After breakfast Solveig arrived to take me on a 10km hike to the summit of St Josep sa Talaia, the 475m peak which overlooks the whole island. The 'Talaia' part is a contraction of 'Tailaissa', a Catalan word for a watchtower, applied to tallest peaks in a region. Not only is this one the highest in Ibiza, but also in the Balearics. Another warm sunny day with superb visibility for the climb.
Relaxation of restrictions now allows two of us to ride in the same car, both wearing mascarillas, windows open, the passenger sitting in the back. The road leading up to the mountainside track starts about a kilometer from the village. After a kilometer on a metalled side road, an unmetalled road climbs upwards, then goes along the ridge at the top where the big telecoms towers for the island are located. The views in each direction are stunning. I can see why church folk love to climb up here on Ascension Day to pray for the people of Ibiza. My photos are here
The only off road traffic was a couple of telecoms vans. I think there were six of them up there, carrying the work-team installing new equipment up there, probably high capacity kit to serve the purposes of fibre-optic broadband which is now being rolled out, even in rural areas. Solveig's husband Fabian was saying on Monday how this could make a big difference to the island economy in future, with the inevitable collapse of mass tourism. The hospitality industry will find a way to re-invent itself, and more people will want to work from home digitally in a very congenial setting. If people need to commute less by car, this will have a positive impact on the environment.
Just as we passed under the tall twin towers at the highest point, I had a phone call from Kath. She said she'd been conversing with BAe helpline staff during the morning on my behalf, complaining the web re-booking page failure, and getting fobbed off with excuses that they could only deal with me as ticket holder, although she had gave them information provided by me for the purpose. She persisted in pestering them as a way of drawing public attention to their service to clients. Another traveller spotted her tweets, saying they'd experienced exactly the same problem with this flight re-booking. So no equipment fault could be attributed to our digital devices.
She rang again just after we returned to the house for lunch, announcing triumphantly that finally she had re-tried the booking page and gained access. There was still a June 1st flight, but to London City Airport in the evening, so she booked that. Will it run? We shall see. I daresay the complaints about the rogue page had pushed the back office staff into investigating and troubleshooting in between our mountain top phone call and our lunchtime call.
My darling Kath loves a challenge of this kind and doesn't take no for an answer. It's a great relief to have had her do that much for me. I'm not sure that I could take that level of stress, as I have so little confidence left in the way an corporate giant of the aviation industry deals with people in moments of crisis. Owain has pointed out that in his experience smaller airlines are better at customer relations, not simply because they have fewer clients, but that they are motivated to hold on to them and let their good reputation grow. Well, we always used to say 'Small is beautiful'.
The rest of the day just slipped away with updating people and catching up on the craziness of the past twenty four hours. Tomorrow I'll be catching up on preparations for Sunday. So on it goes!
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