you have to pay to go climbing, it can rain for days, holds breake all
the time and ruin your project, climbing is sharp like hell and you will look out for gloves the first day you arrive (if you have not the skin of an olifant), everything looks super cool, but the climbing can be really tweaky, painful, morpho and just not nearly as good as its looking, it can be so windy and cold you think you arrived at the southpol instead of africa, it's crowded like your home-town climbing gym on a tuesday evening in february and you have to queue up for a classic problem more then once, people scream around not just while climbing (what I do sometimes as well, and I feel (sometimes) sorry for that) but also just while "chilling" at the rocks... boulderers shit in front of boulders - WTF???!!!
despite what everybody
tells you: "de kelder has NOT the best burgers ever" (we had to wait
2!!!hrs and they were cold), everyday chips and beer makes you FAT, everywhere
you can see some teens with earplugs, running around with sponsorship-stickers
on their trousers (I felt lucky I have a "sponsor" myself since a year,
otherwise I would have felt like a total exotic.... but at least, with close to 35
and a lovely girlfriend on my side, I do not have to pretend to be outsch
so cool, for 24/7 ;), people checking and updating facebook and XX.nu real-time
on rock - out in the nowhere in africa..., daily (hourly)
never ending chitchat about who has done what in how many tries in which sector
today and having competition not just on rock (the quicky "2min",
"flash", "soft", "that felt EASY (-I am SO
strong-) dude!") but also while chilling (I know an even better joke, I
can drink more beer...), after a one hour hike from "out in the
nowhere" to "even further away out in the nowhere" you can
stumble over a laptop and a little surround system spraying music all over the
little (once) peaceful area - for everybody... at least for free. and try this:
while watching an immaculate sunset on a rocky plateau, the total tranquility,
you can hear a single bee flying over the place, watching over the endless and
fast african landscape - and some guys have to take out their I-phone to
make some music for all the audience....WTF???!!!
is this just me getting old, or/and as a 14year old kid
said to me last year in magic wood when I told him to shut his f*cking Iphone-speaker-sound down (or to put some headphones on); "that I have no
idea of "the" boulder-culture?!"
nevertheless, after three weeks we extended our trip for two more weeks... so obviously there must be some things down there which are weighing up.... ;)
Ha! Great post!
ReplyDeleteInteresting write up. Reminds me of the discussion about Jan's video at 8a.nu, where I also thought "Jeah, geil, come on!" is not really my world anymore. Must be getting old, I guess.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Martin, never been to Rocklands but I know what you mean.
ReplyDeleteI'm really fed up. Thanks for speaking up!
Lo.
Hallo Martin.
ReplyDeleteSchön zu lesen das man nicht der einzige ist der mit geteilten Gefühlen die Rocklands verlassen hat.
Und vielen Dank nochmal, dass wir an dem Sturmtag bei Euch in der Wohnung so nett aufgenommen wurden!!!
VG Kai
Haha...!! Nice entry and unfortunately it seems to be a truth story. I remeber our 3 weeks down there in 2005. We were the whole three weeks between 5 and 12 people in the Rocklands. Is has definitely changed. :(
ReplyDeleteThe good old times will never come back....!
cheers
After reading your article carefully I think your title is misleading Martin. I think you meant to say "don't believe the hype, climbers sucks" instead of "don't believe the hype, rocklands sucks" !!
ReplyDeleteUns (Andi und Johanna) hat es auf jeden Fall volle gefreut so "normale" Menschen wie Angie and dich zu treffen ;-)))
ReplyDelete@kai; ihr hättet von unserem risotto probieren sollen, das war der hammer ;)
ReplyDelete@matthys; well you are right and wrong, some people have been a real pain in the ass and some people just made that trip one of the best i ever had.... watch out for my next blogpost....
@johanna: heyo ihr beiden, hahaha, ja wir vier waren ja die vollen "normalos"... ;)) war echt toll mit euch und usere alpha-wg war echt der hammer. nur schade, habt ihr den jesse verpasst wie er nach seinem "sieg" über den "arch" von shannon eine erstklassige champagner-dusche verpasst gekriegt hat und dann vor freude in den pool gehüpft ist... - köstlich ;))) michele sollte das noch auf vid haben! danke dem andy nochmals für die flasche champager, und euch beiden für die tollen tage!!!
Danke Martin, du hilfst mir gerade dabei meine Schulter-OP und gleichzeitig damit den Wehmut deshalb nicht in die Rocklands fahren zu können besser zu verkraften! :)
ReplyDeleteHallo Martin, wir haben deinen kleinen Artikel auf unsere Facebook Seite
ReplyDelete" http://www.facebook.com/bouldern?ref=hl "gestellt, da wir in viele Dingen dir sehr gut nachfühlen können wie es dir dort ergannen ist. Nicht jeder der den Boulder Sport betreibt hat auch im Inneren seines Geistes Platz für die Ehtik die dieser Sport eigentlich mit sich bringen sollte. Es geht ja nicht nur um das Bouldern an sich dabei sondern auch darum Plätze auf der Erde zu besuchen und zu erleben, so wie du schon schon erwähnt hast Geräusche und Gerüche wahrnehmen, diese iPhonie geht uns persönlich auch tierisch auf den SxxK..
Solltest du etwas dagegen haben dann nehmen wir selbstvertständlich den Artilkel wieder von der Chronik.
Besuch unsere Seite auf www.boulderproject.com, Danke das Boulderproject Team aka BoulderBroject.