Boarding the flight to Gibraltar, I met one of the people in our group – Lee. I initially wrote in my diary that she is very chatty and seems normal which is good! I think everyone was wondering about who would be on our long overland trip. After collecting our bags in Gibraltar, we met most of the rest of the group and then some others once we crossed over the border into Spain, who were waiting with the truck. There are 24 in our group (23 currently and one more person joins us in Fez). About half are travelling from London to Cape Town and back up to Cairo (40 weeks) and the rest of us either get off in Ghana, Cape Town or Nairobi. Group description to come soon!
We drove for 20 minutes to our campsite in Spain. Nev (driver) and Kristy (our guide) had put up all our tents and cooked dinner for us along with free wine and beer. Awesome. Could definitely get used to this! Sadly it was just a once off. In the next few days, we would split ourselves up into cook groups (3 in each group) and learn how to put up and take down our own tents.
The next day we went back to Gibraltar to have a look around. 6 of us went to an English pub and I had a spicy mojito and fish and chips. Absolutely delicious. We then took the cable car up to the top of the mountain and had a look at the views
and the apes, one of which cheekily tried to open up Josh’s bag.
I’d spent a few days in Gib before and explored it quite thoroughly so didn’t feel the need to rush around too much today. We all bought a litre of spirits for New Year’s Eve as it’ll be the cheapest from here, but NYE still seems a little while away!
After driving to Algeciras, we boarded the ferry to Ceuta. It was only a short 1 hour ride and I started getting excited (and a tad nervous!) as we were crossing back into Africa for our big adventure.
I finally managed to buy some gardening gloves in a Spanish Carrefour and when we stopped to get diesel for our truck in Ceuta, I went down to the beach
and started picking up litter. I wanted to pick up 230 pieces (for every member on our truck) and others began to join in to help me, but we got to around 160 pieces, before I heard a beeping and thought the truck was about to leave. Mission failed but 160 pieces is still better than nothing and a good start. I am trying to set an example by doing it and hoping that others will join in along the way. Then I plan to talk to travel companies and try to get them to adopt this ‘10 pieces’ idea – taking out more rubbish than what you take in.
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