Blog Zero: Edinburgh to Málaga

Malaga and Cordoba – 28/03-06/04/25

For my first post-70 trip – 70 years and 2 days to be exact – we decide to fly to Málaga, have a night in a hotel close to the railway station, then take the high speed AVE train to Cordoba the next morning, then a taxi to an apartment near the old centre of the city. Simple!
Any flight with Ryanair guarantees cramped conditions, complicated on this occasion by the airline having overbooked the flight, and ask for 6 people to step down and take up an offer of Euros 350 plus a free hotel, if their amended journey required it – would have been quite tempting if we’d been on a longer trip with time to spare.
The Priority Boarding queue snakes round the gate out of sight whilst the normal boarding section has about a dozen people in it – kind of defeats the point of Priority Boarding really.
When we get on the plane, some bloke insists that he has the same seat number as Fiona. We ignore him, pack away our hand luggage and occupy the seats. He looks put out. Just before we depart, he taps her on the shoulder and admits that he’d been looking at his return ticket.
A number of older men, en route to a stag night in Torremolinos, skip into the huge queue in front of us. We let it go as we’re in the front row anyway, so why bother.
Towards the end of a cramped but uneventful flight, we come in from the sea towards Malaga airport. The plane prepares to land but the pilot abruptly aborts and starts to gain height again. He makes an announcement in rapid English and Spanish.
The flight attendant, who is sitting facing us, tells Fiona not to worry, it is quite routine. This is because, she tells me later, she is looking horrified. Due to the engine noise and our impaired hearing because of the pressure changes, she thinks the pilot has chosen not to land “at this location.” I hear him say “on this occasion!”
We go inland in a holding pattern for about 20 minutes, then head back out to sea to begin the approach again. The plane loses height and we feel the landing gear engage. The pilot announces cabin staff to landing positions, The sun glistens off the sea below us.
At this point, one of the stag night grandads appears beside my seat. He is very agitated – he tells the flight attendant that he has to use the toilet beside the cockpit as he has prostate issues and is about to wet himself. The attendant tells him this is impossible and yells at him to return to his seat immediately.
The bloke brushes past him and runs into the toilet. The attendant holds the toilet door open and yells at him that we have two minutes before this landing will also have to be aborted. He counts down to 30 seconds when the guy emerges, apologises profusely, and returns to his seat.
We make the approach and land as softly as any landing we’ve experienced in years.
When we arrive at the stand for our plane, the doors eventually open and I spy 5 Guardia Civil Officers on the tarmac. The man with the dicky prostate is handed a form, grabs his hand baggage, and descends from the plane. He is promptly arrested.
We descend the rickety stairs and walk to the terminal. Fiona discovers that she has left her new jacket on the plane. She has to go back and wait until the last passenger has disembarked before the jacket can be returned to her.
We walk for miles and are the last passengers into the baggage reclaim area. There are two suitcases circulating on the carousel. One case is Fiona’s. All sorts of potential inconveniences spring to mind before she spots my case, which has fallen off the carousel and is lying in the space between the curves of the machinery. Fiona has to shin up and over the luggage carousel and retrieve my case from the middle of the equipment.
We walk to the trains and catch one into the main train station in Málaga. 5 minutes walk takes us to the Eurostars Hotel.

It’s a beautifully sunny 23 degrees in Málaga. We get to our room, which is at 26 degrees, and switch on the A/C. The temperature goes up to 27. Turns out this hotel recognises only 2 seasons – summer and winter. We are currently on the winter cycle so no air conditioning, only heating, is available.
We try to use the room safe – it doesn’t work. We complain about both issues. No solution is available for the a/c, other than a fan, which I have to request. The batteries are replaced in the safe. We put our valuables in and lock it according to the instructions. It refuses to open again.

Fairly comprehensively pissed off, we head out to a small local restaurant that Fiona has identified, 10 minutes walk away, and enjoy the luxury of sitting outside at 8:30pm.
You know how sometimes you imagine how something you’ve never eaten before will look from the menu description, but when it arrives it is much less appetising? Well that wasn’t the case at El Encuentro.
Fried eggs on a bed of fries, topped with discs of morcilla (black pudding), raisins and honey – absolutely delicious. Fi had a lovely piece of sea bream (dorada) which she reckons is one of the best meals she’s had since her issues began. Three rounds of beers and copas de tinto, bread and breadsticks, plus two complimentary liqueurs – total bill £40.
In a much better mood, we return to the hotel, and decide to leave battling with the room safe until the morning!