Monkeys and Beaches

the cove we played at in Tarifa
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Road trip in Spain, what could be better?!

Blake, Micah, Dan, Mark, Jess, Katrina, and I rented a Mercedes Benz minibus to drive down to Gibraltar for the weekend. It is only a few hour drive so it wasn't too long and it was way better than a bus! Jess and I stayed up all night on friday hanging out with Pedro, first at Alambique, his bar, til closing (4am-ish) and then went with him and Gerrod to different discotecas and finally to breakfast (7am-ish). As soon as we walked in the doors we went right to the showers and got ready to meet the others at 9. I stayed awake on the ride while Jess was out before we even left Sevilla. The Bakers had put together two mixed CDs so we had a great soundtrack for the trip.

fun in the sun

Blake, Mark, Katrina, Jess, me, Dan, Micah
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When we arrived we had to find a place to park the beast and then we walked to British territory. One tour guide hounded us until his price was down at least 15 dollars and we got what we wanted. So he drove us up the huge rock and we were to walk down on our own. The biggest attraction there is the monkeys, they are overpopulated and very used to people. any sign of food or something shiny they will pounce and try to steal. We had quite a bit of fun with them though, way too many pictures were taken :) Micah got pooed on and jumped on along with Blake!

our sweet ride! yeah its a mercedes minibus
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The walk down took a very long time, it wasnt tiring at the time but now we are feeling it. There was a cave on the way (extremely touristy, not very cool at all really) and a tunnel with a bunch of facts and demos from war and whatnot. It was a beautiful day and we could see Africa pretty well! it was nice to just sit up there in the sun with the breeze.

For supper we decided to do the supermarket sharing again for cheap and sat in a cute little plaza to eat. We ended up having a cheese fight which I suppose was more funny if you were there :) Back at the hotel we decided to watch a movie but after 1am I could no longer bring myself to stay awake (that made it 42 hours for me...) so we rested for the big day ahead of us filled with beaches and sand and sun!

It was soo windy!
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We drove up the western coast and just stopped at beaches along the way not really in any hurry to get back. We stopped at Tarifa, Bolonia, and Cadiz. We swam in the Mediterranian and the Atlantic. We stopped at a cafe on the drive as well that provided a great view of the water at a full 180º around us. Once again we climbed the rocks to get a better look and cool pictures. The wind here was almost unbearable, I had to brace myself just to stand up on the rocks, and sometimes people caught me when I lost my balance a bit. :) At the first beach we played around in a little cove climbing on the rocks. Jess got hurt here (she fell more than once) and we made a dog friend. It was a very pretty beach but only Micah got in, the rest of us were waiting for the next one that we would spend more time at. So once at Bolonia the girls all got changed in the minibus into suits so we could join the fun. It was actually quite cold, even if we were just there to lay out but of course we all jumped in the water anyway! half of us body surfed while the others got out again and just had their feet in the water watching (can you guess which group I was in?!) Then to warm up we decided to run the length of the beach and up the large sand dune, what a good idea! It was fun actually, I could just feel it in my legs that I wasn't used to running on loose sand! Unfortunately this is where my camera breaks down from sand damage... two months left and my lens doesn't work, still unsure of how to handle that situation. Now we continued on to Cadiz. Our first thought was food. We found a supermarket again but it happened to be next to a McDonald's so we went there instead! I got two double cheeseburgers fries and a drink and left hungry. I think we were a bit dehydrated from all the fun in the sun. This parking lot provided for good entertainment because as Dan was crawling over Katrina's lap to sit in the back row with her Mark depantsed him! and we were all still in swimsuits soooo that was hilarious! she swears she missed it though, but at least everyone else got the butt shot :)

just writing messages in the sand! got made fun of for this one - ballerina feet.
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This weekend was so great. When we got back I asked Jess if she could think of one negative thing from it, neither of us could come up with anything! It was just made complete with such a good group of people.  It also ended on us getting stopped in a little bit of traffic in Sevilla near home and Dan suddenly shouting, 'hey look that bum is taking a shit'  now i realize this sounds mean but at the time we could not stop laughing, because it was true, he was, we saw.  :)  No but seriously the trip of a lifetime in just short of two days.