Having safely arrived in Malaga, we went to pick up the hire car.  They told us that we were going to have something in the order of a Peugeot 3008, so a nice big car which could accommodate five adults, three big cases, 1 kg of vegan cheese, and various bottles of perfume (although one less than we should’ve had. See yesterday’s block for details).

When we got to the desk, there was a few problems. You had to collect a ticket and wait your turn, but the ticket machine was not working, so a good old-fashioned British queue had started. However, after about 10 minutes, the machine began working again, and some people were taking tickets, and some people were told not to, and then chaos ensued as to who was where in the queue.

I’ve said this on many blogs, so I’m not gonna repeat myself here, (which may amaze many people who know how often I like to repeat myself) but bearing in mind the electronic age that we live in, why we cannot just fill in our passport and driving license details before we arrive, so all they have to do when we get there is find us a car, I do not know.

When we did eventually get to see a representative (which involved queueing for 20 minutes) there was suddenly much frivolity between her and Tibu. She was born on Saint Tiburcio‘s day, and at high school people used to say that she should’ve been called the female version of Tiburcio. However, her parents had decided against this and called her the much more sensible name of Angela instead. She had said that she had never met a Tibu and seemed genuinely excited that one had presented himself at her desk. I have no idea what Saint Tiburcio is the patron saint of, but if he’s based on our Tibu, he is the patron saint of getting lost and losing passports.

The hiring  process was painfully slow. It took us over a further hour before we even saw the car that we were getting. Part of the problem was that one representative was desperate to sell the insurance. The couple along from us had to listen to the sales pitch for a good 15 minutes before relinquishing and purchasing it, I think just so that they could get on with their holiday. Meanwhile the queue behind us had doubled in size. But the other problem was that the internet went down completely. Not just theirs, but the entire floor’s internet, so they  had to then take everybody two floors down into the bowels of the garage where the cars were kept, and use the tiny office there which still had internet.

If you look at the Portuguese blog, you’ll remember the palava we had trying to get three cases into the back of a Renault Captur as they didn’t have a car big enough. We had purposely grouped all our luggage together in a sort of show and tell set up, so when we were talking about how big a car we needed, she could look over and see a collection of people and cases, so she knew exactly what needed to fit in the car. It also explained where the cheesy smell was coming from.

We were eventually given a Lynk and Co car. I have never heard of them. Apparently, it’s some coproduction between Volvo and a Chinese firm. From the outside it looked great. A nice big SUV. However, the boot was not that spacious and we couldn’t quite fit three suitcases in it. We’d already played Tetris with our cases to get them into the back of Rach and Tibu’s Qashqai to get us to the airport, but after 10 to 15 minutes of trying every permutation known to man, we realised that we could not get the three cases in the back the boot.

Our accommodation was only 30 minutes away, and we just wanted to leave the airport and as we hadn’t seen natural daylight for nearly 2 hours now, so we decided that we would just suffer the inconvenience of having one case on the floor in the back. I say we, really it was just Karen who did the whole journey legs akimbo around a case until we got to our destination.

We arrived at the villa at 3:30pm, but still no news from the elusive Pedro.  There was a long drive and a gate.  From the outside, the property looked exactly as it did in the pictures (which is always a good start).  We rang the doorbell and intercom, but no reply.  We tried to ring Pedro, but again, no reply. Well, we were early, so opted to get some lunch.  We hadn’t really eaten since attending the 6am rave at Manchester airport and needed something.

We had noticed a small village with a couple of bars on the way to the villa, so went back there.  My first meal of the holiday was a plate of Uzbekistan meat balls and rice. But the waiter/owner/I suspect also the chef told us “they are very nice”.  To be honest they were less albondigas and more Campbells meatballs, but they filled a gap and some time.  The other slightly odd feature of this restaurant was the sport on the TV.  There is always sport on TV in Spanish bars, but I have never seen Australian Rules Football on a big screen before.  And what’s more, the owner and his wife seemed riveted by it. 

Not wanting to watch the Syndey Wallaboos vs Melbourne Wanga Wangs (or something like that) we headed back to the villa.  At 4:59pm, witness a repeat of 90 mins earlier.  No response to the intercom, no response from Pedro.  Karen, now relieved of the case from between her legs,  was on to Booking.com to try and resolve things, when for some reason, I pulled the gate to one side to discover it just slid open.

What idiots we had been.  As we pulled up, I imagined that Pedro had been there all afternoon waiting for us as there was a car in the garage.  Doh!

I noticed the front door was open so went in and called out a jaunty “Hello!”.  Now I was imaging Pedro to be some dashing young Spaniard, but I was greeted by an elderly English gentleman in swimming trunks who had obviously just got out of the pool.

“Who are you?” he enquired whilst dripping on the kitchen floor.

“We have come to stay for a fortnight” I replied.

“Oh no! Oh no!” the man from Atlantis responded.

“Is there a problem?” I cautiously enquired.

“Yes.  I’m the owner and I cancelled all bookings weeks ago.  I live here now….”

To be continued.