Day 90 - "Holidays from Hell"

Transcript here:

Day 90 holiday from hell

Saturday your Sunday and the Spanish Government has started to talk about how they envisage foreign visitors coming to the country, the first lot will turn up on Monday, they are Germans coming to the Balearic Islands.

 

Interestingly about 35,000 people travelled to Spain in May, whilst not holidaymakers, they were mainly people returning back to Spain for work or back to their residency.

 

From all those who travelled, 104 people were detected to have Corona Virus.

 

But in a couple of weeks the onslaught will begin, instead of personnel there will be automatic heat detector cameras, inline health declarations, this will only apply to people arriving by sea and air.  If you drive into the country, there will be no health checks.

 

But as we know people lie on health declarations, they do it all the time with travel insurance, and how do you track and trace hundreds of thousands of visitors into the country?

 

I am not sure that will be possible. For us we are probably going to stay away from the beaches and bars, at least for the moment.

 

For the all-important tourist industry, the spring was a disaster, a complete standstill, nobody went anywhere, saw anything and it is highly likely that, that will continue into the summer.

 

Only half of the hotels in Spain will open and most of them will only be at 25% capacity.  As I have mentioned in previous Podcasts, tourism represents more than 12% of Spain’s GDP.

 

The Industry want some kind official map of safe areas to travel in Europe that will allow travel corridors, I am not sure that any area is really safe. Also, you are going to have to ask yourself can I trust the airline. How safe will the hotel be? If there is a virus outbreak, will I end up being trapped in Spain unable to return home?  Airports are fairly unpleasant places not, what will they be like with all the virus prevention measures?

 

Personally, I have no plans to travel at the moment, we are discouraging friends and relatives from travelling this year too.

 

It is not all bleak news, there will be intrepid folk who will see this as an opportunity.  An opportunity to explore and see tourist sites normally rammed with coach parties and other tourists.

 

The Spanish themselves will probably come to the coast, so far, fingers crossed, the social distancing on the beach is working well, helped by the Lifeguards and security staff employed by the Local Government to ensure beach safety.

 

The new normal is embracing face masks, alcohol cleaner and reducing surfaces and objects that get touched a lot.  All the restaurants here are using chalk board menus or telling you is on offer.  No sticky menus and special of the day cards.

 

Our Gym also opens on Monday, there are a raft of health measures and social distancing happening.  Studios are marked out for distance, entry is strictly by booking a class, use of masks and alcohol cleaner at the point of entry to the class is obligatory.  But you don’t need to wear your mask when you are in position in your marked square.

 

Exercise equipment has been re-spaced to reflect the 1.5 metre rule for distancing and cleaner is to be used on all equipment.  The use of a towel is also obligatory, it was before.  I am not a fan of grubby towels; I prefer disposable tissues and cleaner before and after I use an exercise machine.

 

Towels don’t kill bacteria or viruses but do mop up the sweat. We will go on Monday, Chris is teaching a class, it will be interesting to see how many turn up and what the overall experience will be like.

 

Saturday afternoon and Carmen is coming, or rather we are going to pick her up from Alcampo after I collect my glasses, hoping there will be no dramas collecting them, I have waited patiently for nearly three months for them.  Currently I am writing this with a pair of one Euro reading specs from the pound shop, which is far from perfect.

 

I do worry that we all bang on about the new normal, but that it doesn’t actually exists and that the virus is still out there waiting.  I don’t even know if I have the virus and was asymptomatic, I bet you don’t either.

 

New glasses but no fitting service, they were just inched over a sanitised mat and I was given a card to read from, in Spanish of course.  We were early so shopped in Alcampo, no gloves just alcohol dispensed from an automatic machine. 

 

The shelves were looking healthier, no police tape sealing off the things you could not buy, I am still wondering who made a list that you could buy a TV but not a book.

 

We saw Carmen and we drove her back home to hand over the car.  Some refreshments and a bowl of Tyrrells Crisps, “Oh my god, I forgotten how good British salt and vinegar crisps taste,” She said. The Spanish supermarkets are not very adventurous in the crisp flavours.  I notice that quite a few Spanish like Pipa’s – they are just sunflower seeds that they eat spiting the husks out into a nearby handy ashtray.

 

The day ended with Carmen disappearing into the distance with our old car. Tomorrow as story of the Playboy King of Spain and why a little beach below the estate got Royal Approval.

 

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