Tuesday and Wednesday October 14 and 15^th October, 2014

Two days in Malaga to try and sort out Ralf’s Schengen problem. On Tuesday we went to the Canadian Consulate, who were not a lot of help. “You have 90 days and then you have to go back to Canada”. There is no proof of when we arrived, – but you know when you arrived, so it is 90 days. You have to prove when you arrived.

We asked about an extension, she told us about the Office for Foreigners. We cycled to that office. Ralf spent about an hour in the line-up and was told that there are no extensions, unless one of us was in hospital. The lady at that office told him he should go to the Comisario de Policia to request a Declaration of Entrada. Off we went to the Police Station. They only opened until 2:00 pm and it was 1:45 at that point. They told him to come back the next day.

It was a very frustrating day for us, with no results. Ralf is annoyed because he thinks we should just keep cycling and worry about leaving when we need to.  I cannot understand why he is taking this so nonchalantly – he could be fined upwards from E600.00, deported, and/or not allowed back into Europe for 2 to 5 years.  I feel as if I am banging my head against a brick wall and he isn\’t listening to my concerns at all.

I don\’t want this Schengen thing to spoil what up until now has been a great trip.  Ralf is ready to get on the next plane back to North America.

Fortunately the hostel is cheap and we spent an extra night in Malaga.

Ralf made a lovely dinner with Salmon and rice and we chatted to a lovely couple from Poland.

Today, (Wednesday) we cycled to the Police Station. Again Ralf spent an hour in a line-up only to be told he didn’t need a stamp. So long as he was in Spain he didn’t need a stamp! No Stamp. 90 days and then he must leave. Keep the receipts from the phone contracts as proof of when we were in France and Spain, that should be o.k. Flimsy none the less.

This doesn’t help us at all. We now have 14 days left in Europe. What to do?

We have a few options:

• Ralf can fly to England, and get a return flight into Spain – we hope he will get a stamp in his passport and then the 90 days could start from that day, as there is no proof of him being in Europe before that point. But Ralf’s concern is that they do not let him back into Spain and I would be here with the bikes having to sort things out.
• We can leave Europe and go to Florida and cycle the Southern Tier of the US.
• We can leave Europe and go to Cuba for 3 months, then go to the US via Mexico and cycle the Southern Tier.
• We can go to Morocco and spend 3 months in Morocco. That would mean that we could come back into Europe and Schengen would be reset. We could spend another 90 days in Europe to visit the places we want to see.

We wrote all these options on four pieces of paper and asked a fella from England to pick one of the options.

…… guess where we are going?