After breakfast we headed ashore to wander first through the newer area of the city, then headed for the hills and the older parts of town - pretty shabby and crowded, and very hilly! Passing a fenced school yard, two little boys hammed it up for the camera - all the little kids were in uniforms covered by smocks, and were running around while eating their morning snacks.
We climbed the steep hill and steps to this castle entrance, only to find it locked! Apparently on Mondays it is only open to organized tours....
we zigzagged around the base of the fortress walls and wound our way up to overlook it:
The statue overlooking the city was further up the hill, and there were caves here and there in the hillside - one being guarded by a small dog - whether he lived there by himself we don't know, but he never left the cave entrance as he barked at everyone in the area.
Upon returning to the ship, we noticed:
an empty space where LifeBoat 11 used to be! (You do remember that Ber and I were assigned to Boat 11?) Apparently during the crew's boat drill, 'something' broke and the boat crashed through the railing on the deck below - the boat was floating upside down in the harbour ..... (this picture was taken the next day, when the ship was facing the other direction - on 'crash' day, this side was facing open water). Anyway, the captain made a number of announcements, saying first that the good news was that nobody was injured or killed during the accident, but they had to wait for a crane to lift the boat onto the pier.... and they had to wait for a shipping inspector to arrive from Cadiz (by car) to check everything and recertify the ship as seaworthy..... we were assured that there were still way more spaces than necessary on the remaining lifeboats, but the ship could not sail until the paperwork was up to date with accurate numbers of life boats.... . So our departure was delayed and we were told we could go ashore again for a couple of hours if we wished, as the ship wasn't sailing until 9:30 instead of the scheduled 6:30.
Another spectacular dinner, followed by really great entertainment - an Operatic Interlude - a tenor, bass and two sopranos, with piano accompaniment - they sang excerpts from popular operas and were very well received.
The ship was declared seaworthy and off we sailed, leaving LifeBoat 11 on the pier, to be repaired and reinstalled at a later date. A letter to our cabin informed us that in case of emergency, we should proceed to Station 11 as we did during the drill on embarkation day, and we would then be directed to an available space.... hope we don't get a chance to experience that!
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