Let's Explore: A day trip to Gibraltar! MONKEYS!!!

When you do spontaneous things, usually two things happen: something goes wrong, and good stories come out of the experience.

The day trip to Gibraltar was supposed to be with a group of 5 of us. Me, my friend Becca, Zach, another girl from our program, Jess and her friend Christine.

We said we would all meet at the bus station at 7AM, because our bus would be leaving at 7:15. All of us are there expect Zach. 7:10 rolls around and he's still not there, I thought it would be ok because everything in Spain runs late, so I didn't think there would be a problem. But, it's 7:15 and the bus driver is ready to go, I begged him to wait 2 minutes because we knew Zach was on his way, but he would not wait! So, then there were 4 of us.

We get to Algercias, the city at the tip of Spain where we needed to catch another bus to get us to Gibraltar. We were not sure which bus to take so we went to the info desk to ask for help. It took about 15 minutes for someone to arrive to the desk and then we were finally directed where to go. We had to walk to another bus station and hop on a bus there. Around this time, we realized that Christine only brought a copy of her passport and not the real thing. We were crossing borders going into Gibraltar, but we weren't sure how strict they would be.

We got on the bus to Gibraltar and at the next stop some teenagers got, sat down behind us and started talking about us in Spanish! Little did they know, we could understand everything they were saying. A guy that was sitting in front of us overheard that we were heading to Gibraltar and he gave us some good advice and when we got off he walked us in the right direction of the border.

At the border, I felt like I was in We're the Millers. I'm not sure why, I wasn't smuggling weed, or anything into Gibraltar, I was just for some reason nervous that they wouldn't let me in! but I showed them my passport, which they barely looked at, and they let me in! Unfortunately, even after I tried talking to the police man and trying to get them to sympathize with us, they would not let Christine in, so Jess decided to stay with her and they headed back to Sevilla. And then there were 2.

Becca and I quickly got to exploring Gibraltar! First things first, converting our Euros to Pounds! (Since we were in the UK!!) We then noticed that they have Telephone booths like in London! We thought that was super funny and cool, so we of course took pictures in them, like such tourists!

We then wandered into the town of Gibraltar where we were approached by a tour guide company. Now, normally I am very against these tour because I just like to wander around and figure things out on my own, but we had limited time and walking up the Rock of Gibraltar would have taken 3 hours...So we hoped into a random white van (sorry Mom, I know you said never to do this!) Turned out to be an awesome tour and experience! Our tour guide Jaret was so cool, taught us so much and showed us the best part of Gibraltar!

We learned that it is one of the most diverse places in the world (which we realized when we arrived and heard so many languages being spoken!) There is only a 1% criminal rate, so it is a very safe place to live! There is no unemployment rate, because they actually need people to come and work there! Also, they don't have any universities, so if you get good grades in high school, the government will pay for your tuition to go to a university abroad.

Out first stop on the tour was the Pillars of Hercules! From this spot you could see Spain and Africa! It was so cool and I did not realize how close the two coasts are!

Our next stop was St. Michael's Caves. These were huge caves within the Rock of Gibraltar and it was absolutely beautiful! Next up, by far my favorite part of the day, MONKEYS! Yes, it's true Monkeys are the wild, natural animals of Gibraltar! So, they don't roam the streets like I expected, but they do roam around on the Rock, and there are a bunch of them!! As we drove up the rock and stopped for a second, Monkeys began to jump on our car!! Before we got out of the car, Jaret warned us that these are wild animals and we should not touch them, but if they touch us it's ok. Also, it's a 4,000 pound fine if you feed them! We got out of the car and Jaret had the monkey sit on our hands for a picture! He also gave us a seed in our hand and had the monkey open up our hand to grab the seed. Then, I was standing by the car and a monkey jumped on my head! So COOL! Becca and I were taking a million pictures, we saw the monkeys in their natural habitat! Eating, cleaning, fighting and even having sex... we saw it all. I was then trying to take a selfie with a monkey, and it decided to hop on me and and get in front of the camera! I was laughing so much!! Jaret said he was surprised and that most people would have freaked out if the monkeys jumped on them, but I was loving it!! (As my dad says, they are our cousins!!) Also, when we were leaving the monkey den, a monkey hoped in our car through the window! Jaret said the monkey's name was Wally and the monkey knew him because he used to come up the Rock and nurse him back to health after a taxi driver ran over his toe! Wally was adorable!!

We sadly had to leave the Monkey's and headed onto the Tunnels of Siege. These tunnels in the rock were used as a defense mechanism during the siege of Great Britain vs. Spain in the 1800s which Britain won. Then in the 1970's there was a referendum type event where Gibraltarians were able to vote if they wanted to be a part of Spain or Britain, 12,000 voted Spain and 44,000 voted Britain...

After the tunnels were over we headed back down the Rock! Even though the trip was spontaneous, the night before I felt obligated to look up what there is to do/ good places to eat in Gibraltar. Madeleine's Bistro was a top choice, so we had Jaret direct us to where that was. We ate our sandwiches that our host mom's made us, but we indulged in an amazinggggg piece of berry cheesecake from Madeleine's, it was so good!

After that we did a few more touristy things! We went to the Gibraltar museum, the Trafalgar cemetery, and the Gibraltar Botanic Gardens!

We then did some souvenir shopping and met a very interesting man who owned one of the shops and was asking us all about where we were from. He was confused why American's were in Gibraltar, he was curious what we learned studying "business" and he told us he did not like America at all. BUT, I was able to barter with him for a cheaper price, so I'd say all the small talk was a success.

We then decided to indulge again and get Gelato. This gelato may have been some of the best I've had in my life, might even beat La Abuela in Sevilla. I had a small with half Bailey's and half Nutella and oh my goodness was it heavenly.

We decided we should head back to the first bus at 5:30 because we wanted to catch the second bus at 7PM. After waiting in a long line to cross the border we got the bus station to find out that the first bus wouldn't arrive until 6:30... so that meant we would have to wait until 9 to catch the second bus. The bus schedule was off because it was an Andalusian holiday. When the bus arrived we quickly realized hat we forgot to convert our money back to Euros. I asked the bus driver if he accepted pounds and the answer was of course no. We scrounged through our bags and pockets to try to come up with 5 Euros to get us two tickets. We were about 20 cents short so we asked random people in line to help us out, fortunately this nice girl gave us some change so we were able to board the bus! I think the bus driver might have hated us for giving him a million coins...but at that point we really didn't care.

We got off the bus and I was starving but none of the cafes took pounds! So, we quickly found a currency exchange place and got our Euros back! I then went to the nearest panederia and bought an entire loaf of bread (which I demolished in a matter of minutes), a muffin, some nuts and a piece of chocolate. YUM. I was definitely satisfied!

We then made our way back to the other bus station. Once there we tried to find out when the next bus would leave for Sevilla. We talked to the info lady, who was not very helpful..and then wandered around until one of the nice janitors directed us the right lady who knew the schedule! She said the next bus would leave at 8:45. We had about 90 minutes to kill so we sat in the food court and chilled. During this time we were bothered by a homeless (probably drunk) man who stood at our table and asked us for money for about 5 minutes and would not leave! We were slightly terrified of this man and wanted to know why there was no security guards to make him leave.

At around 8:30 we headed outside to wait for the bus. It literally arrived at 8:45 on the dot, we got on and we were the only ones on the bus. The bus driver took off and we thought we had the bus to ourselves, but then he went back to the other bus station, that we were just at, and picked up more people.. So we could have just stayed at that station.

We were chatting for a little bit, singing songs, and then quickly fell asleep as we were exhausted from the long day! We got back to Sevilla just before midnight and made it back safely to our homes!

Overall, it was a great trip! and I can say without a doubt that Gibraltar is one of the most interesting places I've ever been to! AND THE MONKEYS WERE THE COOLEST! Glad I was "Spontaneous!"

Sending Smiles From Sevilla,

Rebecca

GIBRALTAR!