I Don't Want Monkey Butt On My Head

The headline is an actual quote by our actual 23 year old daughter, Maddy.  The context will come further down in this blog post.

Gibraltar had never been on our bucket list of places we must go.  But it was famous for being historically and geographically significant.  Plus, it had been in the Prudential ads all those years, and still might be.

So, after our monkey scare the previous night, it was time to go meet them at the top of the rock.  Once again, I trusted Apple maps when I should not have.  It showed the cable car to the top was about a mile walk away.  We headed off, and with cables over our head just outside of our hotel, Torie pointed out that the cable car was probably at the bottom end of it.  I pooh-poohed that idea, and we made a steady climb up the rock.

Turns out Apple maps were wrong again.  We had hiked up steep roads for nothing (well, other than exercise I suppose).  I should have trusted “Torie maps” – even though she had never been there before.  One last bitter observation – Apple maps are terrible in Europe.  Don’t use them.

Well, at least the return mile was easier, as it was downhill.  We did, on our pointless wandering, see a bit more of the town of Gibraltar than we would have otherwise.

The ride up to the top of the rock was quick.  We exited the cable car to immediately see a monkey eating some scattered fruit.  Maddy was worried that the monkey – a barbary macaque – would attack her.  We wandered around the top a bit, got a snack, and then started down to the mid-point on the rock.  

On the way down, we were entertained, and scared, by plenty of monkeys – the only group of monkeys that still live in Europe.

Monkeys jumped on two different women with backpacks, trying to get into it for food.  The women showed a lot more patience than I would have had, although they probably figured that pushing them off could result in a bite or other attack.  Both times, another monkey climbed up on, pushing off the first monkey.  It was funny and nerve-wracking at the same time.

Nobody was hurt, and no monkey was harmed.  It did, however, lead to the quote of the trip.  Multiple times as we neared monkeys, Maddy said emphatically, “I don’t want monkey butt on my head.”   She had a point, as we had checked out of the hotel, so the whole 90 minute drive to Fuengirola would be spent with hair smelling like, well, monkey butt.

There were several platforms for looking out at the Med, the Spanish coastline, and Morocco across the straits.  There were also any number of monkeys, including very cute babies, and some instances of grooming by the monkeys.

We skipped caves, and continued down to the mid-point, where we said goodbye to the monkeys and took the cable car the rest of the way down.  We might have walked the whole way down, but Torie had slipped, fallen, and temporarily hurt her ankle.  (A 20 year old heals much faster than, say, randomly, a 55 year old.)

We drove out to the lighthouse at the end of Gibraltar, walked around a little, and then headed for the exits.  We didn’t go to the caves or the World War II tunnels, but we felt like it was time to move along.  We did enjoy Gibraltar, but you don’t need a lot of time there!