Gibraltar

“I want to see the monkeys,” Madam tells me one morning.

We are still in Málaga, and I don’t even know if it has a zoo, or indeed any wild animals larger than a pigeon with attitude.

“No, not in a zoo. In Gibraltar.”

Gibraltar and I have something of a history. That sounds like a failed relationship, and in a way it is. For reasons too complicated to go into here, I was sent to Gibraltar for work so many times that I genuinely lost count. The first two or three visits were perfectly tolerable. After that, something shifted. Perhaps it was the repetition, but the place began to feel increasingly run-down, dirty and gloomy. At every opportunity, I crossed the border into La Linea in Spain for a decent meal and people who weren’t figuratively waving a Union flag. In those EU days, there was rarely a passport check, and people drifted happily between the two countries as if international borders were more of a suggestion than a rule. You may have detected that I was not thrilled at the prospect of returning to Gibraltar.

We booked a day trip through the hotel, which came with a 6:50 a.m. pickup point about a twenty-minute walk away. That is ten to seven in the morning in old money, a time when my preferred activity is lying in bed with a cup of tea. The company’s website cheerfully assured us that Gibraltar was just a two-hour bus ride away, leaving “plenty of time to savour the delights of the Rock”. I realise now that I may have written that last sentence with a degree of sarcasm.

It is dark, but mercifully not as cold as feared, when we leave the hotel at 6:15. In lieu of breakfast, the hotel has provided us with a substantial and weighty cardboard box containing drinks and sandwiches, which we carry with us in the hope of eating on the bus.

This hope is extinguished immediately.

As we board, the guide fixes his eyes on our breakfast box with a look of deep personal offence and informs us that there is absolutely no eating on the bus. This is delivered with the tone usually reserved for serious crimes. He directs us to seats of his choice, and we crawl in sideways. My knees are firmly pressed into the back of the seat in front. There isn’t much room in any direction.

The bus departs on time and then proceeds to wind its way seemingly past every hotel on the Costa del Sol. Each looks uncannily like the last, and the souvenir shops and restaurants with their laminated menus blur together into a single, endless ribbon of tat sliding past the window. At every stop, we collect a few more passengers. In Torremolinos, we wait a long time for two missing people. A couple stand bundled in coats, insisting they have booked. The guide insists they aren’t on his list. Eventually, the bus pulls away without them, while the man waves his arms in what could be either protest or exasperation.

By the time we pick up the final passengers, we have been on the bus for two hours and still have another two to go. Our advertised two-hour journey has quietly doubled.

We pass Benalmádena and a large sign advertising a swingers’ bar and club. Madam perks up and takes a photo. I can’t quite tell if she is shocked or intrigued. If a future blog post appears titled Benalmádena, assume the latter.

We endure the four hours cramped, hungry, thirsty, and increasingly uncomfortable, the heavy picnic box balanced on Madam’s lap like an accusation. We don’t dare drink anything, lacking both the courage and the reassurance of a bathroom break.

We finally reach the border and all leave the bus to cross the border on foot. The bus guide tells us repeatedly that we must take all our belongings with us and carry them through passport control. Did I mention that he is a bit bossy?

We lug our bags and heavy picnic box through passport control on the Spanish side, where we are scanned, have our photo taken, and our passports stamped. We walk 20 yards to the Gibraltar border, where the immigration officer waves us through with the briefest glances at our British passports.

In case you haven’t heard of Gibraltar, it is a small British Overseas Territory of only 2.6 square miles on Spain’s southern coast, dominated by the Rock of Gibraltar, a huge lump of limestone formed around 200 million years ago. The ancient Greeks knew it as one of the Pillars of Hercules, marking the edge of the known world. Thanks to its position at the entrance to the Mediterranean, it has been fought over for centuries, moving between Moorish, Spanish, and British hands. Britain officially took control in 1713 under the Treaty of Utrecht. Since then, it has been a key naval stronghold, especially during the Great Siege in 1779 and the Second World War, and it still carries that strategic feel today. The Spanish would very much like it back, but a referendum of residents in 2002 voted to remain entirely British, 98.97% to 1.03%. That result seemed pretty clear. My impression is that it tries very hard to be more English than England.

We all return to the bus with our freshly stamped passports and drive the half mile to the mid-town coach park. The bus guide tells us that we had five minutes to use the toilets before the next mini bus tour. We dash to the bathroom and gulp down a sandwich and some water. It feels like we are on a rushed school trip with a particularly uncaring and strict teacher— the kind who enjoys telling children they’ve got five minutes left when they clearly need ten.

We pay another fifty euros each for a mini bus tour to visit some of the attractions on the rock. This is now the only way to see much of anything apart from the shopping area. It used to be completely open, and you could walk up the steps to the monkey area and have your hand bitten or your food stolen for free, which was at least good value.

Our first stop, Europa Point, sits at the very tip of Gibraltar, where the land simply runs out and the sea takes over. It’s a windswept place marked by a lighthouse, a mosque, a small shrine to fallen sailors, and big, open views across the Strait of Gibraltar. You can see Africa rising faintly on the horizon. Standing by the lighthouse, we can see Africa, Spain, and Gibraltar without changing our gaze. Two continents and three countries in one. Sort of. We have ten minutes there before it’s time to get back on the mini bus.

Our next stop is St Michael’s Cave, which sits high up inside the Rock of Gibraltar. You step inside expecting something small and damp, and instead find yourself in a huge cavern filled with towering stalactites and stalagmites, all shaped over thousands of years by nothing more exciting than dripping water. The installed lighting brings out the strange twists and folds of the rock, giving the whole place a theatrical, almost cathedral-like feel. For centuries, people believed the cave was bottomless, or maybe connected to Africa. It was once thought that the monkeys travelled from Africa to Gibraltar via the caves.

The mini bus drops us off at the entrance, and the driver tells us we have twenty minutes here. He drives off with a vague ‘come and find me when you have finished’. Not an entirely reassuring remark when you are halfway up a mountain with no sense of direction.

The twenty minutes were far too short. I could have happily spent an hour in there, maybe several. Just send out all the other hundred visitors, close the doors, and let me sleep there. There was a light show, but we didn’t have time to see the whole thing.

The sheer scale makes you feel small and very temporary. The slow, patient shapes of the rock hint at a kind of time that doesn’t rush or care, shaped over thousands of years by simple drops of water. The shadows and depth spark a quiet awe, reminding you that you’re standing inside something ancient, vast, and entirely indifferent to your schedule. Don’t miss the caves if you find yourself in Gibraltar; just try and find a guide that will let you spend longer there.

We track down the mini bus a hundred yards down the road and are waiting to get back on when I ask Madam, ‘Why is it unfair that people in Dubai can’t watch the Flintstones?’

She gives me a look of rapt anticipation, which is identical to her STFU irritated face.

Assuming the former, I tell her, ‘Because those in Abu Dhabi do.’

We finally head towards the monkeys, which is really all Madam wanted to see.

The monkeys of Gibraltar, more properly Barbary macaques, behave as if they own the Rock—and historically speaking, they may have a point. They are the only wild monkeys in Europe, believed to have been introduced from North Africa, either by the Moors in the Middle Ages or possibly even earlier. Over time, they became woven into Gibraltar’s identity, helped along by a long-standing legend that as long as the monkeys remain, Gibraltar will stay British. During the Second World War, their numbers fell so low that Winston Churchill reportedly ordered more to be brought in. Nowadays, there are so many that the numbers are controlled by an occasional injection of contraceptives on the females. Today, they have an idyllic lifestyle, lounging on walls in the sun, watching tourists, stealing snacks, and carrying on as if nothing here was ever built for humans at all. They are fed each day to discourage them from venturing down into the town and wandering into houses to help themselves from the fruit bowl.

We were told to leave all bags in the bus since the monkeys have worked out how to open zips and help themselves to whatever food is in the bag. One man decides to ignore that advice, and a monkey immediately jumps on his back to search his bag. He squeals like a little girl. As would we all, I suspect.

Madam takes loads of photos with the monkeys, keeping a wary eye out in case they decide to steal her phone or glasses. I’m sure you have seen them all by now on Facebook or Instagram since she posts pictures faster than I can write. We are told ten minutes by the driver, but when we stretch it out to twenty, he doesn’t seem to mind.

The mini bus drops us back near the town centre, and we walk the length of Main Street. It isn’t very long. It seems better than I remember, brighter and busier, more prosperous somehow. The main shopping area has been pedestrianised, much improved from its former traffic-choked self. We walk through Irish Town and the Old Town. We go up Baker’s Passage, where I try hard not to make any jokes. I am not successful.

All the usual British chain stores are there: Marks and Spencer, Next, Monsoon, Costa Coffee, Pandora, and many more. Pubs along the side streets have English names: The Fox and Hounds, The Lord Nelson, and The Churchill Arms. In Malaga, most of the shops and pretty much all of the restaurants and bars have signs in both Spanish and English. In Gibraltar, signs are firmly only in English. The population there is at least bilingual, and many have Spanish as their first language, but it seems they are desperately trying to ignore their neighbour a mile away and pretend that the rock is jutting out from the English coast, possibly near Bournemouth. Madam goes into a shop— she likes to shop— and speaks in Spanish and receives a reply in accented English. I get the impression that it was a faux pas to even attempt Spanish.

We have only a little over an hour in Gibraltar town, which is frustrating as I want to visit the World War II tunnels, but there isn’t time. It all feels rushed as we need to be back at the bus at 2:45 p.m. for the return journey.

We join the queue at the border and cross back into Spain with yet another electronic scan and photo. We queue again for a new stamp in our passport. Thanks, Brexit.

The bus guide gleefully announces that we were back in Spain in case we missed it and again reminds us that there’s no eating on the bus and to be careful how we drink our water. Three and a half hours for the return journey with all the hotel stops in reverse, some only a hundred yards apart. We are both exhausted.