Spain- Lynx search

"It was nearly 9:00 pm when we landed in Madrid and the sun was setting.  I walked ahead of everyone else to start the car pick up process while they hit the restroom. We were booked with Alamo who we had used in England.  I approached the counter and passed over my identification and payment cards. Sir you are late and we cancelled your reservation.  A couple of months back the airline had pushed our flight back 4 hours but I hadn’t bothered reaching out to the car company. She had to say it again before I was willing to hear her.  That can’t be.  I’m here with my family of 8 to rent a 9 passenger van that will be dropped in Seville.  If you are more than one hour late we automatically cancel your reservation. So someone else came in the last 4 hours and rented that 9 passenger van?  No response so I asked again. Where is the van? Reluctantly she admitted it was in the shop and I about blew a gasket.  She didn’t care and wasn’t interested in doing anything to help. Do you have other cars? Maybe I could find two small cars.  Or maybe you should check with the other car companies.  The crew had caught up to me at that point and didn’t take the news any better than I had. I knew Lisa did not want to drive and we had more than 3 hours to drive to reach our destination that night.  Natali and I went and checked the other car rental places.  No one-way 9 passenger vans available.  I left Natali in line to ask at the last kiosk for Europcar while I returned to Alamo to push for more options. They weren’t interested in helping.  Natali came back and said they had an option so we returned and got in the end of the line again.  The agent was helpful and seemed like he cared!  They had two different van options but they cost $700 more than the one I had reserved. No recourse to Alamo. I texted Laurie that I was having another “good thing it is just money and we have it” moment on vacation. I was back to driving on the right side of the road, but now I had a massive van in a metropolis. I emailed Mercedes, the owner at Villa Matilde that we would be a bit later than anticipated but she assured me that they would be ready for us around 2:00 AM if I managed to stay awake that long!"

The kids san Natali weren't too disappointed that McDonalds was the only option for dinner.  I kept Greg awake on the drive so grateful that we weren't in two cars again.

Our place in Andujar was fun and unique.

"We pulled out of the lodge at 7:30 with Mercedes sitting shotgun, a cooler with breakfast in the trunk along with a spotting scope. Mercedes is from northern Spain but had been educated as a biologist abroad and had purchased Villa Matilde more than 20 years ago and settled there with her husband and 2 daughters. Mercedes speaks great English and quickly figured our kids out—she asked Andrew challenging questions, teased him, and taught the kids how to use the scope then expected them to find the animals themselves through it. Most of our time searching for lynx was really driving on a rough dirt road through private ranches or preserves that were fenced in."

Little Rock Owl

Turtle Club - Mack was the master finder of Tarpins, Lizards, and bunnies.

Ibex

Wild Boar and piglets

"When we reached the dam Andrew spotted several ibex playing on the rocks along the shore far beneath us.  We walked across the dam and through the tunnel on the other side where we saw 3 new species of bats. Mercedes knew many of the bird species and was excited to help us see the endangered black vulture and imperial eagle. We saw enough rabbits to be confident that the lynx weren’t going hungry. We skipped lunch altogether and returned to the lodge in the early afternoon for a nap and a quick dip in the cold clear swimming pool."

 

Mercedes taught us about the cork trees and how they harvest the bottom layer for bottle corks.  See the piles of cork bark stacked up?

"We all joined the turtle club while we listened to the cacophony of birds as the sun dropped on the horizon.  We found marks of river otters but no specimens. Mercedes was feeling the pressure to help us find a lynx, but somethings you just can’t force. We stayed out until dark but without luck. We were ravenous and tired when we got back, but Roland was ready for us with a feast of a tasty zucchini soup that even Emily liked, a Dutch chicken recipe and what Andrew swore were the best homemade French fries."

The kids had been worried about dinner but it was fabulous - they didn't complain about chocolate mousse and tiramisu for dessert either.

That night as we went to bed Lily and I realized that our room has special acoustics.  When we were both laying down the shape of the walls would amplify our sound to each other.  So we could whisper messages and hear each other clearly.  

The next morning we headed out at 7:00 for one last Lynx try.  Kate and Mack chose to sleep in.  At this point I was finally felling better from my cold and had passed it on to Natali. The Lynx alluded us and the other kids were thrilled that they had slept in.  We said good bye to Roland and Mercedes and headed to Carrefour, an international grocery store, for lunch.  It was a huge store and everyone was so excited with their finds.  Mack and Lily created a sandwich worthy of Subway Artistry with their fresh baguette and salami.  Lily was disappointed in her nasty soft cheddar cheese slices (that was a waste because no one ate that).

We had to try the pink panther Twinkies that Fernando told us about.  Emily ate chocolate chip pancakes for lunch and the guacamole was way better than the stuff we had in previously.

We were bummed to miss the lynx but we were ready to head on to Granada and new adventures.

Liverpool

"We drove to Liverpool arriving just in time for our 10:00 tour of Andrew’s beloved Anfield.  It wasn’t quite the same as attending a game there, but in some ways it was more intimate and insightful than watching the game at Old Trafford. There was a fire alarm midtour and everyone had to exit the stadium that was in the midst of a massive expansion and renovation that meant enormous cranes were on the pitch and the grass was dying. The hasty exit was more than made up for by the rare chance we had to tour the board room where VIP’s and ownership watch the games from ultimate luxury. Mack utterly refused to be in pictures or acknowledge his United fandom to the tour host. You can see Everton’s Goodison Park just across the park.  It won’t be quite as cool when Everton moves to their new stadium on the Mersey. Outside the stadium a moving memorial remembered the 97 who lost their lives in a tragic stampede of fans back in the 80’s. Andrew has never been so interested in a museum."

Notice how Mack conveniently stayed out of this picture?

"We drove down to the historic docks and were thrilled to find two convenient parking spots.  The app to pay for parking however wouldn’t work without a European phone number so we rolled the dice and parked anyway. Lisa lucked out, but I came back to my car with a ticket to pay. "

"We took pictures with a statue of the Beattles and a more poignant one of a family honoring the thousands of early Latter-Day Saint converts who emigrated to the US through Liverpool."

Before the trip I had looked up all my ancestors that had left England for the US from Liverpool - at least 9 families.

The kids enjoyed exploring the docks and looking for restrooms and food.

"In the primary recurring nightmare from family vacations we had to pick where to eat lunch—we ended up getting food from 4 different food trucks and restaurants at the docks—I think everyone was close to happy."  

Emily found sticky toffee pudding and was very happy about that.

Kate and Natali had fish and chips and the rest of us were grateful we didn't have to.

From the docks we said goodbye to Liverpool and headed to the Manchester airport.  Let the travel drama begin.

"The map said the drive was 10 minute longer than when I had looked earlier so I began the drive to the Manchester airport under a bit of stress. We got Apple mapped again on the one-way streets at the port which delayed us nearly another 10 minutes.  I tried to eat a banana while driving and stalled my car at a turn signal in 4^th rather than 2^nd gear which prompted angry honking from the car behind me.  I was ready to not be driving in England! We had to fuel up the rental cars before returning them—we managed to get them both to register ½ tank and proceeded to the car return.  After 3.9 miles Lisa’s car had dropped one notch so we had to pay 25 pounds!  (MY BAD) As we waited for the shuttle my stress level continued to rise—we finally reached the airport about 1:20 before our Ryan Air flight. "

"We had a few Ryan Air lessons to learn.  Their app wouldn’t let me check in online so I knew we would have to wait in line somewhere.  When booking the tickets 5 months earlier I had done a bit of analysis and guessing to try and optimize the luggage checking options.  In hindsight I really needed to reread all that in the moment and to have more time at the airport.  I asked around and eventually resolved that we had to wait in the extremely long line and the clock was ticking.  It moved so slow.  We used Natali’s portable luggage scale to weigh everything while we were in line and redistributed things until we had all bags under 10kg. When we finally got to the front the guy kind of just laughed at me and said you can try to still make the flight but it is too late to check bags even though I had paid to check them.  I didn’t want to risk having bags not show up anyways at that point.  It was probably 30-35 minutes before departure at that point.  We couldn’t even learn the gate until we got the boarding passes so had no idea where we would be running to.  I sent Lisa ahead with the littles as soon as we had their boarding passes. When we got to security we learned that the British are very serious about their plastic bags and liquids on flights, much more so than back at home.  We had to unload and redistribute from all the bags to get liquids isolated to proceed through security.  Our flight was scheduled to depart in 10-15 minutes so I figured the door was closed at that point and I still had to find the gate.  As we sped away we saw Lisa in line at the other security checkpoint. We ran through the duty free shops as I imagined all of the nightmare costs and logistics of spending another night in England and missing a day in Spain.  And then I saw a looong line at our gate and I exhaled. Panting, I got in line and then checked in with Lisa.  They had bag trauma at security and were waiting for Kate and Emily’s bags to be checked by hand.  Seriously?  I told her to hurry but thought they would be ok.  The boarding line was moving and still no sign of them. Emily showed up. We called on Facebook messenger—she had gone to the wrong gate, 58 instead of 53 and had to backtrack. Ultimately they made it as we approached the gate in line. The agent scanned our boarding passes but said Lisa’s bag was too big.  He wanted to charge us about $50. Some of our tickets allowed big bags and some didn’t. There were so many of us I’m sure no one knew exactly what was supposed to happen and the plane was supposed to have left already. Ultimately he said we could have the bigger bag because some of the tickets were priority but still wanted to charge us. I protested in vain but resolved at that point I should just be grateful and get on the plane—we were going to Spain! Moral of the story with Ryan Air is you can either pay a lot of money at booking to take carry-ons or check baggage or pay a lot more later with extra stress.  And I was just beginning to learn!"