Made it to Malaga!

October 30, 2021

Whew!

Door to door, it was 24.5 hours. Mask on for the duration, except when eating or drinking. That includes 4.5 hours in Amsterdam Schipol, where we spent some of the time activating our Orange Holiday e-sims. I'm sure that will be easier next time as it seems like the way to go. No danger of losing our "home" SIM cards as they stay in the phone, but it would be nice if they were available for a period longer than 2 weeks. As it is, we will have to extend them. I doubt we will use up all 60 GB of data in that time.

We also got our Canadian proof of vaccination documents. They weren't available before we left but have all the information required by the international standard, which our BC ones didn't.

Then, in the Malaga airport:

There are separate baggage conveyors for bags checked outside the EU, no matter where your final flight started from. We found this a bit scary, because once you go through the doors to that area, you can't go back to the regular conveyors.
There were big ads in the airport for a "MacArthur Glen" designer outlet mall. This is the same name as the one near the Vancouver airport.
When our taxi driver started the car, Bryan Adams was playing on the radio. He was at my high school at the same time I was (though I don't remember him since he was a year behind me).

However, we are truly in Spain. It's warm and the air is dry.

We are at the Hotel Plaza del Castillo, out in an industrial park. It wasn't my first choice, but it was the first (only) one I found that was willing to store our bike cases for 5 weeks and didn't require a 3-night stay. Our room is very basic but the courtyard is nice. And the bonus is that the restaurant starts serving dinner at 8 p.m.

Our room opens on this courtyard on the ground floor. The door can be seen on the left.

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Steve Miller/GrampiesHi Jacquie, today we started looking at air flight options to Malaga and were distressed to see that Air Transat does not fly until May, and that most flights dreamed up by Expedia have multiple stops and can take over 30 total hours. So, what airline did you fly, and do you mind saying what the charge was? How did they/you deal with your bike?

We too went after the Canadian vaccination proof yesterday. Now we are wondering - did the Spanish have a scanner app that can read it, did they readily accept it, are you required to prove vaccination to enter a restaurant, do the Spanish have their own proof system that it would be good to get on board with, are they requiring N-95 type masks, or any masks? etc. etc. Let us all know whatever you have encountered on this Covid topic.
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3 years ago

Rachael AndersonYippee! You made it. I look forward to following your journal! We are headed back to Portland. Oregon soon. Have a wonderful time!
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3 years ago

Suzanne GibsonWow, looks like you made it in spite of all the obstacles. Flying with bikes in times of Corona isn't so easy! Room on the ground floor opening onto the courtyard sounds perfect. I am looking forward to your route through Spain!
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3 years ago

Jacquie GaudetTo Steve Miller/GrampiesHi Steve

We started by trying to book on Air Canada because the fares were good and we knew the bike fee was low. But I’d get partway through the buying process and get an error message.

So we bought through Expedia. Every flight was a code share! But the small print said, for baggage fees, see Delta’s website, and Delta seemed to consider a bike case as part of your baggage with no extra fee, and we knew Westjet’s bike fee wouldn’t be more than $50. We were not charged anything for bikes, just $120 for the extra bag. Added to the total fare for two passengers of $2900 or so, that was okay.

We noticed fares varied quite a lot depending on the date. We were flexible on dates but happily our preferred departure date was the least expensive. We selected the least expensive return date that was far enough out to give us enough time yet early enough to finish a possible quarantine before Christmas.

As for duration, every option from Victoria (that wasn’t super expensive) included at least two stops. We wanted stops long enough to allow our bikes to make it (we think they might take longer than regular bags) and flights short enough I didn’t go crazy. Our total travel time, per Expedia, was 19 hours about.
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3 years ago

Jacquie GaudetTo Steve Miller/GrampiesHi Steve

We were asked for both proof of vaccination and the QR code required to enter when we checked in in Victoria. The QR code was scanned when we arrived in Merida.

The hotel requires that we wear masks indoors, same as BC. In fact, so far all is the same as BC. We haven’t been out anywhere yet.
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3 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Jacquie GaudetIt's amazing to learn that the hastily cooked up Canadian QR was recognized in Merida. We will follow eagerly for more details of Covid measures, like in small restaurants, but also of course for the actual cycling adventure that you are going to create!

We found a semi-reasonable flight into Lisbon yesterday, that we almost booked. Since we plan to completely circle the peninsula (counter clockwise) it doesn't much matter where to start, as long as it's fairly south.
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3 years ago

Jacquie GaudetTo Steve Miller/GrampiesNo, it was the QR required by the Spanish health service. All the information is here: https://www.mscbs.gob.es/en/profesionales/saludPublica/ccayes/alertasActual/nCov/spth.htm

The airline checked that we had it before boarding, along with proof of vaccination (we’d printed the record from BC.) Had our destination been elsewhere, they would have checked for whatever the requirements were.
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3 years ago