dinsdag 22 mei 2012

Rio - My belly full of climbing

The and of my climbing trip in South-America and I'm well rested and full of motivation! The first week here in I enjoyed the luxurious life with Marcos. We went to the beach, drank amazing juices, did a lot of slacklining and just relaxed.

View from de route on Pão de Açucar.

But after one week I felt the motivation again, the lack of exercises and my fat belly screamed for climbing! In Teresopolis we did not climb because of the rainy weather. We decided to start climbing easy again with a multipitch on Pão de Açucar (Sugar Loaf). This is a beautifull granite dome on a kind of peninsula in the middle of Rio de Janeiro. It's so touristic that after 6 pitches of climbing you can drink a fruit juice on top and go down with the cable-way between a bunch of tourists. We did an amazing climb on the totem of Pão de Açucar with a view on the big city, beaches, bays (no babes), other granite mountains and lots of jungle. A really special feeling to climb in civilisation on a wall that big and top out first in jungle and then behind a juice bar still with you climbing shoes on.

Pão de Açucar - I love to be a tourist after climbing!
After that we climbed in the best little sportclimbing area of Rio, called Barrinha. Although it isn't a big climbing area, there are a lot of hard routes and I've spend the last days of my trip in this place. The wall in Barrinha is a slightly overhanging wall with 30 meter endurance routes. Climbing on crimps you do big moves up to the top ending up in pumpy-land. The rock is a mixture of three kinds of rock but it feels like climbing on granite edges with lots of sharp cristals.

An amazing 7c in Barrinha

The climbing here for me motivated me like crazy. After the first day I new I would spend the rest of the trip on this wall. Athlethic moves on positive crimps is what I like a lot. The first day I could climb some 7's onsight up to 7c+ and I was close to onsight an 8a at the end of the day. A day like that motivated me as hell. But then the tropical rain arrived again and me and Marcos ended up climbing routes of 20 to 25 meters. We where obligated to say 'Take' five or even 2 draws before the anker and lower down because of a completely soaked end. Despite of the rain our motivation stayed high and we climbed  couple of days 'half-routes' to get ready for dry sending weather. Once the rock was almost completely dry I climbed an 8a and 8b on the same day and the day after I did another 8b.



It's crazy what a good rest and good food does with your body. I feel suddenly so ready for more sportclimbing when I'm back in Belgium. I really needed this rest to find the motivation again. Climbing goes with ups and downs, mostly it is not only fysical but also the head that gets tired. Changing your mind and focussing on other things can be good to, then you realyse again how much you like climbing and the whole atmosphere around this sport.

Today is my last climbing day of the trip! Then I go back to Buenos Aires for one night to pick up half of my gear and see some good friends again! On thursday I'll fly back to Belgium.

 After that the big questionmark of 'What should I do now?' will be there again. But today, I go climbing!



Some surfbabe crusing arround!


Those guys in Barrinha where wondering what climbers eat without asking. 



1 comments:

Brasil is great to go in the Summer. The thing is that when the winter comes, there is not much to do. That is why I prefer Argentina. During the winter, you can go skiing in Bariloche. And in the city there is always something to do. I stayed in buenos aires apartments and there were always many new attractions to see there. I went to the Malba (museum), the Abasto Shopping mall and to see a play in Corrientes St. BA is a cultural city, it never sleeps, so you can go in the Winter as well as in the Summer!

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