Rock Climbing

I had my first rock climbing lesson on Thursday. I have practiced the sport at indoor climbing walls in the US. The facilities are well maintained and well staffed. With no experience and no knowledge you can take a quick belay class (how to lower and protect your compadre from falling) and get right to climbing. The walls are often some sort of particle board or in the case of a high quality arena they are constructed to seem like an actual mountain face reaching X feet into the air, hopefully a minimum of fifty feet.

I searched out and found three walls in the city of Cordoba. After seeing the first I hoped that there might be a variance in quality but each succesive visit yielded the same thing. The walls were plywood, old plywood crumbling at the edges, and the grips were screwed on, in what didn´t look like the most prefession of construction. Whatever, I chose a wall at a gym where there were a good number fo climbers and they were all friendly. Some practiced their English I worked on my Spanish and the relationship began.

The class was sweet. The instructor, Sebastian (yes another Sebastian) was awesome. He was patient and fully explained the parts and usage of all the basic equipment. There are agenices that ensure the quality of the products and I should make sure the equipment contained the mark of the agency. He was very impressed with the gear I had. I brought with me a pair of climbing shoes, a harness, and a caribiner nothing more, all of which were at the lowest level of quality by a well respected manufacturer. He asked my the price, I told him $70 for the shoes and $70 for the other stuff. He turned to the other guys and said something along the lines of did you hear that, $70. He explained to me that the bottom line equpiment available here was of lower quality and more expensive. He wanted to know if I could ship him some gear for personal use. I am going to a customs intermediary to find out about importation issues on Monday.

After about and hour of listening and learning we went straight to the wall. The wall looks dilapidated and relatively unsafe compared to what I had used in the US but everyone else was confident so up I went. Oh, let me mention that the person belaying below was also a newbie and there was no padding just ceramic tiles. I climbed up hanging the caribiners and clipping the rope until I made it to the top. The top portion of the wall inverted and as I was hanging on the only thought that was running through my head is hold tight if you fall you may very well die. All worked out. Then we switched places, the other kid went up and I couldn´t help but wonder what he must be thinking. Foreign guy who is doing this for the first time and has a loose grasp on the language at best is holding my safety in his hands. Once again, no problems. Then Sebastian went up to take the gear down. I was at the bottom belaying, ensuring that if he fell he would not come crashing to the ground. He climbs up and then falls, intentionally. I grabbed the rope and lunged two steps forward, shock streaking across my face. He smiled and explained what I should be doing so that I wouldn´t be taken off balance in the case of my partner falling. Point taken, the learning experience was valuable, but whoa man.