This morning I got speaking to Tomas, a German cyclist heading through Spain to Morocco and who like me was heading to Algeciras. It was only sixteen miles away (although there was a twelve hundred foot headland to climb) but Algeciras was my destination for today as I was determined to get an early arrival. We agreed to do the ride together which decided the question I had as to whether to take the road or follow the more demanding EuroVelo 8 track route: Tomas was taking the road.
I followed Tomas over the headland between Tarifa and Algeciras, a long steady climb through rock and a wasteland of hardy shrubs and grass. Two men, each with over a thousand miles of cycling through Spain in the last few weeks to their credit, climbed at a blistering five miles and hour through the Spanish hillside. But slow and steady was the right thing to do and as I trailed Tomas I realised how much easier it was when cycling with somebody else and without some voice in your head suggesting you should be going faster. We rounded each curve to see more climbing and small groups of sleek, white wind turbines that dot the hills around here. At home they would be turning gracefully in the breeze but here there was far more urgency to that rotation.
We stopped at a small cafe at the high point, enjoying coffee and the view across the straits to Africa. In the mind it tends to be a distant and hidden continent, remote and wild, but across that stretch of water it was now strangely close with her coastline and the dark contours of her mountains easily visible in the haze. Yet still that sense of an unknown place of concealed mysteries remained.
Our coffee finished and our focus drawn back into Europe, we set off again and began the downward leg to Algeciras.
Algeciras is a port city. It is what you notice from some miles distant: the cranes and installations associated with its shipping role. We first headed to the port so that Tomas could buy his onward ticket - narrowly avoiding entanglement with the tout who assured us the passenger office was closed but he would take us to where we could get a ticket - and then into Algeciras proper. To Tomas the town reminded him of Latin America. I understood what he meant with its quiet and simple streets although my initial impression was of a forgotten border town: there are lots of accommodation places and restaurants but nothing upmarket; there are uncrowded and unassuming streets but nothing really run down; and there are shops that sell life's essentials but no obvious shops for luxuries. It came across as a place that wishes for no more than to function in its role as a town without glamour or glitz. It is of course a crossroads between Europe and Africa and as such a melting pot of cultures and there is a definite 'edge' to the town but not one that is any way intimidating.
Tomas wanted to go to Gibraltar on the local bus so I agreed to accompany him even though it is my cycling destination tomorrow. In some way it fits with the spirit of this trip: Lee caught a ferry across to Gibraltar from Algeciras, a choice that no longer exists, so I would catch the bus. It was a forty-five minute ride along motorway and main road passing a continuous stream of business parks and shopping centres to get to the border town of La Línea; it occurred to me that even some time after Lee's journey that whole area would probably have been a largely deserted wilderness.
I have been to Gibraltar once before, in 1989, and I know the memory can play tricks but there have definitely been changes. There was no McDonalds or Burger King directly at the border then and the border control infrastructure is now swept up and modern. The need to walk over the airport runway that crosses the area between the border and the town has not changed, although I am sure there are more buildings in front of you as you approach the 'rock'. One thing I do recall is that that huge mass of grey-white limestone was always a looming presence wherever you seemed to be on the peninsular. Now though, as we walked into the town, all sight of the rock was often obscured by new high rise buildings; we could have been in any modern city.
After eating we caught the cable car to the top of the rock from where we would get a good sense of the surrounding area and also see a few of the famous Gibraltar monkeys. It was a trip I had made thirty-six years ago and the view from nearly fifteen hundred feet up did seem familiar. Despite that familiarity it was obvious that there had been building over the years, although the full scale of it was lost due to the height of our vantage point and the distances involved.
By the time we had crossed back into Spain and caught the bus back to Algeciras it was already early evening. We headed out to eat but it seems there are limited offerings in the city, compounded by our desired eating time butting up against the Spanish norm, so when we did eventually found a place to eat we were the only people in the restaurant. It may have been relatively early but neither of us wanted a late night: Tomas is off first thing to catch his ferry and I am hoping I can leave early enough to get back to Gibraltar for lunch.
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