Caption: well into the bottles of wine within cooee of Africa
Passed countless olive trees and eucalypts early on today’s drive.
Stopped for lunch at a supermarket with 60 checkouts! Gave up walking around inside because the offerings made me want to tell the cooking team what to buy. Vicki and I ate nuts and dried figs under the eucalypts in the sun, enjoying the familiar scent.
Spent the afternoon driving along the Spanish Mediterranean coast: kilometre after kilometre of hideous holiday resorts, crowded with every shape and size of accommodation from small single units to massive multi-storey monstrosities. The only vacant land was being cleared for more buildings and was planted with huge signs advertising new estates, with every bourgeois facility imaginable.
Lunched on a beach, half the group swimming before eating.
More condominiums on the long afternoon drive into Algeciras. Bought our ferry ticket for tomorrow morning's sailing to Africa - ridiculously excited! Then we exited Spain and entered the tiny British enclave of Gibraltar: crowded with English-speaking Spaniards, English pubs, English bobbies, and English officials. Harrier Jump Jets lined the road into the settlement. Military haircuts walked the streets and kicked a ball around the soccer field we passed on the way out. There's probably a lot more to Gibraltar, and hidden treasures and reasons why you would choose to live there, but we didn't have time to unearth them. We did get passport stamps though!
Back in Spain, we settled into a seaside campsite with a beautiful view of Gibraltar's lights.
We sat around for a while drinking Ben’s sangria before Vicki, Nikki and I headed up the hill for 75-peseta hot showers (Nikki bringing money to purchase wine). From the shower we headed into the bar to buy a bottle of wine. Bought three, intending to drink one and take the others back down to the truck. The best laid plans... Had a long, heart-to-heart conversation around a table, lubricated with wine. Geoff brought some food up to us to soak up the alcohol, but the situation only deteriorated with the arrival of reinforcements. Our gathering grew to a very merry bunch of Nikki, Vicki, Geoff, Jim, Myrta, Marcus, Haken and me, all smoking like chimneys. Geoff applied burnt cork as a moustache and then used it to decorate his vast belly. They could hear our laughter way down in camp.
Having finished the wine, I somehow made it down the steps to the truck, where I discovered that someone had locked the truck cushions in the cab, denying me a soft bed, and key-carrying Ben was nowhere to be found. I invaded a few tents looking for cushions and discovered Bob’s tent. I collapsed it on top of him, and each time I saw a pole right itself I rushed out and dropped it again. After repeating this several times, Ton, Geoff and Jim manhandled me unceremoniously under the cold men’s showers! I slept damp on top of my sleeping bag, insulated by the mild temperature and the alcohol.
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