to a white stone cliff with nice views, then dropped down a little and back up the fat side, which gave us great views of the white stone cliffs and the mountains behind them. Then we hiked around the other side of the mountain and got our first views of Valldemossa before starting our descent. We got to Valldemossa in about 3 hours, grabbed new water and stopped into the visitor center to ask about the walk from there. The guy at the visitor center said it was more like 5 hours and there are two options, the official route and a more direct route that was harder to find. At one point we had the GPS coordinates saved for the alternate route, but that didn’t make it to the GPS tracks we loaded onto our phones, so we decided to play it safe and stick to the official trail.
Valldemossa was crowded and touristy, quite a shock after being out in nature all morning. We grabbed lunch at a cafe and set out just before 2, so we knew we wouldn’t be getting in early.
The trail climbed up again leaving the obnoxious tourists behind and getting back to nature. The views got better and better as we climbed up, switchback after switchback. Eventually we got above the tree line and were rewarded with 360 degree views of the whole area.
We came to a sign that said it was only 2 hours to Deià, which was fantastic because we had only been hiking for about 2 hours so that would get us to town earlier than we expected. We walked for a while along the ridge, the wind was intense in spots, but the views were amazing. We got to a sign that said about 2 hours to Deià, about 45 minutes after the last sign that said 2 hours. The trail descended rapidly away from town with many drop offs right along the trail.
Finally we make it to Deià, our legs and feet hurting, and of course the hotel we were staying at is in the center of town, which adds another kilometer. The total trip ended up being over 28 kilometers and over 8 hours of walking time.
At our hotel they informed us that there’s only one restaurant open in town today (early season), and the kitchen is only open until 8. so we showered and changed real quick and went straight there, but on arrival they informed us that they had no tables available. Luckily there was a market we passed on the way so we picked up a baguette, some manchego cheese, fruit, a random pastry, some kind of salami, and wine, which we enjoyed on our private balcony with a mountain view. A hot meal would have been nice, but the ambiance couldn’t be beat!
