Evil Monkeys of Gibraltar

We took a day trip from Tarifa to Gibraltar. Gibraltar is a British over seas territory that borders Spain. It’s right near Algeciras and 2 hours from Malaga. It’s very easy and quick to cross the border to and from Gibraltar.

The rock of gibraltar is a very popular tourist destination. It is a big rock that is surrounded by the ocean. The Moorish castle is on the rock, that you can check out. When you’re at the top you can see Morocco and Spain. Pretty cool right! It is most common to take the cable car to the top, walk around to the sights on your way down, but you can also hike up. Our feet were still hurting from hiking part of the camino, so we took the cable car up.

Here’s a little story of our time on the rock

We had just started our walk at the top of Gibraltar rock. It was windy and a bit cold, but it wasn’t raining which was nice for a change. We planned to walk down the mountain, so we could see everything. The lady we bought the tickets from, explained where we should go and what we should see.

We walked by a group of people taking pictures of monkeys. The monkeys were pretty cute, but we had been warned not to get them angry. This type of monkey is called Barbary Macaques and they originally came from the Rif Mountains, and are the only type of wild monkey in Europe! I stopped to take a picture of one, and as I was turning around back to my mom a monkey jumped up on her back! At first everyone one was all chill, like “Cool, she’s got a monkey on her back!” But then it zipped open her small backpack pocket, and started throwing things out like it was looking for something. No one really knew what to do.

The monkey wasn’t super big, we could probably get it off her back, but we all know those things can be vicious. It frantically threw my moms wallet out on the ground from her bag. I ran to grab it, worried it would fly away in the strong winds that day. A few little papers were also thrown out of her bag, which I caught before the did fly off the mountain. That’s when I realized our passports were also in that pocket! Lucky for us, my mom was able to swing the monkey off her back before it got to the them. Thank goodness! It was a close call!

We were all a little freaked out by this, but we decided to keep going. We turned around to start walking, and that’s when a monkey came charging at me! It hopped onto my back. The monkey was trying to get to something. My mom and another lady were trying to swat it off of me. The rest of the tourists had their phones out, probably filming. Just then another, bigger, money jumped on me too! It was like the littler one had asked for its help. Apparently it had a very determined look on its face. He didn’t waste time zipping open my big pocket. I wasn’t worried at all, the monkeys were surprisingly light, it was just their determination that got everyone worried. My mom was telling me to take off my bag, but then what? Would the monkeys run away with it? My wallet was in there so I definitely couldn’t let it go.

After not too much time, I guess they had got what they wanted, and jumped off my back. I turned around to see what they got and saw my yummy crackers all over the ground. They had wanted food! That made sense. But why my crackers of all things! 🙁 I was impressed though. That these moneys were able to smell the food and smart enough to open my zipper and get to the crackers. That’s some mad skills they got there! I guess humans aren’t the only smart animals in the world.

Everyone was asking me if I was ok. I was fine, it was kind of funny actually. I had always dreamed of having monkeys on my shoulder, but not like this. The rest of the walk down, we were both very carful when we walked by these scary creatures. My mom had her backpack on the front, and we made loud noises when we passed a group of them, to hopefully make them scared of us. I wanted to get more pictures, as we passed some babies, but that risked getting food taken from us again.

So that’s the important life lesson I learned yesterday. If you ever go to Gibraltar rock, don’t bring food, and don’t get too close to the monkeys. Unfortunately we might be running into these buggers again, as we are heading to Chefchaouen next, which is in the Rif Mountains. But this time we’ll know not to bring food!