Bluebird Flies

Today we hiked down to a beach called Sa Reira, which proved to be no easy task. Since this town is on the top of a mountain, the closest beach is about 2.6 km (1.6 miles) away downhill through the woods. Bobby and I love a good hike, but traveling with a kid always makes things a little different.

Macy has been sick, and although her fever is gone and she seems fine now, that does not stop her from having some major whine sessions. We aren’t sure how much of it is her needing time to adjust to this new place/way of life, and how much of it is really feeling sick. But we decided to push our luck and go for it. The first half mile or so, she cried and whined. She said her arm hurt, her sock balled up, her skin felt itchy, her eye watered, her chest hurt on the uphill parts, mucous flowed from her mouth on the steep downhill parts (I could not contain my laughter when she said that)… and finally I told her to get on my back. I’m not sure if either Bobby or I thought we’d actually make it to the beach. Once on my back, she stopped crying. She began to chatter and laugh as usual. We finally made it to a dry creek bed, and she said, “I think I can walk this part.” We got down and started exploring the rocks, finding old terra cotta tiles and writing with them on other rocks. Like all creeks, it was a treasure trove! Soon enough, she was skipping and even running ahead! We were so relieved.  The path took us mostly through the woods, past several old wells, and at some points we passed beautiful houses.

And now she’s running!

Down the trail to Sa Reira

Lots of old wells along the trail. Notice the recycling bins in the background – these are all along the trails!

Woodland shrine with jug of wine

We finally made it to our first Spanish beach! A glorious Spanish beach! And… it promptly started raining. As we headed towards the beach, all the other families were packed up and heading inland. But we were going to enjoy the beach, damn it! We’re from Florida – a little rain can’t hurt us!

Sa Reira Beach

Buried!

Sailboat at Sa Reira

Boats and houses on the beach

Angry looks: stop taking pictures! We are hungry!

So we played a bit, took some pictures, and stopped at a restaurant for some $7 water before finding out that they had stopped serving food. At least we worked up the courage to ask about a bus (we had heard rumors). The waiter brought us a bus schedule and when we asked, “Donde?” he said “Super” and pointed up the hill. We had no idea what “Super” meant but we started walking. After asking a few other people, we deduced that the bus arrived in front of the “supermercat” or supermarket (people in this area of Spain speak Catalan instead of Spanish, so some of the words are different). As we ran up the hill, we saw the bus about to pull away and we jumped on! It turned out to be a delightful hike, and we were glad to see the coast, but we felt so thankful to be on that bus as the windshield wipers swished the downpour away… oh well, we’ll try for the beach another day!

Old beach house at Sa Reira

Even older beach house at Sa Reira

Sa Reira beach