Someone give me some red wine!

Morocco! I've managed to overcome my fear of the hole in the ground aka the loo, and am very proud of my nonchalant attitude which has replaced the previous not on your nelly stare I used to give it. It's now our third night in Morocco and it is one hell of a place. Following some epic climbing in Chulilla its time to see what our fingers feel of African rock. We got the bargain basement bus tickets over here, 16 hours later I was almost on a flight back to England, Ranaz was about to voice his thoughts very loudly on the behaviour and existance on anything under the age of 5 and the parents of said under 5s were about to defenestrate us. There is nothing ok about pooey nappies at 3am. We arrived into Tanger and stayed at the Pension Regina for 2 squid a night...and you get exactly what you would expect! an authentic grumpy old man on reception but a wonderfully dilapidated old room, complete with a rickty iron bed, broken tiles and peeling paint. We both decided it was a proper world weary traveller-ry type room but hey it was clean, cheap and safe so we were happy bunnies. Tanger is not bad but wasn't a place we wanted to hang around. Jumped on a 6 hour bus to Fez and happy here. Crazy but beautiful town, noisy, colourful, ancient, busy, tad smelly (but no worse than London). We have a bizarre neighbour who has the most amazing fart power and a serious digestion problem. Gives us the sniggers anyway. Spent last night in a shitty hostel after being jumped on as soon as we got off the bus. Beware of smart well suited fluent English speakers! I had heard about it but by the time we realised it was too late...never mind we had a bed for the night and by that time we didn't really care. Thank god for sleeping bags. Wouldn't have let my old cat sleep on that mattress. Now cosily ensconced at Hotel Glacier ( not exactly the word that springs to mind when one thinks of Africa ), awesome place to stay, luckily we bumped into a Dutch guy who saw us limping around the medina with 60 kilos on our backs and advised us. don't bother with the recommended youth hostels on google, they are overpriced and out of town. have a wander and explore. We went for a wander as the sun.was setting and rootled around the medina, which was really coming to life...food stalls, silk stalls, stolen goods stalls, men offering hashish (avoid like the plague), a sneaky pickpocket Ranaz foiled, and the city looks so stunning with the sun setting behind the ancient fortifications. An incredible mix of ancient and modern, it is the world's oldest working Islamic medieval town. Oh anddd we saw camels...in a field...like cows do, just grazing away with additional humpy things. That was very exciting. So New Year tomorrow and then off to do some climbing.

I <3 Catalunya (or: of Sharmatown and old Roman towns)

Two weeks ago, Ellie and I left Àger, Pablo and Agus gave us a lift to legendary Sant Llorenç de Montgai. I should have written about it then, but we've been crazy busy! This place is famous for its stunning raw natural beauty, good fishing at the tranquil lake, and its AWESOME cliffs. Loads of those cliffs we saw we recognised from climbing videos we had drooled over back in London. So good to be there! The place is a sight of joy for sore-footed climbers who haven't got a car as well, since many of the walls literally border the main road.

This village has only one problem: they have no shops. Just one little bar. So shopping has to take place in Camarasa, another world famous climbing village located 6 km away from the campsite we were staying. In that place a jolly man gave us some free bread, advice, and the possibility of renting a room off him cheap next year to return and climb. Tempting!!!

One note about camping there, though. The wind really kicks hard! On our second day as we were walking back to our happy tarp, we saw a neighbouring tent get picked up and blown away! Fair enough, it wasn't pegged, but that night's wind did make sleeping in a tarp that much more interesting.

We climbed as much as we could here with what little time we had, and what little energy we could muster. Àger left us in shambles. The most exciting bit was some short, bold, 10 metre-ish overhang we played around with. It had the extra allure of not being in any of the topos we found. Good big jugs, powerful moves, great big grunts and curses. One big problem: people seem to have thought it was a loo, and its really REALLY annoying to have to watch your step because of poo on the ground. I mean, some respect, please!

One thing everyone kept mentioning as we chatted with the locals was that this is where the world's best rock climber lives (cue Angel choir) Chris Sharma. Ellie was really scared I would stalk the poor bloke if we saw him, which I would have. We didnt. However, we saw his girlfriend, Daila Ojeda! We were merrily walking across town heading to the impressive 100 ish metres crag when we saw her across the road. I now know what teenage girls feel when they see lady Gaga or whatever. We both went beetroot red, slowed or pace down to a crawl and shyly waves hello while trying not to let our jaws gape open. She is our official climbing hero now.

On the day we were due to leave, we missed our train. Obviously there were no buses and the next train would make us miss our connection to Vic to visit my friend Eva. So we did the obvious, and headed to the bar for a beer while we got our thinking caps on and figured a way out of this one. An ineffectual hour later a man popped onto our table and started to loudly blabber at me in the thickest Catalan accent. After seeing our blank states he switched to Spanish and, after he apologised for having barged in uninvited, offered us a lift to Lleida.

We obviously accepted, overjoyed at the lucky chance. So the happy hippie old man and his wife took us over to the car, one that's called dos caballos in Spanish. An ancient vw beetle sized old thing that somehow managed to swallow all 190 litres of packed gear and the four of us and carry us merrily on the road. The man and his wife were a continuous racket of happy bickering and nationalistic Catalunya propaganda, managing in the meantime to tell us stories of how that very car took them all the way to China and back. Lovely people.

The next few days we spent with Eva in Vic and the surrounding areas, recovering our strength. It was a week of delicious gastronomic feats on all parts, exploration of Roman ruins, and visiting the most delicious butcher's in Spain: her mother's. Perfect place for climbers as well: in its beautifully preserved Roman temple there was an exhibition about the exploits of the local expedition club, with loads of old climbing stuff. Ellie and I decided that Vic was so much nicer than Barcelona, quiet, ancient, and delicious, not yet a big enough town to make you feel like another ant following the line. And the food is sooooooo good, the wine is so cheap, the views so awesome.... sigh.

Tarragona we only stopped at for one night, and came to wish we had had more time. It's another ancient Roman place, with ruins strewn casually about the place, just so you had something nice to rest your eyes on while you sip the delicious and fabulously cheap local whine... double sigh. And it turns out that Siurana (or Oliana) I get easily confused, number one place for elite sport climbers, is just an hour away. Poo for our lack of time.

Good news was we were off to Chulilla for another round of awesome climbing after that, and Christmas celebrations! Wheee!

Bouldering in Vic

Last night we replaced real rock with plastic and went to check out the bouldering wall in Vic. Eva dropped us off at the end of a road which disappeared into a field and told us to walk along a track for 20 metres until we see a light. Feeling very Masonic we blindly tripped along the mud until we saw a few beams of light coming from a half opened door. Shrugging shoulders we looked at each other and went in...Westway, The Arch eat your heart out. We were in a barn, which had half of it dedicated to trapezee prcatice and the rest was covered in bouldrering holds with bed mattresses as the crash mat. A ladder Hung horizontally from the ceiling for when you are bored of being a lizard and fancy playing at monkey. There were a few boulderers clustered around a stove with shisha pipes. The owner of the enterprise handed us Turkish sugary tea to warm us up and now energised began to show us the routes.  What an awesome place!! Not having dreadlocks or tattoes I felt a little left out...
Hopefully us foreigners put on a good show! I had a feeling we were the entertainment for the evening. The routes were awesome, a great roof me and Ranaz were all over like a rash, and Ranaz managed to impress the owner with some awesome moves on a route the locals were working on...bosh one up for the newbies. I was climbing well indoors for the first time in ages. Just make sure you've eyed up your landing spot and don't plummet between the gaps in the mattresses. After an hour we were pumped to hell, muscles burning and fingers ripped. Felt good! If you are ever in Vic its a place to definitely dig out.
Despite the scary looking locals they were really friendly and the routes were crazy! There was only one vertical wall...overhangs are the way forward.

Barranc des Grillons, second bit.

Yesterday was a glorious climbing day. Pablo and Agus picked us up and drove us to the crag. Their poor car was groaning with our weight and that of our massive rucksacks, roughly 190 litres worth of climbing and camping gear, clothes, books, food and random "essentials" we have found absolutely no use for. Simón loved it though. Good thing massive golden retrievers are the friendly type.

We had enough energy after skipping our daily two hour trail to get on some serious climbing, so, as Simón happily pranced round the steep base of the crag like a bloody mountain goat, we geared up and set off up the wall.

I'd read and heard quite a bit about a particular route, Apadrina un Banquero, that after some good strong warming up I set off up it, Ellie belaying nonchalantly below me. Now this is a long route. Long enough for Pablo to lend me four quickdraws, and I still found, later, I needed an extra one. A beautiful 40 metre route, needing a halfway anchor point to absail down in two stages. I was told it was pumpy. Greatest damned understatement in history of man.

As I started up this 6c behemoth, it turned out to be similar to the 6b+ I had just led but harder, way more demanding. Small finger biting crimps, bulgy ragged sandpaper slopers to hold with a big flat hand, delicate balance and rhythmic, slow progress. A little steep. The halfway point marked a difference, though. By then, I was fully exposed to the wind, was pulling up 20 metres of rope up and the few jugs became scarce and very tricky to balance from. Every time I came to one, I would have to rest my arms, I was so pumped!

Then it got really hard. It became a crack climb, but the crack wider than any I'd ever attempted before. Smooth rock up until I had my arm in up to the elbow, then I had to jam my palm on to one side and my elbow to the other, only just creating enough leverage to raise my feet a few inches and pray I could find a hold there. I could hardly hear Ellie shouting up encouraging advise, the chilly wind was having a laugh pushing me around and making a racket. Several times I had to stop and rest at key points, try a move several times before I could go up and reach the next bolt, clip a quickdraw and pull the rope in.

Then the rock tilted outwards, an overhanging crack with just five metres to go. I was shivering but my arms felt like burning brands, heavy and clumsy. My legs were shaking, and all I could afford to think of was going on. If I looked down I could see drops of blood my raw knuckles had left behind. When I finally got to the top, scared, it took me a couple of minutes to get to the task of pulling up the rope to abseil down. Ellie told me the wind kept pushing me away as I picked our gear back off the wall. When I finally touched ground, I must have made a pitiful image, shaking with exhaustion, bloody, and scared. I'd just finished the hardest climb I'd ever tried, on my first attempt! Wheeeeeeeeeee! (Yes, being a climber does involve a certain glorified masochist nature).

After a bit of lunch (which Simón clearly thought he was fully entitled to take part of), Ellie set off to have a go at this same demented line. She looked a tiny bit nervous as she stepped up, maybe. This was definitely the hardest climb she had tried outdoors. She sped up past the first bolt, then the second. She has this annoying quality of being quite small, so her little hands can use little bits of rocks I would hardly think big enough to clean out my fingernails as holds. Knowing the difficulty of her route, and still stinging from the cut the previous climb had given her, she moved with particular fluidity. Her feet stood firm, her arms locked and pulled in perfect time, and her balance was flawless. I could only shout out occasional advise, she didn't need any, not really. I didn't even realise how hard it must have been till she got to the first anchor and called the most relieved, "Ready!" ever. She was beaming when she came down, but her hands and knees were as bloody as mine. Oh the lovely pain.

We all drove away from there overjoyed at the climbs we had done. I had spied Pablo doing a blank looking 7a I definitely have to have a go at, and Agus had gone up a couple of impressive looking cracks to. So they brought us to Sant Llorenç de Montgai, a new campsite, a new bar, new Catalan crags to subdue. Beer and wine flowed, and we exchanged plans for the near future. They might even come to Chulilla with us for Christmas! We're staying there with Pedro Pons again, where we plan to climb, eat, drink, and sleep with a relish. And wow, really really need a good sleep.

Spanish lessons, blood and gore

My Spanish is coming along sporadically and rather randomly, put me at the bottom of a crag and I can probably get by quite well, put me in a supermarket and I don't think asking for the mosquestones or commenting on the buenva via is going to get me too far. More of a quizzical raised eyebrow...weird English tourist. I can also recite a number of words I would be embarrassed to say in front of my parents but I'm secretly quite proud of ( its like being back at school and looking up the rude words in the dictionary with naughty satisfaction). 
We are now in Sant Llorenc de Montgai, home to the amazing Chris Sharma and after an awesome last day at the crags in Ager with Pablo and Agustina, who were amazing and picked us up from our campsite and drove up there instead of the hysteria inducing, leg cramping, bowel clenchingly painful 6km ascent (thighs of steel Ooooh yeahh).
The four of us had the crag to ourselves, so no need for the showing off antics whilst surreptitiously checking out the other climbers.
We warmed up on a 6a, nice holds, jugs and crimps and a great crack to shimmy up, a short but sweet route perfect to calm the nerves ( more mine than ranaz's I think )... First course was followed by a juicy 6b+ which ranaz flew up despite it being a pretty long route and I took the first fall of the day on it ! It was quite dramatic if I do say so...expletives and everythin' and I good bloodcurdling arghhhhh. If I'd been in England it would have been the old stiff upper lip but sometimes a bit of amateur dramatics is very satisfying... And the Spanish are all into their emotions etc...

I'll leave Ranaz to go over the rest of the day which was awesome, includes blood and gore and lots of manly manliness displays...real edge of your seat stuff. Yup. TTFN

P.S To those of the Scottish variety we apologise for any offence we caused in the inadvertent mis-spelling of Whisky. I have been duly reprimanded by Dad.

Barranc des Grillons

Made it up to the climbing today! Had a bit of a slow start, the mists rearing up their ugly white selves up and around us. Chill factor makes sleeping bags so much more comfy! After a decent breakfast and a cuppa hot chocolate we set off in good spirits and great sunshine, my top off in no time at all!

It turns out that the valleys round here in Lleida really are subject to thermal inversions. So while Ellie and I were freezing away at camp, climbers in our now local crag were doing their antics topless. Poo.

Going up in the sun was good. We saw vultures up near the cliff tops and heard thru VHOOMING wingbeats as they missed a thermal. Near the side of the mountain where our crag was, there was an imposing looking building, la Ermita de la Madre de Deu de Pedra, set up encroached on the living rock with a massive formation behind it in the shape of a cross. So, seeing as we had walked up with the heavy gear for two hours, a visit seemed obligatory. Pretty building. Amazing view. Climbing then!

Ellie had a great breakthrough today, despite her vertigo and a very very sore ankle she nailed a very subtle 6a+. This route started with a very generous slope that quickly got steeper, with slippery crimps and sharp one or two finger pockets. About halfway was a comfortable ledge and the entire rock changed to sharp jagged grippy vertical, awesome foothold, but painful for hands. It looked short from below, but proved well worth its 20 metres length. I love limestone.

The view from up there was impressive. Even from our belay spot (on a slope of hard rock) we had such beautiful sights to see. We saw the mist sneak up on the valley ever so stealthily, thin wisps of barely visible whiteness. Then BOOM! We were climbing above clouds!

Sunlight was scarce by then, so a very lovely couple that was climbing next to us offered a lift! They're awesome, Pablo and Agustina. We chattered away on the way down and they've been kind enough to write us down a whole bunch of climbing sites we need to visit. Yay! (NB. climbing zones are called escuelas, schools, in Spain). We had a couple of drinks and talked climbing, me being the official language ambassador :) turns out they've met Chris Sharma!

Can't wait to climb again, tomorrow we're back to pushing our grades, warm up on 6b, heat up till the rock kicks us back down. Confidence in rocks is BACK!

Adeu!

Today at the crag

Some amazing photos of the view from way up in the mountains where we were climbing today... Ranaz was flying up the routes and I'm ecstatic with being able to climb properly again after the bloody ankle got itself injured! Amazing first day climbing in Ager, Lleida... Bring on mañana....

More pictures

Tarp castle, Under Crag, Near LLeida, Somewhere in Spain,

It's so cold tonight we have contemplated moving camp into the loo block, which has decent lighting, quick loo access without the stumbling in the dark ( still not had the guts to try the Shewee), and is toasty warm. There is also a slight problem of the canine variety. It's the first time I've ever had to store food up a tree for a proper reason ( as opposed to doing it because it feels like you're on a proper adventure...).
Tarp Castle is amazing. Ranaz did an awesome job... We are getting many envious glances at our deluxe accomodation...at least I think they are envious. Glamping eat your heart out.  Thankfully my role in its construction was limited, my innovative ideas discarded... My approach to that kind of activity is more of bull running wild in a china shop, whereas Ranaz is more methodical, hence why tarp chateau is probably still standing now.
The question has arisen as to whether bivvying at the base of the crags tomorrow night would be an option, despite the looming presence of the cliffs they are still a 4 km walk away with the climbing gear and I am a sloth like creature, not keen on trudging for great distances. Hence why rambling has never ignited any passion in me...I think I'm more keen on the loo idea.
We had a type of bird for tonights supper, it wasn't chicken or game, just praying it wasn't the type that tries to deposit crap on your head around trafalgar square. Even Ranaz had no idea what it was, all we know was that it was cheap...Yum Yum.
Really looking forward to spending a long time here, its so beautiful, scary climbing and friendly people. Random generosity has been flung in our direction from many people now but it still astounds me how kind people are... From strangers offering a warming dram of whiskey in scotland to solutions to fend off hungry dog-wolves. Leaves a warm fuzzy feeling - bless. On the point of warm fuzzy feelings it is nearly Christmas and I had almost forgotten if it wasn't for the now bedraggled advent calenders we have been carrying around ( thank you Ed!), its going to be very different this year I think, not sure how to cook a turkey on a trangia - maybe downsize to a woodcock.

P.s photo below of ranaz hard at work ....