La Costa del Sol and the Rock

The Army Corps of Engineers
(or the equivalent)
commissioned their own
statue, as would we all,
given the chance.

We didn't realize that we were coming to such a tourist-centered area, but since we are traveling during the off season it is hard for us to tell what usually happens around here.  The whole coast is a long stretch of hotels and resorts and golf courses and fancy houses.  Our apartment is uphill from all of that, but apparently in the summer this little town is also inundated with tourists.

After reading through the Lonely Planet guidebook that Laura passed on to us, Benjamin decided that today we should go to Gibraltar.  I have to say I didn't even know such a place existed, except sort of mythically.  It took two hours to get there (the roads are very good, if expensive) and then we showed our passports to the guard and were driving into a British territory, or something along those lines.  Britain controls this four mile peninsula, a giant rock with a small town at the base and a very long history. We parked and went to study a map on the main pedestrian street.  Immediately a gentleman with a comically perfect British accent offered to help us, and showed us how to find the Gibraltar Museum.  The street was filled with shoppers speaking mostly Spanish and English, and there were tea shops and pubs and red telephone boxes and post boxes.  It was hard to take it seriously, but we did have to change some money to spend pounds instead of euros.

Two big macaques, one very small.

The museum was sort of musty -- a series of signs and paintings and photos and documents telling the story of this piece of ground, and its natural history too. The building housed some medieval baths which have been excavated. There was an Egyptian mummy in pretty good condition that had fallen off a shipwrecked boat traveling from Egypt to Britain, scooped out of the ocean by a Spanish fisherman. We were sorry the room with the movie was being renovated because it would have helped to tie all these disparate elements together.   Gibraltar has been strategically important over the years, it withstood a four year seige in the late 1700s (the French and Spanish were trying to get the British out), and it is also a unique environment because of its climate and separation. Neanderthals lived here the longest, as well as many species of birds and mammals. There are still macaques roaming around.

Lunch was at a pub. We sat outdoors in the glorious sunshine (about 68 degrees, clear blue skies) and ordered fish and chips and bangers and mash from the waitress who spoke everything. As the guidebook had said, the food tasted like England in the 1970s.  That's when I lived there, and I can vouch for it. Filling but not excellent. Benjamin got a good vegetable soup, at least.

Jon has been thinking about a certain hat for years, and even tried to buy one from Amazon before we left.  But Amazon made about three different mistakes (uncharacteristically) and sent the wrong size hat to the wrong post office, not giving him correct information on the location of the package.  Anyway, I said that maybe he could buy a hat in Spain.  Turns out no one wears hats in Spain.  But they do in England. So Benjamin and Jon actually bought a hat, for a price that Jon could live with, and Benjamin put it on and wore it for the rest of the day. He looks like a guy in a Western, except for the dreadlocks.

Looking back toward Spain.

Benjamin, with new hat and new friend on rental car.

Then we got the car out of the car park and headed up the big hill for our driving tour of the rock. Many people were walking up the steep road and Benjamin felt that we were doing it all wrong but I was just as glad not to be walking up and down all those intense slopes.There wasn't all that much to see but the views were awesome. And we did visit with some monkeys who barely paid us any attention. When we got back to our parked car, there was a macaque sitting right on top of it, warm in the sun.  At the end of our tour there was tunnel in the middle of the rock to walk through but it was extremely civilized, with lighting and a paved walkway and signage and even military music (completely different from the tunnel in Jerusalem, in every possible way). We learned about the siege, how they invented more sophisticated ways to aim cannons and to get the cannonballs to explode in the air instead of just landing in the sand with a thud.  War does bring out the best in humans, yes it does.

Like the "Guns Of Navarone" (WWII novel reference).

We wrote a few postcards so we could send them with British stamps and then we bought some McVities so we could spend some more pounds and then we headed home on the coast road.

We had dinner in Frigiliana at one of the few establishments that was open. It ended up being perfect.  Nothing written in English, only Spanish spoken, but we each got a nice meal that wasn't exactly what we expected but was perfectly fine. Mine was the best because I got a mix of seasonal vegetables cooked perfectly, seasoned only with salt, in addition to a skewer of some meat that might have been pork tenderloin. They are not into seasoning beyond olive oil and salt here.  And we sat out on the veranda, away from the smoke and the noise of the game on the TV.  There was a full moon and stars and it was warm enough to be without a jacket, although it might have been a little better with one more layer.