Lessons learned from my recent trip to Málaga

1.       When flying with Ryan air, be sure to print your boarding pass prior to your arrival at the airport. If you are like my friend Lea and you forget, you will pay a 70€ fine for them to print it for you.

2.       Never attach your camera to your wrist with a hair band while riding on a banana boat. You WILL lose your camera.

3.       If you decide to have a relaxing massage on the beach, be sure to thoroughly rinse off all excess oil from your body if you plan on sun bathing.  Disregard this warning if you want to look like a crispy piece of bacon.

4.       Avoid going on tours with large groups. You will have no freedom to explore, and will end up spending the majority of your tour on a bus.

5.       Never slowly massage a sea cucumber while diving, unless you are prepared for what will happen. Make sure you take a pregnancy test once you return from your vacation.

6.       Never attempt to eat a plum, or any food for that matter, while visiting the monkey’s on the rock of Gibraltar.  They are assholes and will attack you.

7.       Last but not least, be sure to check your return flight and not assume you know the take off time. You never want to find yourself with an hour and a half drive to the airport with an hour and a half until your flight departs. If, for some reason you find yourself in this situation, be sure to choose the most aggressive driver in your group (Lea), hold on tight, and pray.

Ryan Air

The world of Ryan Air is a very special one. Yes, they offer unbeatable deals to the unknown eye when all one see’s is the price next to the flight. What you do not see if you have never flown with them before, are the layers of trickery that lay beneath the surface. Now I will admit that they have gotten better. My first few trips, there were no seat assignments which made boarding the aircraft a free for all where you risk getting trampled in the stampede if you are not careful. The entire flight was one big advertisement, and you were only allowed one bag (that means no purses for the ladies). To check baggage is highway robbery, and the carry on allotments left a person with one pair of underwear and the clothes on their back for the duration of their vacation. Not to mention that if you are traveling from Germany, do not assume that Frankfurt Hahn is anywhere close to Frankfurt. It is literally hours away in the middle of nowhere.

However, Ryan Air has moved forward recently into a more civilized company with seat assignments and two carry ons (although the sizes of these are still pretty limited). Where they still get you is if you make any type of mistake.  My dear friend Lea made a mistake.

After an amazing trip to Malta, Annie, Lea and I decided that we would have one last hurrah together before Lea moved back to the states. We knew we wanted to go somewhere warm and spend at least one day scuba diving. We originally were looking at Egypt but with the current state of affairs, we decided against it. Annie found a great deal into Málaga, Spain with Ryan air and we booked it immediately. We noticed that there was quite a lot to do there, other than just hang out on the beach. Day trips into Tangier, Morocco were offered, and Gibraltar was only an hour and a half away.

Our flight was scheduled to leave out of Frankfurt Hahn at 0630 on Friday morning. With Ryan Air, at least for non EU members (not sure exactly how it is for EU passport holders), you need a customs stamp BEFORE you can go through security. How it works, is that you print out your boarding pass and bring it with you to the airport. At the Ryan Air counter, you just need to show your passport and boarding pass and they will give you the stamp. It is a pretty easy process, unless you forget your boarding pass.

Lea was having difficulty printing hers before hand, and showed up at Hahn hoping to just get one printed at the airport. This, my friends, is not a good idea. As I mentioned before, Ryan Air will punish you if you do anything out of the ordinary, like forget to bring your boarding pass. They will print one out for you, but it will cost you 70€. First lesson learned from our trip.

Getting ready for our flight

 



The Banana Boat

I mentioned in my post about Malta that I am afraid of sharks and the main reason for this being the banana boat attack during the movie “Jaws: The Revenge.”  Our first day in Málaga was spent on the beach, relaxing in the sun and drinking copious amounts of Sangria from the beach bar.

The more Sangria we put in our system, the more Annie and Lea harassed me about my shark fear. About 200 meters down the beach was a stand that offered banana boat rides  for 8€ per person, and the girls were pressuring me to go.

“It is time to conquer your fears” they both screamed, while laughing about how funny it would be if I died in a shark attack.

Four pitchers of Sangria later I decided that I would be able to kick a sharks ass if it attempted to attack, and bowed to the peer pressure of riding on the banana boat. We walked over to the stand and got in line. Annie has an underwater camera that we all decided, in our drunken state, would be fantastic out in the middle of the ocean. Knowing full well that we could eventually be thrown off the boat, Annie decided to tether the camera around a hair band on her wrist. What could go wrong?

We boarded the boat (me in the middle since jaws likes to eat the girls on the back) and headed out into the great blue sea. Our groups of riders were pretty coordinated, and we leaned into every turn, to the boat driver’s dismay.  If he couldn’t toss us off, then the ride was a failure. So he began to drive more aggressively, turning in one direction, then turning hard in the other. We flew off the banana and crashed into the water. When I surfaced, I looked over at Annie who was yelling “My camera!! Damn it! I lost my camera!” Lesson learned number two- don’t secure your camera with a hair band and expect to keep it.

We all climbed back onto the banana boat for another round. I have not mentioned yet that I had gotten an oil massage on the beach prior to riding the boat, for it is another lesson learned entirely. However, it plays a major role in this story because I had not rinsed it off properly, making it very difficult to hold onto/ stay on the banana. On the next run, we hit a turn and my body slid right off the boat. I was the only one. I looked around and saw that the boat driver didn’t realize I had fallen off and continued to drive away. Here I was alone in open water, and all I could think of was “They will laugh when I get eaten by a shark.”  I made peace with my imminent death and floated silently in the water.

Luckily, the driver noticed he was one rider short, and turned around to pick me up. I had survived!

 My "I survived" Dance

No shark attack today!

Crispy bacon

This was not the first time I had gotten a massage on the beach. While in Greece last summer, Tiffany and I had one almost every day. The difference was that this time I was drunk.  In my alcohol infused brain, I figured I would have a beautiful tan when the burn settled. Thinking myself a Brazilian goddess, I took a little nap while lying on my belly. Normally ones friends would tell them if they were starting to look red, however the girls had partaken in the four pitchers of Sangria and were in no position to comment on my slowly roasting butt.

The worst part of this story is that I never did turn golden brown, but rather started to peel. I am sure you have all had a sunburn at one point in your lives and know that when a burn starts to peel it itches like crazy! Not very attractive when that burn is on your ass and you spend the next four days scratching.  Third lesson learned from our trip.

 

To tour or not to tour…

Whenever I am traveling around a city and I see a large tour bus pull up, I roll my eyes at the horror of what is to come. People piling out of the bus, cameras in hand, while they follow the flower or whatever else the tour guide it holding up to keep the group together. I have found that you usually spend the majority of your time the bus or being shuffled from one place to the next with no time to explore on your own. You take pictures at a location where the tour guide finds it appropriate, which is usually at the same location as 20 other tour buses. I know this, because I have been on these types of tours.

The first time was seven years ago when I signed up for a four day tour of Beijing and the surrounding area. What was good about this tour was that we saw a LOT over these four days; Thiamine Square, the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City, and the Summer Palace. It was a whirlwind of a trip. The issues I found where the restaurants we ate at were scheduled with food already prepared and set out. We had no choice of where or even what we wanted to eat.  We also had very little time at each location. I was given only an hour to explore and experience the Great Wall, which had been the main reason for me going to China in the first place.

Lea, Annie, and I had a similar experience when we signed up for a tour of Tangier, Morocco. Due to the limited time we had in Spain, we decided to sign up for a guided tour. Neither had been to Morocco before, so we were all VERY excited about this excursion.  We went to bed early Friday night, worn out from our day at the beach (yes, it can be so tiring to drink all day), and arose bright an early the next morning for our 0630 pickup. We spent the next three hours on a bus, headed to the port where we would catch a ferry into Africa.

Lea and I headed to Africa

Just like in China, we spent the first few hours in Morocco riding around on the bus with a guide giving us a windshield tour of the city, stopping at preplanned destinations where we could get out and take pictures with the other tour buses.  We stopped and played with camels, watched a snake charmer, and saw where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic.

With the Snake Charmer

Taken by Annie

When it was time for lunch, we drove to the Kasbah, the old fortified portion of the city, and walked through the narrow alleyways finally getting the opportunity to enjoy a piece of the city. I love the streets in Morocco. Each alleyway is lined with shops selling local bread, spices, or souvenirs. You can buy beautiful bowls, leather bags, and endless supplies of Argon oil. I also love the food. We dined on a chicken soup with cinnamon, lamb skewers, cous cous, and sweet mint tea.

Unfortunately, we had no time to explore on our own, and were herded back onto the bus for our long journey home. My advice to travelers- avoid these types of tours if you desire any freedom during your visit.

Romancing a Sea Cucumber

There is nothing like being 18 meters below the seas surface discovering all the different forms of life that you have only seen in an aquarium, or in a book. The feeling you get when you hold a star fish for the first time, or seeing an octopus ink as it tries to get away from you cannot be described.  Looking up to see an underwater mountain covered with coral and beautiful purple sea urchins.  But the most beautiful thing I have seen to date was a sea cucumber ejaculating on my friend Annie.

I have written about my trip to Malta where Annie and I received our open water cert, but our trip to Spain was our first dive where we were able to fully enjoy it without instruction. The hotel we were staying at had a five star PADI dive shop on the premises. We scheduled 2 dives for Sunday morning, and eagerly ran to the pool area after lunch where we met Rii and Elishia, our two guides for the day.  Since we were all PADI certified, Elishia decided to take us to a more advance dive site in an area called Nerja.  Here, we would hike down with all our gear to a small cliff, and jump into the water.  We arrived to a picturesque beach where the water was clear blue, and the weather was warm (unlike my bout of hypothermia in Malta). We put on our gear, and began the hike down to the water for our first dive.

View of our Dive Site

To the sound of my angelic voice belting out “part of your World” we took turns jumping into the water. It was cool and refreshing, and our descent underwater was flawless. Ok, I lied. As per usual, Annie had some issues and had to be dragged to the bottom by Elisha which was a source of enjoyment for me to watch.  The dive was incredible aside from me having issues clearing my ears during the beginning of the dive. We went to our max depth of 18 meters (although we only logged 16.4 in our books) exploring an area called three peaks. I had no idea that starfish felt like velvet, or that stripe ream looked like underwater rainbows. I am sad to say that we were unable to take any photos underwater due to the tragic loss of Annie’s camera on the banana boat. There was a moment when Lea was feeding the stripe beam a sea urchin, her body like a handstand with one arm out for balance, and the other holding out the urchin. She looked beautiful, and it would have made a great shot.

We surfaced from our first dive after spending 40 minutes underwater exploring. We climbed out of the water, and sat on the rocks for about 40 minutes to eat lunch and allow the nitrogen in our bodies to settle before the next dive.

 Acting goofy between dives

We entered the water the same way, but started swimming to the right towards the beach. The highlight of this dive was a particular sea cucumber we encountered along the way who I believe fell in love with me. Elishia stopped and picked him up to show us. It was the craziest looking thing; black with teeny tiny pink legs that were frantically kicking, trying to find the sea floor. Elisha indicated using hand signals that it was ok to touch it, which I did. I began to pet it like a cat when all of a sudden, it began to release a massive amount of white liquid that looked a lot like semen.  I indicated to Elisha using inappropriate gestures what I thought the sea cucumber was doing.  Unfortunately for Annie, and amusingly for me, she swam right into the floating strings of white. I fear she may become pregnant from this encounter, and have recommended she get a pregnancey test done upon her return to Germany.

If you are ever in the Malaga area and want to go scuba diving, check out our friend Elishia at: www.divinsinspain.com

The monkeys of Gibraltar

It is funny that no matter where in the world you are; Bali, Cambodia, or Gibraltar, the monkeys are all the same…complete assholes

I have had some very mixed experiences in the past with monkeys, to include having them crawl all over me in the monkey forest in Ubud, Bali because of the small bundle of bananas that I was storing in my purse. In that same forest a man was accosted and wallet stolen from his back pocket by a very aggressive one. This particular monkey flipped through the stolen wallet and then hurled it 10 feet after finding no money with which to purchase bananas.

However the story of my friend Laura in Cambodia takes the cake. Laura and I were traveling through the Siem Reap area of Cambodia with my cousin a few years ago, dedicating the trip to discovering the temples of Angkor Wat. During our first day, Laura and I decided to take an elephant ride around one of the temples.



I need to state here that Laura is as lucky as I am clumsy, and her luck is especially unfortunate when it comes to wild animals. This is a girl who, while running 2 miles for an Army Physical Fitness Test, was plowed over by a deer. So it comes as no surprise that as we rode around taking in the magic of Angkor Wat, that Laura would look up into the trees at the exact time a monkey was taking a pee.

“Oh my G-d!!! My eye! Holy crap!!”

She was hunched forward, hand over eye, contemplating whether to laugh or cry.

“What happened?” I asked at a total loss.

“A monkey just peed in my eye!”

I don’t think I have ever laughed so hard in my life. It was in that moment I decided that I loved monkeys.

My opinion changed again the moment I stepped off the cable car at the top of the Rock of Gibraltar. The first monkey I saw was at the top of a set of stairs that overlooked the city of Gibraltar, and the surrounding Spanish villages. Just as I came within arms reach, the little devil shoved its hand in my bag and tried to steal the new skirt I had just purchased at Top Shop. Thankfully, there was an older man nearby who snatched the top shop bag and gave it back to me. That same little stinker attempted to steal something out of Lea’s bag, but again he was unsuccessful.

 With the thieving monkey

 

As we continued on our trek around the rock, which I highly recommend to anyone visiting the south of Spain, I made the catastrophic mistake of taking a plum out of my bag to snack on. I got about halfway through when a HUGE monkey came out of the tree line and started heading my way. I commented on how cute he was, while the sweet juice of my plum dripped down my arm.

The next three seconds went in slow motion as I saw the eyes of the monkey follow the juice as a drop slid from my arm to the hot cement floor.  Before I could react the monkey started to charge at me and in utter panic, I threw the plum to the side in self defense. The monkey changed course, scooped up the plum, and sauntered off back into the tree line.

“I almost died!” I yelled as I turned to Annie who was laughing so hard, I thought she would pass out. Lesson leaned- do NOT eat food around monkeys. They will kill you

Taken by Annie

The Indy 500

For those of you who have never almost missed a flight, I highly recommend it.  Ok, I don’t unless you are looking for a heart attack. Not only were we minutes away from missing our flight, but we almost died on our way to the airport.

We had planned a lovely final day in Gibraltar. Since our flight wasn’t leaving until 2200, we had the entire day to relax and take in the sights. Since Gibraltar is British owned, we decided we would end our lovely weekend over fish and chips at one of the local restaurants. The plan was to be back at our vehicle at around 1830, which would get us to the airport around 2000 giving us enough time to shop duty free and go to starbucks (I collect starbucks country mugs, and do not have one from Spain…I still don’t).

We arrived back at our vehicle right on time, taking a few minutes to repack our bags so that everything fit into our two carry ons. We got in, typed in the address to the airport, and saw that we would arrive at 2010. AS we were pulling out of the garage, Annie muttered the seven worst words a traveler could hear.

“We are going to miss our flight.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, turning around to look at her in the back seat. “We have plenty of time.”

She shook her head and stared me straight in the eye. “Our flight leaves at 2020, and the gate closes at 2005. The GPS has us getting there at 2010.”

I honestly thought she was kidding. This is the sort of sick joke that I like playing on people, so I pulled out my boarding pass. Sure enough she was right. None of us actually looked at our return flight, and for some odd reason we all thought it departed at 2200. We were screwed.

Normally we could just look at getting another flight out the next day if we were willing to pay a little money, but two major circumstances were playing against us. The first- I had not put in a pass. In the military, anytime you want to leave the country, or go anywhere farther than 250 miles, you need permission. I never asked for it so I could potentially get in a lot of trouble. The second was that we flew with Ryan Air. I did not mention this above when writing about the beauty of Ryan Air, but they do not fly to every location every day.  We would have to wait THREE days to get back, which would have caused a few major issues for all of us.

Thank goodness Lea was at the wheel. A former fixed wing pilot in the Air Force, she had balls of steel. All she said was “I got this” and the ride of our lives began. She drove like a bat out of hell, and I am surprise that we survived this ride.  She swerved in and out of traffic, ran red lights, and once on the highway completely ignored the 120km speed limit and took our little POS (piece of shit) car to its limit of 180km. There was one point when we reached a bridge, where our car hit a bump and we were airborne for a good four seconds before slamming back into the ground.

I don’t know how she did it, but we made it to the airport at 1945. We left the navigation and the keys in the car and sprinted about a mile in bathing suits and flip flops to the Ryan Air counter, through security, and to the gate where our flight was boarding.   

Annie caught a picture of me looking shocked that we made it on the flight