Albarracin

We are parked up 2 miles from Albarracin in the Serrania de Cuenca. The landscape is rolling hills with dark red sandstone cliffs and boulders intermingled around a sparse pine forest. The pine trees are of the large needle variety with huge pine cones that litter the floor with the lavender bushes giving the forest a pine and lavender scent. The snow which had covered the forest for the past few days is slowly disappearing and all around us in the sound of song birds, no other animal life is visible, but the numerous tracks around our van suggest a lot goes unseen at night whilst we’re sleeping.

During the week we are virtually undisturbed except for a few other climbers and the odd tourist bus which comes to see the Stone Age paintings in some of the caves. We’ve stopped to look at a few, although very hard to see when found they are of amazing detail and complexity and not the simple line drawing I expected.

The town of Alarracin is the epitome of Spanish Medieval heritage. Originally a tiny Islamic state from 1012 to 1104AD, then an independent Christian kingdom 1170 to 1285AD it sits nestled high on the cliffs, houses perched on top of each cliff, tiny cobbled streets and stairs with houses cascading above you. Towering city walls surround the town and brightly painted cathedral spires dominate the centre. Unusually for a Spanish town the centre is completely intact, nothing seems to suggest the encroachment of modern life except a few cars and the odd washing line. New buildings are kept away from the walled city and you feel as if you could be walking through a city as it was five hundred years ago.

Having spent a morning exploring Albarracin we are now enjoying the afternoon sun and quite of the forest. There is little else to do here, a bar in town is recommended for climbers in the evening and the local campsite has free internet, although rather un-sportingly our request to buy a shower was turned down as they are only for campers and we where then charged when we tried to fill up our 25ltr water container. We will return for the free internet, but won’t be recommending the campsite to anyone else.

The climbing is often on steep roofs and walls, using pockets, sharp edges and sloppers, often some of the holds feel very fragile under your grip and there are frequent scars in the rock where holds have snapped. The problems are often dynamic and very athletic, although the problems are first class the rock is not of the same quality as Font and is unlikely to last with the amount of traffic it currently gets. Often when your grip fails you get a puff of sand ripping off the rock, suggesting its fragile nature. You almost feel selfish enjoying a rock which you know future climbers will not be able to enjoy in the same way. But hopefully with respect from the locals it will last.

To Albarracin

Targasonne should have been a three day stop over, but on the second day the heavens opened and we where drenched in snow. Snuggled up in a local bar over the Plat de Jour of Tripe stew (it was pretty good, only the last bit looked a bit too much like a pig’s intestine) and free internet the conclusion was inevitable; lets head straight to Albarracin. So we left those amazing lines of Targasonne and headed south through a very wet Spanish Pyrenees and down to Albarracin. Yet another massive 8 hours of driving, although this was more eventful, we had the celebrations of achieving a whopping 50miles to the Gallon, meaning the less fuel the van drinks the more we can drink. But within in sight of Albarracin we couldn’t change gear. My clutch just wouldn’t work. I managed to get the car going by starting it in gear and could just change between them, so we crawled the last miles, in the centre of Albarracin I couldn’t even change anything and we cruised to a halt in a parking bay two miles short of our goal.

The parking (camping) at Albarracin

There was nothing for it but to sleep in the van and see what we could sort out the next day, neither of us being mechanics we could only guess and hope it was just the clutch cable that had gone. The next morning our limited Spanish was put to the test, we ascertained there was a mechanic one kilometre down the road and headed off with some hope. At the garage a young mechanic asked us to wait for the boss who on arrival whisked us back up to the van to have a look. He immediately diagnosed the problem; we had a small brake fluid leak which also powered the clutch. A fill up, another bump start and we were back in business with only a thirty-two euro bill, most of which was for the extra can of brake fluid we bought encase of further leakage. Our broken Spanish had prevailed and we had a good hour of amusement watching the mechanics repeatedly getting into the wrong side of the van to drive. The hardest bit of the whole job was when the mechanic dropped the cap to the brake fluid tank into the engine and the younger mechanic was sent for to try and fish it out.

The snow and roof of Albarracin

The mechanic reckoned the clutch should now be fine till be get back to England, but to check the brake fluid occasionally. So a day later than planned we finally arrived at the bouldering of Albarracin. We thought the snow had been deep up in the Pyrenees, but here it was nearly a foot in places and very cold. We knew that Albarracin was high at 1300m, but didn’t expect this much snow, especially in April. The snow has meant a lot of the problems where wet, but we found an amazing roof section to while away the afternoon on, including the first 7C of the trip.
One thing you also start to realise about life on the road, especially a trip like this in Spring, is that when things aren’t perfect life can get pretty boring. Life revolves around sleeping, eating, climbing, eating, reading, climbing, eating and then sleeping. It’s cold and damp outside so almost all of the above except the climbing is done in the van. It’s the little things that get you through the day, the enjoyment of a good book, making sure the cheese and sausage of lunch is good and trying on a limited budget to cook a descent dinner. Tonight’s delicacy of Spanish sausages and ham in red wine and tomato sauce with veg and potatoes was particularly good. But tomorrows will be the left over sauce with some extra veg with rice and if we’re unlucky so will the next days. It’s not all glamorous on the road.