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Published: October 21st 2004
Yesterday was my most exciting day yet! I woke up in Sevilla, Spain, a wonderful city that I have incredably fond memories of from my first voyage. Chelsea, one of my travel companions, was sick so she and her boyfriend Mark decided to stay in Sevilla another night (we were suppoed to wake up and go to Morocco together). I went out alone and got some traveller´s checks, then went to the Sevilla cathedral and the Alcazar palace. The palace is an incredable monument that I somehow missed on my last trip. It was built by one of the Spanish kings in the middle ages, but its entirely done in the Moorish Islamic style, complete with tile work showing Koranic poetry. Apparently after the Spanish reconquered southern Spain, all the Moorish craftsman stuck around and continued to build for the king.
I left Sevilla right after that and went to Algerceris, a dirty port town from where I write to you now. Upon arriving, I checked my bags at the train station and took a bus to nearby Gibralter.
Gibralter is a very strange place. It´s on the southern coast of Spain, but is actually a British colony. Looking at the Geography its easy to see why. The town is on the sea-side of an enourmous pointy rock (the Rock of Gibralter) on the end of a skinny pennisula. Until about a century ago, the only way to reach the town was through a tunnel through the rock.
The place has an incredable history of siege warfare, having passed back and forth between several major powers several times throughout the centuries. I believe General Eisenhower was headquartered there during WWII. I did not go to see war history however, I was there to see monkies! Yes Gibralter is home to Europe´s only wild monkies. The famed Barabary Apes have been renowned for terrorising tourists with their antics since they were original brought over by the Moors 500 years ago. It was my mission de jour to meet face to face with these exciting rodents.
Entering Gibralter is a strange thing. I had to go through customs, this being the UK and all. Its seperated from Spain by military roadblocks, passport officials and the whole the whole bit, though I was spared the formalities with my American passport.
The town is a bit of Britain on the Mediterranian: The union jack flies from every building, one can find Fish and Chips and Guiness beer on every corner, and most of the inhabitants speak the queen´s English and are damn proud of it. It has that island feel where the locals know that they are soemthing special, a rare breed of folk unlike any others anywhere in the world, and they welcome tourists with genorous hospitality if only to say "just look how unique and different we are". Every year the governments of Spain and Britain get together and try to remedy the situation. Britain tries deperatly to give the land to Spain, and Spain tries desperatly to take it, but when they put it to a vote, the Gibralterites vote to remain British, and they remain so. I even had to change my money to Pounds at the border.
So back to the monkies. The cable car up the side of the rock was closed which means I had to walk. The rock being enourmously tall, and the monkies being nearly at the top, means this was quite a task, but I was was not about to go back to Spain without contacting this famous tribe of primates. a good 2 HOURS of sweaty climbing later I reached the top and saw two things I hadn´t seen in nearly a year: 1. a wild monkey sleeping on a rock 2. the African coast. The monkies were fun, they jump around and smack each other up to the delight of camera totting-tourists (who took the easy way up in tourist taxis). Occasionly when someone got too close they screamed and yelled and put up a fuss, but its just a game, they know that no one is going to touch them. I took several pictures (which I´ll upload for y´all when I get to Fez) and walked back down to town via some 16th century stairs where I had a delightful dinner of fish and chips before returning to Algeciras to spend the night.
I´m actually supposed to be in Morocco right now, but the pension I stayed in last night screwed up, and my laundry isn´t ready. I´m going back right now, to get my cloths, and then its off to Africa Tout de Suite!
Adios Amigos!
Brad
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anonymous
non-member comment
Laundry?