We went out earlier this afternoon on our hired motorbike. It seemed quiet on the streets, but it's Sunday and today's the first day since we arrived when overcast conditions have persisted into the afternoon, so I didn't read anything unusual into it. The sky's clearing up now, and it looks like it'll be a nice evening as usual.
We rode up to the east side of Los Cristianos, near to where all the motorhomes park up for the night, and went onto the rocks for a spot of fishing. We've been there a few times in the last couple of weeks, and many times during previous trips here - this time, we've seen motorhomes registered in many other countries, and from as far away as Scandinavia and Bulgaria.
A few other people were around, walking on the beaches or clambering over the rocks, but we were the only ones fishing today.
We'd been there for a couple of hours when my wife noticed a pair of police officers gesticulating from the car parking area, but we were a couple of hundred metres away and couldn't hear them above the sound of the waves, so we just ignored them. Anyway, I had an idea what they might have wanted from reading the news last night ...
But eventually they ambled over, and told us in broken English that we shouldn't be out on the streets and that everyone has to stay indoors for the next two weeks, under an emergency mandate made by the government in mainland Spain. They were warning people today, but will be arresting them from tomorrow !
So we packed up and left, and returned to the hotel. On the way, we saw the local and national police were out stopping cars at the roadside and explaining the situation, and a few police cars were also driving around the streets broadcasting loudspeaker messages to the Spanish population.
Some of the bars and restaurants here had started closing-up yesterday, but since we take our meals in the hotel then that side of things wasn't likely to affect us too much.
Anyway, we're basically confined to barracks for potentially the next nine days. Apparently we can go out to pharmacies and supermarkets, but that's about it.
But at least we've had some sort of holiday, there are poor sods that just arrived in this hotel yesterday evening.
It does seem a bit of a case of overkill to confine everyone to their hotels, especially when you're probably talking about tourists making up half the current population of this part of the island. I mean, this isn't Madrid.
At the time we first arrived, the H10 Costa Adeje Palace hotel out towards Caleta was in quarantine, and when we rode past a few times there were roadblocks on the access road and a permanent police presence outside, but the barriers and police had been removed in the last few days, so I thought the situation had stabilised in the Canaries.
I think both staff and guests at the hotels, and there are hundreds of them around here, are at much more risk from all being confined together in one building than to be allowed to wander around the beaches etc. The only time we're ever within touching distance of other people is in the hotel eatery. We've never seen the maid who cleans the room, which is always done when we're out. And just sitting around a hotel pool doesn't appeal to us at all, so we've never done that, although it might now be the only entertainment available for the rest of the holiday !
When we're at the beaches we never sit closer than around 10 metres to others, and when we're fishing the distance is even greater. Although it's friendly enough, the only real communication is a thumbs-up when someone lands a decent fish.
So it looks like we're stuck in here until the travel company gets us out, which might even be on the planned return date.
To be fair, I'm sure there are many worse places to be marooned - we've a decent-sized apartment and a balcony that gets the sun all day.
And while we've been out here, I've been doing some paid work in the mornings, so there should be enough to keep me occupied. The hotel wi-fi is crap, but tethering the laptop to the mobile phone works really well.
I just hope I don't get so bored I end up over-trading on the stock markets !
Update 19-Mar-20
Well, we arrived home in the early hours of this morning. The travel company had laid on extra flights
to return people to the UK earlier than scheduled , because it seems that the Spanish government is to order the closure of all hotels shortly, but the
flight we returned on landed at a different UK airport to the one from which we'd departed.
They'd intended to lay-on buses back to everyone's departure airports,
but things evidently weren't going as planned and the buses were nowhere to be seen. It was all very chaotic and after more than a couple of hours of hanging around, by which
time it was well after midnight, it seemed very unlikely to me that buses would
arrive before normal working hours this morning. We didn't fancy a night in the airport foyer,
so we just took a (very expensive !) taxi home.
Sometime in the next day or two, I'll need to take the bus/train/train
route to our 'local' airport and collect our car, but at least the parking's
paid for until our original planned return date next week.
Anyway, all's well, and we're happy enough to be home for a while in these unusual times ...
No comments:
Post a Comment