Not on the beach as in we’re suntanning and swimming but more Nevil Shute waiting for the atomic cloud to come and get us. Welcome to Holidays in Hell, part 3 (again apologies to P.J. O’Rourke).
- Earthquakes –check
- Volcanic Eruptions – check
- Thunder and Lightning – check
- Hurricane – check (although really, we got there after)
- Pandemic Zombie Apocalypse virus – check
It’s weird here. Sunday afternoon and nobody around, even on the beach promenade. Well, there are a few people strolling, including us, making sure we are ‘social distancing’ and we’re not sick anyway. I think we’re safer outside than in but…there were the local police halfway through our stroll looking quite agitated and wanting everyone to get the f***k back inside. So, end of stroll.
This is what a lock-down looks like I guess. Everyone inside, all restaurants and bars closed, and the only things open are grocery stores and pharmacies. It’s eerie. We are busing it to Malaga tomorrow and will be ‘isolating’ ourselves like everyone else for the next 15 days (but possibly longer). We’ve decided to stay put for now but adjust our thinking on a day-to-day basis. The Canadian government, when we checked on Friday, asked travelers to return home. Short notice and easier said than done. The air line telephones are swamped, and we can’t get through and the web sites keep crashing. We need to get back to London and get our return flight from there if we want to get home and both airlines, Easyjet and Air Canada have said they will waive the change fees. Easyjet looks…easy. Change flight day, get on plane. No charge, no problem. (However, as of Monday, all flights have been cancelled). Air Canada when I did get onto the web site, wants $6000.00 to change to an earlier day. Fare difference they say. We say super-gouging bullshit! Thanks Air Canada, for helping fellow Canadians in a time of crisis.
So, we will tough it out here and see how this unfolds. We think we are safer here anyway as travelling on a plane is probably not great, the airports sound like chaos, and going back to shop at Costco looks like an episode of ‘American Horror Story’.
We’ll grab a couple o’ beers, stand on our balcony, and wait for the atomic cloud. It’s less traumatic.
