Tasty tapas, crappy chips and upsetting Ricardo in Gibraltar

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Day 4 of our Spanish holiday and we're on the way to somewhere that sounds like little Britain to me-Gibraltar. We have four British women on board the coach who are going to get their fags and some fish and chips. They must have been out of the UK for a long time if they're that desperate for fish and chips....or they must just be the sad, stereotypical Brit abroad. I suspect the latter...

They were the same four who didn't like our guide yesterday so guess who our guide is today, yes, the same one, it's Ricardo again. He has already warned us about having an accident as people drive eating chocolate or talking on their phone so we'll be held up for one hour, maybe two. I think I'd be more concerned about being splattered across the road thanks to some chocolate-munching-telephone-talking Spaniard than being stuck in a bit of traffic!

Ricardo is doing a lot of talking today and trying to earn the tip from us he didn't get yesterday. I suspect he won't be getting anything from the fag and fish women still though. He is very informative but can get a bit droney after a while. He has just told us he has to work 22 hours a day so he can afford to live in Marbella, which sounds a bit like an old Monty Python sketch.

Trouble is I have to stay awake so we know what to do as Claire nods off as soon as he opens his mouth. He can be quite amusing though as one minute he talks about the customs people trusting him and then a few minutes later he's advocating smuggling and telling people to smuggle fags back in their socks. Oh and remember yesterday's stereotypical name game well we have a different driver today and his name is....again.....Pedro! And the Russian speaking guide is...wait for it.....Alexander.... Now I know they're taking the pee out of us!

We have now had a day, well half a day, in Gibraltar and are back on the coach. Ricardo assured us it wouldn't start raining until 3pm.....it is now 14:55 and I am absolutely soaked. It has rained nearly all day and torrentially with thunder at times Mr Ricardo crappy weather forecaster!!! You can wring my socks and pants out when we get back you swine!

After we breezed through customs we went off with Tony for a minibus whistlestop tour of the The Rock. The roads are slender to say the least, edge through roughly hewn narrow tunnels and twist and turn more than something really twisty and turny.

We stopped off at Europa Point for a dull view of more or less nothing before heading uphill to St Michael's Cave and our first sighting of the notorious macaques, the only wild monkeys in Europe.

We didn't have long at any of the stops but the commentary was good from Tony who had a wry sense of humour. The caves were excellent but someone had the insane decision to pipe in putrid pop pap music of a peurile nature for no apparent reason other than to wind me up. And I guess they succeeded if that was their aim. Gits.

Some wonderful stalactite and stalagmite action going on inside though with the added bonus of it being the best lit cave I think i've ever been in.

After getting soaked photographing a few soggy macaques we were soon on our way again and back down to the entrance to the old town. We now had some free time and decided we were hungry so...ahem...we decided to have some fish and chips. When in Rome and all that malarkey. Well I did, there wasn't much for Claire as a veggie so she just had chips. Ricardo had recommended one place, Tony had recommended another and it turned out that those restaurants were side by side. We thought we'd head for Tony's recommendation but there weren't any free tables that weren't getting soaked in the rain. Ricardo just happened to be standing outside his recommendation and called us over and steered us to an empty table.

Claire's meagre portion of chips arrived and it was clear that they were about as British as Lionel Messi. From the freezer to the fryer is hardly 'proper' chips now is it? When my fish and chips eventually arrived (when Claire had almost finished hers) it was obvious that the same rules applied to the fish. They'd probably bought it in Morrison's freezer department that morning.

Claire told Ricardo later how bad the food and service was and he apparently knew that we would complain. No-one else says so apparently, well how about the people who walked out having only had one bite of their fish and saying the cardboard was still on it? He 'knew' we'd complain...!! Claire wasn't complaining, she was just pointing it out so he didn't send anyone else to eat the crappy food there. I think his tip for both days has just gone waaaaay out of the window into the rain he told us wasn't coming until later. So yeah, AVOID Al Fresco's Fish and Chips (it's not cheap either) and never listen to anything Ricardo recommends. Roy's next door had good reports from some Brits on our tour so yeah, listen to Tony-he knows where it's at and won't be taking a cut.

After lunch we went for a wander and Claire espyed some steps going uphill so of course we had to climb them. It was a better alternative than walking up the high street which had mainly the same crappy shops we have at home. I hate shopping at home so there's no way I'm going to spend my holiday wandering round the same dreadful clothes shops thank you very much.

So, the steps....lots of steps....we ambled up in the rain and were soon....soaked even more.... And eventually we were back up with the macaques and some even had the decency to be below us so we could photograph them without getting our lenses soaked. We'd passed the Moorish castle and some bloke tried to charge us 50p each to walk further...or €1 each. So, to save money, Claire furtled around for a pound coin and managed to save us even more as the bloke gave up and let us through for free. I gave him a tip, which was to avoid eating at Al Fresco*

*this is not true. I'm sure he would have known that already.

As we got back into town my camera fell off its holster but remained okay I think despite landing on rain soaked concrete. Claire has managed to throw a number of lens hoods and lens caps on the floor throughout the day so I thought I'd go one better. Maybe that £200 camera belt at The Photography Show would have been a good investment....

As we got to the bus station the thunder and torrential rain started so hundreds of people were cowering inside the terminal. Ricardo and his crappy weather forecasting was nowhere to be seen but the coach did turn up in plenty of time.

Gibraltar was interesting and very British: dreadful weather, lots of traffic and poor, overpriced food. The island though is well worth a visit and I wish we had more time as there is lots more to see including lots of tunnels that looked quite interesting. It would have been better if we'd had some dry weather too but we can only blame Ricardo for that.

We are now on the long coach journey home and Ricardo is very quiet and sulking at the front. His excuse for the awful food was because it was raining (something which Claire repeated, not realising he was standing behind her). The food was bad because it was raining?!?! He then mentioned the food in Morocco yesterday and got another deserved mouthful from Claire as she hadn't had much due to being a vegetarian...or even been offered an alternative. The chicken was decidedly average yesterday too.

He didn't listen to Claire's constructive criticism and just talked over her the minute she opened her mouth as we'd already been labelled as the sort to complain. Where does he get that from the cheeky peckerhead?? We may point things out in our blogs in an amusing manner but we are always polite in real life and greatful for all help and advice. We very rarely actually say anything to anyone even if the service is bad as we have our blogs to get our message across so being labelled as complainers is rather rude Mr Getting No Tip and a bad Review here, in Claire's blog and on Tripadvisor!! How do you like those apples?? I bet they taste better than the naff chips you had us eat!!

I've just remembered that he told us to eat at McDonalds next time....he really was upset wasn't he! In his goodbye speech over the mic he said some people were happy and some people were not but he'd done his best and then he looked the other way when we got off the coach! Crikey mate, calm down! It was only a bit of advice!!

So we paid €50 each for today and that's not too bad really. If we'd gone across on our own we wouldn't have learnt so much but we would have spent more time doing things. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have gone to Al Fresco though....

For a better meal back in Spain we scoured the internet and our guide books and Tripadvisor found us a high ranking restaurant supposedly in Fuengirola. I drove as it wasn't far...apparently.... Then it turned out not to be in Fuengirola after all-as if there'd be a decent restaurant there! We did hear some obviously pleasant chaps shouting Lip Up Fatty at the tops of their voices from inside some crumby looking bar and knew for sure we were in the wrong place. British lager louts....best in the world!

And so I then had to drive half the way across Spain to Cala De Mijas* to try and find KonFusion.

*actually six miles but hey.

Somehow we did actually find it, actually found somewhere to park, walked through torrential rain, went inside and....they had no tables free... But wait, there's a happy ending! We sat at the bar and had some splendid tapas, proper sized tapas, really tasty tapas too and a glorious chocolate souffle with green tea ice cream for dessert. Wonderful. It was even worth the drive 3/4s of the way across Spain for.

With my espresso I had a biscuit in a wrapper. Somehow Claire misheard something I said and thought I'd had a heated biscuit...?! Something tells me there was a bit too much vodka in her cocktail... I will always demand heated biscuits from now on though so watch out Ricardo! You can shove your frozen chips where the sun don't shine, it's heated biscuits all the way for me from now on!

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