Sketchy

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One of the games we enjoy* playing on these all-inclusive holiday capers is trying to gauge when's best to avoid the scrum at meal times. What with this complex being so huge, there's three big restaurants (school dinner halls) to choose from, churning out food from 8am to midnight, and starting from around 9:30am there seemed to be a queue forming for breakfast so, as long as you were in before that, it was always huge fun watching people pile plates with combinations of food you'd never see or consider at home - watched one wide eyed and stout stomached young lad top off his plateful of brekkie mushrooms and baked beans with freshly made pancakes doused in chocolate sauce and maple syrup.

I'm still not sure if it was a good thing that you were made to wash your hands in anti-bacterial gel (like you do in hospitals nowadays) or if it was worrying that people couldn't be trusted to clean up themselves before heading off to eat.

Left the place just as it as all going to kick off over the toaster as someone lost it over someone else jumping the bread line and navigated around some hungover looking sorts now queuing for their mushrooms and pancakes and grabbed a couple of golf racquets to play mini golf at the quiet and shady end of the hotel's lake. Walking back we found the only three sun loungers that didn't have a body or a towel sprawled on it so we claimed them. We sat for a couple of hours dipping in and out of the human soup in the pools before it all got too much - heat-wise and otherwise - and we headed out on a bus tour to the old town of Alcudia. Nearly two hours later we'd driven to some point we could've probably walked to but, released from the tour for some free-time, enjoyed a jug of icy cold Sangria in a small cafe and split a banana split before wandering lazily along the old town walls to board the open topped bus back at the bull-ring (non-functioning, Mallorcans never went for that, was built purely for the tourists) for a five minute trundle back to our hotel.

After a walk along the market stalls that pitch up in the evening on site (including this caricature artist that plugs into his ipod and zones out from the Europop and Karaoke blaring at him from all angles and draws silently in five minute bursts for ?10 a pop) we settled over at the adult's only bar (Ha!) by the lake** drinking Mojitos and Daiquiris and Pepsi out of real glasses whilst the mosquitoes pecked away at us and the moon set over the mountains.

*Can't stand the whole indigestion inducing push and shove animalistic affair.

**The hotel is built around the protected wet lands and this lake is maintained in as natural a form as possible by the company. No mean feat considering some of the activity that goes on around its shores, and good on the hotel for managing it all so well in amongst it all.