So, after a good nights sleep in Kostas’ mates place in Madrid we woke up relatively early, had some breakfast, extracted our car from the worlds smallest underground parking space (there’s a reason a lot of cars in Madrid appear to be slightly dented, and it’s not just the driving style…) and headed south once again, continuing down the E5 towards Linares, past Jaen and towards Granada, where we took the A92 towards Malaga.
Quite a nice drive with some good scenery, you could feel the temperature was a fair bit hotter as we were now in southern Spain and had dropped a lot of altitude out of the mountainous north.
Swinging past Malaga you could also see the increase in the density of buildings and resorts and also, rather embarrassingly, an increase in the number of signs and language that was in English. I may be a bit odd but the anglicisation of southern Spain has always made me feel a bit ashamed.
Also rather confused – when I travel it’s to experience new and different cultures, see amazing things and generally get away from the western way of doing things a bit. It seems to me that people simply get on a plane at Stanstead airport, fly several hours south and get off in Spain hoping to find what is basically a hotter version of England – you can find full English breakfasts, British pubs showing British football, British papers, everything in English and not a hint of anything Spanish – why go on holiday then?! Also, there were a few too many people with bald heads, tattoos wearing wife beaters and drinking a Stella at 11am in the morning for my tastes… Also, tangoed women. Anyway, end of rant.
Anyhoo, the AP-7 along from Malaga past Marbella is actually quite pretty (the TOWIE crew weren’t around so it had that going for it at least..) and we were now on the home stretch heading towards the meeting hotel of Meson de Sancho which is a bit past Algeciras (basically between El Bujeo and El Cuarton) and it suddenly occurred to me that it would be a bit daft to come all this way and NOT go to Gibraltar…
Now, one thing I never really thought about was just how much it annoys the Spanish that we still have Gibraltar (after we stole it off them in the War of the Spanish Succession, and they agreed in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713) after all this time, I mean it’s the equivalent of say Brighton just randomly being governed by Spain, but I did find it rather passive aggressive that while the motorways around there are very well kept and signposted, there are almost no signs for Gibraltar until the very last minute. Also the slip road is in a decidedly shoddy state with big potholes – obviously a not too subtle stab at it’s existence that just made me chuckle.
For reference and to get to Gibraltar, you’ll see the signs if you just follow directions to San Roque, then just head south, you can’t miss the traffic.
Most of the other teams had arrived at the hotel the night before and it turned out that another team, Matt and Emma were in Gibraltar at about the same time we were headed there and we agreed to meet at Europa Point.
It is a bit surreal driving up to the border of Gib. You suddenly see British police uniforms, UK style signs and other bits and pieces, at which point you have to drive across a sodding airport runway, replete with UK style traffic lights. Then you’re all of a sudden surrounded by Tescos and Natwest banks, but you’re still driving on the wrong side of the road… Quite bizarre.
On the way via some very narrow roads (easy peasy for a Brixham boy like me) to Europa point to meet Matt and Emma we found a very nice little beach and spent a romantic moment.
We met Matt and Emma, took the piss out of their Mutipla (despite the fact that they are actually rather cool cars) and then we followed them back to the hotel as they knew where they were going – annoyingly it took about 5 times as long to get out of British territory as it took us to get in, but hey ho.
We got to Hotel Meson de Sancho which was in fact rather nice, met up with all the other crazies and then headed down into Tarifa by cab (bit long for a walk) and got some food and beer, on they way stopping to buy our ferry tickets to Tangiers the following morning – I can’t remember how much they were but it was probably about 60 Euros or something, nothing massive.
Aimed for an early night but failed miserably, but we were up at 6:30 to drive down and get the ferry – off to Africa!
Notes and Points
- Gibraltar is worth a visit, but be aware that the border can be a bit of a faff, you will need a day at least to do it properly and parking is a bit of a nightmare anywhere near the main town – some people even park across the border and walk in – still requires a passport!
- Book your ferry tickets to Tangiers in advance, and do some research into what money you want to take – mainly Euros as they are pretty much interchangeable anywhere, with varying degrees of scalping – no replacement for actual Moroccan currency mind…
Route
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