It’s our earliest rise yet, but not accompanied with a time change,
thankfully. We’re in Gibraltar today, and Sarah has set us up with a ship-based
excursion called Upper Rock Tour for Families. It’s a bit of a slow start in
the ship’s theatre as we wait for them to call our group number, but eventually
we’re off the ship and on the tour bus. Our guide is Chris, a Brit who has spent
the better of part of forty years in Gibraltar. He is smart, loud, totally
engaging, and probably the best tour guide we have ever had. The tour starts
straight-off, and as we drive towards the cable car station that will take us
to the top of the rock, Chris shares some facts about Gibraltar: the population
is around 30,000 and it’s about 2.5 square miles; seaborne trade and online
gambling are the top contributors to its GDP; the city’s been witness to
something like 16 sieges; the British captured it from the Spanish in 1704; and
the Spanish captured it from the Moors three centuries prior to that.
While the cable car allegedly holds 30
people, our tour group of 20 is absolutely wedged in, but it’s only a few
minutes to the top. Once we clowns all pop out of the clown car, Chris gives us
some details on the monkeys that we’re about to meet. Gibraltar is home to a few
hundred barbary macaque. I could go to lengths trying to describe them but I
think the pictures above give a pretty good idea. What we get from Chris here
are the warnings. Don’t feed them or try
to touch them. Don’t stare them in the eye for any length of time. They do bite.
With the fear of God in us, we climb the stairs and meet the first one,
expecting chest beating and poop flinging. What we see is a very old, very
chill monkey that doesn’t mind getting its picture taken. We stop for a coffee
at the café there, and then press on to see more monkeys. And they’re all very used to people. They’re not freaked
out, there’s no monkey-rage. The first few encounters are further away, but by
the end monkeys are passing on the stairs just like they’re doing their morning
commute. Others are just sitting there, happy to be featured in as many photos
and videos people feel like taking. Still others are jumping over our heads
between walls and tour buses. It’s awesome.
We take a quick break from the monkeys to
check out St. Michael’s Cave, a limestone cavern accessible from the rock. Once
inside, it’s very wide and open, and it’s actually used as an auditorium and
hall for weddings and dances. It was also used as an emergency hospital during World
War II. We spend maybe twenty minutes here and then head out. On the way back
to the bus, the monkeys are getting especially
comfortable with people and one jumps up on a lady in our group. Chris had advised
that, if this happens, just bend forward slowly and the monkey will jump off. She
does. It doesn’t. Then a second monkey jumps on. Then the two monkeys start to
scrap. Chris gets them off by blowing on them. Before it’s through, the lady
gets bitten in the arm (only enough to bruise, not enough to break the skin,
and she doesn’t seem too worked up about it.)
Our last stop is The Gibraltar National
Museum. It’s a pretty quick breeze through the museum, but long enough. We see
some wartime propaganda films, a preserved Moorish bathhouse, and a forensic recreation
of two Neanderthals. Some of the oldest Neanderthal skulls every discovered
were found in Gibraltar – although the gent who found them didn’t really know
what they were and locked them in a drawer for a few years. The skulls were a
mother and a child, and the recreations did not rate very highly according to
my kids. “Why are they so short? Why are they so dirty? Why are they so naked?”
It’s aristocratic cave people or nothing at all for my kids.
There’s more to the day, but the excursion
is the highlight. Later, Sarah and I head back out to explore the city centre. She
shops for kids’ clothes. I take a picture of a Burger King. Those are the second
and third highlights, respectively.
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