Again, we knew nothing about this tiny country, except that somehow it is part of Great Britain, and
were plagued by the same questions as Andorra. What is there to see?
What language do they speak? Does Mike need a visa? These were pretty
quickly discounted as unimportant (we knew he wouldn't need a visa),
but one that stuck...Which side of the road do they drive
on? Haha. (It turns out they drive on the right, I guess it's just
easier that way) Also, they speak English (and Spanish, but all the
signs are English).
After
stopping just after the border to buy a map, we politely thanked the
guy who answered our questions about what to see, and promptly
ignored his suggestion to park the van and hire a taxi to drive
around the island. Mike was having none of that! So we took Ruby on a
lap ourselves. There was a lot of these along the way... Apes?
Following
parking signs right up to the top of the hill, we all of a sudden
ended up here.
There was no parking, just this. We don't know what it was, some random fort/lookout or something, but it was kind of creepy, especially right now, at
dusk.
It was cool to look out over the water, though, and see the
coast of Africa. The reality of Morocco was so close!
Heading
back down the other side of the Rock, we would really like to have
seen the apes, but it was getting late and we resigned ourselves
to leaving it for another time. We were trying to work out if it was
a zoo, or just an enclosure or what, when we rounded a bend and saw a
statue of one sitting on the wall, as if checking out the view. Then
it moved, and all of a sudden we were looking at a real ape,
doing what the hell he liked. He didn't have a lot of interest in us,
unfortunately (or maybe fortunately!).
As
we left Gibraltar via the only road to the border control, we crossed
the runway for the Gibraltar airport. This was what Mike had heard
about, and wanted to see. Of course, once I realised, I really wanted
to see it in action too. However, it appeared flights are only
scheduled for certain periods in the day, so as to leave the border
accessible for public vehicles. So, next time.
We
continued along the coast towards Tarifa, the closest port to
Morocco, and where we would be leaving from in 2 days. Trying to find
the campground we had looked at was unsuccessful, and we pulled into
a one-star highway hostal (budget hotel), El Levante,
on the outskirts of Tarifa. This turned out to be quite pleasant, we
could park right next to the lawn outside our room which was handy
for the next day when we would be clearing out the van in preparation
for Morocco.
The
first order of business the next day in Tarifa was to buy our ferry
ticket. This was a bit more expensive than we expected...a whopping
€220 return for us and the car (now you know in advance, should you
wish to go). We coughed it up and went in search of parking so as to
have a look around Tarifa's old town. We managed to hit it right in
the middle of siesta, very common for us, so it was really quiet. We found it interesting that when they shut shop for siesta, they don't lock everything up, rather they will close grills across doors and windows and that's it.
We had a lovely lunch outside a café,
again with a good sangria, and really good food.
The Lonely Planet suggested that
road maps of Morocco are easier to find on this side of the Strait,
rather than in Morocco. We took this advice and bought the last map
on the rack. The next day we were so glad we did, as it was hard
enough finding our way out of Tangier, let alone a map in the
process!
I finally managed to convince Mike we needed to buy acrate for our food, and we managed to condense four disorganised shopping bags into something very tidy :)
Returning
to El Levante, we drove on a little bit past the hostal to
visit the beach across the road and happened upon last night's
elusive campground...two campgrounds, actually. The beach was
very fresh (cold!) but it didn't stop one Spanish family, a teenager and his
oldish parents, from swimming. I wish we had timed our visit
differently as we were subjected to their loud family argument while
the papa was naked, everything flapping in the breeze. Ugh!
We
tried to do our washing that afternoon, not wanting to have to find
laundromats in Morocco. The hostal had no washing facilities
on site, but suggested we visit the lavandería
in town. We turned up there with two big loads, ready to get started,
only to find it closed for the day. But the owner was there and
insisted that it was ok, “I am Swiss, I'm not Spanish, and the
Swiss take the work when the work is there”. But it wasn't
self-service and so it would cost us €24 for our two loads of wash,
dry, iron and fold. He was a nice guy, and we felt guilty taking the
work away from him, but we would rather take our chances and find
somewhere cheaper (a lot cheaper!).
The
rest of the afternoon was spent getting Ruby ready and sorted for
Morocco, via the first morning ferry from Tarifa.
