Day 36 - Gibraltar

 Today was the next most incredible day of my life.

At breakfast, I find that it is raining outside.  Pouring, actually.  When we get enough courage to brave the weather, we run outside to the bus stop.  We were not in Galway anymore; it was raining hard and not letting up anytime soon.  After a clumsy 2-hour transport, we pull up to La Linéa, the border between Spain and British-owned Gibraltar.  The site was incredible; all we could see was the base of an enormous rock topped by clouds.

We walk across the border, which entailed a guard briefly glancing at our passports as we walked by.  There was no actual line, and we did not get our passports stamped.  Suddenly, we were transported back to a little English corner of the world, where there were red telephone booths and nice people speaking with an English accent.  It was lovely!

We inquired at an information booth about the best way up the rock (we were still in the city on the flat section).  We found out about tours, taxis, and the cable car, but we decided, We’re young, we’re spry.  Mostly, we’re cheap, so we’ll go it on foot!  The nice lady told us it was a 30-minute walk uphill to the park.  She blatantly lied to us; the gradient of the roads leading up to the park were roughly equivalent to that of a Stairmaster.  We were panting and staggering almost immediately, but forged ahead.

We finally reached the park and began exploring all of its attractions.  There was a Moorish Castle on the edge of the hill with spectacular views of the city and the port.  A little farther along the path and we saw wild monkeys!  They were just chilling on the edge of the road, also enjoying the view.  The park ranger warned us not to touch them, or else they bite.  Otherwise they were harmless.

We continued to tunnels built and fashioned for World War II and survival during sieges.  There were caves built into the mountainside and openings for cannons.  There were also some exhibits with models depicting what life was like (boring and disease-ridden).  The weather had cleared from its earlier rainy state, but it was fogging up again quickly.  As we were in the tunnels, we could actually see a cloud entering through the cannon windows.  By the time we got back outside, the fog had settled and our view was all but gone.  We were determined to walk the 3 km around the park and up to the top of the rock.  We walked right into the newly-forming cloud with all its mist and rain, and today I got to use ALL of my raingear: an umbrella, rain jacket, and two ponchos.

Even before we reached the Ape’s Den, we encountered more monkeys.  We found them along railings, under the cable car, and jumping on and stubbornly clinging to someone’s car as he drove past.  In the Ape’s Den (just an open area where the monkeys tend to gather), we didn’t see any monkeys.  They were likely hiding from the on-and-off rain.  But a minute later we saw dozens of them camouflaging into the surrounding vegetation.  Next thing we knew, we were surrounded by them.  There were large alpha males and pregnant females and even some moms with their babies hanging from their bellies.  Then one jumped on Emily.  Her initial excitement quickly turned into panic when it wouldn’t get off.  It climbed from her shoulders to her head, played around with her headband, and eventually jumped off when it was bored.

We became cautious when approaching the monkeys; we didn’t want them to jump on us.  Luckily, they didn’t, they only jumped on Emily – two more times.  One also tried to take a bite out of Sarah’s arm; she was wearing one of the rain ponchos, and the monkeys thing crinkly things are food packages.  An Ape Management man arrived on the scene.  He was very friendly and informative and told us the best way around the park.  We asked why the monkeys would only jump on Emily.  He told her, “Now don’t get offended – you’re too tall, they think you’re a tree.”  Emily was, in fact, very tall.

We eventually grew weary of the monkeys closing in, last of which was Sean the Rapist, so we continued on our way to the top.  We considered taking a shortcut to the top via some stone stairs we found going up the cliffside.  The “Queen’s Staircase” disappeared somewhere in the clouds, and after straining our necks to look up the steep angle, we decided to stay on the path.

Along the way, we stopped into St. Michael’s Cave, which is a place I still can’t believe really exists.  It is a large limestone cave bursting with stalactites and stalagmites, believed to be bottomless.  The limestone formations on the walls and all around were unbelievable.  The space was prepared as an emergency hospital in WWII, but never had to be used, so it is now used as a concert hall.  Seats and speakers are installed around the limestone stage.  We left in awe, not quite ready to face the 1.3 km hike uphill we had yet to go.

We kept climbing uphill, passed some more monkeys, found the top station of the cable car, and passed it using a shady set of stairs.  At the top of the stairs, we were in a little lookout tower quite high up.  We could see…nothing, absolutely nothing.  We could not see 9 miles over to Morocco, we could not see the city of Gibraltar below us, we could not see anything past the stone walls of the tower.  There was only whiteness around us in every direction.  But we were at the top!

We took in the moment, then hurried down.  We had to make sure not to miss the last bus, for which we thankfully bought tickets in advance.  We followed the advice of the Ape Management guy, who told us to follow a set of stairs down to the exit; that would be the fastest way.  We backtracked to a stone staircase that extended out into a cloud then down to oblivion.  This was no doubt the top of the Queen’s Staircase we had so resolutely avoided earlier.  I wanted to object, but we were very, very late.  I clung tightly to the railing and after a short eternity landed at the bottom.  At the landing, we found out that was the first leg of four, and we hurried down three more sets of equally steep steps into oblivion.

At the bottom, with shaking legs, we tried to orient ourselves toward the exit.  We heard a car coming, and Sarah half-heartedly stuck her thumb out for a second, then put it away.  But that was enough, and the car stopped.  We were hesitant and looked at each other while the driver gave us an expression that said, “Well, are you getting in or what?”  Decision made: we got in.  Ignoring the smell of marijuana, we made pleasant small talk with Karl, who saved the day.  Gibraltarians are a very nice people.  He spent 10 minutes driving us down the loops of the rock, which would have taken us at least an hour on foot, and dropped us off in the city near the border.  As soon as Karl got stuck in traffic, we said our thank you’s and bolted out of the car to the bus station.  We ran the entire way to the border, ran passed the border guard with our passports out, and ran to the bus station to join a long line of SASers also returning to Cadiz with us that night.