Today was our last full day on Mallorca.. 😔

Today was also the first to have some cooler, rainy weather. We were going to visit Sa Colobra and Torrent de Pareis but since it’s a flash flood risk canyon we opted to meander elsewhere! We split up to see the things we wanted to do before leaving then reconvened in the afternoon.

Savitri and I went to Inca, the nearest town to Lloseta. It had its market so we figured it was a good time to finally check it out. The area specializes in leather, so many of the vendors sell leather goods, both locally made and from Africa.

Savitri got a nice belt from the first vendor, who even resized the belt for her twice, pretty cool. The next vendor however..

We saw a vendor of fashionable leather jackets, super soft and made of lamb skin. We were admiring how soft they were and the vendor appeared suddenly, as they tend to do. He dove into his pitch, saying how this jacket looks perfect for the beautiful lady, then finding a better size and saying it’s way better.. then another color and that one’s much better leather anyway.. and on and on. Anything Savitri expressed interest in was the best yet. He talked about the huge discounts he would offer just us, how others paid much more, etc etc. He was so aggressive and he didn’t need a jacket so we said we’d walk around a bit and think about it. He pushed harder.. and lowered his prices.. and packed it up and tried to push it into our hands. It was too aggressive so we tried to step away and he tried again. We told him we needed a break and you could see his mood change. He looked at Savitri and asked “Where are you from? India?”. She replied “I’m American”. He immediately bristled and said ~”Spanish are so much better than Americans and you.. you are third class!”. It was such a switch from his overly-complimentary demeanor that it caught us both off-guard. We looked at him bewildered and stepped away as he kept muttering. Somehow his sales pitch had turned into some sort of ethno-centric racism bullshit. We left, but it had ruined the shopping vibe. We looked for a restaurant.

We found a nice place called Suro Bistró. We had a really nice meal of shrimp and pork tacos followed by black & white brownies. This filled our bellies and cleared our heads.

We then drove to meet with the rest of the crew on the east coast.

On the way we drove through Manacor, the home city of tennis legend Raphael Nadal. It turns out it’s also the home of his huge tennis academy, which we happened to drive right by. It’s a large city by Mallorca standards (second only to Palma) and at least in the rainy weather seemed rather drab. However the tennis academy was super active and modern, like a college campus.

We drove on and met up with the others in a cute fishing village called Portocolom. It is an active harbor so filled with smaller finishing and leisure boats. There are also small beaches, and we went to S’Arenal Petit, which as the name suggests is quite small. However it is also very calm and colorful, and provides easy access the edge of the harbor. This was recommended to Matt at a dive shop in Portocristo, where they had stopped for lunch and to sit out the thunder & lightning-filled storm. The sand was very soft and there were a couple families playing on the beach. Nice spot to swim and chill out. Also lots of parking under the trees.

We then went to the small bar on the beachside, Blue Bar for drinks.

We then all drove back through the central farmlands again to our Lloseta villa.

Our last dinner in Mallorca was just around the corner from where we stayed in Lloseta, at Bar Bestard. What a great place in every way! It is that quintessential pub where most of the locals seemed to hang out (there were some small bars at the base of the hill with their regulars too though!). Once inside it was surprisingly large, bright and modern. The service was excellent and the menu extensive.

We had pizzas, burgers, salads.. all excellent and combining classics with local touches like pulled pork, serious bacon, and regional cheeses.

The secret ingredient was a very local dessert, Cardenal de Lloseta! As the name suggests, it is from this town, and in fact apparently ONLY made at a bakery a block away. Further more the recipe is secret.. so of course we got a couple servings. It was phenomenal! It has meringue, some sort of chocolate-caramel, cream, an almost phyllo layer.. While it seemed familiar to all of us, the combination of the parts made a unique whole.