Gibraltar

13 May Gibraltar

Day 63 ( 11 May 2013) – In the morning we had a quick bite to eat. Slowly we are getting better at ordering our breakfast; however, we are not always sure what we are pointing at to have on our toast. There are usually a multitude of spreads available, all kinds of Pates, some sort of fatty meat spreads, and the usual jams…Fortunately, the waiters have always been nice and let us know what they like to eat, or which ones are especially tasty; and so far we have enjoyed everything they suggested.

Today’s plan is to make it to Gibraltar. The ride was fairly easy, until we encountered what we thought was an Interstate. We saw a cyclist going up the ramp and onto the highway so we followed him, until the cyclist stopped with a confused look on his face. So we figured—oops, we are probably not supposed to be here on this road.

We exited again at the next ramp and stopped at the traffic circle, just to watch another road-cyclist to get back onto the onramp toward the highway. Confused, and not sure what is going on here with this Interstate, we found another way along the big street just to keep it safe. We really do not want to break any crazy traffic laws.

As we get closer to the water, it becomes foggier around us. We make it over the causeway toward Gibraltar, but we cannot detect the big rock from all the seafog. Eventually we encounter the border, where an officer makes us stand in line with the cars. Since Gibraltar is still British, and GB is not part of the Schengen area, we are getting all excited about having our passport stamped. The border control officer looks at our passport, and states in his British accent “you’ve come a long way on bicycles” and hands us back our papers. Needless to say we are a little bummed out to have left the border without a new stamp in it!

We find our way to the city center and decide to take the cable car up to the top of the rock. The bikes have to wait patiently at the ticket booth.
Once on top, we enjoy the magnificent view of the rock bedded in sea fog. We can see the mountains we have rode over in Spain, and we can see the even bigger mountains on the other side of the water in Africa.

We watch the apes running wild all over ‘the rock”. Some seem to pose for photographs, while others plain ignore the tourist hustle and bustle, lay around lazily or pick on each other.

The day goes by quickly and we have to find our way back out of Gibraltar toward Algeciras in Spain. While we have a quick bite to eat, we check the Internet to find out about this crazy Interstate along our way, and discover, that bicycles are indeed allowed to ride on it. That is great news for us, because it shortens the distance to the next city drastically.

Just outside Algeciras we notice a sign indicating for bikes to exit the road, luckily a local cyclist notices us.  With a mixture of Spanish, English, and many gestures we communicate and the very nice man tells us to follow him as he guides us through the busy town toward a place to get a room.

Tip – Use your keyboard left/right arrows to scroll through album!