{"id":5743,"date":"2020-03-28T08:15:23","date_gmt":"2020-03-28T15:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/?p=5743"},"modified":"2020-03-28T08:32:59","modified_gmt":"2020-03-28T15:32:59","slug":"marbella-locked-up-and-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/marbella-locked-up-and-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Marbella \u2013 Locked up (and down)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Since the\nlast post we went from being kicked off the beach to semi-quarantine and during\nthat span we needed to travel from Marbella to Malaga.  That was ok; very quiet and the bus was\nmostly empty.  We found our way to the\nnew airBnB but did not get to meet our host as the mandatory lockdown orders\nfrom the Spanish government came down that day. So, we settled in to a routine\nof shopping when necessary, yoga, scrabble, and staring at the construction site\noutside our bedroom window, which BTW was still ongoing.  No corona-virus holiday for those guys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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View from the bedroom of our Malaga Airbnb – the host didn’t mention this in his description.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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We were a\nbit stressed of course and most of that came from not being sure of what course\nof action to take.  Back in Marbella we\nhad sort of decided to stay put until our return flights mid-April, but we felt\na little pressured to return as friends and family were encouraging us to do so\nplus the Canadian government was getting insistent. The stress level rose\nconsiderably when a couple of days into our new airBnB the host emailed us and\nsaid \u201cyou\u2019re being evicted, you need to be out of there in 4 days\u201d. Freak-out\ntime! (he later said we could stay if we really had nowhere to go but by that\ntime we had already decided to bail). \nApparently, according to the government dictate, temporary residents who\nwere already ensconced before March 14 in a self-contained residence (with a\nkitchen) can continue to stay.  After\nMarch 14th<\/sup>, hotels and airBnB\u2019s etc. were not allowed to be\nrented.  We moved from one to the other on\nMarch 16th<\/sup>.  If we had stayed\nin Marbella, we would have been fine. We ended up in the grey zone\u2026or more like\nthe twilight zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the\nnext couple of (very stressful) days we managed to get a train ticket to\nMadrid, a KLM flight through Amsterdam direct to Vancouver, a letter from the\nembassy to say we were allowed to be walking around outside since we were\ntrying to leave, and a place to stay at the Amsterdam airport for the 20 hour\nlayover.  Ok then\u2026let\u2019s just go.  In hindsight we really should have stuck with\nthe original decision to just ride it out. \nWhat a nightmare. We made the very early morning trip to Madrid (which\nis like the central petri dish for COVID 19), cab to the airport since the\ntrain was late (we discovered at the taxi stand that they only allow 1 person\nin the cab at a time\u2026so\u2026we pay for 2 cab rides), and get to our terminal only\nto discover that that terminal is closed and the flights are going out of some\nother terminal.  I\u2019m not going to say\nlong story short at this point, so you\u2019ll have to put up with the Irish version\u2026short\nstories made long.  Hey, I\u2019m entitled\u2026I\ndo have an Irish passport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Renfe train to Madrid – empty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Atocha railway station – the largest railway station in Madrid – Empty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Metro Platform at the Madrid Airport – Empty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The airport\nwas eerily quiet, almost like a ghost town, very few people about. So, we\nfinally made our way to the ticket counter (and we went there because they\nwanted people to check bags as the flight was full.  We had boarding passes so maybe we should\nhave just gone to the gate\u2026maybe it would have worked out, but we\u2019ll never\nknow).  The person at the ticket counter says\ncan I see your passports.  Ok, here ya\ngo.  She then says do you have another\npassport?  I looked at her quizzically,\nbut ok, in fact I do have another passport (being a James Bond type of guy, I\nfind it useful to always have 3 or 4 passports \u2018cause you just never know\u2026).  The she says, you can go to Amsterdam, but\nTeresa can\u2019t.  W.T.F.!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, we\nwere a bit dumb struck with absolutely no idea what to do next.  There were a few other people at the ticket\ncounter facing similar restrictions and we chatted with them to find out what\nthe deal was.  As far as we can determine,\nflights within the Schengen (EU) zone were now restricted to EU citizens\nonly.  Teresa could fly out of Spain\ndirect to Canada but not through another EU country.  It was and still is unclear whether being \u2018in-transit\u2019\nat the airport counts as travel to a country or not and we did have tickets and\nboarding passes.  I suspect we just got a\nlazy ticket counter agent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did call\nthe embassy in Madrid to see what could be done but all they could do was give\nme a list of hotels that were still open and some flight times for the Air\nTransat repatriation flights.  Thanks,\nbut not really helpful.  We certainly did\nNOT want to stay in Madrid and the A\/T flights were out of Malaga anyway.  So we made a decision to go back to Marbella\nas we liked it there, called our previous host who kindly arranged a temporary\nrental for us to stay in, made a mad dash scramble to get a train back to\nMalaga (made it with 5 minutes to spare), and booked a bus from there to\nMarbella. It was a long bruising stressful day, but you know, once we were on\nthe train back, we both felt our high stress levels melt away. It was the right\ndecision, the one we had made 2 weeks ago. \nIt cost a few hundred $$ for the trains, cab, and bus, and KLM will only\ngive us a travel voucher, but we feel better overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We still\nhave some decisions to make including the one to stay here until the world\nimplodes or things get better.  There are\nworse places than Marbella to hang out at the moment\u2026Canada comes to mind.  From what we hear, it\u2019s in lockdown as well\nand grocery shopping is a complete shitshow. \nGoing back on A\/T would only get us to Montreal\u2026half way to Vancouver\nand as it turns out, a complete quarantine for travelers was implemented Thursday,\nthe day we were supposed to return on KLM. \nWe are not like other returning travelers.  We do not have a home to go back to,\nself-isolate in, or quarantine ourselves. \nLanding in Montreal would also land us in a quarantine hotel for 2\nweeks.  Same with Vancouver.  If we did mange to get to an Airbnb instead,\nwe would have to stay put and find \u2018someone\u2019 to get groceries for us. So, we\nthink the decision here is the right one for now.  The decision to go \u2018home\u2019 will depend on whether\nour original return flights are cancelled or not, whether they allow Teresa to\nfly to London in the first place to board our the A\/C flight to YVR,  what condition our condition is in (RIP K.R. ☹), and I guess what condition the rest of the\nworld\u2019s condition is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We may be here for a while\u2026or not, but we are not going to stress about it anymore. It\u2019s warm here.  It\u2019s very pleasant.  We have a great view.  But we can relate to the window mannequins and the dog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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View from our Airbnb – it’s raining today<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since the last post we went from being kicked off the beach to semi-quarantine and during that span we needed to travel from Marbella to Malaga.  That was ok; very quiet and the bus was mostly empty.  We found our way to the new airBnB but did not get to meet our host as the mandatory lockdown orders from the Spanish government came down that day. So, we settled in to a routine of shopping when necessary, yoga, scrabble, and staring at the construction site outside our bedroom window, which BTW was still ongoing.  No corona-virus holiday for those guys. We were a bit stressed of course and most of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5743"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5743"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5758,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5743\/revisions\/5758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}