The Rock of Gibraltar

 After time in Madrid and Seville, we continued south toward Gibraltar, a quirky British Overseas Territory near the southern tip of Spain.  We got through customs and then to our hotel after a bit of VERY tight driving through some of the most narrow hilly roads I've ever driven on.

For those not really familiar with Gibraltar, it is an area of about 2.6 square miles and roughly 34,000 residents. There is a very distinctive sense that the British who live there are very defensive about their territory, which they gained in 1713 following the Treaty of Utrecht.  Signs declaring Britain's vow to never give up Gibraltar were commonly seen posted in windows of homes and some businesses.  Great Britain may own it, but the Spanish run it, at least based on my observations and interactions.

View of "the rock" from our hotel

The Calentita Food Festival was taking place the evening we arrived so we decided to check it out.  There were food and craft vendors, live music, and dancing.  I felt reasonably certain that we were the only Americans present.  It was important that I took this all in because this was a very genuine experience few Americans get to witness.

Children representing symbols of Gibraltar - including gulls and barbary macaques

We of course ventured to the top of the rock to see the famous barbary macaques.  We don't do tours so we did it on our own.  About 300 macaques live atop the rock, originating as imports from northern Africa during the Middle Ages.  The Gibraltar population acts as a sort of insurance population for the endangered species as numbers in Africa are reported to be decreasing due to habitat loss and other anthropogenic factors.  

Despite all of the warnings about feeding or touching the macaques, there were several tour guides openly feeding the animals small pieces of food to attract them toward tourists so that tourists can have their photos taken with a macaque on their shoulders.  Tour guides driving vans would pull up on a group of macaques and tempt them with food; the macaques would often jump on the moving van to the delight of the tourists.  If a macaque began acting aggressively for food, the tour guide would pull out his long stick with a rubber snake attached and poke it toward the macaque, which frightened the animal away.

This whole scenario was disheartening, to say the least.  Generations of these animals have become habituated to this exercise and people see these wild animals as circus monkeys.  I would implore anyone interested in seeing these animals to NOT hire one of these tour guides or give in to the urge to touch the animals.  One group of British teenagers, having watched one of the tour guides man-handle a young macaque, stupidly tried doing it without offering food and the macaque took a spirited swipe at them.  They laughed like idiots, but part of me wished they had been bitten and contracted some zoonotic disease. 

This is about as close as anyone should get to a wild macaque (they are cute)

This mom was not happy with me interrupting feeding time, so I left them to do their thing in privacy (I was further away than it appears in this photo)

A piss-poor photo of an Andalusian wall lizard (Podarcis vaucheri)

There are few accessible natural areas in Gibraltar.  Commonwealth Park contains a pond with map turtles (Graptemys sp.) and Iberian water frogs (Pelophylax perezi) as well as some invasive red swamp crayfish.  Trafalgar Cemetery provided a much-needed shaded space during a very hot day.  An acquaintance of mine, Francis Cosquieri, was raised in Gibraltar and knows the place like the back of his hand.  He recommended that I hike the Northern Defenses, a series of 18th century fortifications that sees little traffic and offers the potential for herp sightings.  Because we didn't start where we were supposed to, we got quite turned around trying to find an access point to the Northern Defenses.  It was very hot and we were mostly walking up steep avenues and maybe into peoples' yards...I had no idea what I was doing.  Our patience ran thin, but before tempers boiled over, we found the tucked-away access and were finally there.  We enjoyed some relief from the oppressive heat in the form of old bunkers or some sort of old stone shelters.  Herp diversity was limited to the widespread Moorish geckos (Tarentola mauritanica) darting in and out of the stone structures.  The real highlights were the amazing plants that grew here, including Creten Viper's-bugloss, throatwort, greater snapdragon, common poppy, and gold coin.

Seen on the way to Northern Defenses

Moorish gecko

Look at those boards!  Yes, I flipped them, but it was far too hot for anything to be there.  On the right day, though...

Gold coin (Pallenis maritima)

Gibraltar is a great place, but for us it's a one and done.  It is much too small and too built up for additional visits.  Portugal, on the other hand, WAS worth another trip, and so it was to be the final leg of this year's European vacation.