You could be forgiven for thinking that SatNav didn’t exist on Mallorca: all manner of methods are used to guide visitors to the homes of rural home owners on Mallorca.
A warm Hawaiian welcome … in rural Mallorca
The above fake flower garland – now looking like a wilted version of the traditional Hawaiian lei after recent heavy rain – hangs over a post at the end of the lane into our valley. A few more were hanging along the route, although these have now disappeared. Such garlands are offered as a sign of welcome in Hawaii, so we assume they were leading guests to a good old rural Mallorcan knees-up. Dress code: anything but a grass skirt, sir.
Bags, balloons, and boxes
We’ve seen plastic bags tied in bushes and trees to indicate the route that delivery people or workmen should follow to a property they’ve never been to before. A trail of balloons tied to posts and trees usually leads to a bunch of the things on the gateposts of a home where a lively children’s party is taking place. And a few weeks ago we saw the oddest thing yet (if only I’d had the camera): a number of large empty boxes perched at strategic locations, bearing a label with a picture of a fat leg of Spanish serrano ham. Someone had eaten an awful lot of ham to free up those boxes; presumably those who followed this trail of cardboard clues were not going to a vegetarian lunch ‘do’ …
Hi-tech/low-tech solutions
Of course, SatNav exists on Mallorca. We even acquired the technology when we had to change our car last October. One day we’ll figure out how it works. We once gave our GPS co-ordinates to some more tech-savvy friends who were coming for lunch at our finca for the first time. Some time after they were due, they phoned from a location more than 20-minutes’ drive away to say they were lost, and we had to talk them in. Maybe we won’t bother to learn how the SatNav works after all …
How do we now direct people to our off-the-well-driven-route home in rural Mallorca? Yeah, it’s a map, hand-drawn (by The Boss), emailed in advance to visitors. We save the lei for when they arrive …
When I lived in the village (Puigpunyent), it was not uncommon to see groups of balloons tied to fence gates or garden doors, signally that ‘this was the place.’ Sadly, in the burbs of the city, all we seem to see are drivers paying more attention to what their technology says than who might be crossing a road on the way to the beach. I miss those balloons.