Hotel Jimena Real Jimena de la Frontera

... his life. Following that nightmare, we met up with the truck and the rest of the group. The ratio ended up being 6 girls to 17 guys. Good ratio ;)

We arrived very late in Gibraltar so we were unable to see the city and were immediately escorted to the stores to buy last minute items and summer and Gavin picked up our bulk food supply. To our wonder and amazement we discovered some amazing Spanish wine for only 1 EURO!!! Needless to say there ...

... will have to follow the omens." This quote by Melchizedek began Santiago's realization of the omens in his daily life and how to interpret them as good or bad. The final thing he left him with was Urim and Thummim. These simple but valuable stones would help guide Santiago through good and bad times.

This is by far the most beautiful city I have visited in Spain! Ronda is where the first bullfight took place and is home to the oldest bullring in Spain. The other students and I started out the day listening to one of our professors give a speech about the history of bullfighting, very interesting but after three hours I was ready to see Ronda. We then went to the bullring and had the opportunity to go inside where the fights take place. It was a feeling like no ...

... street was a strange mix of Spanish architecture and quintessentially British things like bright red telephone booths, fish and chips pubs, and double decker buses. The most amazing thing for me was the lushness of the vegetation. I'm used to Carolina coastal palm trees, tall and thin, but the palm trees here were as thick around as an oak with bushy, leafy tops that stood out remarkably against the blue sky. There were also all sorts of colorful ...

... We drank ice cold Esrtella beer and finally slipped into full relaxed beach mode... Had a smoothie at the trendy surfer's juice bar in the old town, all indonesian tables and Bali hotel atmosphere... Found some knobbly grainy bits in my smoothie which I suspect were the fingers of the chef who looked like he'd smoked a few hundred moroccan doobies before switching on the mixer...ah, the surfing life!

Ok, funniest thing that happened today was the bull. There we were pootling quietly along a deserted mountain road, high above the crests of craggy dry mountains, when throught the trees, around a distant bend, I glimpsed the most enormous wild, brown, fully horned bull marching steadily up the hill in our general direction. Right up the middle of the tightest road imaginable. Now, several thoughts go through a person's mind when ...

On a whim, francesco decides to drive 2000 kms in the opposite direction to what we had planned because we got wind of the presence of some Dolmens in the vicinity of Antequera. However, this deviation did permit us to see the uber-creepy, Dario Argento movie-type horror castle, of exceòptional beauty. The Castillo de la Estrella sits crumbling and remote about the tiny village of Teba, surrounded by notihng but desert and wilderness. At one ...

Monday 7th May. It was interesting to be on with the lads and Mitch certainly enjoyed the chatting. Marie wasn't too pleased with the rota as she was on duty at 0500hrs. I was back on at 0700 hrs.We had a beautiful sunrise and several photos were taken. It's a special time to be on deck as the sun is rising. We topped up with 40 litres of fuel as conditions were calm enough and land appeared on the horizon, probably Faro ...

... I was able to locate the correct bus stop fast enough, and even though it was rush hour with lots of people trying to get across the border, I was back in Spain at 5:30. However, I still needed to walk to the hotel, grab my bag and walk to the station. Oh, and there's the possibility that they wouldn't sell me a ticket so soon before the bus left, or that it would be full. The good news is that I hailed a cab a couple of doors away from the hotel, which allowed me to repack ...

... and how glad we were to see them. After waiting out the weather in La Linea (the Spanish side of the breakwater at Gibraltar), we picked a day to take a hike to see the Gibraltar monkeys. They call them Barbary Apes, but they are actually monkeys and they have the run of the Rock of Gibraltar. As we walked up the narrow road (no taxi tours for us!), we saw some of the monkeys on the side of the road. They are not shy at all, and will climb on your shoulder if ...