Amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, a Kingston couple who tried to get home early from Spain are now struck there.
But that is just the beginning of the problems they face in a country currently facing its own lockdown.
“We’re stuck,” says Suki Falkner via a Skype interview.
Falkner, 77, and her husband, 86-year old Fred Colwell, have spent most of the winter in Granada, Spain.
Their plan was to stay until the end of March, but they decided to come home to Kingston in early March as the pandemic affected China and Italy.
They were to fly to Canada out of Barcelona.
“On March 3, we were taking the train to Barcelona and I fell getting on the train and broke my hip,” says Falkner.
After waiting a week for surgery, and after 10 days in recovery, the couple is now trapped in a country on lockdown.
“Quite a desperate feeling, you know,” says Falkner. “I am still in some pain. I don’t move well.
“I need to be at home. My husband needs to be at home.”
The small hotel the couple is staying at in Granada does not serve food and there are no cooking facilities in their room.
All restaurants and bars are all closed, too.
“My husband goes out to a supermarket and buys yogurt and oranges and so on, but we are really out of proper food,” says Falkner.
To make matters worse, the Spanish government has ordered all hotels to be closed in the next five days, leaving the couple unsure where they will go.
Global News reached out to Global Affairs Canada on behalf of the couple in our story, but we have still not received a response.
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