Gibraltar

Sorry for the delay on this one, folks. I suppose it doesn't matter to you either way whether we post about things right after they happen, but this is from our travels last weekend. Not a lot goes on during the week while I'm working (we don't leave town, we mostly eat in, and we just hang out around the apartment, which is getting better and better as the rain is gone and it's light until almost 10pm), so you'd think we'd have no excuse not to get things up in a timely fashion...

Last weekend we went to Gibraltar on Saturday and two local towns, Mijas and Mijas Costa (which I'll write about in my next post), on Sunday. Gibraltar wasn't that far away -- only an hour by bus -- so it's been high on our list from the start as an easy and exciting trip. And against Michelle's initial hesitations, but later enjoyment, we explored Mijas and, while attempting to find it, Mijas Costa (hint: they are not within walking distance of each other). It rained pretty steadily the whole weekend, but we pushed on and still had a blast. And now we know where exactly we want to go back when it's sunny again.

Anyhow, Gibraltar. We got an early start and took a taxi (there are two handy taxi stands near the apartment) up to the bus station and from there, a cheap bus to La Linea de la Concepción, a Spanish border town. I'm not sure what there is to do there, exactly -- and I'm not opposed to going back to find out sometime -- but it seems like everyone goes there just to save on the hassle and cross the international border by foot. Most people had little wheelie suitcases and went straight from the bus station over to the border.

You can see the Rock as soon as you step out and it gives you a nice orientation to walk if you've otherwise got no clue. They do a simple passport check and then you head over. Almost immediately you are confronted with cheerful English chaps, red phone booths, the Union Jack, Winston Churchill Avenue, and double-decker buses, and I really don't think it was overly touristy -- it all seemed very relevant. In fact, I think it could be political, because as you get into town, Spanish culture is evident and there's a nice mix of British and Spanish tone to things. As I understand it, there has been some ongoing contention over possession of Gibraltar, so maybe the high-ho jolliness right out of the gate is to set your impressions up front that you are entering a British colony AND IT'S GOING TO STAY THAT WAY. It certainly worked on us.

A very interesting thing about Gibraltar, which is surprising even when you read it in the guidebook and are prepared for it, is the fact that you have to cross an international airport runway by foot to get into the place. Luckily, we just happened upon one of several daily uses of the airport (a takeoff), so we got to wait at a gate, along with traffic, before being allowed to cross. Once the coast was clear, the gate went up and what seemed like The Great Race began. All these cars queued up, with a moped guy out front, took off across the runway with reckless abandon, leaving us to make our way along the pedestrian lane amidst the rain and with a bicycle lane between us and the cars (no cyclists that day, by the way). Also, travel tip: the best time to cross a runway, which by design is very flat and open to the elements, is not during a rainstorm.

You then make your way through somewhat of a village, though it seemed (for good reason) like outskirts. We weren't really sure where exactly to head -- as you get closer to the Rock, you begin to realize that just aiming for it in general is not enough to get you anyplace productive. Eventually, a helpful gentleman pointed us in the right direction and we approached Landport Tunnel, built in 1727 and once the only way into Gibraltar by land. A busker was playing the theme from The Flintstones on his flute, which echoed in the tunnel and gave a rather colonial flair to things, Hanna Barbara aside.

We quickly found ourselves within the town proper, where we were reminded again that Gibraltar is very clearly English. Maybe it was the rain, but with the cobbled streets in places, bright red Royal Post mailboxes, and British spellings everywhere, it felt quite different from where we had been spending our time in the past few weeks. Two things really made it stand out, though: people spoke in a sort of mix of English and Spanish (my favorite was the semi-formal greeting "hiya") and the liquor stores were packed out to the streets with elderly folks stocking up like Prohibition was on again. Turns out Gibraltar doesn't charge the VAT (this is a tax added to pretty much everything, though I'm not sure if it's just a European convention or an EU mandate), so with liquor in particular, there are deals to be had and apparently older folks came for the booze.

Since we had had a light breakfast, we had some crepes and coffee at a small place off John Mackintosh Square, then found our way through town to Southport Gates and Trafalgar Cemetery before we realized that the cable cars, which are the most commonly-used means to reach the Upper Rock, had been closed for a week due to the wind and rains. There were a number of tour van vendors wandering around with their multilingual signs pitching their various deals. It seems that ways to get to the top, aside from cable car, are driving yourself (maybe next time for us), walking (maybe sometime when it's not raining, as it's a 400m climb), or taking one of these tours. The downside was that the tours were 28€ per person or, if you were like us and had planned on paying for the cable car by credit card and didn't have that in cash, 19£ per person since ATMs only dispensed Gibraltar Pounds (more on that later). Fortunately the guy took us on our word that we'd pay him at the end (which gave me a better feeling about the whole thing after being somewhat skeptical) and it turns out that we rounded out a van full of people so we set off immediately.

The tours don't hit everything up on top, but even if we had been able to cable car up there, we only would have been able to do everything by walking miles and miles on top anyway. So perhaps it was a good taste to encourage coming back for more. The first stop was the Pillars of Hercules point, which is the southernmost point of Gibraltar (though not of this corner of Europe, as Tarifa, Spain, which we could see from the point, holds that title.) There is apparently also a point on the Morocco side that commemorates that spot and marks the gates of the ancient world. It was a little windy but pretty great! One of the coolest parts was being able to see about a dozen huge cargo ships all making their way out to the Atlantic.

After that, we drove a bit and got back out at St. Michael's Cave. This is where we saw our first Barbary Apes, which Michelle was quick to point out are monkeys (Macaca sylvanus) and not in fact apes. But they were just hanging out on the sidewalk and/or hanging off of van mirrors, doorways, and anyplace hanging was to be had. Our driver warned us to pay no attention to them, don't offer them food, and generally ignore them for now as we'd have some quality ape time later.

The cave was pretty small and exhibited-up, but still interesting. It now has a concert hall which seems like it would be a lot of fun. They set the mood by playing some classical music over loudspeakers while you wandered around.

Next up, some more driving over to the Apes' Den. I'll point out that the driving here is pretty narrow and treacherous, so I'll probably stick with the options of cable car plus walking or tour vans in the future. Small European cars aside, I don't really want to be driving up there. And this from someone who wanted to tool around on the cliffs of Greece on our honeymoon.

Anyway, the Apes' Den. Also pretty awesome! The apes are quite familiar with people, as their keepers feed them fruit and other food right from their hands. I'm not sure if the apes can't fend for themselves or, as legend would have it, if the apes die out, the colony goes back to Spain. Either way, the apes seemed pretty comfortable with us but I wasn't taking any chances. With both a fetching hat and my passport on me, I wasn't about to get pick-pocketed by a lesser primate. The highlight here was a wind gust so strong that it almost took my hat off, but the ape next to me perched on the railing just about got reverse-naturally-selected as his arms flailed and his face took on a look of great surprise. But he managed to hold onto both the railing and his piece of orange and make a nice recovery, plus without the look of embarrassment that I had from nearly losing my hat and being frightened by a flailing monkey.

Back in the van, we soon got out at our last stop, The Great Siege Tunnels and viewpoint. I think the tunnels were the best part of what we saw (though I'm itching to go back someday and make it to the WWII museum). The tunnels were hewn in 1782-3 during the last great siege of Gibraltar by the Spanish. You only get to explore about 350m of the tunnels but purportedly there are something like 50km of them in there, all made by man, and still in use by the Royal Navy. The best parts were the cannon emplacements, which give you both a view point to see the outside from within the Rock, as well as a sense of how important this spot was militarily. When you consider that anyone aiming to gain some new land off the Mediterranean would have to sail through here, and just how good a shot you had from within the Rock down on the sea below, it's no wonder this is such a fabled spot.

After a van trip back to the bottom, I made a quick trip to an ATM to get some cash out for the driver. Gibraltar Pounds feature the Queen and are interchangeable with Pounds Sterling, but have their own unique design. I managed to save a 20£ note for posterity which, if things keep going at their current rate, we should be able to use as a down payment on our first home someday.

We checked out the rest of town, which included a great lunch at a thoroughly British pub called The Clipper (where we each had a large pint of Strongbow cider) and a trip through a glassblowing studio and attached store, where we had a great time watching a woman try to wrangle her hyperactive eight-year-old through the displays before finally hauling him out the door in great but frustrated haste.

We walked the quick trip back to Spain, which included going back through Landport Tunnel (musical note: this time, a different busker was playing Suzanne Vega's Tom's Diner on a Casio keyboard.) We had coincidentally just missed a bus, so we went to a café around the corner and had some coffee and watched Churros (the café-owned cat) lounge about before taking our eventual bus back to Marbella.

All told, Gibraltar is highly recommended and I look forward to going again back soon. There's a lot more to do there than we covered and the way I see it, the weather can only be better next time!

Some links:

• Our Gibraltar photos
• Wikipedia page on Gibraltar itself
• Wikipedia page on the Gibraltar Barbary Macaques