The Black Forest of Ufanes

Original text is here
Island of Mallorca
My collection of routes on the island of Mallorca

For fifteen years of my travels to Mallorca, I have come to know and grow fond of many charming, beautiful, and fascinating places.

Yet one location remains a dark enigma on the sunlit map of the island — the mysterious forest and springs of Ufanes.

Something is distinctly wrong with this transparent forest of gloomy black trees. Even on the brightest, sunniest day, a heavy, ominous atmosphere hangs here, filled with a strange, barely perceptible sense of otherworldly presence.

Birds do not sing in this forest, and the silence presses against the ears like ultrasound. If you are familiar with my reflections on silence, then the silence of the Ufanes forest is something entirely different from the bell-like resonance of Kitezh that fills the forest quiet above my Volga bay in Russia.

The silence in the Ufanes forest is heavy, viscous. One wants to shake it off like an intrusive, disturbing sound — heard not with the ears, but with some other organ of the body.

This forest is always deserted; even the rare voices of wandering people fail to fill it with a sense of human presence.

And yet, perhaps precisely because of its mystery, the Ufanes forest is a place I often walk through. Each time I am struck by its strange, uncomfortable atmosphere — as if vampires once lived here, or still do.

Despite the oppressive sensations the forest evokes, I am repeatedly drawn back by the opportunity to physically sense this inexplicable atmosphere — something akin to contact with forces beyond understanding, yet powerful in their mysterious expressiveness.

The gloom that fills this place is unlike anything I can clearly define or compare.

It is not, for example, the solemn melancholy typical of human cemeteries. Nor does it resemble abandoned places where people once lived and then departed. The atmosphere of the Ufanes forest is not one of direct threat, such as might emanate from a bandits’ hideout.

It is not even the mysterious cold of eternity that surrounds the ancient Talayots of Menorca. Something entirely different — unclear, yet acutely tangible — dwells in the Ufanes forest.

Only a local variety of oak grows here; other trees or bushes are almost entirely absent.

As a result of a strange anomaly, the large trees with bare black trunks lack any lower tier of branches, creating a sense of excessive, unhealthy space — empty in appearance, yet filled with an indistinct threat perceived as a general unease.

Even stranger is the fact that many trees in the Ufanes forest contain vast hollow cavities within their trunks. This feature can be seen in the cross-sections of stumps or fallen, cut trees. Most of them contain a wide vertical hollow of an unusual shape.

With a bit of imagination, one might see these cavities as prisons for spirits cursed by someone long ago. Such an assumption fits the overall atmosphere of the forest remarkably well.

Perhaps the faint, merging-with-the-silence hum heard here is produced by these internal channels within the old oak trunks.

Local farmers avoid collecting firewood from this forest. Despite the abundance of fallen or dead trees, no one attempts to use them for household needs — as if, along with the fire from the Ufanes forest, its dark superstitions might enter their homes.

And yet, the strangest thing about the Ufanes forest is not its groaning black trees.

Hidden deep within the forest lies something that could be called its heart — a center where all the mystery of this place is concentrated.

The forest owes its notoriety to the springs located within its depths, the nature of which remains poorly understood.

Several times a year — regardless of season or rainfall — from the rocky soil, from beneath the intertwined roots of black trees twisted like dead fingers, a mighty spring bursts forth.

The water instantly transforms into a roaring torrent, filling to the brim what is usually a dry, stony riverbed.

The volume of water released is so immense (reaching up to 100 cubic meters per second) that it could supply most of Mallorca’s cities.

Yet the water of the Ufanes springs shares the same fate as the forest surrounding them.

Though fresh, tasteless, and odorless, this water is not used for drinking or irrigation.

Locals even warn against attempting to bathe in places where the force of the flow might allow entry.

They do not specify exactly what the problem is. But instead of using water from the Ufanes stream, they prefer to collect far less abundant rainwater.

There are scientific explanations for the irregular behavior of the Ufanes springs. But scientific terminology does not always explain what is felt on the level of sensation.

No science can explain why this water, when released, brings no life or freshness to the forest. Why grass does not grow near the source. Why birds do not build nests here. Even the ever-present wild goats avoid entering this forest.

Why beneath the canopies of black trees there is no cool shade… On the contrary, the Ufanes forest is permeated by a feeling of stifling heaviness and a pressing groan, inaudible to the ear.

Leaving the Ufanes forest and stepping into open space, one exhales with relief, leaving behind a heavy sensation — as if the forest were wrapped in a cloud of invisible but malevolent mist.

If I were asked to give a lyrical definition, I would say that in the Ufanes forest we are dealing with that very fairy-tale source of “dead water” mentioned in the folklore of many cultures.

The signs all align: a superstition-laden, mysterious forest; water that appears from nowhere and is never drunk; black trees groaning in the darkness, with unseen inhabitants dwelling within their hollow trunks.

Although in a normal forest I usually feel completely safe, I can say with absolute certainty that the Ufanes forest is not a place where I would want to spend the night.

Text and photographs by Alex Trubachev

Your guide to the Balearic Islands

MCS EDIT 2025