Utah-Spain (4)

Hello all - this may be a confusing letter cause this keyboard is sticking...I'll try to come through clearly...

So, I'm still in EL Chorro... Here are the links to make it easy for those that are curious... one of Andalucia... look for El Chorro on the map - that's me! The other is the site for the finca that I am staying in... see pics of climbing, the finca, the general area.... gorgeous...

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/mapshells/europe/andalucia/andalucia.htm
http://www.el-chorro.com/ingles.html

Now, let me back track and recap a bit...

I went to Morocco with a couple from Manchester England... they are a bit older than me, in their 50's... They spoiled me. They never let me pay for a meal, a drink, not even for my tram ticket to the top of the rock of Gibralter... so kind..I felt like I was on a family holiday... Gibralter was actually our first trip... it's like a peninsula of the tip of Spain... It's not that big, yet hoards of cars pile in every day... you have to go through two passport checks.. one to leave Spain and one to enter little England... Gibralter... The town is coveted by Brits in Spain for the duty free cigarettes and liquor... half the price they pay at home... and by the Spanish for the foreign clothing stores... I guess.. We took the tram to the top of the Rock of Gibralter... had I been alone, I would have opted for a lovely walk up the huge piece of rock... linked by this site:

http://www.fortogden.com/gibralter.html

At the top, tourists are greeted by apes... they run around and attack you for food if you're simple enough to bring a bag of food to the top. Another English couple thought they would have a nice picnic on the top... they were quickly proved wrong by the tame critters which jumped on the man's back, and nabbed the bag from his lady while she screamed and threw her can of coke at them.... jeezus... but it was a good show for the rest of us, including the ape that sat shoulder to shoulder with me on the railing, watching the whole thing go down... Twenty minutes later we all just watched as they slowly and in a civilized manner, shared the food and ate it slowly, making sure not to miss an ounce of flavor... after the show, I had my pic taken with one of the macaques... I think they are... and then we headed down and made our way past some shops and back to Spain...

A couple days later I went to Tangier with the couple.. We took a high speed boat that only takes 35 minutes to haul ass across from Tarifa, the southern tip of Spain, a kite surfing destination... when we arrived in Tangier (with our tour guide and group, as recommended by all) ... in fact, they won't really let you into Morocco without a guide... or at least they strongly recommend you take one... cause you'd get lost in the Medina... never find your way back to the boat and be mobbed along the way by vendors.. the whole getting lost thing might happen with unexperienced travellers, but I didn't find the route we took particulary maze-like... as for the shopping experience, since we were with a group, it was definitely a whirlwind experience, and it was a relief to have a local guide... who spoke French, English, Spanish and Arabic... We saw far more than we would have if we had come alone or just picked up a simple man to man guide at the other end of the ferry ride... our group was assembled back at the ticket office in Spain...

Needless to say, it was a wonderful experience...to see the variety in Morocco... women dressed like Europeans, women wearing djilabas with burkas, women wearing djilabas, burkas and a bit over their face so that only their eyes were showing... I don't know enough to comment on the varying levels of concealment.... I did learn that the city we were in was very religiously diverse... Catholic, Jewish, Muslim... various temples throughout... high tolerance for diversity... we were an anomoly as we were walking about in a big obvious group of whities... some of which were not particularly quiet or inconspicuos... which is why I said before that I would prefer to go back with more typical dress and just blend abit... but I'll wait on that for now...

After I said farewill to the Manchester couple... I headed back to Malaga to take the train to Alora, the nearest town to El Chorro... I was planning, after having had a big chat with my folks, on heading up to Germany, Slovakia, over to Ireland for Christmas, just getting around til Justin came over to climb... and then I got to El Chorro.. it was really just gonna be a curiosity thing, and now it's turned into paradise...

The finca is gorgeous, as you can see in the link and the climbing is super rad... I have made tons of friends here.. I'm the only American on deck right now.,... several English, two Finnish, four German, two Swiss, two Dutch and comings and goings daily... At the crag I've met Polish, Czech, French and of course loads of Spanish... I've climbed on two separate days... the first was a mellow feel it out day... the second was mellow two... but we did go to an area called Poema de Roca... wherein lies the 'Route to do' when in El Chorro, which is also called Poema de Roca with a local grade of 7a... My partner, Tim, hung the draws and did the route... he had redpointed it a few months back.. It's a lovely route that climbs steep out some tufas and then traverses a bit on more tufas and then pulls steep through some slopers and side pulls to a hand jam and then the finishing jugs... I flashed it!!! It made my day and boosted my confidence and has inspired me to stick around for a bit... So, I arranged some jobs around the finca to cover my lodging costs... cleaning, teaching climbing to groups that pass through, and hopefully eventually babysitting for the owners of the finca, who have 4 boys...!!

So - all's increible!! I'm psyched to be here, although, as you can imagine, I'm not speaking too much Spanish and I'm not teaching English, which... well, kind of stuff the original plan a bit... but, plans are for the rigid, and I am clearly not rigid....

I have been working on another language however... It's called Brittish English... Here's the dictionary so far:

up the duff - pregnant
mythered - annoyed
then Bob's your uncle - all's good
bird - girl
bloke - guy
takin' the piss - messin' with, fuckin' with
dodgey - dicey, sketchy
a piss and a fart away - real close

I have so many more but on the spot I'm going blank.. wait for the book!

Well - I'm a bit far from a computer, but I'll stay in touch when I can.... Take care and be in touch!