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Published: December 10th 2009
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The Rock
Our whole crew, before Connie had to take off. Finally! My pilgrimage happened. Ever since hearing about Gibraltar from two fellow travelers while on my trip with Erik back in ’08, I have wanted to go see the monkeys. “Perhaps they will jump on me and wrestle MY muffin away from me,” I mused, recalling a story one of the girls had told. Jump on me they did, but I wasn’t brave enough to carry food around, so that did not become an issue. We did witness several food stealings, though, which were quite humorous. But what am I talking about?! Monkeys? Muffins? Gibra-what! Allow me to explain.
Gibraltar is not in Spain, but neither is it its own country. It is, according to Wikipedia, a self-governing British overseas territory, which of course means that the language of the Anglos is spoken there. We had to cross the border, which consisted of us flashing our passports to an uninterested woman reading a newspaper, and soon we were again in a land of English- the first time since I’ve been here! I didn’t know what language to speak to people in. If I spoke Spanish, they responded in British English. If I spoke English, they responded in English with a
Spanish accent. It seemed that half the population didn’t speak very good Spanish, and the other half didn’t speak very good English. Incidentally, they call their peculiar dialect of a language “Gibberish.” How fitting. (But really, English is the official language, and that part about Gibberish may be a rumor.)
It took us about four hours to get there on the bus, and I was accompanied by Raquel and Connie. Connie had decided to make it a day trip, but the bus schedule made it so that she had to return at 4:30… not much time since we arrived at 2:00. She went up with us by cable car, took a quick look around, and headed back. Raquel and I thought it would be best to cable car up and walk down… so after Connie took off we started our trek. There are a few sights to see on the way down, but we only got to ancient St. Michael’s cave, unfortunately the least recommended sight by Rick Steves… by the time we got to the other things it was too late. But we did see a lot of monkeys!! It’s not really clear how the monkeys got to
Monkey
"I think I spilled something on myself." Gibraltar, but there’s a myth that says that as long as they’re there, the British will be, too. So there they reside… flying out of nowhere to grab an unsuspecting visitor’s granola bar, or trying to wrestle a woman’s purse away from her… (true story).
We wandered through the town a bit after we reached the bottom, admiring the town’s Christmas lights, then found a bus stop we were pretty sure would take us back to the border. After a 30 minute wait, we spent approximately 5 minutes on the bus… basically meaning we could have just walked. Oops.
After an entertaining ride to Tarifa where we chatted with Donald the Englishman, who was appalled that we had walked down the rock of Gibraltar by ourselves (“Weren’t you afraid the monkeys would ATTACK you?” “…no.”) we settled into our cheap hostel for an evening of listening to Slovakian, as that’s what our bunkmates spoke. It’s such a strange thing not understanding a word of what someone is saying, when they’re apparently using sounds to form coherent thoughts.
Tarifa was probably built up a little too much for me before I got there. Someone told me once that
Yum...
Mayonnaise packet? I suppose everyone has their own preferences. it was a “photographer’s dreamland,” and while it was lovely, I wasn’t exactly falling over myself (though I have to admit, there were a lot of images I wished I could have captured but simply didn't know how). It being a national holiday and all, nothing was really open, but it was still fun to walk around the town and enjoy the ocean vistas. Tarifa is actually the southernmost tip of Spain, and of Europe, for that matter, so we were able to see Morocco, and the painted sides of nearby ships at port promised they could get you there in 45 minutes. We stayed in Spain, though, content to breathe in the sea air and practice our direction-asking skills as we wandered through the confusing streets.
One thing that I’ve enjoyed this semester is visiting the smaller towns around Spain, rather than taking mega-trips to other countries like I did while I was in France. I really feel acquainted with Andalucia, this region, and it’s amazing how much diversity in destinations there is here. This weekend, my last weekend here, I have a tentatively planned trip to a cave in a nearby town, but if that doesn’t work
You are here.
For the oblivious traveler, a proclamation that Tarifa is as far south in Europe as you can get. out I’ll honestly be okay with just enjoying Sevilla, which has become home. This next week will be bittersweet.
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