Traveling in Malaga during the blackout: tears to get a hotel room and darkness in alleyways

Arriving in a city for a trip and experiencing a complete power outage on one of the days, or even on the day of arrival, can be very disruptive. No mobile communication, no restaurants, no visits to any place. The worst part is the inability to check reservation codes or search for directions to your hotel or apartment. It also wasn't easy for those who had to return to another country or manage flight and plane changes.

The day after the blackout, those traveling in Malaga spoke out: from guests to hotel directors. From those who couldn't contact their families to inform them they were okay to those who had to go out looking for diesel for generators or grab flashlights to navigate the city streets.

Mexican tourist Alma Tindall philosophically takes what happened on the day of the blackout in Malaga. With a smile, just as she left the AC Malaga Palacio hotel, she confessed to SUR how she had experienced those hours of uncertainty. She arrived last Friday from San Diego (United States) with her husband and was "amazed" by how the situation was managed: "I was surprised by the calm of the people; nobody got agitated or upset, everyone was very kind." At the time of the blackout, she was on the street and around six in the evening they returned to the hotel, already somewhat anxious about the situation. "I was a bit scared when it was not known when the power would be restored or if it would even be several days. But in the hotel, they equipped us with light in the room so that we weren't in the dark and we were able to eat and have very good service despite the situation we were experiencing," recounted Mexican Alma Tindall.

At the AC Malaga Palacio hotel, there was not a single room available on the day of the blackout. Filled with about 350 people inside and yet, with guests who could not arrive on time due to flight and train cancellations. "I felt sorry because we had no rooms available and during the night many people arrived to see if we could reserve a room for them, since the code of the apartment they had reserved had not arrived due to connection failures," said the hotel director, Jorge González, yesterday.

At the Larios hotel, they found a lady who couldn't stop crying to get a room, as she had been wandering around the center in the dark with her luggage for hours and was desperate: "All the rooms were full, but we still managed to get her one. There were a lot of people who didn't know the city and were wandering around the Center without light trying to find a place to stay. We had to try to help as best we could," confessed Jorge González.

Among the anecdotes he remembers, besides looking for gas stations to pick up diesel for the generators and power units, was making invoices by hand: "Just like it was done 40 years ago and it was fine! In situations like these, you have to be human and trust people."

The uncertainty of thousands of people was inevitable. Businessman Luis Javier Rueda, the day after the blackout, was still experiencing it. He had arrived in Malaga just on Monday for work reasons, as part of the executive team of the Madrid group La Máquina, a newly installed restaurant on Molina Lario street, and had several meetings pending.

But yesterday Tuesday mid-morning he still wasn't sure how to return to Madrid: "Flights appeared and disappeared from the website, so I decided to book a room for tonight just in case. It seems that I might be able to get a flight for early afternoon, but with this situation, you never know what might happen," explained the businessman to SUR on a hectic day of meetings.

He also detailed how they survived the blackout at the La Máquina restaurant: "In the morning we were operating normally until the moment of the blackout, then we adapted to the situation, but we had no kitchen, so at eight in the evening we decided to close. Luckily, today we have been able to return to normal and serve our customers," he assured.

They were in a meeting when the blackout occurred. Javier Guzmán, at the helm of the Soho Boutique Equitativa hotel, shared with SUR the day after the total power cut how they had coped. "Here we have generators and thanks to them we had lighting in the common areas of the hotel and an elevator available.

Even so, many of the guests did not want to take risks and went up the stairs," detailed the director yesterday. On the computers, for check-in and all the procedures, they had "three hours of battery," according to Javier Guzmán himself. "We had to rely on paper, although we were prepared and had printed what we needed most urgently."

In one of the dealings with the Soho apartments that he also directs, he encountered a girl lost in the darkness of the Center: "She was looking for the bus to the airport. I accompanied her because everything was without light and left her at the stop on Paseo del Parque, which was lit and with people. Many disasters could have happened," lamented the director of Soho Boutique Equitativa.