If you can get your elbows into one of Mallorca's sunspots this summer, you'll witness two unstoppable forces.
First, the Balearic Sea's tides, as old as time, systematically erase sandcastles carefully built during the day.
The second is a more modern phenomenon, where the tsunami of tourism threatens to swallow everything up.
Every inch of the beach is occupied. Finding a parking space is like finding a gold mine.
If you sit on a sun lounger for too long, your belongings will be carelessly moved around to make way for those waiting in long lines to get a seat.
All of these are signs of affluence that can be seen and heard throughout the island, especially in the constant beeping of contactless payment machines in hotels, restaurants and bars.
Commercial activity with record numbers of visitors.
But if this was a story of enormous wealth pouring into the business-savvy Spanish community, Sonia Ruiz would not have shared it at all.
We met the 31-year-old mother of one in a park a few hundred metres from the coast of the capital Palma.
Her four-year-old son, Luca, slides down the playground's various slides without a care in the world.
But Sonia is really struggling. Her landlord has told her to leave, and she says it's impossible to find a new place.
“I check every day and the rent is going up every day,” she said.
“I even stop people on the street and ask them if they have anything, because the day is coming when I have to move out of my apartment. And I see myself and my son homeless. We have nothing.”
Sonia and her partner are separated, but they have been forced to live together because they cannot afford the rent. They earn €2,400 a month.
“They ask for months' worth of deposits. Some people have even said they don't want children or animals. And there are so many people looking.”
