We were up early and waiting at the bus stop at 6.45am. Well done! Having the alarm set for 5.30am on holidays is not a plan I had! Last night we met a couple from Tasmania in the lift at the Hotel. They live at George Town north of Launceston and have been travelling around Europe for 4 weeks. They were waiting for the bus, too. The lady’s reaction was a bit weird when I went over and started talking to them, but it turned out she had no recollection of our meeting in the lift as she had been participating in the Fair celebrations. Not sure how she didn’t have a hangover!
The bus came on time and we climbed aboard. It stopped a few times to pick up people along the way, but we didn’t end up with a full bus. There were quite a few empty seats. We had to take our passports with us as Gibraltar is a British Colony and we have to cross the border. Going into Gibraltar was easy as the police from Spain walked through the bus and checked our passports, then we drove a few yards and the police from Gibraltar walked through the bus and checked our passports and we were in! Not a drama at all. It could be different on the way back as depending on the mindset of the Spanish police you can be held up for quite some time. The Spanish still hate the British because they won’t give Gibraltar back to the Spanish there have even been referendums held in the 1990s and 2000s for the people to vote on and the people have voted to stay with the British, so the Spaniards do not like the people either.
Gibraltar is all duty free, so a lot of people go there to shop. We didn’t find the prices cheap, except for the liquor, but we didn’t buy anything. The perfume and cosmetics were all dearer than I can buy them for in Australia. We had free time for a couple of hours and then we headed back to the parking area. We had booked a tour of Gibraltar and the caves and monkeys. By the way, it is a Very Big Rock!!! The Tasmanian couple were back for the tour and we asked them what they had done in their free time. It turns out they had been to a wedding. A young Australian couple were holidaying in Gibraltar and had decided to get married. They needed a couple of Australian witnesses, so the groom was out on the street looking for Aussies when he spied our Tasmanian friend in his Collingwood T-Shirt, and approached him, checking he was an Aussie, and he and his wife became witnesses at the wedding. Strange things can happen. Lol!!
So the tour took us through the streets of Gibraltar explaining the history of the colony, the fact that it used to be 50% military and 50% civilian population = 30,000. Now it is all civilian. It is an important port in the shipping routes and only 14km from Morocco. We toured through all the Port, the shipping yards and the military buildings and headed up the rock to the lookout point. The views down to the town were great but you couldn’t see anything on the horizon for the heat haze. Have I mentioned it is hot over here? We have been experiencing days between 29 and 39 since we left the cruise!
We then went to the caves where we were warned not to touch the monkeys, not to feed the monkeys and not to get close to the monkeys because they steel things and to watch our belongings as they are very quick. Your obvious, rascal monkeys just like the ones at the temples in Kuala Lumpur. We went into the cave passing a couple of monkeys on the way, the look cute but looks can be deceiving! The caves were very good, typical stalactites and stalagmites but difficult to photograph because of the lighting. We got a few good shots, though.
Outside waiting for the bus we saw some more monkeys and watched one go into the souvenir shop and steal a toy monkey and race off into the trees with it. A mother and baby were in the trees and a couple of teenagers were drinking from a bucket and monkeying around! Funny little characters!
Back on the bus and back to the city we had some free time to have something to eat before our departure at 3.30pm. We were due back in Malaga at 6pm. We found a nice Italian Restaurant and had some meatballs in tomato sauce and a focaccia with cherry tomatoes. It was quite nice to be in an English speaking country again, although, in the morning when we had breakfast of scones and tea, my pronunciation of scones was not very British and the lady told me they were “scones” as in the pronunciation of “stones.” Oh dear!
So, back on the bus we go and head for the customs check point. There are restrictions on how much duty free you can take back into Spain, 1 litre of liquor per person, 300ml of ladies eau de parfum and 500ml of gent’s aftershave. To get in and out of Gibraltar the bus has to cross the runway of the airport. It’s really weird to drive across a runway that goes out into the sea. They have traffic lights and boom gates, in case you are wondering what happens when a plane is landing.
At customs the British aren’t interested, after all you are leaving. The Spanish on the other hand made us get off the bus with all our bags , walk through passport control, showing our passports to the policeman behind the glass, who just nodded at each of us, and then we had to wait while they searched the bus. Bus searched and we were back on it in about 15 minutes and away we went. The guide thought that was a lot quicker than usual as it can take an hour to do the same other days. Thank you happy Spanish policemen!
We got back to Malaga about 6.20pm and walked back to our Hotel. We were happy but tired after our long day. Of course the disco was on above our room in the bar and we had Flamenco dancing on our ceiling until late. Gerard was not happy and let the management know that he wanted them to stop dancing on our ceiling so he could sleep, it was only 9.30pm! Lol! But the dancing did quieten down a fair bit and we slept well.
