gibraltar

gibraltar is a tiny little place with a tiny little airport. one of many cool things about the place is that when you enter, either by car or walking, you actually cross the runway. when a plane is landing or taking off, they close the street much like a railroad crossing. i think thats fun.

anyway. we walked in to gibraltar from spain much later than planned. we wondered around for a bit looking for a place to stay and finally asked some directions from a couple police men in funny looking hats. we found one of the cheap hotels mentioned in the guide book (still ended up being the most expensive stay of the trip), dropped our stuff off and went out to find food. the only place open was indian food. seemed fitting and that hour anything would have been great. the to a pub for a pint.

gibraltar has a lot of drunken 12 year olds roaming the streets in the wee small hours, which made me sad.

another thing that made me sad was the signs posted on the streets saying that the cable car/tram to the top of the rock was closed for maintance. i was really looking forward to seeing the top. sad...

the next morning we got some greasy english breakfast, and someone told us that even though the cable car is down you can still walk up. how long does that take? a couple hours, you guys are young. i was doubtful, but we decided to go for it.

so we hiked up. there are paved roads much of the way. the rock also has some pretty great sites to see: natural caves, man-made tunnels, an old moorish castle from the 14th century, and monkeys! the way up (and down is steep) and by the time we got down i was exhausted - but i am so glad that i can now say i walked to the top. the entire trip complete with seeing most of the sights only took about 4 hours and we saved money (the cable car/tram/whateveritwascalled would have cost about $30 i think).




(some where behind us is africa)






then it was back to spain. a bus, a ferry, morocco...