Jun

23

It's like having a traveling hotel room that follows you around so there's no packing and unpacking. I'd prefer not to do the tours and experience the local "feel" on my own. But with a wife and 4 kids and the need to be back at the cruise ship on time being the paramount concern, we're stuck with tours for now. One nice thing about the tours is that they (supposedly) guarantee that they'll get you back to the boat on time or the cruise line is on the hook to get you back to the boat. I don't know if that's true, but Gwen seems to think it is.

And anyway, I'm not as adventurous as our world traveler Prof. Haave (although he did give me some great tips before I left for this trip.

Anyway, we're going to take a taxi tour of Gibraltor tomorrow and going to see the apes (I had no idea there are apes at Gibraltor).

So hopefully I'll have some moderately interesting tidbits to share with the group tomorrow.

It's now 0:45 am (that's the way they talk on the ship), so I'm off to bed so we can wake up at 08:00, eat breakfast at 09:00 and meet at the Royale theater for our tour group at 10:00.

Goodnight, Mateys!

Day 3: Gilbratar

Before, I get to Gibraltor, I need to give some color on the evening of the second day at sea.

First of all, I met an interesting couple. He works for an oil company, formerly Shell, but it was sold to middle eastern interest (a company owned by two brother….the name of which escapes me).

He gave me a breakdown of use of oil in cruise ships. Apparently, the oil used on ships is the "bottom of the barrel" stuff that would be used as tar if cruise lines didn't buy it.

It is very much like thick sludge and requires a lot of heat to make it function as a fuel. It is also not very emissions friendly…but supposedly, there are no emissions standards out on the open sea.

To top off our evening, we watched a comedian and a game show.

The comedian was Grunway Thom. He was British, but we could understand most of what he said. I enjoy a good comedian. Thom was better than good. He was enjoyable. He made us laugh without getting dirty. No obscenities, but he did have the occasional double entendre. He was a juggling a comedian. I don't know whether he was a great juggler or just an ok juggler, but I have to say that the best parts of the show were when he messed up his juggling act. He engaged the audience and involved those that chose to get up and go to the bathroom during his performance.

But the best part of his act was when people came in late and he would show them what they missed…and he would reenact 30 minutes of show in about 2 minutes.

If you ever get a chance to see this gentleman perform, please take the time out of your day to watch him. It was a true pleasure to watch a skilled professional ply out his trade.

After the comedy show, we stayed and watched the "Love and Marriage" show. Here they invite 4 married couples up from the audience and then quiz them very similar to the way Bob Eubanks did on the "Newly Wed Show".

Our kids desperately wanted Gwen and to volunteer to get up on the stage, but alas, there was no way we were going up there. Gwen had seen the show on other cruise ships before and knew what kind of questions we were going to be asked.

There is no way I'm gonna give an answer to, "Where is the strangest place you made whoopee" in front of my kids (BTW the best answer of the evening was given by a couple who had been married for 51 years. They made whoopee in a corn field while her mother slept in the car).

So on to day 3: Gibraltar.

First of all, I believe I made an error in one of my earlier posts when I mentioned that Gibraltar was part of Spain. If one were to look at a map, it would be easy to think that. However, Gibraltar is a UK overseas territory.

If you've never visited Gibraltar it is worth your time too see. The history of this vital piece of real estate is utterly fascinating. I would go so far as to say (apologies in advance to Stefan if he were to say to my forthcoming comment is hyperbole) that this piece of land is one of the most important pieces of land in the history of the world especially as it pertains to war and diplomatic relations between countries, especially England, Spain, and France.

The culture of Gibraltar is rich and diverse with European and African influences as well as Christian and Muslim influences with a bit of Jewish history mixed in.

Up to and even thru WWll, Gibraltar was (is) a strategic piece real estate. From Gibraltar you can guard and control the entire entrance to the Mediterranean. As a matter of fact, you can see Africa from here. There are even guns, dating back into the 1700's (maybe even earlier than that) that could shot all the way to Africa from the heights of Gibraltar.

During WWll, Eisenhower had a runway built so planes could take off and land. It is an interesting airport in that a street (yes a public street) crosses the runway. Let's just say that it's one of those red lights that you do NOT want to run. We crossed over the runway in a taxi (with a green light…..and little trepidation).

I believe the airport was built as a part of "Operation Torch", which (IIRC) was one of the first actions of the US military in WWll. (Stefan, jump in an feel free to clear up any of my historical inaccuracies).

We then drove thru the town of Gibraltar. It is a town of heavy English influence. English is the main language, but I heard a lot of Spanish speaking people. We drove right up the Spanish border and turned around.

The streets were very narrow and very much like you see in the movies. Although there were traffic law, stop lights and speed limits, it almost seemed that people kind of had an understanding about when they could go and not go. It would have been nerve racking for me to drive, but the taxi driver seemed very much at ease driving and giving us a verbal tour of the town and it's history.

Although we paid him for this specific purpose, I have to give him full props for a job well done. The cruise ship said that a tip was already built into the fee we paid for the tour, but when he dropped us off, I gave him an additional $50 (USD) tip on top of it. I don't know if that was too little or too much, but he seemed very pleased…and so were we.

Gibraltar is a growing town…but they only have one way to grow…out into the sea. So they continue to build and build and build further and further in to the bay, the Straits and the Med. We drove along "The Wall(s)" which were built at various times throughout history for defensive purposes…but the walls used to be where the sea was…and now the sea was about 1/4 to 1/2 mile away, driven back by the work and engineering of men!

We drove up the mountain (if you can call it that) nearly to the top of Gibraltar. Along the way, we stopped at some caves that were to be used for hospitals and other strategic war time activities during WWll.

Another interesting aspect of Gibraltar is that most of the online gambling in the world takes place out of Gibraltar. According to our taxi driver, most of the big buildings that we passed were owned by online gambling companies.

I tried to get a feel for how easy or difficult it might be to move to or become a citizen of a place like Gibraltar (not that I'm leaving the comfort of my home in STL), but I couldn't get a clear understanding of it from our taxi driver…I think the question was too much off the beaten path for him.

But he did talk about how safe of a place Gibraltar is. Very low crime. He said that if you tried to steal a car of a motorbike, there was no place to go with it. It was hard to cross the border with a stolen vehicle.

While on top of Gibraltar the driver pointed out other little cities that had sprung up over the years. There was one city called "The Line" (it had a Spanish name but I don't recall what it was).

The Line was set up because it became extremely hard for people to live in Gibraltar because it was becoming crowded. So they wouldn't allow people that didn't already live there to live there…..but they still needed workers. So this town, just over into Spain was set up to house these "less than desirable, but needed workers".

Then there was another town (it's name escapes me) that was set up because those that didn't convert to Christianity (a long time ago) were expelled as well. So they went a few miles over into Spain and set up their own town and life went on.

There was a 15 year period from 1969 - 1984 where it was very difficult, if not impossible for a citizen from Gibraltar to travel into Spain. Everything was cut off by Spain because Gibraltar refused to "reunite" with Spain.

Apparently, Gibraltar had a election about reuniting with Spain the election came out something like 1000 No's to 14 yes's. That apparently aggravated Franco, so he shut out the Gibraltar's from access to Spain.

That lasted until Spain applied for membership in the EU. There was a treaty with Britain and the borders opened.

Here's an unexpected anomalously for you (at least it was too me)….did you know that there are MONKEYS on Gibraltar? I was shocked to learn that myself.

And they are all over the Rock. As we drove up, we ran into more and more monkeys…..they were everywhere. The weren't Ape like, they were much smaller even than chimpanzees.

Here is what they looked like.

We were told not to feed them and not to approach them especially if they had babies. However that didn't stop other tourist from feeding them. One tourist had a bag of potato chips, when out of nowhere this monkey (with a baby on her belly) ran up and snatched the bag away. The tourist tried to get the bag back, but (as you may have already guessed), the monkey was having none of that.

Here's a hard fast rule that might (loosely) have some trading applications: If a monkey has your bag of potato chips and doesn't want to give it back to you, there is NOTHING you can do get those chips back.

So Rule #1: If you don't want to lose your chips, don't reveal to monkeys that you have chips…..if they know you have chips, they will get your chips.

They have a feeding pit for the monkeys up on the Rock. We visited the pit and all that was there was a very big monkey (big my Gibraltar standards), sitting there, in a pile of fruit and vegetables, spread legged looking like he'd stuffed himself to the point of discomfort.

As a side note: He was obviously a male monkey.

Apparently, someone behind my 18 year old daughter opened up a bag of chips (please note rule #1 above) and the monkey made a beeline for the chips.

Unfortunately, my innocent daughter Abbey was between the monkey and it's chips.

Rule #2: Do NOT get between a monkey and potato chips.

As far as the Monkey was concerned, my daughter was just a prop in it's stealthy ninja like plan to get his hand on those chips.

He ran up to my daughter grabbed her shirt, pulled himself in close to her (I'm guessing to conceal himself form the person holding the chips), then he swung around her, using her clothing (and skin) as a swing to sling shot himself after the person with the chips.

When the monkey got up close to my daughter, she didn't know what do to, she just kinda froze (because it was the biggest monkey we had seen so far), When it drew itself close, my daughters eyes got as big as saucers (keep in mind, that all of this happening in mere seconds).

But when the monkey sling shot himself around my daughter, she let out a yelp (not really a scream….because she didn't want to scare the monkey) and when she felt his grip come loose, he she took off running hearing nothing but screams behind her.

Whether the monkey got those chips or not is a mystery to us……we were all freaked out by the unexpected monkey attack……but we did keep moving on, hoping to find more friendlier monkeys further up the road.

When we got back to the cruise ship, I sat on one of the upper decks eating a chocolate/strawberry ice cream cone looking out over the Bay of Gibraltar watching all the barges and boats dump rock into the water building new places that would likely become docks or maybe house a hotel or apartment complex someday.

As I sat there, I reflected on all the strife and turmoil that surrounded this strategic piece of land over the years. All the countries that coveted it (and still covet it), it's strategic importance as a military base and the economics this land.

They are under British rule (I hope that's the right phrase), but they do not pay taxes to the Brits. As a matter of fact, they pay very low taxes here (at least that's what I was told).

With the advent of the modern air forces around the world, I'm not sure that Gibraltar holds the same strategic military influence that it once held, but then again, I could be wrong.

Much of the worlds oil has to pass thru the waters between Gibraltar and Morroco, and I would guess that he who controls Gibraltar and the Suez Canal controls much of the worlds oil supply. According to our cab driver, Hitler wanted to gain control over the Suez and Gibraltar (again, I'll defer to Stefan on this if it needs adjustment or elaboration).

Regardless of it's strategic importance it is a place worth your time to visit.

The beauty of the old world, the history and the excitement of new construction makes it a must see for any trader, historian or sightseer.

That's all for now.

Take care, my friends!


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1 Comment so far

  1. James Swinburn on June 29, 2015 5:00 am

    Hey Scott,

    I actually live around 10 minutes north of Gibraltar so it was really refreshing to hear that you enjoyed your time there.

    It’s a wonderful place steeped in history. It has of late become very crowded so I actually don’t go into Gibraltarlt as often as I used to.

    Hope you enjoy the rest of your vacation.

    Regards,

    James,

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