James and Christine's Big World Tour: Gibraltar...It's so weird!

Time to jump back in the car again and head further south, chasing the spanish sun. Since it's the second trip James is getting a bit more used to dealing with Spanish traffic and even manages to use the horn - beep beep! At least there was no getting lost in any cities this time.

We decided to stay on the Spanish side of the border in La Linea so after parking the car it was time for a bit of a walk to the town. Unfortunately the buses from our hosts' place and the town had mysteriously stopped running a couple of weeks before so it was either get a taxi or have a walk. Being the backpacking cheapskates that we are we opted for a nice walk along the beach. It was beautiful (and practically deserted) but it seemed to go on for ages, when we finally got to the edge of the town we were looking forward to something to eat and drink. Could we find anywhere? No chance. The town didn't actually seem to have anything apart from flats until we were right by the border, and that took us about another hour to get to. Fail.

We could see lots of people going back and forth between Spain and Gibraltar, and the rock in the distance (but still looking big) but we stayed in La Linea for what was left of the day and planned to cross over the next day. Maybe in hindsight not such a wise move. La Linea doesn't really have a lot to offer. Enough said!

The next day we made an early start and set out for an English adventure. On the advice of our hosts we walked down the road a bit to a place where taxis were picking up where the buses had left off. It was actually a very interesting and entertaining ride. An elderly couple, who spoke no English, were waiting too so with a bit of pointing and smiling we all worked out that we should share a taxi to the border. Christine was sat in the back next to the little old lady, and very little she was too. She kept sliding down the seats and disappearing but when she wasn't doing that she was trying to talk to Christine but even if we did speak Spanish I'm not so sure we would have understood. A standard response of "Si, si. Gracias" and a big smile seemed to be enough!

A quick and painless trip through the border and we're on English soil again (sort of). James is very entertained by the fact we have to walk over the airport runway to get to the main part of the place and has to do a lame airplane impression! It's ok though because soon after Christine sees a sign for Winston Churchill Avenue and goes all giddy so we're both going to be a bit silly today! We walked up and down the main street (and a few more times) and loved the fact that it felt like a small English town; lots of English looking pubs, quirky high street shops and English traffic lights. It was different because it wasn't raining and there was a rather large rock next to us! We soaked up a bit of the history in the morning, accompanied by a few monkeys and decided to attack the rock after a very English lunch of pie and chips (with a pint of english bitter for James, that made him happy). We did get a laugh before our pie; while monkey spotting on the high street we see one strolling along the pavement looking for freebies. An unsuspecting man is walking towards us with a carrier bag in hand and before you can say "monkey poo" the monkey runs over to him, rips open the bag and grabs some of the food that falls on the floor. It goes for the picnic bar, good choice! It's obviously a bit of an expert because it opens the wrapper with no problems and starts tucking in. The man laughs and tells us he's not going to fight a hungry monkey, at least he's still got his butties!

The cable car is well recommended to get to the top of the rock but when we see it's £8.50 each just to go up our arms get shorter, our pockets get deeper and we decide to walk up instead. It starts off fairly easy and James finds a Mantis sitting in the middle of the path to make friends with. We enjoy the views out over the sea as we get higher and eventually get to the first monkey den. They all seem very chilled out, some enjoying soaking up the sun, others enjoying the shade but we don't get too close. They have big teeth after all. We do get a bit of shock when a tour bus turns up and a woman decides to get a picture with one of the monkeys; she puts her face right up to the monkey and we both watch in horror waiting for her face to get ripped off. Luckily this time it didn't happen! We continued our climb via the Charles wall which had steps to climb up faster. They were steep but Christine has no problem, on the other hand James realises he's more scared of heights that he thought and has to count the steps instead of enjoying the view so he doesn't freeze! By the time we finally make it to the top there's another monkey den. This one reeks of poo and is surrounded by flies so we don't spend too long before moving on. James begs Christine not to have to go up more steps to Douglas point, the very highest bit of the rock and she agrees. Phew! Going down is much easier although the effort of fighting gravity and not running down is tough on the legs.

It would have been nice to stop for something to eat and drink after all our hard work but we have places to go and people to see. It's time for another drive, to the southern tip of Spain: Tarifa where we will be camping with a private lake and hosted by a man named Buzzel. Bye bye British soil!