Well, two months later and here I am. Africa, man – I came, I saw, I got conquered. Since I last wrote there has been minimal news on the climbing side of things for me. The numbers weren’t big, but I can honestly say it doesn’t really matter. I wouldn’t change a single thing about this trip – well, alright maybe like one project would be nice. Really though, I have to thank everyone I met on this trip that gave me a spot, gave me a drink, took drinks away when I couldn’t stand up, yelled belligerently to pop songs with me and generally made my summer absolutely ridiculous.
Roosa and I manning the ones and twos at the Hen House.
Someone probably sent something worth celebrating...
I can’t pretend to be a well traveled climber, but in the immortal words of a Finnish climbing machine, “No, I don’t really see it getting better than this.” The few problems I did manage to climb and the many more I didn’t were consistently mind blowing.
End of Day
Ethan had an amazing trip that you can read about on his blog if he ever writes on the goddamn thing. Real estate legend Mike Feinberg is in contention for the most productive two week climbing trip in history, but you won’t hear about it because he is too busy making billions of dollars to care about shit like rock climbing.
Training for Sky
When fellow San Franciscans David and Randy arrived the projects were all but scrapped and climbing was just something to do until the dance parties started. The Hen House, Oliphant Haus, our front porch, the dining room – didn’t matter.
While the climbing is the reason I went to Rocklands the story is much bigger than that. South Africa is still a country tangled heavily with its past. The Townships – shanty towns – still litter much of the land and are painfully stark reminders that we’re lucky to be doing what we’re doing. They also present an easy way to dive into the history of a place. David spent most of this trip reading about the political and social history of South Africa and we were both consistently struck by how much has seemingly changed and even more by what is still the norm of a complicated intersection of tradition and politics. I realized instantly how embarrassingly little I know about this place and am psyched to learn more before I head back.
Trying to catch up on the last month is hard. I’ll just say that Rocklands is everything you’ve heard and more. If you can get there, get there.
A serious thanks to everyone I met. Hope to see you guys next year.
*Once again – these pictures were all taken by Lisa Bahr.
