Rock Climbing!!!

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG! I finally got to climb, after a massive 2 months absence I am back!!!! And today, me and my guide German (pronounced "Herman"), checked out a local canyon at a district name Calambucos, about 20 minutes away from Arequipa.

At first sight the canyon looks amazing, it is high and steep, at up to 80 metres from the ground up. But we approach it from above, so we found a lower spot and had to abseil (aka rappelling) 60 metres to touch the bottom. We did this over three stages which was pretty thrilling.

But disaster struck as soon as I made my first abseil (and waving to the camera for the above photo!). My bloody daisy chain broke!!!!!!! It was hook to my bina and to the belay rope, and I still had 15 metres to go so it was a very tense moment. I manage to get down ok after literally lowering myself down the rope! On the second photo you can see German abseiling down the steep face.

But we recovered, and carry on with our climb once we reach the valley below. I only did 2 climbs today, the first climb was called "Cho Cho Loco" which literally mean "Crazy Cho", somebody´s name I guess! It is a 6A climb and is 25 metres. There were enough holds for me so it wasn´t too bad, but the granite wall was slippery as hell so I had to be very careful with my feet. The second climb was a goodie! It is call "La Calavera", and German mumble something about it name after a human skull. Yicks! It is a 6 climb and is 50 metres high, therefore it is a multi pitch climb. THIS IS MY VERY FIRST MULTI PITCH CLIMB AND I WAS EXCITED AS HELL!!!! For those who don´t know what that is, it means you climb up halfway, gather your ropes and continue with the rest of the climb whilst your partner belays you from the halfway point.

I didn´t fall off once, but then again German did the lead since I need to learn how to belay from above. But man oh man, the second disaster struck after we got to the top. We could not get back down!!!! German only had a 50 metres rope and it wasn´t touching the ground like we wanted. So we had to climb up the canyon and find an alternative route down. It was one of the shittiest walk I had to do as I was wearing my climbing shoes, by the time we got back down (it took just as long to go down as to go up!) my toes were all blistered and bloodied from the shoes.

Never mind, it was a good day for me. I really enjoy getting outside and practising my hobby! And as we were so high up, the view from above was fantastic! The last photo shows the perfect cone shape volcano Mount Misti (5822 metres) in the background. Followed by our canyon in the middle and yours truly posing with way too much sun block and Snickers chocolate stain in my teeth, along with German.

On a side note, German is only the second person I know who was born on the same day, month and year as me!!! The difference is he is married with 10 kids... :p