Rock of Gibraltar (how could you falter?)

Another unmissable sight in Southern Spain was the Rock of Gibraltar. It's so famous even Kanye West sings about it! OK, that wasn't very exciting to me either, but I'm about 90% sure that one of my teammates came along to see it merely because he had rapped about it (the line goes "How could you falter/ If you're the Rock of Gibraltar/ I had to get off the boat so I could walk on water." Humble, no?).

And Gibraltar isn't actually in Southern Spain, either. The UK has held onto this small but extremely well-situated piece of real estate since 1713. I mean, who would want to give up the most easily defensible gateway to the Mediterranean, not to mention straight out of Greek mythology (if you sailed past these "Pillars of Hercules," the idea was that you would fall off a never-ending waterfall at the end of the world). To their credit, the Brits have talked about handing the land over to Spain, but the residents of Gibraltar have repeatedly made it clear through referendums that they want to stay British citizens. Spain's not too happy about this, and has stuck their symbolic tongue out at the Brits and the Gibraltarians by restricting all sorts of tranportation into and communication with the town. So that's why we couldn't take a train straight there from Granada. The closest we could get was Algeciras, a port town a couple of miles away. Actually the closest we could have gotten was La Linea, the border town, but we had more information about hostals and the like in Algeciras so we decided to get off there for the night.

But maybe La Linea would have been a better bet after all. The Lonely Planet guidebook we'd been using had been really reliable up until now, so we looked up Algeciras. The town was described as "the major port linking Spain with Africa, [it's] also an industrial town, a big fishing port, and a drug smuggling center. Though unnattractive and polluted, it's not without interest." But we found an entry for Hostal Marrakech, described as a "clean, secure place run by a helpful Moroccan family [with] thoughtfully decorated rooms..." La Linea didn't have much listed, so we went ahead and booked for 6 at Hostal Marrakech. When we showed up that night, however, we didn't quite get what we were expecting. The first guy at the desk didn't seem to have any idea about our reservation, saying that he only had two double rooms (we had a reservation for 6). His Spanish was pretty halting, and mine is not what it used to be either, but eventually we were able to figure out that he had 3 double rooms. When I ask for the price, he says around €15 per person, but he's not sure, since he doesn't actually work there. And could he get all of our passports and the money upfront, please? Riiiiight.

At this point, another group of young Americans showed up saying that they also had a reservation for 6. The flustered front deskman goes to get another younger guy, who speaks to us in English. He says that they have the 3 double rooms, plus 2 triple rooms, so there should be room for all of us. But it turns out he doesn't actually work there either (he just works in the travel agency downstairs). And could he get our passports, please? Well, despite this general sketchiness, it was almost 10pm and we didn't have any leads on anywhere else to stay, so we just gave him our driver's license and took the rooms. Turns out he just wanted to copy our information on required police forms (so they know who is in town) and gave us the ID right back, but I was still not up for letting go of my passport. The rooms made me wish I'd brought that sleep sack I'd left in Seville, Carey and Katy found a cockroach in their room, and the bathrooms left much to be desired (although I think I've been spoiled recently, as they would have been a luxury somewhere like Tibet). But, after venturing out to get food, getting ripped off, getting yelled at by a homeless woman, and trying to keep the stray dogs from following us, we all managed to get some sleep and nobody bothered us. So I guess it worked out.

The next morning we caught a quick bus ride to La Linea, and walked across the UK border. They waved us through without even looking at the inside of our passports, and then we had a scenic walk across a live airport runway to get into town. Don't worry, we were advised, there are only a couple of flights a day. It was strange to walk five minutes and be in another country, which is exactly what happened. People were speaking English and things just looked different. We even got some (really amazing) smoothies at a place on the main tourist drag. But we were still in touristville, which we were constantly reminded of as taxi drivers repeatedly assaulted us, telling us how much money and time we'd save if we let them drive us up to the top of the rock. They even pointed us the wrong direction for the cable car to make it seem like we had to walk uphill to get there. We still opted for the cable car, and made a quick but scenic ride up.


[1-Now entering a live runway, 2-View of the Rock from said live runway]

The cable car was also our first introduction to the local breed of Barbary Macaques (little tiny apes), which pretty much ruled the rock. We were warned not to carry plastic bags (they look like food), leave our bags open (that would invite hitch-hikers), or get too close. They were not shy, however, and even before we'd gotten off the cable car I had one jump on the railing right in front of my face. Once at the observation center, we snapped a bunch of scenic shots, and then started wandering down some of the paths towards the lower cable car stop.



[1-View down on Gibraltar, the airstrip, and La Linea; 2-The ROCK,
3-You can kind of make out Morocco in the haze.]

The view was amazing (although we couldn't quite make out Morocco on the other side of the straits until we were about to leave because of the clouds), and it was a nice hike down, but the day was dominated by the apes. Everywhere we went we had to stay out of their way, which proved a lot more difficult than we'd thought. Things weren't helped by the taxi drivers who had been assaulting us all throughout towns. Their colleagues who had managed to get some passengers tried to earn a little extra tip money by picking up the apes and throwing them around. There were apes riding on top of minibus taxis, in the windows, even crawling around inside.



[1-King of the Rock, 2-Baby season,
3-Friends, 4-All alone]

Tourists and drivers who ignored the hundreds of signposted threats of hefty fines fed the apes junk food and picked them up. It was baby season, and we were warned not to get near the babies or between the babies and their parents, but this didn't seem to phase anybody either. I'm just suprised I didn't see anyone get attacked. I tried to keep my distance and just take pictures with zoom, but it seemed like this didn't really matter anyway as 2 seconds later someone else would just come straight up to the ape and give it a potato chip.



[1 & 2- Stupid taxi drivers feeding the apes and getting their passengers to hold them,
3-One ape's response to all of the pestering.]

Once we'd had enough and gotten in all of the scenery, we took the cable car back down, wandered back through the town, across the runway, and back into La Linea. Crossing back over into Spain, there was a woman with a baby carriage and something in a black plastic bag that she tried to foist off on us and get us to carry across the border. It was really tempting to find out what Spanish prisons look like, but we passed on the opportunity. Breezing through customs, counterfeit-free (not that they would have known for all they checked us), we decided to walk along the shore in La Linea and take some more shots of Gibraltar from a distance, killing time before the bus left on our straight shot, 4-hour ride back to Seville.


[Me & the Rock, taken from the shore in La Linea.]

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