Day 33: Granada to Motril

March 22, 2025

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We had one other major exciting activity last night. Several days ago we had floated to ourselves and in the blog the prospect of renting a van and skipping the coastal ride, before taking the ferry to La Palma. Scott read that and suggested that an international drivers' license was needed to drive in Spain. I checked it out, and agreed with Scott. Sites I read cited various complicated regulations. The license might not be needed for drivers from Spanish speaking countries, it might not be needed for people from other EU countries, and I can't remember the UK situation. Further there were three categories if these licenses, and I seem to recall that driver age over 69 played some role as well. But all agreed that Canadians and Americans needed the thing. Based on all that, the coastal headland climbs loomed as unavoidable, and that's where the matter rested, as our bikes and probably our bodies deteriorated in the hills we had on hand.

A bit of a change came as Keith Classen wrote of a Canadian friend, John Vincent, that had rented a car in Spain without the international license. We wrote to John, and he confirmed that he had rented a car without license, and had it delivered to his hotel. I went down to our own hotel desk and asked about car rentals and deliveries. In a master stroke of marginal helpfulness (that I will comment more on later) the desk man offered me only one word: "Sixt".

Google told me that Sixt is a huge car rental company, and that they had a branch in Granada, by the train station. I said to Dodie "On our way to Motril tomorrow, let's stop at Sixt and see what they say". I had also phoned Sixt in England and found that they had no vans available in Granada, license or not. But what about an SUV?

Here is where Dodie's executive abilities kicked in. About 7:30 p.m. she said "Let's take a taxi to Sixt right now and see what is what". And that is what happened:

As i have begun to rant about, different companies have different corporate cultures. With Sixt and Rafael it was "we can do it, let's get on with it"! Rafael took us to see several SUVs and we all speculated on which had a chance of swallowing the bikes. Drivers licenses never came up, not then, and not when I emailed them a photo of my Canadian one. I have a feeling all will be well - unless something happens that puts us in contact with the police?

So this morning two Sixt employees showed up in front of the hotel, as had happened for John Vincent at his hotel, and they brought a black Peugeot SUV, that I quickly dubbed the Batmobile. They handed us the key, having already taken the approximately week long rental amount from the credit card, emailed a one page contract, said don't worry, every contingency is covered by included insurance, return the car at the Valencia train station, and have fun! This would never have happened that fast and that easy in Canada!

The bikes wait for "rescue" at the hotel door. In the back, my bike sports its new skinny tire, that hopefully will never be stress tested, as we will ship a real tire for pickup in Valencia.

Diana of Sixt explains something to me, but there was very little palaver involved in the arrangement.

Dodie claims not only management decision making skill, but also Tetris ability. Before we can put her to the test, some disassembly of the bikes is happening.

It took a really long time to actually get the bikes in. I hope Sixt does not get crabby over any dirt or scuff marks from the struggle. The car as we got it was basically brand new.

The car's navigation system chose the Autovia to get us to Motril.

As soon as we could, we got off the Autovia, switched off the satnav, and reverted to a more Grampies typical secondary road.

The road had no shoulder and long hills. It was approximately the route we would have used if cycling. The long hills were mostly down, but looked scary enough anyway.

The shift from Granada to Motril involves cutting beside the Sierra Nevada mountains. It is scenic but rough country.

The snow topped Sierra is still with us.

There were a few white villages nestled in the hills.

The Batmobile has no fear of terrain like this!

And then, quite suddenly it seemed, the mountains were behind and we had reached the sea.

Our hotel is the Elba Motril, a place where Andersons had once stayed. Our room is super nice and with a balcony that looks back to the now defanged mountains. When we arrived they were running a lunchtime buffet that looked super. We had already eaten our sandwiches, but their supper buffet seemed like a good bet. Dodie argued that now that we have paid for a car rental we are broke, but I know there are still a few dineros in our money belt.

Meanwhile we walked down to the sea, and found it suitably splashy. But no birds in the water. There were however Lesser Black Backed Gulls in the air. They are "only" Gulls, but still new for this year.

This guy brings our 2025 total to 150, and brings home that we are at the sea!

Epilog - a word about hotel helpfulness. We had the idea that we could lean on our quite expensive hotel Porcel for help, first when we ran into mechanical difficulty 14 km from their door, then when we were needing to store the bikes securely (as they had promised online), and to be searching for a bike shop with the right tires, then to discard our wrecked tire in a garbage, to rent a car, and finally to drop our postcards telling the tale, in the mail. Their performance on all but the postcards was pretty dismal. They would sometimes help a little, but it was always quite little and grudgingly dispensed.

Picking on a couple of these: All the time we were in residence we noticed that the hotel had a shuttle van parked outside. Presumably it's an airport shuttle, but it never moved. When we phoned for help from out of town, we were actually near the airport. But they just blew us off. Then when we did make it in, they told us we would need to store the bikes in our 5th floor room. I just stared at them, long enough for them to lead me to a giant empty room in the basement. And when they led me with the bike to the room, I pushed the one bike and they just walked, rather than help take the other one on the convoluted journey.. Then they took off up some secret stairs, leaving me to remember how to get back to the second bike and bring it along.

Probably the one that rotted my socks the most was this morning. Rather than leave the tire in the room, for the cleaning crew to deal with, I brought it to the front desk. No, they would not deal with it. This despite what I knew to be extensive workshops and cleaning rooms and paint rooms etc. in the basement. They produce no garbage there? No, I got sent outside and down the street, looking for a public trash bin. What kind of hotel sends a client wandering the street looking for a simple service? I was pissed. Am I being unreasonable?

Not that they would actually use this to retrieve a customer.

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Tricia GrahamThat is fantastic news about the rental car. After reading your story we have already started the process of getting International drivers licenses knowing that if we do cycle this year as we intend it will always be marginal. Have fun
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3 weeks ago

Scott AndersonSuch great news, there there really was stilll the bus option. I’m quite impressed with Sixt - it’s the company we rented from in Tucson also. I wonder if they are aware of the requirement and just assume it’s unlikely to get enforced. Or maybe it’s because the main risk-holder is probably you.

Just a suggestion though: drive carefully, drive conservatively, don’t get pulled over by the police who could ask to see your license.
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3 weeks ago

Karen PoretTo Scott AndersonHey, Scott. They are in the Batmobile.. They are indestructible !
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3 weeks ago

marilyn swettSounds like you made a wise decision on the car rental!
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3 weeks ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo marilyn swettWe certainly think so. Money well spent and is and will be saving us from a lot of struggle.
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3 weeks ago