We finally made it to the 2nd break day. We completed 3 days of cycling, a break day and then 5 more days of cycling. In 8 days of cycling we put in 650miles and 31,000 ft of elevation! If you compare this to our first bike tour a year prior in India, the whole trip was only 450 miles over 10 days of cycling with close to 0 elevation!
There was a few options we were mulling over for the last break day. We were thinking of going skiing or hiking on the Sierra Nevada. It would have been really cool to ski near the Mediterranean Sea. The mountain range is in the UNESCO-honored Sierra Nevada National Park, has an 11,500 peak which is the highest in Spain and one of the highest in all of Europe. The other idea was to visit the country of Gibraltar which is connected to Spain on its South East coast. Obviously from the title of the blog post we went to hit the rock! You can read all about Gibraltar here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibraltar We set out from the airbnb and headed towards Gibraltar. The overall trip would take us 90mins each way to drive. We stopped in Malaga to have some breakfast, pix are below. Once getting to Gibraltar, passports came out and with a few minutes to check out 00Shruti's passport we were in. We headed right to the rock, and started our climb after we determined that the chair lift was being cleaned for the next 2 weeks :) Before we get in to the pictures below is the strava link of our climb and the elevation profile.
We made it. This is from the road about 10mins from the Spain/Gibraltar border
Notice Shruti is the only one leaning cooley cross-legged on the cannon, my dad is fake holding it up and Matty bhai is taking the brunt of it as our sole UK rep
ello ello .. pip pip
Windsor suspension bridge
Matty was the master photographer of the monos
The Barbary monkeys were really cool to see. For some reason my dad kept trying to get them to climb on him. They never did. #awkward
A little blurb from wikipedia:
The Barbary Macaque population in Gibraltar is the only wild monkey population in the European continent. Although most populations in Africa are facing declining populations due to hunting and deforestation, the population of Barbary monkeys in Gibraltar is growing. At present, some 300 animals in five troops occupy the Upper Rock area of the Gibraltar Nature Reserve, though occasional forays into the town may result in damage to personal property.[1] As they are a tailless species, they are also known locally as Barbary apes or rock apes, despite being monkeys
After going through hundreds of pictures Ive noticed someone does an open mouth smile. :)
Climbing down ... #openmouth
#OMouth :D
Trafalgar Cemetary
we look very suspicious
pretty good fish and chips
PIc of the rock as we were leaving
On the way back we stopped in Marbella for the sunset and the customary pigging out :)
crepes, chocolate and bananas ... yes we are pigs
the crew ... #oneeye
and this is why you dont fall asleep in the car .. i think we have about 25 pix like this. #slumpy #flycatcher
We made it back and for the life of me I cant remember what we had for dinner that night. Maybe we made rice? Anyways... there are two days left to cycle until we make it to the tip of Spain and the southern most location of continental Europe. Yes, very cool :)
Lets do it!!
love these!
They love their pig products in Spain. This was JUST the ham section in one of the supermarkets
There was a few options we were mulling over for the last break day. We were thinking of going skiing or hiking on the Sierra Nevada. It would have been really cool to ski near the Mediterranean Sea. The mountain range is in the UNESCO-honored Sierra Nevada National Park, has an 11,500 peak which is the highest in Spain and one of the highest in all of Europe. The other idea was to visit the country of Gibraltar which is connected to Spain on its South East coast. Obviously from the title of the blog post we went to hit the rock! You can read all about Gibraltar here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibraltar
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