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After the good training, the muscle burning and the skin frying, we returned to the car just to find its battery empty. Even pushing the car along a 1 km downhill wasn’t enough for the little car to ignite. Fortunately, after 40 minutes of praying and laughing, a good citizen stopped to help us charge the car’s battery.

Past the incident, we were happy enough for drinking a well deserved cold fruit water and enjoying a quick tour at La Condechi…

I haven’t presented my tax declaration and this paper says that I have 2 weeks for doing it. As the well-known ironic signal in Periférico says:

Prepare your fee…

And it isn’t precisely pancakes…

Mau, Cova and I returned to Chiluca this afternoon. My goal today was to send the boulder problem at any cost. I did some warm-up traverses, then focused on the piece of rock I was interested.

I mentally linked the moves and cleaned the handholds. I sent it on the third try: the adrenaline was flowing and the chance of success relied on my stubborness (and the pair of good friends spotting me from the ground ).

No screams, no applauses, no big party… just the greatness of leaving the doubt so far behind…

I’ve spent my spare time over these days doing something I haven’t done for about 10 years: watercolor painting.

I took a picture, a small brush, 1 black watercolor bar and some water. I haven’t lost the ability at all. Despite my lack of practice, I think I’ve done a nice job. Maybe I’ll get back into art someday. I feel so relaxed…

Even so, Beto and I went to the university for doing some training and having a healthy sunbath. As soon as I started training, I realized that once my muscles got warm they didn’t hurt anymore, good advice… We trained for nearly 2 non-stop hours under the unforgiving sunlight

We finished dehydrated but very happy because of the pleasant day we were having. We bought some cold fruit drinks at La Michoacana in Av. Universidad and headed to La Marquesa. There we met Caro, Toche, Vane, Gil and Poncho.

We spent the rest of the day flying kites and playing with my beloved niece. By the afternoon, the clouds started to do their thing as we ate some delicious cecina adobada and had a fun talk. After that, we left the place to return to the city, Beto and I headed to Coyoacán for drinking our traditional coffee. The skin began to hurt, the extended exposure to sunlight started to be noticed… We were fried as shrimps!

I’ve just returned from one of the greatest concerts I’ve ever been. Borrego, Octavio and I went to see Sepultura at Salon 21.

After a lot of technical difficulties, the concert began around 7 o’clock. There were 4 mexican bands opening it. The first 2 were really bad, the entire audience simply shouted them to get the hell out of the stage. The last 2 bands were Makina and Leprosy, which had an excellent performance. The mosh pit just began…

By 10 p.m. (and after a refreshing beer) Sepultura stood on stage for doing their thing. The 3 of us managed to get into the action: 3 meters away from the stage! Since the first played note till the end of the concert, we didn’t stop from banging our heads and slamming our bodies against everyone else in the mosh pit, it was real energy!

As far as I can remember, the songs played were a small selection from all of their albums: Apes of God, Slave New World, Propaganda, Attitude, Biotech is Godzilla, Mind War, Troops of Doom, Desperate Cry, Against, Refuse/Resist, Territory, Policia, Orgasmatron and Roots Bloody Roots. They also played some cover songs: Messiah (Hellhammer), Bullet the Blue Sky (U2) and Dazed & Confused (Led Zeppelin).

The band played for a bit more than 1 hour. We finished the concert very thrashed, soaking wet and hungry for more music. Some guys even had blood on their body and faces, we went really mad!

Now I feel so good that I’ve exorcised myself… I know that tomorrow I’ll be crying like a baby with all my beaten body, but I don’t care!

Tonight, we (Caro, Gil, my uncle Héctor, Héctor, Beto and I) attended to the Red Bull X-Fighters 2005 freestyle motocross show at Plaza México.

Even though the arena was totally crowded and we had to be stand up for the whole show, it was simply amazing. I suggest you to read the whole chronicle at Red Bull’s web site (from where I’ve stolen the first picture). I hope to see this great show again in México City!

Very obscure day I had… I went climbing alone and made laps till falling from exhaustion. The same thoughts over and over. Mind is full of noise. I don’t have the answers yet…

anathema – parisienne moonlight

i feel i know you
i don’t know how
i don’t know why
i see you feel for me
you cried with me
you would die for me
i know i need you
i want you
to be free of all the pain
you hold inside
you cannot hide
i know you tried
to be who you couldn’t be
you tried to see inside of me
and now i’m leaving you
i don’t want to go
away from you
please try to understand
take my hand
be free of all the pain
you hold inside
you cannot hide
i know you tried to feel…

Cova, Mau and I spent most of the afternoon focusing our effort into a very hard/dangerous boulder problem that we proposed last week in Chiluca.

It consists of a very-long-reach-left-hand-layback move to a small finger pinch in an exposed traverse. In order to keep body balance, your right foot must stay on the opposite side to the finger pinch, virtually holding most of your body weight on a heel/toe hook/jam. Once you’ve placed your feet and stretched to grab every possible feature on the “very far” 3 fingertip pinch, you must “confidently” release your right hand and dyno to a good handhold that is above the pinch.

I can easily rate this problem into the infamous X category by quoting Yosemite Valley’s Selected Bouldering Guide:

Increased severe injury and/or death potential executing the crux.

The boulder problem isn’t far from the ground, in fact, it’s so close to it that if you fall while executing this awkward move, you won’t have the time to protect yourself from smashing your head against the rocky floor. Picture this: your right foot is jammed up on a ledge… your left foot is dangling elsewhere without helping you… your body is almost upside down… and your chance of success relies on your left hand’s finger strength while dynoing your right hand to the good handhold!

After many tries, Cova could manage to send the problem with some “real fear” and with us spotting on the floor below him; but me being spotted by 2 small and thin guys like Mau and Cova is a whole different story… I almost sent the problem, but I fell very close to grab the good handhold (in fact, I touched it!). Miraculously, Mau could protect my face from being crushed against the hard floor. We definitely need a crashpad to work this new, crazy and interesting boulder problems…

After sipping a strong coffee in Coyoacán, I returned home for the family dinner to celebrate my mom’s birthday. We ate sushi and each of us got their fortune cookie, mine had a very special message:

You have a friendly heart and are well admired.