Aquamarine Coves

  Porto Petro, Mallorca, Spain
Tuesday, June 20, 2006

We spent the night at Bernie's and Barbie's cozy house in Porto Petro, a quiet town on the eastern shores of the island, which fed off German, British and Dutch tourism. The season hadn't yet officially commenced but from Bernie's accounts from the hotel where he worked, people had already started pouring in.

We woke after a good night's rest in the already empty house since Barbie and Bernie had gone off to work. We decided to go exploring a bit, even though the sky was covered by a uniform layer of grey clouds completely blocking out the sun. Bernie had showed us where the hotel was (Blau Porto Petro Hotel) and told us to come visit him in the morning, so we did.

02 Tiny Cove

When we went to get him, we were told he was in a meeting so we asked for directions to the nearest beach. We walked some meters away from the lobby to the beach which as I saw, wasn't an actual coastline of beach, but rather a cove or "cala". It was very rocky and despite the poor lighting of the day, I beheld the turquoise water I had wanted to confirm the existence of. I had seen pictures and postcards of Mallorca before, but always thought the color of the water had been Photoshopped. How could water so clear and blue actually exist?

03 Fishies

I was proved wrong. This sea water honoured the word "aquamarine". It instantly made me want to tear my clothes off and run in, but we had no towels and I knew I would freeze from the lack of sun after got out. Ed did go in and snorkelled for about 5 minutes until he came out half frozen. The water still was not warm enough; for that we would have to wait a couple more weeks until warmer sea currents came in. He did however get to take some underwater pictures of the life he saw underneath the surface.

04 Cala d Or on a cloudy day

After Ed managed to dry off a bit we caught up with Bernie who mentioned he practically had no work to do so he asked for the rest of the day off. He drove us around Porto Petro and its neighbouring towns, showed us some amazing beaches, a fortress, an old lighthouse, and the more touristy part of the island which was Cala d'Or, the next town down.

Back in Porto Petro we stopped at the local supermarket for some beers. Bernie mentioned that the lady that owned it, Antonia, owned half the town and she would be the person to turn to if we were looking for an apartment or a small house to lease out. Bernie told us that if we were smart, we would get her to instantly like us and she would look out for us, maybe help us get jobs.

07 Ed and Bernie

As it turned out Antonia did know of an apartment on rent. She gave us the key and told us to go take a look at it as it was just up the street. The building was overlooking the town's marina where sailboats and yachts rested and where a few ducks dwelled. I was instantly excited about the view the apartment would have.

The apartment was great: fully furnished and equipped with a fridge, a dishwasher, a washing machine, kitchen utensils, a TV, great big comfortable beds with linen and clean towels. It had two rooms, a big kitchen and a nice bathroom, and most importantly, a huge terrace, all of which had been recently remodelled so everything was modern, new and shiny. If the price of the rent hadn't been so cheap, we would have thought this was too much for us, too luxurious, so Ed and I, with radiant excited smiles on our faces decided to take it. We just hoped the owner would accept us moving in, through the good word of Antonia. As Bernie had told us, in this small town people operated based on trust and on knowing each other, rather than on money or contracts as in a big city. We completely understood how we were to handle ourselves and quickly went back to Antonia to tell her we wanted the apartment.

After phoning the owner and telling him she knew Ed's brother well and we seemed like good people, the price was set and we were given the keys to move in instantly. We could hardly believe it. In Buenos Aires none of this could have been managed without a lawyer handling the contracts and without a previous deposit. But here we were, in Porto Petro, a Mediterranean paradise, with the keys to an amazing apartment with a view to the marina, without having paid a cent and without signing a contract. All that would be taken care of tomorrow.

Ed and I cheered and hugged and kissed out of utter joy for our lucky find, only half a day after arriving. We moved our stuff from Bernie's place (which was only one block away which meant we were officially neighbours!) and he gave us some stuff for cleaning the place up.

We spent the rest of the evening cleaning up, unpacking and occasionally stopping to take a look around. This was something we hadn't expected. We were expecting to rent a much smaller place with none of the commodities this one had, for virtually the same price. After talking with Ed we realized if we had searched more intensely we might had found a cheaper place, but not with this view or this close to Bernie's and Barbie's place. We also figured this would be a perfect apartment to come home to after a hard day working where we could be comfortable and at ease instead of the dark dingy place we had imagined.

So far things were working out perfectly, even better than imagined. We can't be happier! We can only imagine the great things to come. This has taught me the importance of not expecting too much, so that your expectations can be easily fulfilled, and when they are, you're flying.