Oct 5, Estepona and the Rock of Gibraltar

Because we started driving so late the night before we ended up sleeping in Estepona, a small beach town. We were so tired and our hotel room was so dark we only got up at 9:45am so we would not miss breakfast. One thing I loved about Spain was the extra set of shutters on the outside of our hotel rooms. They are sheets of metal that we could roll up or down that were on the outside of our hotel. It made the rooms VERY dark.

The rock of Gibraltar is SO huge, even from miles away it seems so massive. I do have a funny story. Daniel and I were using a GPS to get around. We did not have a specific address for the cable car to get up the Rock, so I put in a location in La Linea, the Spanish town next to Gibralter. We were driving around La Linea, but could not actually find our way to this huge rock. So Daniel pulled over so I could get directions to the cable car stop. I said the the cops, "We are lost, could you help us?" The police office said,"Where are you trying to go?" I said, "France." They looked at me and began to tell me how to get back to the main freeway and how far away France really was! Then I smiled and said, "Oh, I am just kidding. We want to get to the rock." They thought that was the funniest thing and were laughing and laughing. They said I really had them going! It was good if I do say so myself.

The view of the Mediterannean was amazing. The huge cargo boats look like rice from up here.

Here we are on the runway between Spain and Gibraltar. Airplanes really do land here.

After a long walk, (which by the way... Daniel and I thought it was so crazy how different our definitions are of a walkable distance. Everyone would tell us just to walk to where we wanted to go, b/c it was "not too far", but there were a few times we wished we had a bus to ride instead of walking.) then bus ride and a long wait for the cable car, we made it up to the top of the rock.

As the guide book had warned us, the Rock was home to about 200 apes. Legend has it that as long as the apes remain on the Rock, so will the Brits.

This ape just sat while person after person crept up to it and stood by it to take a picture.

After enjoying all the information from the audio guide, we began our long walk down the Rock. It took us about 2 hours to serpentine down the mountain. We enjoyed the walk and then dinner when we arrived in the town below.

We could have taken these steps down, but that could have been life threatening! Instead we walked down. It took us 2 hours, at a snails pace.

On our way down we saw a few monuments like this. Daniel went inside, but I chose to sit and rest.