Travel agent’s short Spain break hit by power outage

A travel agent who travelled to Spain to surprise a friend on her 50th birthday did not get the short break she bargained for when the country suffered the worst power outage in its history.

Heidi Evans, director of Oasis Travel in Stoke-on-Trent, spent much of her two-night stay in darkness and spent less time than planned with her friend as a result of the electricity shutdown.

She travelled to Benalmadena on the coast of Spain on Sunday, where she surprised Claire Perry at a bar on the day of her 50th birthday.

But on Monday, after getting a taxi to her friend’s villa for the day, disaster struck when the country lost power.

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After realising the scale of the failure, Evans decided to return to her hotel, 27km away, instead of going out for a meal while her friend went to buy supplies from the local shop.

With none of the usual taxis showing up, she managed to get a lift to a nearby hotel, which then called her a taxi to get her back to where she was staying, Hotel Best Siroco.

She recalled: “I’d only seen my friend for three hours [that day] and when I got back to my hotel there was still no electricity.

“You couldn’t use your phone and I had to walk to another hotel which had a generator in order to get a meal.

“Our hotel didn’t even have candles and I was on the third floor so going up and down in the darkness and down the corridors in pitch black was quite scary. People sat outside the hotel, instead of inside the bar, as it was too dark to see inside.

“It was mayhem. There were queues at the petrol stations; you could only pay for things in cash.”

The power returned just before 10pm on Monday, when she was able to retrieve text messages, including one from easyJet holidays about her transfer for her flight home on Tuesday morning.

“I hadn’t been able to communicate with my husband or easyJet holidays so it was a bit stressful. I had sent him a message in the afternoon and he got it at 11.30pm,” said Evans, adding: “I am just relieved to be home.”