Week 12 - Spain and Gibraltar
We continued taking it easy this week with just two excursions. Lots of time has been spent just gazing out over the Mediterranean, which is a pretty good use of time I'd say. We did have the usual house work, school work and planning work that we put a little time into as well, but also lots of rest.
I have been really enjoying walking in the morning here, there seems to be no end to options for trails to explore, always with beautiful views.
I found a little shrine up in the hills.
One morning J joined me.
Monday we needed groceries and decided to combine it with a trip to the Nerja caves. There is a little train that runs from the center of town to the cave, so we just took a taxi into town and took the train ride to the cave.
The kids usually enjoy caves and we've been in several, but this is the first one that we've been in that was known to have been inhabited by hominins. A number of artifacts have been removed and put in the Nerja museum, which was closed that day. There are also cave paintings there, but we couldn't see them because they don't light those areas to prevent algae, bacteria, and fungi from growing on them. We still thought it was pretty special to be where people had lived so long ago.
We took the train back to Nerja, had a nice open air restaurant lunch, got our groceries and went back home. That was a pleasant day.
Wednesday was our big trip to Gibraltar. We had been warned by our Irish friends who have a home down here as well that it's pretty touristy and not really worth the trouble. In retrospect, I agree, but it's just something that's so iconic that it seemed we needed to see for ourselves. And the boys are into military stuff and wanted to see another cave, so we went. Our regular driver took us, it's a pretty long ride, but honestly the view of the rock as we approached was probably the best part. Something that big is easier to appreciate from a distance. After waiting in traffic at the border, our driver took us right to the cable car to ride to the top of the rock. The kids and I had to use the bathroom badly by then, so we took off for a public restroom that turned out to be closed, then off in the other direction for a restaurant bathroom. I always feel bad using facilities when I'm not actually eating there, but this time I had no choice and told myself we'd try to end up back there for lunch or a snack. I always pack a lunch because I hate spending a lot of money on food the kids usually don't eat, but sometimes it works out to eat the packed lunch and stop later for a treat for them and me, and lunch for J and big C, who often find I haven't packed enough for. Well, we never made it back to the restaurant, but on with the day. We couldn't find J after using the bathroom — he'd gone to the closed one since we'd taken off in that direction, and when we finally found him by texting him he told us the driver had been sent away by police as Spanish taxi drivers aren't allowed in Gibraltar. So we'd have to make our own way back to the border by 4:00 pm. By then it was after 12:00 so we obviously weren't going to have a lot of time. We got our cable car tickets, but by then the power was off so we had to wait for it to come back on. The kids and I ate from our packed lunch while we waited, which turned out to be a good thing, but J was holding out in hopes of a restaurant stop. S was already freaking out from all the graphics warning folks to stay away from the Barbary macaques. Our Irish friends had warned us about the macaques as well, but I wasn't too concerned, I'm usually good with animals and promised to help S if he needed it.
The power came back pretty quickly and up we went.
We got to the top and J was asking me for the map when my phone rang. It was the taxi dispatcher telling us something about the meeting place. I didn't understand and handed the phone to J, he walked away to hear better, I went back to looking for the map, and without even seeing it approach, a macaque jumped right on my back. I had my bags in front as instructed, but it really wanted the lunch bag. I will admit, I panicked. I turned my back to big C and said, "Get it off!" Big C said, "I ain't doing anything!" S was screaming, I yelled for J, who abruptly ended his phone call, just as I surrendered the lunch bag, figuring it was a small price to get the thing off me. J attempted to kick the macaque and grabbed the bag . At about the same time an employee came after it with a broom and chased it away. Sean was still screaming, I was pretty shook up, and we hightailed it out of there.
S just wanted to leave, I was pulling myself together and trying to sound positive, "Look at the pretty boats," without convincing anyone. We made our way through the nature preserve, down the main road fighting off a few more macaques and dodging taxis and tour buses. There were some decent views, but it wasn't a pleasant walk. We tried to go in St. Michael's cave but it was closed because the power was out again. By then we were halfway down, the macaques only stay on top, and no one wanted to walk back up to the cable car and deal with them again. We confirmed that we were still supposed to meet the driver at the border. We're not sure why the dispatcher called, that just threw us off because we thought she was requesting a change, but perhaps just confirming. Anyway, we ended up walking all the way down the rock, which is a long way. We did stop at the siege tunnel, we were already short on time, but little C was interested and we really hadn't seen much of interest other than the 6 minute cable car ride and the scary monkeys. They did enjoy the tunnels so I'm glad we did it.
We had thought maybe we could grab a taxi afterwards, but the only taxis up there are on prearranged tours. In retrospect, that's the only way to see anything other than doing what we did and taking the cable car up and walking down, but that's a long walk. If you take the cable car both ways you miss all the sights. We did look into some tours before we went, but they were very expensive, didn't include transportation from Nerja, and didn't mesh with the times we had arranged with our driver. I kind of think a lot of this is intentional, to encourage people to stay (and spend money) in Gibraltar rather than take day trips from Spain. What's really frustrating is that even once we were in town off the rock, we couldn't find a taxi willing to take us to the border, so after another long walk we finally took the bus and were late meeting our driver. He was nice about it, but I think there's definitely some animosity on both sides of that border that we were kind of naïve about. In addition, at the risk of sounding crazy, I think all the years of conflict and exploitation have just given the place kind of a negative energy. I don't think I'd go again. Our mountain house is a much better place to spend the day, but the kids got a history lesson and we got another lesson about listening to folks who have been somewhere before you.
Thursday was spent recovering from Gibraltar.
Friday was our last day. According to our interpretation of the Italian COVID rules, which are not exactly easy to interpret, all unvaccinated people need to be tested, kids included. So Friday morning J and I took the little boys into Nerja in a taxi to be tested. We had made an appointment, but the taxi driver misunderstood which medical center we were needing to go to, so we waited for quite a while at the wrong one. By the time we figured out our mistake, we had, of course, missed our original appointment. We also realized we needed the kids' passports, so we made a new appointment, got another taxi back to the house, picked up the passports and headed back to Nerja. We got there a little early and were actually done before the second appointment time. The only sad thing was that we had planned to take the kids for churros after and by the time we were done no place had any left, so we had to be content with chocolate pastries.
We spent the afternoon packing, then headed down to the beach for one last swim and to try the other restaurant. It was really too rough to swim, but the meal was delicious.
So now we're in Italy. We've only just arrived, but already had one amazing lunch. Interestingly, after all the covid test trouble, no one checked tests, vax cards or even passports at the airport. We just collected our bags and walked right out. Quickest international airport exit ever, I think probably about 15 minutes from landing to the taxi. We have a city apartment this time, so quite a change, but convenient for sightseeing and groceries. Stay tuned for our Italian adventures.