Friday October 24, 2014

We got up early to say goodbye to Jess and Hugo. Hugo left us a present – a little ceramic man, with grass seed in his head, that when watered would grow into \’hair\’. We took out the grass seed, I am sure Cuba would not be impressed with the organic material – watch out for Ugo in future photos.

As usual, I hate flying and do not talk much until we land.  Ralf for some reason is also nervous today, he said he just wants to get to the airport and have the bikes accepted on to the plane.  Then he will be able to relax.

Jess had booked us a taxi and when it showed up it was a car. The driver proceeded to load up the vehicle with the bikes and bags, then said only one passenger!! I suggested that I would get the train to the airport, but Ralf would hear none of that, so we ordered another taxi.

As usual with the bikes it takes a long time to get them checked in. Go to check-in weigh them, go to another counter to pay for them, back to check-in to prove they have been paid for, go to the oversized counter to load them. Bye Mrs SweetCheeks and Sweetcheeks – hope to see you in Havana in a few hours (12 hours)!! By the time all that was done and we had checked in through security it was 12:30, not too bad.  Nobody asked us how long we had been in Europe for!!

We are now officially on the way to Cuba, sitting at the airport, waiting for boarding.  Due to the lack of internet service or very slow connection, in Cuba, the blog will change format slightly. Although I will still write it every day for my own benefit, I will only be able to post once a week (maximum). It will have to be a week in review as opposed to a daily report. We will hopefully be able to post the pictures as well, we will have to see how long it takes to upload them.

Next installment – Cuba 🙂 and a final report on Spain – Part Two.

Thursday October 23, 2014

Jess and Hugo have been really generous allowing us to stay here until our flight.

When we got up this morning Hugo had bought us croissants and the Spanish version of pain au chocolat for breakfast. Ralf had mentioned last night during our conversations that he had really enjoyed the French croissants.

We have keys to their apartment and have been able to come and go as we please. We are leaving Spain on a high note, because of them and their friends who have welcomed us. Jess and I share something in common – we are both one of six children and oddly enough we are both the fifth of six. We are going to start our own club – “Five of Six”.

We were supposed to be seeing more of the City today, but we had to pack our bags and book a Casa Particular for the first couple of nights stay in Havana. We have moved stuff around a little, so that we are within the weight allowance for checked baggage. We also printed the Casa reservation confirmation, the Trip Insurance and our bank statement – that should have everything covered for Immigration and Customs in Cuba.

Again Jess was really kind and booked a taxi for us that will take us to the airport tomorrow.

We went out with Jess for our last night in Madrid for tapas and beers. I can really understand why young people love Madrid and Spain, it is a completely different way of life. Ralf and I left Jess and her friend at about 11:30 and went back to the apartment.

Wednesday October 23, 2014

After breakfast Ralf and I had fun dying my hair!! It is dark again, I like it – got rid of all of the grey!

We had a good walk around the City exploring the area around the Cathedral, Real Palace and gardens.  As we walked down a street I spotted a giant chair.

The Cathedral is relatively new – built in the 1800\’s.  It had spectacular doors.

Was I the only one who noticed that the ceiling of the cathedral had the Star of David symbol as part of the “decoration”? I asked a tour guide why the Star of David would be incorporated into a catholic church. He wasn’t sure but suggested it was an architectural addition, not of religious significance!

The gardens were very peaceful, even though they were only minutes away from a busy shopping area and the touristy Real Palace (Royal Palace).

We wandered down the Grand Avenue where all the expensive shops are and finally back to our temporary home. From my feelings of uneasiness when we first cycled down to this neighbourhood, it feels as if we belong in this area in an odd sense. Maybe it is the transient nature of the area, and that is what we are – just passing through.

Jess was working late.  We had a great chat to Hugo and then met up with Ruth and Jess for Tapas and drinks. I am still not sure I could get used to the late nights and eating habits, but “when in Rome . . .”  We weren\’t home too late (just after midnight).

Tuesday October 21, 2014

Another business and planning day. After breakfast, I tried to book the flights online. I wasn’t successful, because I could not confirm the bicycles on the booking form. There was no point calling the airline, because my Spanish is still not good enough to arrange the bikes. After siesta we headed to the travel agent and booked our flights, it was easier than trying to negotiate the website and we have confirmation that the bikes are reserved on the plane. We fly to Cuba on Friday October 24, 2014 at 3:00 pm.

I also decided to get a hair cut and Ralf will colour my hair tomorrow. Nice hair-cut, it should last me the 3 months in Cuba.

We cooked dinner for Jess and Hugo and a friend (Helena) came round later. We played a game involving yes and no, if the person to your right said yes you had to turn to the person next to you and say yes, you could switch directions by saying no to the person who had said yes or name the person directly opposite you who could start the yes or no from either direction. It was very funny as we also decided to switch languages and use Spanish, even funnier.

Again, at about 10:30pm Jess and friends went out, we were invited along and we did consider it, but decided we would go out tomorrow night instead.

Tomorrow we will enjoy the city.

Monday October 20, 2014

We had a lovely lie-in and after breakfast we planned our day. Bike boxes, book flights, laundry and pack, all business today.

We left the apartment a little late 11:30 and found the first bike shop. Hendrik, was the other warmshowers host who had said he could host us and he worked at the bike co-op. We asked if he had any boxes that we could pack the bikes in. They didn’t really sell bikes – it was more a workshop and courier business. However, he called the other bike shop and arranged for us to pick up a couple of boxes.

Off we went to the other bike shop and got there just as they were closing for siesta, they offered us two very large boxes. We decided to go back to the apartment to check on the size of the bikes and the airline restriction on the size of boxes we could ship.

After lunch and some grocery shopping we headed out to an outdoor store, travel agent and the bike shop. The travel agent would charge us a commission of E150 to book the flights, but needed to call the airline to confirm the price for shipping the bikes. I decided to try and book it myself online.

What did we accomplish at the end of the day: – we got two bike boxes.

I also had a long chat with Joy on Skype, which was good. She was feeling a little down, as her recovery is slower than she was expecting.

Sunday October 19, 2014

We were at the car hire place at 9:30 and confirmed where we could drop the van off in Madrid. He had told us one place but we knew we couldn’t get the van in the underground parking area. He called another office in Madrid at a train station and that is where we could leave the van.

Our route took us back towards Malaga – 3^rd time along this stretch of the coastline! Then headed north towards Granada and Madrid. It was a long drive (668 kms), hilly and scenic in places. I am glad we didn’t have to cycle over the mountain ranges we crossed. There were a few camping places, but most of them were only accessible from the highway or motorway, which we would not have been allowed to use with our bicycles.

We eventually arrived at the train station in Madrid at about 7:30pm. We had called Jess (warmshowers) to let her know we would be later than expected and then negotiated our way down very busy streets in Madrid to her place.

Jess lives in a very interesting part of Madrid and at first glance it was a little unnerving. Dark, narrow streets full of a multitude of ethnicities. If we hadn’t had to go down these streets to find where we were staying, I am sure we would have avoided this area like the plague.

It has a large immigrant population and turns out to be a great place to live, small plazas with bars and restaurants, a really lively night-life and a diversity that is incredibly interesting.

Once we had met Jess and her roommate Ugo, who had been waiting for us to arrive, they asked if we would like to join them as they were going out. We desperately needed to eat something, and asked if there would be Tapas. They indicated there would be, but there was a great Senagalise restaurant next door, we could eat in or take-out. We declined their offer of going for drinks and headed for the restaurant.

We had a really nice inexpensive fish dinner with a couple of beers. We loved sitting there watching the people – black, white, brown, coming and going chatting in a variety of languages.

The front of the apartment faces the street and can be quite noisy, our bedroom is at the back and is very quiet. We got back to the apartment and had a great nights sleep.

Saturday October 18, 2014

A complete change of plan!! I hadn’t been completely happy about the decision to go to Morocco, but was ready for the adventure. However, last night there was a comment on the Blog from my sister Joy, which made me think twice about our decision (Comment Gibraltar to Castilla la Duquesa). This morning I received a comment on the Blog from my friend, Celeste about the Ebola crisis in West Africa that made me think again about the decision (Comment Malaga).

I asked Ralf where he would have chosen to go if Vincent (the English fella) hadn’t picked Morocco. He said he would have chosen Cuba and then the southern tier of the States. I would have picked the same thing.

We decided then and there to get a refund on the ferry and work out how to get to Madrid and fly to Cuba.  We only had 6 minutes to make it to the booking office to get a refund.  When we got to the booking office, we marched in with a purpose and told him we needed to cancel our tickets.  He called the ferry company and I could hear him saying something about the bicycles and then said No Cancellation.  I thought we may have to forfeit 20% of the fee but no refund at all was going to be a bit much to take.  I told him and showed him on the ticket two hours before ferry  we can cancel.  No cancellation, he said and then proceeded to get the 42 Euros from his cash drawer and give it to me.  A full refund, very confusing, obviously something lost in translation.

We went to the train station – we could get as far as Granada on the slow train tomorrow and then cycle the rest of the way to Madrid, which would take us about 8 days, we only have 10 days left on Ralf’s Shengen visa. (What visa Ralf says.)

We could get a fast train to Madrid tomorrow, but the bikes need to be boxed. There is no specialty bike shop in Algeciras and the only place that sold bikes was a SuperStore and the lady we spoke to didn’t have the authority to sell us empty bike boxes.

We can’t get out of the southern Spain for trying.

We decided to sit and have some lunch and review our options. Our staple lunch choice has been ham and cheese sandwiches, mainly because we know how to say ham and cheese in Spanish! However, today we were sitting at a Moroccan restaurant (in Algeciras) and Ralf ordered ham and cheese. The look on the waiter’s face was one of pure horror. No ham he said and then pointed to the restaurant, Moroccan. Ralf looked at me and then it dawned on him – Moroccan – muslim no pork! He always gives me good writing material.

We rented a van and will be driving the 668 k\’s to Madrid tomorrow. We will spend a few days in Madrid to arrange flights and pack the bikes into boxes.

Throughout our travels through southern Spain we have been unable to stay at a warmshowers host, no responses from our email requests. As soon as we head north again, we have responses from two warmshowers hosts and tomorrow we will stay at a warmshowers who will allow us to stay for the few days it will take us to arrange our flights etc. Thanks Jess.

Friday October 17, 2014

A long day of cycling, but not too bad. We cycled for about 20 kms on the highway to Estepone then after following the signs to the A7, we somehow found ourselves on the AP7 – the motorway. We came off at the next exit and followed the coastal road for about 10 kms. As we cycled along this section, seeing all the holiday makers, I wished we could spend a week on a beach relaxing.  Although I really enjoy the cycling, seeing all these people on holiday made me want to take a week of, lie on a beach, drink sangrias and not have to think about visas, routes, where we are going to sleep the next night or  anything else.  I could even read a book.  Take the time to build sandcastles!

We have cycled this way before going in the opposite direction, but on this side of the highway it seemed as if the shoulder was wider, it was easier going in the opposite direction. It wasn’t too bad, but it did get very hot. I remembered the service road from SotoGrande into La Linea, but we definitely had more climbs going this way.

When we arrived in La Linea we tried to find the coastal road from La Linea to Algericas because I didn’t want to cycle over the hills again.   We couldn\’t find it and when we asked for directions, we were told it was all motorway and we had to go over the hills. As we came into La Roque we stopped into the train station and discovered we could take a train into Algeciras. We had to wait for a couple of hours, but it would have taken us an hour and a half to cycle, and at least we were out of the sun. When the train arrived it had a ramp that came out that matched up with the platform and we could wheel our bikes onto the train, no lifting our bikes up two big steps.

We arrived into Algeciras and booked the ferry to Morocco, we leave tomorrow at noon. We ate out last meal in Spain at a Moroccan restaurant and learned how to say thank-you – shukran and hello – Salam.

We are staying at the same hotel as last time. The owner recognized us, we are in the same room.

We have registered on the Canadian and UK travel alerts, so we will know if we should leave the country, due to the ongoing Ebola crisis or national elections which can get violent.

As we get ready for the next part of the adventure, we are listening to a fog horn over the Straits. It is quite foggy tonight, hope it has cleared by the morning.

Thursday October 16, 2014

Our hostel in Malaga cost us E20 per night because we were in a 10 bed dorm. Our first and second nights were not too bad. There was only Ralf and I and a couple of other people sharing the room and it was relatively quiet.

Last night however, when we returned to our room after dinner we discovered a pile of clothing that belonged to two very smelly young men, the clothes smelled as if they had not seen the laundry in months. We also had two other young men sharing the room. At two o’clock in the morning the door opened and one drunken young man came back in the room, disturbing my sleep by banging the door and turning the bathroom light on. At four o’clock the other three came in. One of them put a “head light” on – these are supposed to direct the light and not bother room mates. However, when you are drunk you have no idea where that bloody light is shining.  His head was bobbing about all over the place and consequently so was the light, I felt as if I was watching some strange light show.  The second one, opened the bathroom door, the fridge door and opened the curtain so that he could see what he was doing. The third one, his head hit the pillow and he proceeded to snore loudly.

I didn’t get a solid nights sleep. I do have ear plugs, but the constant light show kept me awake. The pay-back is when we got up at 7:30 am and I must admit I wasn’t quiet. Usually we are very considerate of our room mates, if we are sharing a dorm.  However, I opened the curtain and did not worry how loud my shower was or getting the bags packed. Velcro and zips can make a lot of noise, if you let them.  We even went down for breakfast and then came back upstairs to get the bags, what goes around comes around!

We left the hostel at 9:45 rather late, but we had decided to take the regional train as far as Fuengirola and then cycle to Marbella or further. The train was very good, what a shame they couldn’t have more regional trains that we could use.

Fuengirola was the end of the line, we had lunch there and then carried on our ride. Today it seemed as if every time we stopped people asked us questions. At lunch, a very nice lady (Francine) from Quebec/Vancouver talked to us. She had come to Spain for 3 months to learn Spanish. She had such a positive attitude about her time in Spain – she had joined a movie club, to better understand Spanish and had very recently joined a book club, which she said was much more difficult, but she was enjoying the challenge. What a lovely lady and she was really enthusiastic about our trip it really boosted our spirits. Another Canadian stopped and chatted to us for a while.

We arrived in Marbella, around 2:00 pm and I decided to get new brake pads installed.  I figured with over 12,000ks on the old set it was about time.  Last time we were in Marbella we met an Irish fella who told us about a cycle path from Marbella to San Pedro. I asked at the bike shop about the bicycle path and he said there wasn\’t one.  We cycled along the boardwalk for a while and then stopped in at the Tourism Office, he told us there was a cycle trail we could follow.  It was a hard-packed, wide trail, very easy to cycle as it was dry, I don\’t think we could have used it if it had rained recently.

As we cycled along the boardwalk out of Marbella towards San Pedro, a Belgium couple spoke to us. As we arrived in the suburbs of San Pedro, Ralf stopped to take a photo and a group of people stopped to chat to him.

We also got friendly toots from car drivers and a Bravo from an old guy on the side of the road.

I was a little concerned about our decision (or should I say Vincent’s decision) to head to Morocco, but I think with all the positive comments today and the encouragements, maybe it is a good decision after all.

There are no camp sites in San Pedro, so we are staying in a cheap hotel. Early start tomorrow and maybe we will be close to Morocco tomorrow night.

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?