Malaga/Gibraltar Mar 12, 2023

Trip Day 13 - Malaga/Gibraltar - Part 1

The Trip/Summary

I flew from Madrid to Malaga, rented a car, then drove about 2 hours to Gibraltar on a toll highway. I parked on the Spanish side and walked across the border to meet my guide, Carl, who runs Inside-Out Rock Tours. Carl has access by car to all the areas. The tour was expensive, but I saw a lot and learned a lot of history.

Trip Day 13 - Malaga/Gibraltar - Part 2

Monkey Encounters

There are about 300 macaque monkeys in Gibraltar, carefully monitored and fed by the government. In some areas, the monkeys are quite friendly and will approach tourists looking for food and stealing stuff. They can open zippers. Feeding them is prohibited.

Here is a video of a baby monkey chewing on a plastic bottle. One tourist decided that was a bad thing and tried to take it away from the baby. The baby squealed and 2 nearby mothers immediately came to his defense. My guide, Carl, told the woman to leave the baby alone or she would be attacked. The lady claimed that the plastic bottle was bad and Carl told her that the baby was probably was teething and just trying to get some relief. 

Next, Carl sent me into some fortress that had monkeys in the entrance. He said, don't look at them and they WOULDN'T attack me.  Here is before going in:

This is the approach - I tried to record sideways while looking away and startled the last one who came toward me. I have the video up to where he runs to me and then I used my customer service voice to calm him down, which seemed to work.  You'll have to turn up the volume to hear it. It's just my voice, no angry monkey voice.

On the way out, I got better at recording not looking at my subject and got the exit encounter fully on video. It seems that I left, he couldn't care less, since he obviously had already shown dominance on me and owned me.

Here's a pic of him with his attack face or his startled face. They may be the same. Hard to tell.

Trip Day 13 - Malaga/Gibraltar - Part 3

About Gibraltar

There are only 32,000 residents in Gibraltar (it belongs to the U.K.) and about 20k to 30k Spanish folk come into work here daily. Gibraltar is very expensive and space is limited.

The area changed hands multiple times, from the Moors, to the Spanish, and to the Brits, but not in that order. The languages spoken here are English and Spanish. I ran into quite a few Spanish workers who did not speak English, so my limited Spanish helped some.

Unlike the U.K., driving is on the right-side of the road, however, without a pass, most areas are not accessible. 

Gibraltar is NOT the closest point of mainland Europe to Africa. It is actually Spain at 9 miles, with Gibraltar being 14 miles away. However, the Pillars of Hercules are named after a peak in Gibraltar (Rock of Gibraltar) and either a peak in Morocco, Jebel Moussa, or Mount Hacho in Ceuta, a Spanish possession in Africa.

Trip Day 13 - Malaga/Gibraltar - Part 4

Malaga and Hotel Rincon Del Sol

This was my first day's stop on my Spain Road Trip.  The hotel looked really nice on the website.  It faced right on the beach and it was only 55 Euros for the night (about $58.)  The room and the bathroom was tiny though. They also don’t know about washcloths here.  When I asked for one, I got a hand towel. That should be fun, especially with my sore arm. This also happened in London when Rose and I went in 2019. She had brought some and this time, so did I. I just don’t want to carry a wet wash cloth around. Is it just Americans that use washcloths?

This was the worst hotel I stayed at, though for 58 bucks, I can't really complain.  It was also the cheapest.  At least it was better than the AirBnB from hell in Barcelona.

Beach Views

The hotel faced onto the Mediterranean.  I went out several times to inhale the Med and took these videos.  Unfortunately, there was construction and it wasn't as pretty as it could have been.