Gibraltar

After leaving Cadiz, our next stop was Gibraltar. It’s an outpost of Britain, the currency is the pound, the language English, and people born here of Gibraltar parents are considered to be British citizens. Note that, like every country except the USA, being born in Britain doesn’t automatically confer citizenship. There are 34,000 people living here, and another 100,000 or so come into the city from Spain to work in the city’s shipyards and shops. For this reason, most of the people here also speak Spanish. This isn’t uncommon in Europe, with many people speaking 2, 3, or as many as 5 different languages due to the close proximity of so many different peoples.

We paid a cab driver to drive us around and show us the sights. We went to St. Michael’s cave, and even interacted with the monkeys who live there.

There are a couple of legends about the cave: one being that the cave has no bottom, and the other that it is attached to a cave system that stretches across the straits to Africa and is how the monkeys got to the European side. Military officers attempted to see how far the caves went and were never seen again. The cave has since been extensively explored, and no remains or recent cave ins were found, so the men remain missing to this day.

During World War 2, the caves were used as a bomb shelter and hospital. Today, it’s used as a concert hall for musical performances and as a tourist attraction. There are some spots where you can look down and it appears as though the cave stretches down to the center of the planet. It DOES look quite deep.

As I was walking down a trail near the top of the mountain, one of them reached out and grabbed my shoulder. My wife was attempting to take a picture, and the little guy jumped on to my back and began grooming my hair. We continued to walk, and he stayed on my shoulders for a good bit. People walking by were taking my picture and also giving me advice on how to get rid of him. He wasn’t hurting me or anything, so I let him stay there until he decided we had walked far enough.

From the top of the Rock, I was above the clouds and got this picture of a mountain on the African side

After that, we went to a cliff overlooking the Straits of Gibraltar, where we could get a good look at Africa.

Back to the ship for dinner, and as the rock sailed out of sight, we also saw a US destroyer. It was the USS Roosevelt, heading westward to the Atlantic, and I presume to her homeport in Rota, Spain.

We went to a concert. The singer was Nicola Ward, a well known British woman, and she sang an absolutely beautiful rendition of Con te partirò.

After that, we spent some time in the casino, and I walked out of there up $1000 for the night, thanks to some great shooters at the craps table.