Don’t mention the Pandemic
While returning to Madrid by bus, I stopped at the bus station’s coffee shop in the touristy town of Torrevieja where a waiter who was not wearing a mask seemed to touch everyone and almost everything.
He quickly, moved tables and chairs, handled people’s bags, and back slapped customers who I presume he knew. The tables were packed tightly together without any signage and a waitress handed us a well-worn menu whereas every other bar and restaurant we had visited offered online menus through the use of QR codes that you had to scan with your phone.
I translate Torrevieja as Old Tower but the staff acted like it was Faulty Towers and that they knew nothing about the global pandemic that had spread through-out Spain and the world.
A few feet away a security guard reminded people to queue one metre apart at the bus station’s ticket office as tourists and travellers packed the small footpath intended for passengers to use before boarding their buses.
I wasn’t worried about taking the bus originally as I had expected the buses to be almost empty but they weren’t and on the bus from Madrid, the bus driver had to pull over for half an hour to wait for the police to arrive to remind a passenger to wear his mask.
On the beach, the first day before I got badly sunburnt, I saw a topless woman putting on her mask before her bikini when she went to leave. Nearby a large group of young adults were partying in a cove without their masks.
The people in Madrid and Torrevieja have been fantastic in wearing masks in public from what I have seen and I am surprised how co-operative everyone has been with the exception of a handful of people and one Spanish waiter waiting for Coronavirus.
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