26 April 2001 - Gibralter

I got up early and opened my shutters to check the weather, not promising, but the misty clouds around the mountains looked like they may burn off. I took my camera and went for a wander around. I was looking for some alleyways illuminated by the morning sun. Eventually I found some with the correct orientation and snapped away. I'd like to return here, and spend a week sitting in cafes drinking mint tea, and scoping out which streets are lit at what time of the day. Very relaxing. I finished off my film, and headed back to pack up.

I found that on the road back to Ceuta I became invisible. So far in Morocco I'd found that the locals' driving wasn't that bad, and certainly no worse than Roman or Parisian drivers. But around Tetouan I became invisible. Cars, trucks and buses all pulled onto my side of the road to overtake slower vehicles. I had to take to the gravel verge on more than one occaision, and soon perfected the swerve-whilst-giving-the-bird manouevre. By the time I got to Fnideq I was glad to see the human scrum at the border. I got my yellow form from a policeman, and proceeded to window number four, a short wait later and my passport was returned with its exit stamp. Ten metres further on and I had to present my vehicle documentation from when I had arrived nine days earlier. Fifty metres from there and the Spanish just waved me through, allowing me into Ceuta.

At the port another set of Spanish police were checking vehicles, although again I was waved through. Then again before boarding the ferry I was asked for my passport. Watching the Spanish dockers line up the car ramp with the ferry was entertainment in itself. On the dockside ten men stood around, hands in pockets, shoulders permanently shrugged, while a single guy prodded buttons to move the ramp up and down. Meanwhile onboard the ferry, illuminous jacket wearing men frantically gesticulated with flailing arms, and the occaisional shouted obscenity. In a record breaking ten minutes they managed to get everything in line, and the ramp connected with the ferry with a mettalic thump.

Then the next triumph of forethought came into play. First vehicle off of the ferry was a huge articulated lorry, which slowly descended the ramp. However, in an inspired piece of planning, about ten metres beyond the end of the ramp was a building, which forced every vehicle to execute a sharp 90 degree turn one way, and then the other. As the lorry performed the second turn it cleared the queue of waiting cars by centimetres, and I saw various drivers visibly breath out with relief. In the end unloading and reloading the ferry took longer than the passage back to Europe. Back in Algerciras I went through two more passport checks before hitting the motorway back to Gibraltar.

I checked back into the hostel and went for a wander down the high street. Gibraltar is not how I imagined it to be; a little piece of England stranded in Europe, and home to tax exiles and military types. Instead there's a multitude of Spanish folk, whizzing around on scooters and in hot hatches with bass tubes on full blast. Instead of being a Monaco clone, there's plenty of rundown shop fronts selling tat to the tourists. The high street could be any in England, except the majority of shops sell consumer electronics, alcohol and cigarettes. (Photographic bargain of the day was a Nikon D1 professional digital SLR camera body for only £2500) I returned to the hostel via one of the marinas, which was building itself up to be an exclusive place to live. New apartments hovered over flash bars and restaurants, while million pound yachts bobbed up and down metres away. The streets were quiet as I walked back.