"It is a fine thing to be out on the hills alone. A man can hardly be a beast or a fool alone on a great mountain."
- Francis Kilvert (1840-79)
1 hour later, my stomach was struggling between life and death. An indescriptible pain was breaking me in two. My aunt gave some miraculous medicine: Pepto-Bismol. This thing literally varnished my stomach, to the point where I could return to the party and felt like nothing happened. I’ll never do it again, I promise.
We rode the wild Mambo-Tango and arrived to the campus. As always, we parked the bike at the security module, where one of the guards was passing the night. We told him that we were going to train “as always” into the wall. He said it was OK.
Everything was going smootly until I began the second lap. For 2nd time at this place, I was very close to be stung by a scorpion that was standing on the rock waiting for something to eat. Fortunately, I was big enough for him, so I could follow my way without a problem.
Soon after, I was approached by 6 members of the security staff. They greeted me and asked to please leave the place, because it was closed and they didn’t want anyone inside it. After a few math I realized that it would be impossible to argue with them, so I quickly agreed and climbed out of the wall. As I was walking outside, Beto was climbing towards me and I told him the bad news. He quickly climbed out, he’s also good at math 
We were escorted outside the place. We felt like criminals. The funny thing was that we weren’t handcuffed. We reached the outside fence and we thought that these guys brought the key for opening the lock, but no… they also had to jump the fence as we always do. I couldn’t resist to make a joke about the fact in front of them, it was so funny!
We had fun about the event and headed to Coyoacán for brewing an exquisite mocha coffee.
Wandering around Alpinist #1 I’ve found this funny cartoon of Mark Twight along with some note titled Mark Twight: An Etymological Moment whose contents I will not post here, but I can assure you that it’s full of sarcastic fun
If you want to get an idea of why he’s known as Dr. Doom, I suggest you to read Extreme Alpinism: Climbing Light, Fast, and High or Kiss or Kill: Confessions of a Serial Climber, you will enjoy them.
Since I returned from Argentina, I’ve become a yerba mate junkie. At least 1 time a day I can be found sipping a cup of this tea. Most of the time I’m drinking it in front of the computer.
Today the obvious accident happened. I dropped the cup of tea on the desktop and the keyboard got a heavy dose of herb, sugar and hot water. Fortunately my dear laptop (who lives a few centimeters from the place of the accident) didn’t got any drop from the mix.
Now I’ve practiced some kind of surgery to the keyboard, disassembled every key and literally washed it with brush and water to remove every piece of herb that got glued into it because of the sugar. Stupid is as stupid does… Mate & hardware doesn’t mix!
I hope that I really understand the lesson this time.
Initially we went to Naucalpan, following my father’s advice that there was a hardware store with decent prices. We found the same battery we were looking for, but the price wasn’t “that accessible” at all. We decided to search for more options…
Avoiding “stupid drivers” (microbuses, taxis and some other woman…) we made our way to Col. Doctores, where it was supposed to exist another DeWalt retailer. After nearly 1 “hour of terror” we found that no such store existed. Then we headed to Mercado Hidalgo where we bought the power drill, but they didn’t sell any batteries. We continued the route to Eje Central where everyone told us that there was a big DeWalt store. We found the place, but according to the employees such battery was “veeery difficult to find…”. Without saying a word we knew that the first place we went was the only option (even if it didn’t adjust to our budget), so we rode our way back to Naucalpan, just making a stop at El Séptimo Grado to see Armando and pick up some Alpinist back issues.
Finally, we bought the battery at the “economic” price of $1,390 pesos, which included a 1 month warranty in case of malfunction. We returned home as if we had been assaulted by some Col. Doctores natives (without a penny on the pocket and without a pleasant smile on the face), but with our new battery. We hope this thing is worth its value…
The weather today has been like a “normal day” in my beloved Patagonia: totally clouded, a bit of rain, some wind and very cold! I called it an “A4 wall painting” because of some similarities to the real A4 climbing:
We started early in the morning and “almost” finished by night. Hans got to go early, so Güero invited me to eat some delicious sandwiches. After that I went home. This was a fun day to remember
Yesterday’s night was great!
Finnish metal band Nightwish came to México City for 2nd time (they came a year ago) to play some shows at the Circo Volador auditorium. They are promoting their last album Once. Of course, a lot of us (Ginna, Octavio, Karla, Betito, Mariana, Alejandro, Alma, Hernán, Arturo, Beto and me) went to see them!
The tracklist (thanks to Octavio who wrote it down) for the show was: Dark Chest of Wonders, Planet Hell, Deep Silent Complete, The Phantom of the Opera, The Kinslayer, Sleeping Sun, Symphony of Destruction (Megadeth cover), Bless the Child, Wishmaster, Dead Boy’s Poem, Slaying the Dreamer, Nemo, Ghost Love Score, Over the Hills and Far Away and Wish I Had An Angel.
Tarja changed her clothes a couple of times and always looked really gorgeous. She’s very beautiful, I’m totally convinced that finnish women are among the most beautiful ones on earth! As always, the band was awesome and had a lot of energy onstage. I hope to see them again soon… 
During my travel to Patagonia I’ve got an injury on the Achilles’ tendon of my right foot while running on Cerro Torre’s trail.
As some of you know, I’m a “never learn” guy, so I haven’t seen any doctor, or got any kind of rest. The same day I returned from Patagonia I was climbing as everyday. Last weekend I was dancing at Caro & Gil’s wedding. Yesterday I was there also… training… having no rest… thinking that my stubborness is stronger than my pain or even worse, than my need of healing. But today I’ve harvested what I’ve seeded. Today I couldn’t even wear my climbing shoes for 5 minutes, as soon as I got 3 meters climbed, not only my foot, but my whole body was full of pain… Too bad!
Once I read that during a “calorie burning” conversation, Kevin Doyle said that there’s always something else to burn “even if it’s brain matter”. Am I getting close to this level of stupidity?
I climbed down, took off my shoes and packed my things. I told Beto that I had a lot of pain and that he was going to train alone today. I sat there. I was full of dissapointment. Frustrated, I saw his headlamp going away at night on that big training wall. There was nothing left to do. Or was it?
I stood up, grabbed some holds and carefully put my feet on the wall using my normal shoes. There was no pain! It felt slippery but comfortable. As soon as I realized, I had climbed about 100 meters of the wall with those shoes, without chalk and with no headlamp! I began to think that I would climb anywhere even if I had to use my normal shoes. I realized that climbing shoes weren’t going to be a requirement for climbing if they hurted me.
Beto was coming back. So I did the same, I started my way back. Moving gently and testing every hold, I made it to the beginning of the wall. I was totally sweating. It was harder than usual, but I didn’t felt sad anymore. I was happy, I’ve made it my way.
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Disclaimer: We're only doing what the little voices tell us to do.
Taken from Alpinist #7
