Gibbage 6.

The final day in a tidying up loose ends and finishing stuff off sort of way. The forecast was for cloud, it was glorious again, despite storm clouds over the hills providing a scenic backdrop. I still felt like utter shit with my gayflu. Bored of that. But there was plenty to get on with. We "warmed up" sliding off heinous micro-slabs: F6c and F7b that were more like that in British tech grades. The rock was cool but the sun was warm and needless to say our toll in skin and rubber was not repaid.

Thence it was on to the shady side, requiring a retreat and re-stomp to the opposite sector of the hillside. I'm noticing that after several days doing short uphill walk-ins and plenty of other exercise, my legs are still completely and utterly fucked and as usual I feel no progress in fitness at all. Cocktwats. Anyway the shady sector was shady although kinda sweaty. Managed a couple of routes including a pretty challenging one. Finally it was over to a different sandstone crag, El Bujeo, for a breezy and scenic evening, and a few more good and varied routes and a slightly frustrating "slip-off-the-first" move attempt of a stiffer proposition. A pretty good day despite feeling rougher than an East End Glaswegian's face.

This brings things to 34 routes I think. Not bad for a short week :). Plenty of fun on the sandstone, a few good challenges tackled (better than I thought!) and a few near misses to learn from. Tomorrow we fly back to dismal Scotland where I plan to hibernate for a while...


Africa in the morning.

Horses in the afternoon.

Gibraltar in the evening.

Gibbage 3.

Today was pretty cool. We got hold of the local guide and went back to San Bartolo to climb on the shady side. Naturally it stayed cloudy all day. The shady side is infinitely less popular than Sector Mosaico and the nearby Sector 2-Bolt Bumblebollox, but probably better overall - more variety of rock and climbing styles and plentiful interesting routes, albeit lacking the showcase funk of Mosaico itself. We explored around and both got a fair bit done throughout the sectors, this time to the sound of chainsaws not cowbells. As much as I like extreme noise I think I prefer the cowbells as a climbing soundtrack.

My fingers were a getting a bit tender from the sandstone but I had some inspirations to follow so warmed up steadily on nice easy routes, and eventually, after a "Power Manchego" lunch, got to tackle my main goal for the day, this pretty cool bouldery wee route. I hadn't watched the video, just skipped to see if the wall looked decent, so it was a nice flash with a clearly defined sequence (pretty different to the video of course, not least because a flake has come off before the span rightwards, leaving a harder and cooler sideways drop move). I enjoyed that and still had enough beans to tackle a couple more uphill routes, before being tired enough to fall off easy slabs to finish ;)

Tomorrow might be back on the lime to give our fingertips a rest. It's all good.

An exceptionally fine braided curler.

A local wench trying to seduce us en-route back to our car.