After just travelling in Colombia for a few weeks, my fingers started itching...
So I went to "la mesa de los santos" (the table of the saints) in Santander, booked a bed in the "refugio la roca", the local climbers hostel where I hoped to meet climbing partners.
This turned out to be not a problem at all :)
In the refugio immediately I got welcomed by a nice little training area, training was something I had not done for quite some time now...
The refuge lies at the Chicamocha cañon, right at the cliffs, which form the probably biggest developed sport climbing area in Colombia. After arriving in the afternoon I immediately had to check out the cliffs, which turned out to be even more astonishing as I hoped for! Beautiful sandstone, an incredible view over the cañon, lots and lots of routes...lots of roofs and steep rock, that I couldn't wait to get on!
In the refugio there was a girl baking delicious bread almost every day, especially the ones with chocolate filling were very delicious...and a great snack during the climbing days, to get some energy back :)
I met Christine and Zuza again, who I had met in Suesca as well. And lots of other climbers, Trevor and Mandy from Canada, Francisco and Max from the US, locals like Jhoan (who climbs 7c and probably even harder...barefoot. Really. And such a great and relaxed person!), Guillermo or Diego.
And we did some very pretty routes! The climbing turned out to be (mostly) amazing! Awesome cracks, roofs, technical and crimpy parts, flakes, amazing moves....it felt great to be back climbing on rocks!
Christine after "Gozo poderoso" (6c / 5.11a)
Max on "A ultima hora" (7a / 5.11d)
Me on "Portal rolo" (6c+ / 5.11c)
And even though I was not super fit after travelling for some time, I managed to onsight routes in the grade 7a+ for the first time ("El poeta de la mancha" and "La pepitoria")! And I climbed several 7as and lots of 6c and 6c+, the amount of great routes in those grades is enormous...perfect for my abilities in this moment :)
I would have loved to stay longer then 7 days and maybe try to push my limit a bit and try some harder project, sadly I couldn't because everything was booked out because of the semana santa...but this just means that now I have to return :D