Google Maps plotted us a 6 km walk from the airport hotel to the terminal. But that was a combination of it not quite knowing where departures was, and not knowing the "secret" route through all the construction.a  That construction has been there for a year or two. We'll be really confused about where to go should they ever finish it. Not much danger there, though.

We requested wheelchair assistance for Dodie, mainly with an eye to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, which is insanely big and requiring either an internal train or an on road shuttle depending on where you come in and where you are going out.

In Valencia, the advantage of requesting assistance is in getting early boarding, and the advantage of that is in beating the people bringing on too large or too much carry on to the overhead bins. For this, Dodie just "pretends" to hobble with her stick, and does not actually board a wheelchair. But this time there was a "gotcha". The plane was boarded outside from a mobile staircase. And the first step of that was huge. We were the first ones out there, and we actually paused, thinking the stairs assembly would be lowered to the ground - but no. When Dodie looked at this and squeaked, a petulant flight attendant snarked: "Well you declined the wheelchair".

In any event, I could not see how they would get really disabled people up those steps.

Charles de Gaulle was where we really expected difficulty, with under two hours to make the connection to Vancouver. It went well at first, with a worker right there to ferry Dodie to the first stage, a waiting room for a shuttle. The signage in the room was good, with a map of the short shuttle route, and a sign mentioning exactly our destination: Terminal 2E Gate M. So when the shuttle came and people started filing on, we thought we were in the clear, except where would the wheelchair go?

This is where again the exact detail of having asked for assistance became a disadvantage.  The answer to where does the wheelchair go was that it goes on its own shuttle, something that had not arrived yet and that we had to anxiously await, while everyone else was off to the gate.

Eventually our shuttle came, and on went the wheelchair, but then - nothing . After a while Dodie asked what the hangup was. It turned out we were waiting for some other passenger from some other plane.

I wouldn't say Dodie freaked at this point, but she did make two points (very clearly!) to the drivers. The first was that our listed flight departure time was not the same as the gate closing time, and that time was rapidly approaching. The second was a rather extended litany about how last time the assistance services came within a whisker of us missing the flight, for the reason of hanging in and around lounges and shuttles, mysteriously waiting.

Unexpectedly, the drivers took the point, and delivered us to the next lounge, in two minutes.

There was no one to meet us in that lounge, but we saw the Gates M sign there, and made for it. This brought us to yet another lounge, this one populated by a half dozen yellow vested assistance workers. But from this point we could actually see our gate in the distance. So we blew by the workers and their fleet of wheelchairs and electric golf carts, and made a "run" for it.

This triggered a rather nice young man, the Assistance supervisor, who chased us down and wanted to see boarding passes plus to have an explanation of why we were not using the booked transfer service. We could actually see our gate , a most energizing fact, but we had to take the time to shake  this well meaning fellow.

We got to the gate well before any boarding, and were told we should join the Priority Boarding line. This turned out to be not as priority as you would think, as a further line of baby buggies formed elsewhere. We joined that, and us and the babies happily boarded first.

All this turned out to be for naught, as the captain soon announced that a solar flare had affected our planned route (?) and there would be a delay as we recalculated on FlyWithGPS or some such. In the end we left two hours late! It wasn't only that someone needed to be faster in working with FWGPS, but also there was some problem with packing the cargo hold. (If I sound vague on these delays, it's because they were.)

There was some compensation for the extra long time spent in the plane, in that Air France had an excellent entertainment system, with an extensive collection of films and documentaries on tap. I watched a 2022 film called  Three Thousand Years of Longing, about a woman that freed a dginn (gini) from a bottle, and was offered the standard three wishes. There were some restrictions, like you could not ask for eternal life, or to eliminate all suffering. Otherwise, you just had to wish your heart's desire. The thing was, the woman was already happy, and did not need anything. But the dginn could not be truly free while he still had this three wish obligation, and he really wanted the woman to choose something. In the bulk of the film, the dginn revealed that he had been imprisoned in a bottle three times, and he went into how these had happened, how he had been freed, and the wishes he had granted. The woman could see that the wishing rarely worked out well for the recipients. I found the whole thing intriguing, because I too basically have everything I want. I mean, would it be foolish to wish the lens of my Lumix to not jam? Naw, I am heading to the camera repair on Thursday, and even that tough problem should clear up!

Having escaped the flooding at Valencia, we returned to British Columbia to find that ferries had been cancelled and power had been out, due to high winds. But our luck continued to hold, as our ferry sailed and power was restored at our house. Our long suffering friend Marvin met us at the ferry, and soon had us home safe in bed.

We have a short time now, to prepare to fly to Costa Rica. After that, it won't be all that long before we return to Valencia, collect our bikes, and head off again. Meanwhile, stay tuned for the customary page on how much this trip cost, and perhaps any concluding thoughts. We will take the opportunity with that final page to plug the upcoming Costa Rica blog. Visiting ecological research stations down there will certainly be a novel experience!