Tuesday's walking

Tuesday 14th May, continued

I would say it was the hottest day of our trip so far, and definitely the most humid. Therefore it was probably not the best day to be on an epic march around a double-sided cliff, but that's just the way things turned out. The Mediterranean Steps were marked on our awful touristical map with a line which, based on the distance we had covered so far, might (obviously there was no scale) be about 800m. They turned out to be an immense zig-zag path, up and down and roundabout. Under normal circumstances I would probably have dawdled a lot, but we had a boat to catch so had to take it at quite a pace, since we didn't know how long the walk actually was. We didn't want to be the Felicity and Terence of Gibraltar.

We made it to the end of the path and had to decide whether to descend to walk into the town (via “Engineers Road” - that looked about as scenic as it sounds), or ascend back up to the cable car station and take the down trip to the town. We had two hours to make it back to the ship. Some local men came to the consensus that it would take about an hour to walk to the cable car station. We decided to risk it, we had after all bought return tickets. So we started our march – this route was at least tarmacked which was an improvement on the Mediterranean Steps' shrapnel.

We'd not long been going when I was driven into by a mini-bus. This could have been really nasty, I was right on the side by the cliff edge and it was going reasonably fast, but fortunately I was only clipped by the wing mirror. I was lucky that I was able to keep my balance and come away with just a bruise. Matt, who is usually the most mild mannered of men, was livid. I was just a little shaken and sore and crossed over to the other side of the road – maybe I could get a matching bruise on my other arm.

We made it to the bottom of the cable car line with about an hour left to return to the ship, and I was now feeling slightly heat stroked. We'd been walking fast (we made it to the top cable car station well ahead of the one hour estimate we had been given) and I hadn't drunk enough. Plus the downwards cable car ride had left me feeling a bit wibbly.

I revived myself with an ice-lolly and we were left with just enough time for a little bit of shopping on the way back to the ship. Having started the trend for souvenir tea-towels in Ajaccio I got another in Gibraltar and, to really make my day, a souvenir hand towel too. Gibraltar is famous (well my mother-in-law told me) for cheap duty free. Neither Matt nor I are big drinkers but if we were going to buy any spirits any time soon now would be the time to do it. I inspected a one litre bottle of quality branded vodka priced at £5.95. Matt wondered what the difference between this one and the one next to it was – other than the price and the colour of the label. The difference was about 10% proof. We've now got a litre of 50.5% vodka – it was only 80 pence more which seemed like good economics. I also picked up a bottle of Angnostura bitters, a dash of which seems to be required in lots of cocktails.

Once we were back on board we had to endure the spectacle of the “Great British Sailaway” - everyone with their Union Jacks doing bacd karaoke to various well known tunes from around the British Isles. Lewis the cruise director was in his element. I was tempted to stay to enjoyed a Pimms but Matt and I grabbed a pizza and chips and headed to the relative sanctuary of the Ocean Deck.

Moored opposite was a French cruise ship – many passengers there waving cheerfully at us. I'm sure they must have wondered what was going on. Matt and I resisted the temptation to do a rendition of Les Mis for them. I had the misfortune to spot a not young, not slim Frenchman (at least I assume he was French) on his balcony in a white thong (the pant type, not the flip-flop type). The “why does he have to do that” level on a par with the not young, not slim, British men who insist on frying themselves on deck in only a pair of branded sporty swimming trunks. They don't look like they've done any sport recently. The not young, not slim, French man would be higher up the disgusting scale were it not for the (thankful) fact that he was situated at a more reasonable distance from me.

Tuesday's apes

Tuesday May 14th

Today's port was Gibraltar. I did not have particularly high expectations and was therefore extremely pleasantly surprised. We didn't dock until midday and were prepared to be in the first wave of disembarkation. I had even packed my anorak as the captain had warned us that there might be a shower later in the afternoon – this might be my opportunity.

Matt had visited Gibraltar several times before but had never been “up the rock”. This was surely a prime example of Something High To Go Up, and he was determined not to miss out this time. Unimpeded by age, girth or impractical footwear (or a combination of these impediments) Matt frog marched us through the town centre towards the cable car station – he was committed to beating the queue that he predicted would form.

There was no queue at all and we even secured prime position at the front of the cable car. Most cable cars appear to be built in Switzerland (at least European ones – I can't speak for other continents). The origin of this one wasn't obvious which made me slightly nervous.

I was amazed to spot apes (the fabled Barbary Macaques) on the way up. I thought that this would be a disappointing fauna based touristical trap; often when you are told that a certain species lives somewhere and you go to spot it there is no trace (e.g. marmosets on an Island just off of Dubrovnik).

Once at the top we had a good look around at the view. I could see that this was going to be one of those days that if I didn't take control of the camera we would not be going to get much exploration done. Matt agreed so once I was tooled up with the photographic equipment we set off to walk around the nature reserve. Unlike Gibraltar town (which was full of British style signposts), the nature reserve was not well way-marked. Coupled with a particularly useless touristical map we would mainly have to rely on an innate sense of direction, an asking other people (and hoping they told us the right way).

Nature report 4

• 
  The Barbary Macaques were truly amazing – the only “wild apes” in Europe. They are clearly not totally wild as they seemed to be quite used to the tourists and someone seemed to provide food for them. Raw potato appeared to be a particular favourite and I can't imagine that tourists take this up the cable car to feed them. I assume that the £500 fine for feeding the apes does not apply to whoever dishes out the raw potato and vegetable peelings.
  
  
  
• I have been fascinated by monkeys (although these are referred to as “apes” they are in fact taxonomically monkeys) since I was little. I love to watch their behaviour and expressions. Today we saw some who were quite vain and seemed to enjoy posing for photos. One little one was a right bully and was terrorising a slightly older one for food. I would have liked to have thought that they were just playing but the bigger one really did look annoyed and looking at others who clearly were playing this little one really was a menace. (Sorry about the anthropomorphism but I think it can be excused with primates.) I saw one who was scratching his head in just the same way that Matt does in the morning. The old men of the tribe just laze around watching what's going on.

• The Rock of Gibraltar is effectively a double-sided cliff. Having not been troubled by seagulls at any of our previous stops it was inevitable that as soon as we were back on British Territory they would become an issue. I used to tolerate seagulls but ever since a particularly unpleasant experience in St. Ives on our first wedding anniversary when one stole my yeast extract sandwich I have positively disliked them. I am now wiser than to eat in their presence (which can limit the locations for ice-cream enjoyment). But today's challenge would mainly involve avoiding being dive-bombed. I suppose this was understandable really because our walk around the double-sided cliff took use very close to their nests, but their swooping was quite scary and I was convinced that the best I could come away with would be seagull poo on my lovely new hat. Fortunately we both avoided the dive bombing, or a more vicious seagull attack, and the closest I came to seagull related injury was when I took a little stumble whilst trying to avoid one that was coming right for me.
• We took an exceptionally scenic route around the “Mediterranean Steps”. The wild flowers were stunning. Apparently there are over 600 species of plant in the nature
  
  reserve. Some were familiar – thistles, cow parsley, those things with dandelion-like flowers but that aren't dandelions (smaller flowers and longer stems) – but lots were unfamiliar. The smell was gorgeous and the whole scene spectacular. Sorry about the density of use of complimentary adjectives but it really was beautiful.
• The flowers were obviously a great attraction for insects. Having been troubled the whole of the previous day by a midgie bite on the back of my leg (which I managed to just about keep under control with more frequent than recommended applications of steroid cream) I was a bit worried that I would acquire another insect bite / sting today. I needn't have been concerned as the insects were much more interested in the real flowers than the ones on my dress, and I think that the yellow and black buzzers were bees rather than the more malicious wasp. There were loads of pretty butterflies – mostly ones that I had not seen before but there was occasionally one of the ubiquitous cabbage whites (I think they might be the grey squirrel of the butterfly world).
• We might even have seen a humming bird. Even if it was just a big insect that looked like a humming bird it was very impressive. Unfortunately it was very camera shy but I'm planning on going to the library to try to identify it.
• There were lots more lizard sightings too.