April 1 – At Sea-Mediterranean Sea. No April Fool's jokes by the ship. Usually they put a different day of the week in each elevator or some gag announcements in the daily program. This time, nothing!
Nice day at sea after for days in ports.
April 2 – Gibraltar, British Territory. We didn't arrive in Gibraltar until 2PM but are staying until 11PM. We've been here several times and decided to tour the WWII Tunnels this time. The Rock has more miles of tunnels in it than it has roads. The first tunnels were dug in the 1700s and the last ones just before WWII. We've been in some of the older tunnels that have the theater and some of the larger rooms. We've also been in Saint Michael's Cave, a church underground or rather in the Rock.
This time it's the Military Tunnels turn. Until fairly recently these tunnels were off limits and many miles of them still are.
The tour was done on a small bus because that's all that can fit through the narrow gaps, tunnels and downtown streets. Our driver is a retired British soldier and former Gibraltar policeman. He's a Scot and he's very funny. First we drove off the reclaimed land that is now the port past a large number of new apartment complexes. Lots of new construction since we were here last. We drove through the old city gate and into Gibraltar proper. The narrow streets in this area haven't changed at all. We drove down to Europa Point, the most southern part of the Rock. From there you can see Morocco across the Strait of Gibraltar.
The old lighthouse is still operating but it's all automated now. When we were here last the point was still under the control of the British military. Four years ago they gave it to the city. They've developed a large play area and walkways to the cliff edge. There's an old shore battery gun set up there, carriage and all. It's a muzzle loader so it must be old. Sharing Europa point is a mosque that the last King of Saudi Arabia built for $5 million. When Spain closed the border with Gibraltar for over 10 years it prevented a lot of Spanish people who worked on Gibraltar from getting to work. The only place they could find replacement workers was Morocco. The Muslim community was never large but the Sheik built them an elaborate mosque. The border with Spain was reopened years ago and slowly but surely the Spaniards are replacing the Moroccans as guest workers. With the number of Moroccans shrinking the mosque is falling into disuse.
From Europa Point we started the drive up the rock. At about the midway point we stopped for some views over the bay to Spain. We could see the harbor and the old naval dockyards. Also at the view point we came upon some Barbary Macaques. They are often referred to as monkeys but they are more properly small apes. They have a reputation for stealing things from tourists, especially shiny objects. We've encountered them several times and they have always been pretty passive to the point of ignoring the tourists no matter how intrusive they become.
Today was no exception. We encountered a couple of groups. One couple was sitting on the viewpoint wall. The male appeared to be sleeping while the female was checking him for fleas or other insects. I'm not sure if she was doing this because it was her duty or because she was hungry. Every bug she found she ate. No one really knows how they got here, they're native to Morocco. Theories abound but none has any reliable evidence.
Right across the street from the viewpoint is an interesting military weapon. Healy's Mortar was carved into the solid limestone of the Rock in 1771. It was designed to throw 1,000 stones, each weighing about a pound at any approaching enemy. It proved to be a bit of a failure as most of the stones it threw fell inside the fortress. It's hard to reaim a mortar that's just a hole in the side of a mountain.
From the view point we continued the drive up the Rock through what the driver called 'clutch wrecking country'. The steep curving, narrow road was a challenge for driver and machine. Finally we arrived nearly at the peak of the Rock and left the bus to enter the WWII tunnels.
On entering the cave we were told to pick up a hard hat and form up at the end of the entry tunnel. We walked through about half a mile of tunnels, some large, some very small. The areas were loading docks and storage, barracks, hospitals, work areas and gun platforms. One interesting thing is that the barracks in the tunnels were just bricked off area of the tunnel. The hospitals were set up in huge caverns in which they constructed Quonset huts. This gave them more control over the environment in the hospital that if it was just in the open cavern. For one thing, the entire system drips water that finds its way down through the limestone. One of the main reasons we had to wear the hard hats was to prevent water from dripping on our heads. In a few places the tunnels were low and if you weren't careful you could have given yourself a little headache.
At one point we went out onto Jock's Balcony. This ledge is high on the Rock and looks directly onto the Gibraltar Airport and Spain. The airport is the border of the area. There's a little no-man's land and then you are in Spain. To say that relations between the two countries are bad is to understate the case. For example, Gibraltar has a totally unflyable, unarmed and very old fighter jet on display at the airport. Spain said that if it was mounted in such a way that its nose pointed as Spanish territory it would be considered an act of war. Now that's really stupid! The Spanish are just ticked that they can't get Gibraltar back. A few years ago Gibraltar held a referendum on whether they should be Spanish or British. 99.9% voted to remain British and Spain just can't get over that. Spain has 17% unemployment, Gibraltar has 0%, Gibraltar has to have Spanish workers cross the border every day to keep their jobs filled. Spain says that Gibraltar should rightfully belong to them and that keeping it a British Territory is wrong. Spain is ignoring the fact that they have two Spanish Territories attached to the country of Morocco. If having territories in a foreign country is so wrong, why doesn't Spain give theirs back to Morocco? I see lots of emotion and very little logic.
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