A train, a ferry, a bus... and a pit stop in Gibraltar

I like to tell people that I visited two different countries in one day, using all but one of the major means of transportation, just to see the look of surprise on their faces. In reality, it’s not so surprising: From Marrakech we took an early morning train to Tangier, and from there a ferry to Tarifa, Spain. There we got on a bus to Algeciras, where we picked up the rental car. All that’s missing was a plane ride and that would have been all of them. Okay, and maybe bicycle, go cart, moped, tuk-tuk, horse-drawn carriage…

Anyhoo. The original plan was to drive straight to Málaga, but we’d made good time (and of course we gained an hour with the time change after leaving Africa) so we opted to make a pit stop in Gibraltar. I took some photos along the way, so let’s just take a look at those, shall we?

Despite being a port city, Algeciras is not a very exciting place. It’s a little dirty, and there’s not much to do or see except stop for a coffee in the square before you pick up your rental from Europacar and move on to your next destination. Yet as I admired the architecture it brought back some fond memories of my trip to Colombia in January.

Gibraltar, on the other hand, was incredibly busy. The weather was absolutely perfect so we spent some time wandering amongst the throngs of tourists and then rode the gondola to see the main attraction: the Rock of Gibraltar.

I was warned that there would be monkeys around the Rock, but I wasn’t expecting to see so many. And in such close proximity. That was maybe not my favourite part of the trip because they’re strange little creatures and they creep me out. Yes, I actually don’t like monkeys — there, I said it, and I’m not ashamed of it. Monkeys. Are. Gross. Though I will admit these ones were quite photogenic, so I’ll give them that.