Travel Diary 06/22 Part Four

05.06.
01:34 Time for me to leave this place. I’m on my way to the airport and thinking about the good time I had here. Even though it was a short stay, it had the perfect length for me to do what I wanted and to discover some new spots. Portugal really is a beautiful country to visit. Having friends here makes it even better. And that really is a great thing about travelling. You meet new people wherever you go – especially when you’re by yourself and some of them become friends. I feel lucky that I’m living in a time where it’s possible to stay in contact with people from all over the world. I wouldn’t want to miss that.

06:17 I’m sitting at the airport of Lisbon and this is a moment where I can really shed some light to the dark side of travelling cheap. So first of all I did not sleep so far because after my dinner it was time to pack my things and go to the train station. My flight will be at 07:30 but public transport had the last train at night at 01:30 and the next one in the morning was scheduled too late to arrive at the airport on time. At the Cais du Sodre station I had to change to a bus. There were so many people at the bus stop it was unbelievable. Like it was rush hour. When the bus finally came I literally had to fight my way into the bus because there wasn’t enough space for all of us. Two other things happened. When I left the train and wanted to check where the bus stop was my phone wasn’t working anymore. Immediately I started to feel some panic. At first I thought it would work a few minutes later because it happened before but only maximum for a minute or so. But this time it was different. No matter what I did my phone didn’t do a thing. But I couldn’t think about this properly because I needed to find my bus. I asked a bus driver and he showed me the right bus. When I was on the bus and still waiting for it to leave two guys started fistfighting outside at the bus stop. At some point they stopped and I didn’t look all the time but next thing I see is two police officers holding the black guy who was in the fistfight down aggressively. Me and all other passengers looked a little shocked through the window. I saw a man pulling out his phone and filming the situation. It felt weird to watch this knowing I couldn’t do a thing. They kept on holding him down even though I couldn’t see that the guy was being very aggressive. Even the white guy who he fistfighted with shouted at the police men and even tried to get them off the black guy. So one of the officers started holding the white guy back. Eventually the white guy stopped and just kept on shouting and yelling at the police officers to make them stop. I didn’t see the whole story but watching this felt so wrong. It made me feel very uncomfortable and gave me a helpless feeling. Was this really happening because of his skin colour? Or did something serious happen, something I didn’t see. I’d like to think it was the latter because otherwise this was so wrong in so many ways and I don’t know how to deal with that. Were those officers abusing their power? Or were they just doing their job? That thoughts really made me sick.
At some point the bus finally left the station but this scenes will probably never leave my mind.
On the way to the airport I had another problem to deal with: my phone. It seems ridiculous and I honestly don’t care about the phone itself but about the documents it holds, starting with my boarding pass. I had no doubt that I would get a new one at the airport counter but there were other documents too. All my flight details, my GetYourGuide tickets, my trip itinerary, etc. Literally everything that I needed. Ok. Panic is getting stronger. Then again my much-needed second voice started to speak. How can I manage this situation? Ok. The easiest thing are the boarding passes. I can get them at every airport. Next my GetYourGuide tickets. I might be able to print them out at the hostel when I log into my email account. But how do I find the pick-up spots for the tours? I guess I’m gonna have to ask at the hostel and use a map like in the old days. But how can the tour guide call me if there are any changes? Well, that part is tricky but I could just hope that there wouldn’t be any changes. My photos and my Social Media accounts are not that important for this trip and can be recovered at home. The only thing that’s left is my concert tickets in London. They are in my AXS app and can only be accessed via the app. I’m definitely not getting out of this one. So what could I do? First idea, that crosses my mind is I could call my sister (I’d have to ask somebody to lend me their phone) and tell her that she has to send me my old phone via express mail to my hostel. But earliest she could do would be Monday morning and it would have to arrive at Wednesday to be on time because my flight to London would be Thursday. So that won’t work. The only thing that’s left is to buy a new phone. I mean obviously I’ll go to a phone store first thing to see if they can fix my actual phone but if they can’t I’ll have to buy a new one. It’s money I currently don’t have but I really don’t see another way. I guess I just have to buy the cheapest one and will try to sell it when sorting it all out at home. I don’t like this but it doesn’t look like there is any other way. And how do I get from Málaga airport to my hostel? I can’t check public transport without my phone and I also can’t call an Uber without my phone. That leaves me with taking a taxi. But what about the adress? Luckily I remembered the name of the hostel so I hope the driver will either know it or be able to look it up at Google Maps.
So that’s all sorted out so far. The other thing is that it’s Sunday today and I highly doubt that a phone shop will be open. So I guess today I’ll have to live without it.
All of that thinking and panicking made me more tired than I already was. I sat down and closed my eyes for a little while. Maybe I can lay down somewhere. I’ll just set the alert for… Oh wait. My phone is not working. Shit. I have to stay awake. I hope at the hostel they’ll have the possibility to wake me up. I just realised that I booked a full-day tour for Monday and Tuesday so how can I go into a phone store? Maybe at my Monday Gibraltar tour we’ll have some free time and I can look for a phone store there. I’ll see. For now I’m on the plane and realising I’m so fucking tired my eyes almost fall asleep while writing this. So time for me to sleep.

21:05 I’m sitting on a catamaran and have to laugh. How the people fall for the good old tourist tricks. The guy on the boat came to a group of girls next to me and said: “So this is the time where I serve you drinks from the bar. What would you like?” They ordered some drinks and after he served them he told them how much they had to pay. Obviously they thought the drinks were for free. Haha.
This day was nothing but exhausting. When I arrived at Málaga airport I had to find my way without my phone. I was almost crying because I haven’t slept for almost 24 hours and now I couldn’t go straight to rest but had to sort this out first. I asked for help and an airport worker looked the adress for my hostel up and told me that an electronic store was open nearby. I went their and when I wanted to show the guy what my problem was my phone was actually working again! I couldn’t believe this! After this emotional rolercoaster I didn’t feel anything. Not even relieved because I didn’t trust it. Anyway I asked him to change my hammer glass and he did. Afterwards I took a taxi to my hostel because it was only 3km away. At the hostel I had to unlock the front door with a code which was again on my phone. I tried to access it but the display was black again. I couldn’t belive this. So I took the taxi back to the electronic store only to let the guy ask me if I turned it on. I was such an idiot! I forgot that the guy turned my phone off when he switched the hammer glass!! So again I went back to the hostel and finally entered. After resting a bit I headed to Málaga city center for the flamenco show I booked in advance. It was great to watch and Flamenco is a very interesting cultural dance. After that I rested again and then started my catamaran sunset tour which I also booked beforehand. This one was absolutely beautiful though it was nothing like the picture it was advertised with. At the picture it looked like a small boat with only a handful of people but it actually was a big boat with over 100 people on it .
One thing I experienced through all of that is jow dependent we are on our phones. I wouldn’t say we rely on them but these days everything is built on mobile access. Which in my opinion is a good thing because you don’t need to carry hundreds of papers but only as long as your phone is working. Otherwise my situation showed that you’re screwed without it.
Another thing I found out is that I should never book tours or events on the day I arrive somewhere. You can never know what happens – your flight could be delayed etc. But if you’re already exhausted and then you have to deal with extra stuff you’re definitely not in a mood for doing activities. So my advice to others and to me is don’t book early flights if possible and don’t book activities on the day of your arrival.

06.06.
12:27 Last night’s boat tour had an amzing sunset view. After my super exhausting day it was so nice to end it like that. I really enjoyed it. When the boat tour was over I went back to my hostel and arrived about midnight. Soon enough I feel asleep.
This morning I had to get up very early at 5:45 to get to the city center on time for my prebooked tour only to find out later that they would have stopped closer to my hostel anyway 🙈🙈 Apparently I did not fully check the details and I remember when I booked I was doing something else at the same time which was a mistake. So just a friendly reminder when you book something don’t do anything additionally at the same time.
The bus drove a long and I have to say I was very surprised how many stops they made. I checked the details again and it said only to be three stops but actually there were about ten and in one city even every 200m which was ridiculous. I booked this tour because at the other tour the reviews said that there were so many stops the journey took forever. So I really was upset that this tour was not like advertised. Also at the last stop the bus was completely full, a guy who took up more than one seat was sitting next to me which made the rest of the drive very uncomfortable. I’m not the thinnest either but given the money that I paid and considering the fact that a global pandemic was happening they really overdid it. There were many couples who couldn’t sit together due to the lack of space. Seemed to me that the organisers only care about money, not about comfortness for customers which was a shame.
The other thing that bothered me was that I really tried to sleep but there were always interruptions. First all the stops and later the guide started talking which would have been fine if she didn’t translate every sentence into four languages. Honestly when I book a tour I expect it to be in English. So basically she was talking all the way and made it impossible for me to sleep.
Finally after almost 4 hours we arrived at Gibraltar. I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t this. The town was nothing special at all with lot of trash on the streets. First I wanted to find a cafe at the port but there simply wasn’t one and there was also no way to walk along the port. So after asking some locals I headed to the center of the town where all the other tourists went and it was very crowded. I managed to find a little restaurant off the tourist tracks and finally enjoyed some food.
Then it was time for the rock tour which is the main reason for people to come to Gibraltar. Let’s see how that will be.

**Note: Some of my texts might seem to end abruptly that is because sometimes interruptions happen. Like my train is coming or my flight is ready for boarding etc.

16:21 The tour had ended and we’re on our way back to Málaga. I have to admit this was the most disappointing tour I’ve ever paid money for. When I booked the “Rock Tour” I thought we would go up the rock and be on top of it and I expected it to be a hike. That wasn’t the case at all. At first we were devided in two groups and drove to a spot with a nice view to Marocco and Spain. The stop was 15 minutes. Then we drove up the rock but only about half of it and stopped at a cave. We stopped there 25 minutes to watch a light show in the case. I have to be honest here any other cave I’ve been in was more interesting than this one. After that we already drove back down with one more stop at a view point. Another 10 minutes and we were already taken back to our main bus and made our way back to Málaga.
So what can I say? I’m sure Gibraltar is a nice place and I saw a cable car that’s going up the rock. So if you ever visit Gibraltar do yourself a favor and rent a car instead of booking a tour. This makes you much more flexible and gives you the opportunity to truly discover nice places.