Post to come

Here are some pictures of the big G...

The “G”

We took the city bus to La Linea- the Spanish town bordering Gibraltar. The rock is impressive to say the least. There were signs everywhere warning us to take our passports to enter Gibraltar- as if it were a big deal. However when we got to the border crossing, we merely flashed them- we didn’t even open them, the guard said nothing to us and didn’t even look at our passports. Sad to say, no stamp. After the border you have to walk across the landing strip for the airport/military airfield. Then you are really in Gibraltar. My first impression of the city was its strong military influence in the architecture and street names. Apartment blocks looked similar to military barracks- very plain with no balconies...no design element. A lot of the city looked old- some of it restored and some in a state of crumble. There were a couple of newer high rises near the water and  considering the limited amount of land in Gibraltar, I imagine they would cost a lot of money! We made our way to the main street and it was a nice break to read signs and information in English. We found many monuments and historical sites in Spain have write-ups in Spanish and not in English, so while we look at things we have no idea what its for or why its there...Gibraltar is full of history- and its everywhere. We walked through a cemetery from the mid 1700’s where the headstones were carved in stone and still legible. We didn’t see a single headstone with anyone who had passed away over the age of 26!

Our original plan was to cheap out and just walk up the rock...when we realized it would be a four hour hike similar to the Grouse Grind we changed our plan jumped on the cable car. The cost of the cable car included access to the sites on the rock. We almost didn’t get to go up the cable car because the wind picked up...they decided to let us go up but they wouldn’t be taking anyone else down (which was fine because our ticket was one way). It was a little scary in the wind- the cart was swaying away- Steve said “oh this is fine, the car is made in Switzerland...we’ll be fine”. At the top we immediately saw an ape! They are actually tailless monkey’s but they call them apes...he just glared at us. The rock was pretty much empty- we saw very few people- maybe they were blown off the edge by the wind :) The views from the top were awesome, but the broken down WW2 buildings and army junk was not expected. In some areas this stuff was neat- and in others it was a mess and surrounded by barbed wire- apparently a german invasion was ‘imminent’ here and so the people fled and 30 000 soldiers were posted in Gibraltar during the war. The British had trained 6 soldiers who would live inside secret siege tunnels if the Germans took the rock- from the tunnels they would monitor radio comms. Military buffs would love this place. We toured the original siege tunnels dating back to the 1700’s- Gibraltar has been under siege 14 times. We also saw a display detailing what life and death was like while under siege, some sieges lasted years. 

Back to the MONKEYS!!! They were very tame. A couple would come up to us to try for food, however we didn’t risk the 500 pound fine for feeding them. I didn’t want one to touch me for my fear of lice, fleas, and biting. It was cool to see a monkey on the side of the street or riding on the roof of a cab. Two monkeys started to fight so I grabbed my camera and tried to get a shot of it, but the fight lead to a pornographic episode, and my picture unintentionally became a hilarious love making scene with a mediterranean back drop...I will post it when the connection is strong enough.

While on the rock we visited St. Michael's Cave. Its an amazing cavern and I don’t know how to explain such a place- stalagmites, stalactites- water dripping, darkness, the air is still...parts of the cave were lit up so you could see its amazing size, and in the background classical music played...in WW2 the cave was set up as a hospital- however it was never needed. In the past and today there are concerts in the cave- one portion is like a theatre and I think the acoustics would be amazing.

We ate some lunch in Gibraltar, I had fish and chips and Steve had fish and a ‘jacket potato’ aka ‘baked potato’. By the end of the day we were exhausted so we headed back to our slummy hostel room that smelled like stale cigarette smoke. The first night in the room I had a panic attack about bedbugs, so Steve being the wonderful man that he is, googled about bedbugs in an effort to ease my tension. It didn’t really help because all we learned was how to detect them (and I wasn’t going to start picking at the mattress seam to inspect for their poo) and that they are visible to the naked eye but not usually seen due to their nocturnal nature. So, I put on my merino woolies and got in my sleeping bag which caused me to overheat several times through the night. I woke up frantic from numerous nightmares, I think falling asleep in a state of fear causes frightening dreams. We stayed at the dinge pit another night because we didn’t want to spend time searching for a new place- happy to report I slept soundly on night two :) Overall, we found Algecerias to be somewhat of a dirty port city but on a good note, we had fantastic tapas there! We went to a place where waiters were continuously bringing various tapas for us to choose from- when we finished the waiter counted our toothpicks to tally the bill. It was fun and we tried many different and exciting tapas.