Yvette and Jon do Spain

Really haven’t been very good at keeping this blog going over the summer. My main excuse is I can only keep one thing going at a time and I’ve devoted myself to trying to write a book. I say trying, well I have written one. Whether it’s good enough to get published is another matter. But guess will just have to wait and see.

Valencia Center

Since I last posted, Yvette and I finally got our house. It was a fight, but in the end we moved in at the end of July. We’ve been busy getting it all homely and just enjoying having our own place. I’ve built a training wall in the garage so I can get cranking and get a good winter in the rock. That was the plan, but within a week of it being finished I tore my main tendon in my forearm pulling to hard, on too small a holds on too hard a move. It’s now nearly 8 weeks since I did that and I’m only slowly getting back into climbing.

Trying to think back for the last five months to what I have been doing. I guess one highlight was two weeks in Spain with Yvete, having our annual climbing trip (I couldn’t climb much thanks to tendon). It was a good little adventure, mostly I covered the same area as I did with Steve back in April. The main difference this time was I had a bit more money to spend, so we ate out a bit more.

Cuenca

Eating out in Spain is a bit of a lottery, the first roll of the dice is whether the restaurant chooses to open, and if it does whether it’s before my British stomach can’t wait and more and goes else were. The next roll is if the food is any good or just microwaved for you. Finally it’s the lottery of whether you can actually translate the menu or if they have an English Menu they’ve translated correctly.

All this leads to a few interesting meals. Breadcrumbs with Ham and Tomatoes, is just a plate of fried breadcrumbs, sorry Yvette for not finding Tripe in the dictionary, guess I’ll eat that one, but we did manage to translate and not order Pigs ear soup. We did have many interesting meals and probably spent more time eating than we did climbing.

Yvette's First Font 6A

Other than our culinary adventures in Spain there isn’t much to report, Yvette bouldered her first font 6A, I climbed all the easy things I could. We went to Valencia and I got Cityatitis as usual and then we flew home. We did learn that mixing climbing and culture doesn’t really work. It’s one thing to climb most the day then sit on the beach and swim in the sea. Another to climb most the day, then walk up steep hills in medieval towns and try and look around museums, the later doesn’t really work. Promise to get an update out after Christmas.

Boredom then Spain

Four weeks of sitting around being bored, can’t climb as wrist is injured, no money to go anywhere, just me, the laptop and the t.v. Relief was in the wings in the form of Yvette’s birthday present, a trip to Kalymnos. Only thanks to XL airways going bust this was canceled with a week to go. Luckily we were covered and we spun the dice and picked a new destination; Spain!

Rodellar Village, perched on top of the gorge

This was going to be Yvette’s climbing trip of the year and we flew into Barcelona, jumped into the smallest hire car available and started out tour. First stop Catalonia and the caves of Santa Ana and Santa Linya then Rodellar with its steep gorges and wildlife. Then finishing off doing the touristy thing in Taragon: so here we go, a few sound bites of Spain.

Architecture: Rolling hills, medieval fortified villages, all with their church spires watching for marauding Moors. Some with castles perched right at the top. But this is where it goes wrong. The Spanish aren’t very good with their planning regulations, often after hiking up to look at the imposing castle you find a nasty little red brick house stuck on the end and any deteriorating brick work daubed with cement. Rodellar was better, being in a national park they at least ensured all new buildings where built out of the local stone and came with traditional features.

Some of the Wildlife of Rodellar

Food: Spanish food is generally simple and easy to prepare, eating at the social clubs we gorged on deep fried squid and octopus, chorizo and other sausages, cheese and ham. Unfortunately if you’re on a budge this is often where it ends, after a few days of deep fried Squid, only to find on the fourth you have ordered it again because the new item on the menu was just Squid, but written in Catalonian, not Spanish.

Olive Groves of Catalonia

Tourists: Am pretty sure for the first stage of our holiday we were the only tourists the village of Castillonroy had ever seen. We had the Alberg all to ourselves and we met with blank stares from the locals. Although to be fair as soon as we appeared lost the redirected us to the interesting sights of the village.

Village of Catalonia

Student: How much is it to look around that bit of old ruin? The bad part of cities, you have to pay to see anything that is worth seeing. At least in the countryside it’s all free. I managed to get around this with my local mountaineering club card, which usefully doubles as a student card. At least it does if you are Spanish and can’t read much English.

Climbing: There is so much rock in Spain that needs climbing. All around Santa Linya are amazing cliffs, often we would have the whole crag to ourselves on some of the most perfect routes I have ever done. Rodellar is more, but much more popular, unfortunately this means a lot of the easier routes are polished. The hardest bit was often just getting off the ground. But new routes meant there was always something great to climb.

View from our Hotel in Taragon

Wildlife: No were else in Europe have I seen so much wildlife, Rodellar was packed with birds, butterflies and even a snake with coursed through the river after small fish. At times when you looked up you could see up to twelve vultures circling around the thermals, mostly Griffin Vultures, but, I am pretty sure I also saw a Golden eagle as it swooped over us.

Cheese, Pate, Pastries and Wine

Travelling in France has mixed blessings, after the bustle of English roads driving is very sedentary. You never seem to encounter traffic jams, everyone actually seems to be able to drive and when you stop at a service station the food is actually edible. The food is almost always interesting and different; I can’t recall seeing a single McDonalds or Burger King. Maybe it is this which prevents hoards of Brits descending on the country. The restaurant opening times are a bit haphazard, they seem to open and close when ever suites the owner. Finding only the one restaurant out of a high street of six restaurants open on a Friday night was bizarre and to compound this, the restaurant was a kebab house. I had been fully kebabed out for the year in Turkey and this was the last meal I wanted.

The Forest of Fontainebleau

The purpose of our trip was to avoid the usual bank holiday rain in England and enjoy the sun and sandstone bouldering of Fontainebleau. The vast forests surrounding the Royal palace of Fontainebleau where the hunting grounds for the Kings of France, well they where till they chopped their heads off. Within the maize of tracks and paths lies mountains of sandstone boulders, deposited their by some geological phenomenon. Each area has marked routes going up and down the boulders linking them together, providing a training ground for mountaineers from Paris going to the Alps. Each circuit is marked with a different colour, usually yellow the easiest, then orange, blue, red and finally white or Black. With each boulder typically being between three to five metres high and around fifty problems in a circuit you can quickly climb many hundred metres in a day. Or alternatively as I did just choice the problems which look the most fun and play about on them.

Me, about to fall off the last moves of this problem

When you are not bouldering you are usually either eating or drinking, the reputation of French cheese needs little introduction and this combined with some Pate and an ample supply of French bread usually ensures any calories lost climbing are quickly replaced at lunch. After climbing, just in case we hadn’t eaten enough for lunch the Patisserie’s offer such a vast array of sweet pastries with cream and chocolate in them that you are guaranteed not to lose any weight on a trip out here. If you are lucky after a day of Cheese, Pate, Bread and Pastries you might find room for the evening meal, which is never going to be light.

Yvette, enjoying one of the steep problems

After all this it is a relief to be back in control of my meals, but am coming to realise this summer’s trip around Europe might not be a very slim one.

Jon & Steve’s Pasta Pot a la JoSiTo

This was our Tuesday night dinner and has been voted the meal of the trip.

Take your three small Aubergine, an onion and two carrots, slowly fry these on your stove with olive oil for 15 minutes till soft, add a red pepper, courgette and three green peppers and let the flavour stew. Add four tomatoes, coriander and pepper and leave. Cook your pasta and when ready add to the vegetable mix and bring back up to the boil. Take off the heat, add crumbled Feta cheese and serve immediately. For added effect toast sum bread on the campfire and top with Avocado!

Think this dish is helped by the strong Feta cheese you get out here, this can be anything from creamy and more like mozzarella to crumbly and excessively goaty (think of ground goat, hooves, hair and all).

Back to Climbing

Quite a bit’s happened since I last wrote, one of the crag dogs got shot by the nice goat herder from my previous post. Turns out he might not have been that nice. We said goodbye to Garren and Sophie with a nice meal at the trout restaurant down the road. Unfortunately they have been replaced by an elderly Sheffield lady whose booming Yorkshire tones can be heard for miles around. Luckily Vera and Fred, a Dutch photographer and his girlfriend arrived at the same time and have been great company (The Dutch seem to understand English humour much better than the Germans).

Around the campfire

On the climbing front things have been steadily improving, I have moved in the 7’th grade climbs and Steve has just kept pulling harder and harder, although not much separates us on the onsight, on the redpoint he is in another league, pushing 7b+ and looking confidently towards 8a before the end of the trip. For me, I’ve wired together the moves on a 7b+, but failed to feel motivated enough to push on through to the end, maybe soon!

On our rest day we hitched and then bussed ourselves into central Antalya for a day of touristy bits. Antalya is one of the central players in Turkeys mass tourist industry and the drive in takes you through tower blocks of flats supplying cheap accommodation for tourists. Miraculously after this crowded modern hell hole Antlaya opens up into a small harbour with its combination of Roman and medieval architecture largely still intact. Old Byzantium churches, now converted to mosques and medieval walls guard the entrance to the old town. The harbour houses a combination of charter yachts, tourist boats and small fishing boats with their crew painting hulls or mending nets on the quays.

Cheap food of Antalya

Unfortunately cities means the friendly Turkey we have grown to love in the rural villages we have been climbing in is replaced by the hardnosed city reality, on every corner waiters try and hustle you into restaurants, carpet sales men and street vendors try and barter their wares. Lunch of roast lamb was ruined by the modern demands of tipping, photography opportunities tainted by boat cruise salesmen. It was a relief to get back on the bus to Geyikbayiri and the rural tranquillity of Turkey.

The Harbour of Antalya

Rural life is more relaxing, the shack up the road sales delicious grilled lamb chops, served by its owner who proudly shows of photos that tourists have sent back to him. We follow tradition and take photos of him with us and take his address so we can send him the photos. A local patron freely discusses the relaxed and tolerant views on alcohol in a country with a massive Muslim majority and chastises the stupidity of radical Islam. All washed down with some great Turkish beer and Raki.

The Shack owner with Steve and I

Eating out tends to be rare at the moment, our trip to the Shack an exception, we made another trip to the Trout restaurant, but once again this was for farewells, this time, Katherine, Nic, Carissa, Vera and Fred where off. Sad to see them go, but a great opportunity to stock on campsite booty. We have managed to inherit a table with benches, two lots of chocolate spread, cheese and olives. Free food, always good.