Gibraltar

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Our last day of fun! Today we tour Gibraltar.
Upon arrival we were met by mini-tour buses to take us on our 90-minute tour of ‘the Rock’, which wound it’s way up near to the top, discussing a lot of the Rock’s political and military history, with the following stops:

- Europa Point, the view point of the straits of Gibraltar and Morocco (but we couldn’t see anything as it was so over cast)

- St. Michael’s Cave

- The Apes Den

St. Michael’s Cave has a good sampling of stalactites and stalagmites, but probably the most interesting thing is the cave is the fallen stalagmite because you can see the interior, which looks much like the inside of a tree trunk. There’s also a theatre inside the cave, interesting because we had seen a Spanish music video the night before (not a lot of English channels here folks) which had been filmed in this very cave.

Seeing the Gibraltar apes was our most fun experience, although our time with them was brief. The apes are concentrated in a non-enclosed reserve called Ape’s Den. They are protected, population controlled, and fed by the local government. They appear to have basically free run of ‘the rock’ but seem to stay clear of the lower more populated area. This year was special for us tourists because it is the first time in approximately ten years, according to our tour guide, that the government has allowed babies to be born (the females are usually fed birth control pills). The ‘apes’ are actually tailless monkeys. They were so cute!

Afterwards we had time in lower Gibraltar for lunch in Casemates Square and shopping, duty-free but since everything was in pounds (2:1 valuation to the dollar), nothing was cheap for those of us from the States.

This is our last night here in Spain, so we pack up and prepare for our long return flight home tomorrow.

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