Tuesday's walking

Tuesday 14th May, continued

I would say it was the hottest day of our trip so far, and definitely the most humid. Therefore it was probably not the best day to be on an epic march around a double-sided cliff, but that's just the way things turned out. The Mediterranean Steps were marked on our awful touristical map with a line which, based on the distance we had covered so far, might (obviously there was no scale) be about 800m. They turned out to be an immense zig-zag path, up and down and roundabout. Under normal circumstances I would probably have dawdled a lot, but we had a boat to catch so had to take it at quite a pace, since we didn't know how long the walk actually was. We didn't want to be the Felicity and Terence of Gibraltar.

We made it to the end of the path and had to decide whether to descend to walk into the town (via “Engineers Road” - that looked about as scenic as it sounds), or ascend back up to the cable car station and take the down trip to the town. We had two hours to make it back to the ship. Some local men came to the consensus that it would take about an hour to walk to the cable car station. We decided to risk it, we had after all bought return tickets. So we started our march – this route was at least tarmacked which was an improvement on the Mediterranean Steps' shrapnel.

We'd not long been going when I was driven into by a mini-bus. This could have been really nasty, I was right on the side by the cliff edge and it was going reasonably fast, but fortunately I was only clipped by the wing mirror. I was lucky that I was able to keep my balance and come away with just a bruise. Matt, who is usually the most mild mannered of men, was livid. I was just a little shaken and sore and crossed over to the other side of the road – maybe I could get a matching bruise on my other arm.

We made it to the bottom of the cable car line with about an hour left to return to the ship, and I was now feeling slightly heat stroked. We'd been walking fast (we made it to the top cable car station well ahead of the one hour estimate we had been given) and I hadn't drunk enough. Plus the downwards cable car ride had left me feeling a bit wibbly.

I revived myself with an ice-lolly and we were left with just enough time for a little bit of shopping on the way back to the ship. Having started the trend for souvenir tea-towels in Ajaccio I got another in Gibraltar and, to really make my day, a souvenir hand towel too. Gibraltar is famous (well my mother-in-law told me) for cheap duty free. Neither Matt nor I are big drinkers but if we were going to buy any spirits any time soon now would be the time to do it. I inspected a one litre bottle of quality branded vodka priced at £5.95. Matt wondered what the difference between this one and the one next to it was – other than the price and the colour of the label. The difference was about 10% proof. We've now got a litre of 50.5% vodka – it was only 80 pence more which seemed like good economics. I also picked up a bottle of Angnostura bitters, a dash of which seems to be required in lots of cocktails.

Once we were back on board we had to endure the spectacle of the “Great British Sailaway” - everyone with their Union Jacks doing bacd karaoke to various well known tunes from around the British Isles. Lewis the cruise director was in his element. I was tempted to stay to enjoyed a Pimms but Matt and I grabbed a pizza and chips and headed to the relative sanctuary of the Ocean Deck.

Moored opposite was a French cruise ship – many passengers there waving cheerfully at us. I'm sure they must have wondered what was going on. Matt and I resisted the temptation to do a rendition of Les Mis for them. I had the misfortune to spot a not young, not slim Frenchman (at least I assume he was French) on his balcony in a white thong (the pant type, not the flip-flop type). The “why does he have to do that” level on a par with the not young, not slim, British men who insist on frying themselves on deck in only a pair of branded sporty swimming trunks. They don't look like they've done any sport recently. The not young, not slim, French man would be higher up the disgusting scale were it not for the (thankful) fact that he was situated at a more reasonable distance from me.