Gibraltar
Trip Start
May 12, 2009
1
10
52
Trip End
May 12, 2009
Gibraltar,
Gibraltar
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
We left our vehicle on the Spanish side of the border, and walked in.
Gibraltar is a sort of English oasis in sourthern Spain. It has all of the symbols of England - bobbies, red phone booths, double decker busses, and Cockney accents - but with great weather.
We took a bus around the city, and then took a cable car to the top of the Rock of Gibraltar.
And what a Rock!
We could see forever from up there. To the south were the mountains of Morocco, in Africa.
Almost straight down was the thriving Spanish port of Algecieras.
West was the Atlantic. East was the Mediteranean.
As far as you could see - and it was quite a ways - were huge ships anchored, waiting their turn to be unloaded.
The view was unbelievable and it went on forever.
Gulls wafted on the breeze - only we were looking down on them, and not up.
And around us - kind of stangely - were monkeys. The Barbary Apes were out in force and panhanding like drunks on North Main in Winnipeg. To Russell, they demonstrated their ability to open backpack zippers. They were pretty deft at looking for food, and did not always ask for permission. Everyone had great fun photographing the monkeys.
We took the cable car back down, and went hunting for English language books. We found some and purchased them - in English pounds, not Euros. 8.50 for a paperback seemed like a good deal until we did the conversion. We paid 20 bucks for THAT?
Anyway, we left with our dose of English and with a good supply of reading material.
