Meeting with monkey family

#26 Gibraltar

The monkeys are the highlight of Gibraltar for Icke – that was clear from the beginning. She wanted to photograph monkeys in the wild once in her life. Well, with the wild it's a bit tricky in Gibraltar. There is no jungle here, but the animals live here freely and are treated almost like saints, but more on that later.

The monkeys in Gibraltar are Barbary macaques and belong to the macaque family. It is not clear how they came from Africa - probably Morocco - to Gibraltar, but it is certain that humans were involved. There is a legend that Gibraltar will belong to Great Britain as long as there are monkeys on the island. We know this from our tour guide Tariq, who was also our taxi driver.

We met him right after crossing the border when we asked him for directions to the Cable Station, which is the cable car that leads to the almost 500 meter high Rock of Gibraltar. "Why do you want to take the cable car? Come with me. It's cheaper," he said. He calculated the difference for us, but the decisive argument for Icke was that he would also take us back and we wouldn't have to walk down. We agreed on 70 euros for the two-hour trip, including tickets for the tunnels and the light show. We quickly realized that this was a very, very good decision.

Tariq is maybe in his mid-30s and was born in Gibraltar. He knows everything about his island and told us a lot. Also the legend about the monkeys. "I am proud to be a Gibraltar. None of us wants to belong to Spain," says Tariq in English with a distinct accent. When asked about it, he laughed. "Yes, it's a mixture of many languages. You should hear us talking to each other. I bet you won't understand a word." I didn't take that bet. I was glad that his best English was somewhat understandable to me - and vice versa.

And now the monkeys. Already on the way up to the Rock of Gibraltar, we met a mother with her child during a stop. "Be careful," Tariq warned us, "don't get too close. They can get quite dangerous." It was hard to believe, the two looked so cute. But the hard-to-believe part would change not even five minutes later. I took out a small snack in front of a snack bar and was about to take a bite when several people rushed towards me and pulled me inside. Tariq quickly joined and scolded me: "Don't eat anything outside! The monkeys will come immediately and try to steal your food." He pointed over me, where a large monkey sat on the roof edge and acted as if he couldn't hurt a fly.

There are currently 250 Barbary macaques on Gibraltar, which live in five families, each with its own territory and swimming pool. There must not be more than 300, the peninsula cannot handle that. All the surplus monkeys are taken to Morocco and released there.

For us, the monkeys in Gibraltar were wild enough.