Gibraltar

Last post on my trip to Spain, although this one is actually about Gibraltar. There’s something intrinsically appealing about tiny country, so I took a day trip there.

Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory, and is just 2.6 square miles, most of which is taken up by the rock of Gibraltar. But they’ve still managed to fit in 33,700 people, making it one of the most densely populated areas on Earth.

The name Gibraltar comes from ‘Jebel Tarik’, Arabic or ‘Tarik’s mountain’. This is in reference to Tarik ibn Zeyad, who landed here in 711, marking the beginning of the six hundred years in which Gibraltar was Moorish. In 1160 they built the first city here, as well as a castle which still stands.

Bioparc Fuengirola

I expected this post to be longer. Fuengirola Bioparc was a highlight of my trip to Spain, and I kind of assumed I’d be able to make a pretty long post of it. And I could do, but it would be almost entirely listing animals. Which it is, but I realised that’s not the most interesting thing to read, so have reigned it in a bit. I’ve kept the animal rambling to the ones which came most readily to my mind.

So. The best description I’ve found of Fuengirola Bioparc is an ‘immersion zoo’, where the whole park is made to look like the animals’ habitat, rather than just the individual enclosures. It’s based off Asian and African habitats. Many of the barriers are made using water, trees, and height differences, instead of bricks, glass and metal. They do use those as well, but where they can make it more natural looking, they have. I’ve been to this sort of place before, but not on the same level as this one. The number I’ve found is 130 different species and over 1400 individual animals.

Benalmadena

As was probably clear from my last post, I recently took a holiday to Spain. And as the title of this post indicates, I stayed in a place called Benalmadena. It’s a town in Andalusia, on the Costa del Sol. Benalmadena covers a pretty large area, much larger than I was aware of when I was there.

From what I can tell, there are three main areas. Benalmadena Pueblo is the original village, Arroyo de la Miel was a separate one which I guess got absorbed into it. There are some attractions in these parts, but Benalmadena Costa is the really touristy area. That’s where I was, and where I stayed. I don’t think I even saw all that much of that part, if I’m honest.

There’s no proven explanation as to how the town got its name, though all of the possibilities are from Arabic. The most commonly accepted theory is that it means ‘son of the mines’ or ‘the construction of the mines’, due to iron and ochre found in the area. It could also mean ‘people between springs’ or ‘the state of the al-Madina’s family’, which would be in reference to a rich family who may have owned the area. The name has had a few variant forms over the centuries, but from what I can see it’s always been recognisable as being the same name.

Poetry – The First Thing

The first thing I saw was that big stupid grin
That couldn’t be wiped away for anything,
The next thing that struck me was your ragdoll hair
How it fell in your eyes, how you never cared,
And you were far too clever for your own good
I heard that cocky laugh and knew that I would
Not ever forget the day you and I met,
I admit that I thought I would want to forget