El Chorro 2004

The Colin/Hutch/Stef/Big Al Mobeel screeched into the gravel carpark of the Finca La Campana in El Chorro after an almost diversion free ride from Malaga Airport at around 22.30h….the Roger Everest/Shandboy/Geoff/JumarJoe Mobeel were busy doing a grand all-inclusive tour of greater Andalucia at the time.

”Welcome Colin & Friends – please find the key in the door of the ‘El Gato’ cottage marked with a note and with a welcome food & drink pack inside.”

FRIENDS?…FRIENDS? I hear you say….surely an oversight by the management….but never mind….

Cottage ‘El Gato’…Hmmm - which one was that again?…we put two and two together… Oh Yeah! it’s the one by the swimming pool….. ….I had seen it on the wwwebsite….

Funny!….no notice and no key in the door!….and there’s lights on inside with the murmur of voices….tap tap tap on the door …no answer….knock Knock KNOCK!….still no answer…BATTER! BATTER! BATTER!…

“Hellu. Ve-a ere-a fyor Svedes vhu ere-a sleepeeng here-a. Vhet cun I du fur yuoo gentlemeen”

“Aye that’ll be fucken right pal. We’re the fucken Rannoch and we’ve booked this fucken place wit the fuck are youse doin’ in here. Get tae fuck”

“I em surry. Ve-a fuoond zee key in zee duur und su ve-a joost ceme-a in. Bork Bork Bork!”

“Aye, well yeez kin just fucken beat it pal, aw right?..and ah hope youse basturts huvnae touched any a’that grub & swally that wiz left fur us!”

“I em su fery surry. Ve-a ere-a fuoor Svedeesh buys und ve-a deed nut see-a uny nute-a oon zee duur. Byurk Byurk Byurk”.

…………”Abba, Alfred Nobel, Ingrid Bergman, Bjorn Borg, Ulrika Jonsson, Greta Garbo, Dag Hammarskjold and the Swedish Chef Muppet…

A good day, dry and sunny at first, then cloudy. We pished about for ages trying to find the drive-in access to the Sector Arabe of the Albercones crag. Bummer. Locked gate across the track. Had to hoof it. Double bummer, my ankle was still kinda sore from my Torrridonian Ankylosing Spondylitis and I could’ve done without a 45 minute pad up to the crag. Stef and I did a handful of routes at V+ to 6a. Colin & Hutch also had a good day including a couple of 6b’s. The others were on nearby Poema de Roca and Sector Luna. We all ate at La Garganta, the same place we used a lot at our last stay here over 10 years ago. The place has gone a bit up-market, with bow-tied waiters etc…and sadly the memorable Idiot-bastardo-hotel-gayboy-waiter had gone. Shame.

Foodwise, the big let down was the tinned lukewarm mixed veg mush….with everything!

First thing - a shopping trip to nearby Alora. Jeezoman! What a waste of valuable crag time. Where’s these feckin wimmin when ye need them? Anyway we struggled manfully on and filled the trolley with the essentials…crisps and chocolate…and the essential essentials….cervesa varioso, San Miguel & Cruzcampo. Vino Tinto – Faustino V. Viva El Borrachos.

Phew! That was hard work. Now for some more fun. Sector Luna and Albercones at Las Frontales. 3 routes before a thunderstorm and a mad dash for the Station Bar and cervesa sanctuary. Colin treated us to a home-made tuna pasta, washed down with liberal cervesa. We like variety.

A showery, cool outlook. So back up to the Albercones for some superb clip-ups. La Garganta for grub and beer. We like to vary it.

A wee trip to the Turon crag, somewhere down the road…by somewhere up country. Very scenic area. You know…fields, rivers, mountains, serenity and that sort of thing….and a Spanish Road Gang complete with noisy digger, hydraulic lorry and sophisticated traffic control system….

The crag was great, some excellent slabby jobs and some other steeper bits. Top clipping. We got rained off the crag late afternoon and went all touristy up the dams and forests up by….somewhere. We had a meal at a different restaurant >gasp<….and then retired to talk bollocks round the kitchen table at El Gato cottage. We like variety

Hot and sunny. Amptrax route. A big wall 5 pitch HVS (V+). Four of us on the route. Colin & Hutch, followed by me & Stef. Colin & Hutch went off to do some other stuff before being rained off late afternoon. Stef & I manged to find the worst, most poorly bolted route in Andalucia. Ab aff.

Hot and sunny. Burn baby burn. Route 13 (6a+, 6a+, 6a) just up from the Amptrax area. Probably me and Stef’s best route of the week. Superb. We then went up to the Poema De Roca area to gasp at the overhanging upside down land before having an epic on a pure despo ‘verdonesque’ 6a. [if anyone knows what that means…answers on a postcard to….]

Me & Stef went up to Las Encantadas directly from La Finca, a pleasant walk….armed with the owner’s ‘clip-stick’. The ‘clip-stick’ is a device a bit like a telescopic fishing rod with a wee attachment for a crab at the end and is used to clip a rope into a high and/or otherwise dangerous-to-reach bolt. The landowner on which this crag lies has removed the first and often the second bolts in an attempt to stop climbers using the crag. The access problems have been sorted out, but the bolt-clipping problem remains.

Like nearly every other Hotrock trip I’ve been on, I ‘m never really up for the last day. Dunno why. Must be a homesick thing I guess…it was hard going.

In extreme situations…like this…one can also use the clip-stick to clip bolts whilst hanging on the bolts one has already clip-sticked. Marvellous, this sport climbing malarkey. So at least some routes were >ahem< climbed.

All in all a great trip. I think the wee bit of dodgy weather makes it more interesting and a challenge to get the routes in.

As for our Swedish squatter friends….ach…they were alright really. In fact it’s the kind of thing some of us Rannoch lads would be have done in our youth all those years ago.

El Chorro 2004, Al Scott, 16/5/04

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