Una Fiesta Buena

What? Two blogs in 14 hours?  Holy moly, he's on a roll...

January is an interesting month in Mallorca.  The weather is generally chilly (especially for native Mallorquins that aren’t used to New England winters), and it is certainly the emptiest time of year tourist-wise.  As we found out the hard way, many restaurants and cafés take vacations this time of year and our activities in Deya have been limited at night.  Our first nights just caught the tail end of the New Year’s crowd; we were lucky enough to have some bars and eateries open that first week.  Since then, we’ve been relegated to cooking beans or heading to a bigger city for food.  This lull, though, is fractured by a series of parties that happen annually in each town on the island.  These parties are the biggest nights of the year.  Explanations of their basis were rough, but from what I gather, each town is celebrating their own patron saint.  In Deya, I think this is San Sebastien (as I said before, no one could totally agree.  Too much wine maybe?).  In other cities, the saint differs, but the party is largely the same.

Here in Deya, on Sunday night (this is a very delayed posting), what seemed to be the entire population turned out for the festivities.  There are lots of traditions, and we were welcomed to join by the friends we’ve made in town. In the center of the party is a huge fire made from giant stumps that looked olivine (of the olive tree, possibly a made up word).  Around this the crowd stood, and interspersed in the masses were several huge grills.  These were fed by a guy with a special shovel.  The handle was about fifteen feet long, and with it, the grill-keeper got smoldering coals from the bonfire and carried them through the dense crowd to deposit them into the grills.  On the grates sizzled sausages.  

These sausages were made from the donations of all the local farmers.  One was orange and almost sweet; the other dark and rich.  The food set-up worked like this: long tables held the ingredients—bread, olive oil, tomatoes, and the meat.  Each person grabbed a plate and a slice of bread.  Then we slathered on olive oil and rubbed a juicy tomato onto the bread.  We carried this and our sausages to a grill where we toasted the bread and the cooked the sausage just long enough.  We were so eager to eat that they were still cool in the middle, but local pork is safe right?  We pulled off the bread and meat and gobbled it down.  Dan and I agreed—easily the best sausage we’ve ever eaten.  Reilly isn’t much of a sausage man, but he liked them fine too.  All the food and drink was paid for by the town, so we ate our fill and sat back to digest and enjoy the free wine.

From here, the party took a turn as the DJ changed from a gray-haired guy to Llewlyn, the grandson of Robert Graves (a famous poet and Deya resident).  The dancing started in earnest and the wine and beer flowed almost too freely (almost).  The numbers dwindled as the night got later, but the younger folks like us stayed late, dancing between the fire and the huge speakers, the stars beaming down on us and we beaming up into the night.

Departure in less than 24 hours now.  And guess what...it got cold here, there's snow in the mountains (a dusting), and I'm ready to come home.  Lots more to write about though, keep your web-browsing eyes open.

Adios.