A little monkey business in Gibralter

Heading down the coast to Mallaga would bring us within striking distance of Gibralter. Having heard so much about the infamous rock, we couldn’t resist a visit. A couple of hours and we were crossing the border into a tiny piece of British territory. Marks and Spencer, fish and chips, and Pounds rather than Euros… all we were missing was the queen.

We took the cable car to the top of the rock to admire the views and hoping to catch a glimpse of the Barbary Macaques that live on the rock. It turns out these tail-less monkeys are not so elusive after all. In fact we had a couple of “close” encounters with them. One ended up with me dragging a particularly large male down the street as he tried to pry open my handbag. He managed to get in before I could break away. Fortunately he was more interested in my apple than my credit cards! In Adam’s case it was the pen that was clipped on his bag. He eventually got it back but not before the monkey scratched his bum with it.

There was one guy that we had pegged as a prime target from the moment he stepped off the gondola. His backpack was unzipped, plastic bags hanging out (the monkeys associated plastic bags with food and there are signs everywhere emphasizing this) and he reached over and tried to pat the first monkey he saw, a large male, on the head. Fortunately his foolishness made for great entertainment and we had the camera poised and ready. Check it out:

After we had our fill of the monkeys we watched a fabulous sunset and then hit one of the British pubs for fish n’ chips before crossing the border for our last night in Spain.