** MOROCCO BOUND **
This is the 5 Nov 2004 Edition of
this page.
Part of CHAPTER ONE
Gibraltar
I arrived in Gibraltar on 19th October 2000, from SEVILLE and enroute to TANGIER. The
travelogue for this part of the journey is included later, but here's a photo that I took of one of the
friendly inhabitants from the heights overlooking the Harbour. There were others taken!
I departed from SEVILLE after a VERY good buffet breakfast taking from 7.00 to 7.40 am.. Our coach started down
the A4 towards CADIZ and then went Eastwards via MEDINA SIDONIA and then via 'sideroads' to
ALGECIRAS.
The coach didn't enter GIBRALTAR ("that would be TOO MUCH HASSLE") so some of us walked into
GIBRALTAR from LA LINEA (just outside 'RAF Gibraltar') and we walked further to catch a special 'local bus'
to see the main sites.
We'd learned earlier that 'solid as the rock of Gibraltar' is really a MYTH. It is really a very CRUMBLY rock-face,
being like the chalk on the cliffs of DOVER!! It is continuously crumbling - and so SOFT that the engineers have
CREATED far greater mileages INSIDE the 'rock' than outside! It is riddled with tunnels - some of which we went
through on our journey to get higher, to see the apes and the harbour..
The CURRENCY in GIBRALTAR was the 'Pound Sterling' - including all its coinage!! Well that's the theory and
the publicity!! Apart from buying my normal (or exotic) ice-creams, I decided to buy something to remind me
of the place. (That's unusual for me! But NOT unique!).
At one shop, with an assistant (or owner?) who spoke with an English upper-class accent, I decided to buy,
amongst other things, a beautiful 17" by 12" low-altitude aerial photo-picture of the place (the harbour,
boats, buildings and the ROCK!!) - tendering a mixture of English coins. Although this lady carefully inspected
these foreign(??!!) coins, she still managed to give me TOO MUCH change.
I, as normal, informed her about
this (we've all heard about struggling shopkeepers!) - after which she explained her calculation. It was clear
from this that the 20p British coin had been counted as a 25p (or a 'quarter' as she said, being confused by the
American analogy).
Will THEY, or the Brits, go into the EURO first and further confuse this lady?
EMail to:
Roy's Location.
Advance to Marrakech part of the journey
or
return to Roy's home page for full list
of books etc either finished or under preparation.
or return to Morocco index page
roy@olympus.u-net.com