Gibraltar

Our two weeks in the Villa in Fuengirola (Southern Spain) is intended to be a home base for various day trips we hope to complete. 

The Villa is nice with more beds than you can count but only a few of the twin beds are comfortable.  The location is excellent and the pool is warm and we are in the sun for most of the day.   Dinners are on the patio overlooking the valley below while the kids play in the pool. The fruit here is also absolutely amazing- fresh and juicy.  The kids have played soccer with limes that have fallen from the trees!

We awoke early to begin our drive to Gibraltar, a British territory at the southern corner of Spain.  My grandmother used to always use the expression “hard as the rock of Gibraltar “so I am anxious to see the rock! The locals are not keen to have this beautiful area owned by the British and prefer to make it more difficult than necessary to return to Spain when attempting a day trip – more on this later….  We packed our passports, bathing suits and a lunch with plenty of fruit and water and started on our way.   

Our first stop was 45 minutes outside of Malaga at the Manilva Roman therapeutic baths.  This was recommended to us by one of the locals.  There are no signs on the highway that identify this Roman site.  We were told that there are many Roman ruins throughout this area but none are identified – not sure why.    The baths are just off the second exit on the roundabout when exiting the AP7 – there is a very small sign.  After several wrong turns, we found it!

These therapeutic baths were discovered by the Romans and they constructed an arched covering of which four chambers still exist today.  Calvin, Noah and Jay grabbed the camera and started down the dark (pitch black) tunnels that led from the main bath area.  The water was quite chilly but felt lovely. Three additional caves and bathing areas stretched from the main bath – it must have been huge at one time.  I thought Calvin might get hit with a bat or two as he explored the inner caves but no such luck.   It is said that Julius Caesar (JC) cured himself of skin infections from bathing in these waters.  How special for us to be bathing in the same water….

A thick, almost concrete like mud wall ‘down by the river’ is the first stop where you use rocks, hands and fingernails to scrape mud from the river banks.  There were finger prints in the riverbanks that had fossilized into stone and we concluded that someone had discovered this site well before JC.  The deep holes in the rocks and mud must have taken decades if not centuries if not millennia to dig – this spa has been opened for a very long time.  The mud is then rubbed all over your body and after a few minutes in the sun at 36 degrees – you’re cooked.  This exfoliation treatment would be at least $500 in West Vancouver but no champagne or foot rub here. 

We had a blast playing Neanderthals and running through the bushes.  Probably a good thing there were very few people around or we may have been captured for the local museum.

After we bathed and washed off the mud, we picnicked and started the final 30 minute drive to Gibraltar (The Gib).  The line up to leave Spain to enter The Gib was crazy for a Tuesday afternoon. After an hour of bumper to bumper traffic we entered The Gib.  We were hoping for a new passport stamp but this was a get’em in get’em out kinda border stop.  There are many cheap, duty free items to be had in Gib including booze, cigarettes and gas.  We filled the tank with cheap diesel and kept going. It seems like every third person smokes here and they have not enforced any outdoor smoking laws – we’ve had to master the Spanish wind patterns so we can properly choose our patio seats to avoid the smoke. 

The Rock of Gibraltar has plenty of history…mostly protecting Europe from invaders beginning in Roman times. The Gib has plenty of cool caves (over 50 kms) and a Moorish castle we visited on our hike down as well as one of the best views you’ll ever find.  You can see North Africa on a clear day, which it was not, but I’m pretty sure we could see some mountain shadows of Morocco in a few pics we took at the top.

The crazy apes (tailless monkeys) that live on the top stole the show along with a few purses and lunches from fellow tourists.  There are warnings everywhere to not feed, touch or get too close to these apes but there are always a few who are just too cool for school.  We had our first encounter within a few minutes of arriving at the top when Calvin was leading the way up a circular set of steps and happened upon a mother with a baby clinched to her stomach.  He saw the mom and baby but not the large dad coming down the stairs.  They met head on and the male monkey was not too happy to have him so close to his baby.  His hair stood straight up and he raised his arms and growled very aggressively showing some impressive fangs ….. It was pretty scary but you should have seen what the monkey did, ha! Ha!  Calvin turned to tell us to get down quickly and he continued up the stairs as he was already past the angry daddy ape.  No one was harmed and we found another route up to meet Calvin. 

An hour later we were asking one of the workers for directions when he interrupted us a couple of times to yell at some tourists who were getting too close to a large group of monkeys including a number of moms and babies.  Now these tourists ranked high on the clueless scale – some were doing rabbit ears behind the apes as they snapped pictures and others were trying to pet the ‘wild’ animals.  With no warning the monkey gang attacked the tourists and a few of them were bitten and scratched.  It was very scary as there were plenty of screams and people running.  Calvin bolted to where the action was to make sure none of our boys were too close.  Of course, Devin, Aidan and Noah saw the whole thing and that was the end of our day on the rock and we started the hike down.  VERY freaky experience and while I highly recommend a trip to The Gib, I suggest you bring NO food and keep a safe (3-5 meter) distance from these animals.

We hiked down the Gib (that’s 426 meters for the athletic few in the audience) and we ran out of water on the way down which was not wise as it was mid 30s all day.  Luckily the security guard at the Moorish castle allowed us to turn the gardening hose on ourselves.  There is a cable car option that seemed expensive until we were about mid-way into our hike.  It took us over an hour to get back into Spain and once again there was no real border check as there must have been a few thousand cars doing the same thing as us.  After about 15 minutes or three blocks into Spanish territory we realized we were back in Spain and repacked our passports.  We probably should have filled our trunk with smokes for resale in Spain – could have paid for this trip. 

The drive home was quick – we were in the pool for an hour before bed time.