WWOOF Numero 2

 After travelling on our own for about 7 weeks it was finally time to stop spending so much money for a little while and get to another WWOOF host. We left Malaga and headed up the coast about an hour to the little town of Torrox. Torrox has 2 parts, Torrox Pueblo which is a fantastic traditional white Andalucian village about 4 km inland, and Torrox Coasta which was horribly built up with ugly flats by northern Europeans. We were staying with Dave and Gill about 1km away from the Pueblo. We arrived at their house to be greeted by three energetic dogs and about 20 cats. (Actually, I think it was only 8 or 10, but still…) Dave and Gill run walking holidays (in American that is hiking vacations). We had a great time picking broad beans and planting new gardens. We also had the chance to cook a lot which was great! We spent the mornings working in the garden and rode their bikes to the beach in the afternoon. Dave and Gill were serious slave drivers!

Their house was set in a very rural area just outside of town. It was very mountainess so the farmers terrace all of the land to plant olives. They are growing crops on land that you can hardly walk up! One day, while running on the mountain farm roads I found myself in the middle of a herd of goats. I was looking at the goats and the goats were looking at me, none of us knew what to do. We looked at each other like “I it’s your move”. Thankfully the goat herder (apparently “Shepard” is only for sheep) made a noise and they all took off up the craggy hillside and I was on my way.

After a few days Lisa made a “quick” trip across the Atlantic to Florida for her good friend Kali’s wedding. Lisa dodged the ash cloud and made it to Florida without incident. She didn’t tell her mom that she was coming, so as well as being a great friend, Lisa got to surprise her mom! Needless to say her mom flipped out. While Lisa was off having a great time getting pampered in preparation for the wedding, I was left in Spain, slaving away. While Lisa was away, the punters (slightly derogatory British term that Dave and Gill used to describe their clients) arrived. As well as guiding their hikes, Dave and Gill take them out to eat every night. This meant that I got to go out to eat with them every night as well. There were about 15 of them, all British and all about middle aged. They were all very light hearted and obviously there to have a good time. I took one day and went on the walk with them. The walk was absolutly beautiful, but also atrociously slows. (I am terrible at hiking slow). It was still nice though as there were plenty of interesting people to talk to. All of the punters were very curious about this crazy girl who flew to America for the weekend and were quite excited to meet her.

On the day Lisa was to come back to Spain, her flight was cancelled due to the ever pain in the ass ash cloud. She rebooked for the next day but she would have to fly to Dallas (for any one with no sense of geography that is the exact wrong direction) then to Madrid and finally to Malaga. All of the punters were really worried about her when she did not arrive when she was supposed to.

Finally after 36 hours of travelling Lisa made it back to Torrox. Once Lisa was back we continued working in the garden and going to the beach in the afternoon. We even managed to find some bouldering on the beach. On our last day we went to Nerja, another very built up beach town but with a beautiful beach. It was littered with gorgeous conglomerate boulders the size of houses. We had a great time bouldering and lying in the sun. Our time in Torrox was a much needed break from travelling every day and our hosts made it a great stay. Our only regret is that we have hardly practiced our Spanish at all! (Our English English is getting pretty good though!)

Rugs on Fire in Morocco

We arrived by bus to Algiceras, a port town right on the southern tip of Spain at the Straight of Gibraltar. The town itself left a lot to be desired and seemed to be made up of the port, the bus station and the train station. Not exactly a cultural hot spot to say the least. We walked from the bus station to our hostel, which was actually just a cheap hotel. When we arrived the door was locked so we rang the buzzer and waited. After about ten minutes a portly older Spanish couple came a stared waiting with us. It seemed as though they lived there but also had no way of getting in. They were very talkative speaking extremely quickly and in some strange dialect that they cut the ends off of all of their words. This made it nearly impossible to understand the simplest phrases, things that we previously had no problems with. We did get that they were telling us that we were “Muy Guapo,” which means attractive, but we had no idea why. After another 10 minutes of this stimulating conversation an old man came and let us in. He spoke in the same impossible dialect, took our passports and left. When we tried to tell him not to take our passports he just kept on muttering something about his son. Eventually his son came and checked us in but we still could not understand him to save our lives. In the end all we really got out of any of it was a headache but we did get our passports back.

The next morning we were going to take the ferry to Morocco across the straight. When we started looking up ferry tickets the previous night we found that they were about 70€ for a 1hour ferry ride. We did find a tour though that was only 50€ that included lunch and a tour of three cities. We had heard about these tours before and how they just try and scam you the whole time, but we figured we would give it a go with a sense of humer.

We met our tour group of a Spanish couple, a Portuguese couple, a Japanese Couple and their kindergarten aged son, and us. We took the ferry across the straight of Gibraltar to Ceuta, a City that is actually part of Spain. There we were met by our tour guide, Ahkmed. Ahkmed was a really, really big Moroccan. We were quite impressed when Ahkmed was able to speak fluently to all of us in our native languages. I guess we really have no idea how his Japanese was but they seemed to understand him. The eight of us were quickly herded into a tour bus built to hold about 50 people.

Our first stop was at the border between Spain and Morocco. It was a really interesting place because you have Europeans crossing in camper vans and nice cars and Moroccans crossing on foot or bikes with all of their possessions folded up in a blanket thrown over their back. People were crossing with huge Costco size containers of dipers and Shampoo held under their arm with kids in tow. It was so interesting seeing what a difference an imaginary line can make. At the border Ahkmed took all of our passports and gave them to the Moroccan Police. We then carried on without them. This worried us a bit but there wasn't really anything we could do about it.

Ahkmed then got on the microphone and told all of us in our native languages what we could expect for the day. He repeated himself over and over because I think he could not remember what he had said in what language. We were heading for Tetuan, a big city about 50 kilometers inland. He was very pleased to tell us that there was going to be an arts market today that only happened once a month. We could see right through this. He was obviously very excited to have a couple of big spending Americans on his tour because he kept talking to us about what we could buy and mentioning that Americans love to haggle. He had the wrong Americans. It is a well known fact that the tour guides get a commission on things that are purchased. After Tetuan we we going to head to Tangier, a huge city on the Northern Coast before we headed back to Ceuta for our return ferry. Before we got to Tetuan, though, he had a special treat for us. We were going to have the opportunity to ride a camel! We pulled off of the side of the highway into a small rest stop like place where there were two men, each with a camel. We all filed out of the bus, gave the men a Euro and rode the camel down the pavement for about 50ft with one of the men leading the animal, and back. Just as I was finishing my Berber experience, another tour bus pulled up and followed our lead riding the beasts.

We then headed to Tetuan. When we arrived, Ahkmed explained 3 or 4 times that there were two parts to the city, an old part and a new part and that the important part for us today was the old part. There was a wall dividing the two parts. The instant we entered the old city it was obvious we were in a whole new world. There were cages of chickens packed in so tight they couldn't move, Berber women sitting on the ground selling herbs wearing bright robes and hats that looked more Mongolian than anything else, and Men wearing the traditional kaftan, a robe that looks like something that Obi-wan Kenobi would be wearing. The streets were absolutely packed with people doing their daily shopping There were butchers with skinned cattle and chickens hanging, bread shops and piles and piles of produce. There was even a cart going around selling live canaries in little cages. (I don't want to know what they were for). Surprisingly, as foreign as the market was, the smells were very familiar. Fresh bread dominated by cilantro freshly picked in the nearby hills.

Ahkmed led us around strutting in front of us like he ran the place, shaking hands with about every third man he saw, grabbing loafs of bread and oranges from the vendors and flicking a small coin at them telling us “You must try Moroccan bread!” (It tasted like any other bread.) This was actually our favorite part of the tour because it felt very real, like this was their daily life. I was getting a little frustrated though because there were amazing photo ops every 2 seconds but we were being toted around way too fast to set up for a good photo.

Somewhere along the way we picked up Muhammad, who seemed to not actually be doing anything except following us. At one point I asked him a question, he answered then asked for a small tip. After about an hour of this, Ahkmed had a special surprise for us. A local school for the arts had invited us for a mint tea, the drink of choice in Morocco. We were immediately suspicious but what choice did we have, we were now quite far inland without our passports! When we went in they separated us into our native languages so that we could have better discussions with our hosts. We were taken upstairs to a large room with brightly colored rugs wall to wall. An eager Moroccan started telling us about all of the rugs and showed us that they would not light on fire by holding up a lighter to the rug. This apparently meant that it was a top notch rug. After showing us about a hundred rugs he asked us which one we would like to buy. We expressed that while they were all very nice we didn't want any of them. He kept on us asking us how much we thought they were worth. We knew this whole thing was a set up because we were never allowed to change our money into Moroccan Durham, instead they only wanted to deal in Euros. Eventually we were able to convince this guy we were not going to buy one of his “hand made” rugs. We were then lead downstairs into a huge room full of more “hand-made” goods. Everything from tea pots to swords. Another Moroccan came over telling us about how nice the rugs were, again trying unsuccessfully to light them on fire. He informed us that his mother had made these rugs and that the would cost 180€ in summer but we could have it for 80€! We passed.

We did find a teapot we wanted. We were asked how much we thought it was worth and we said 1 euro. Our host was not amused and told us that it actually cost 30 euros but he could make us a deal. I said we only had ten euros with us so he then countered with 28 euros. This went on for about 20 minutes when he finally said, “Ok, just give me the 10 euros.” As we were leaving the guy trying to sell us his mothers rug came over to us and whispered that he could probably let one of his mothers fine rugs go for just 25€. His colleague came over and once again try and light the place on fire, but thank god they were good rugs that would not burn!

We left the shop with absolutely no mention of mint tea. We then went for a traditional lunch in a “typical restaurant.” The typical restaurant turned out to be a huge ballroom that was beautifully decorated, had a live band and belly dancers. It was full of banquette size tables and very western looking tourists. While it was far from a typical restaurant, the food was actually very good. After lunch and more people asking for tips we took an hour bus ride to Tangier. In Tangier we were again given a short tour of the old city. During this tour we were surrounded by men selling all sorts of shit from toy horses to African drums, saying “you like, you like.” They would literally not get out of our face for a solid 20 minutes. During this time Ahkmed was chatting them up in Arabic and shaking their hand instead of sending them away as any decent tour guide would. Finally we got some relief when we were taken into a traditional pharmacist and spice shop. Again we were separated into our respective languages. This time however we were given a demonstration of local medicine from spices that was actually pretty interesting. Of course we had the opportunity to buy herbs and spices, but at least this guy was less pushy. When we stepped out we were greeted by the same pushy salesmen trying to sell us shit. We were then given some free time to go shopping. We wandered around a little trying to avoid the the vendors. Somehow Ahkmed seemed to know everyone in this city as well.

At this point is was about 6:00 (8:00 in Spain, even though it is due south there is a 2 hour time difference) and we still had an hour bus ride back to Ceuta. When we went back through customs their seemed to be a problem with our passports, but not to worry Ahkmed got of the bus a returned with our passports and said that he took care of it. Even though they had our passports for like 10 hours they never got around to stamping them, so who know what was going on. It was really hard to tell what was a set up and what wasn't. Again, just by crossing an imaginary line we were back in the western world with churches instead of Mosques and infrastructure that didn't look as though there had just been an earthquake. After a quick 30 minute ferry ride (This time we got on the fastest ferry) we were back in our hostel eating a cold tortilla and chocolate milk for dinner. Even though it the whole thing was just a sales pitch for shit we didn't want, it gave us a good taste of Morocco and left us wanting to actually see the country without Ahkmed.

Our timing getting to Spain was apparently perfect. Not only did we sneak in just after the ash fiasco but we arrived to perfect blue skies after weeks of rain! Being as we did not know up until the morning of the flight whether or not we would make it to Malaga, we did not book anywhere o stay yet.  When we arrived at the airport we found a pay by the minute internet station and looked up a hostel and the directions to get there.  We hopped on a train and then a bus as the directions dictated.  We told the bus driver where we wanted to get off and he agreed to let us know when we were there.  After a solid half hour on the bus we started getting further and further out of town.  When we asked the bus driver about our stop he informed us that we had missed it about 20 minutes ago.  We then had to catch a bus going the other direction. This bus driver was unsympathetic, making us pay again and refusing to tell us when to get off.  We ended up getting off after 20mins and somehow found the hostel.  Luckily it was worth it because it was by far the nicest hostel we have stayed at yet.  We spent the afternoon on the beach, cooked a nice meal (we finally had a decent kitchen!) and spent the next morning on the beach again before catching a train towards El Chorro.

I say towards El Chorro, not to El Chorro for a reason.  There is only one train a day to the tiny town of El Chorro, which we missed, but plenty of trains to the larger town of Alora, about 20 kilometers away. We got off of the train in Alora and started walking in the direction which we assumed town to be with a sign we had made that read "EL CHORRO." Within 30 seconds we were picked up by a little British guy with John Lennon sun glasses who looked like a serial killer that Kevin Spacey would play.  He informed us that he was not going to El Chorro but offered us a ride to the center of Alora.  It turned out to be a good thing he did because it was a few kilometers up a steep hill just to Alora.  He dropped us off on what he told us was the road to El Chorro.

Taking his word for it, and hoping he did not do justice to his appearance, we started walking down the road with our sign out.  This time it took us all of five minutes and a few hundred feet to be picked up.  The guy who picked us up this time had a much less concerning appearance, plus his mom was in the car so we felt pretty good.  Neither of them spoke any English so it was our first real chance to give our Spanish a test.  I'd like to think we did ok but maybe we were just so bad we couldn't understand him making fun of us.  We were at least able to get across that we were staying at the camp ground and he was nice enough to drop us off right at the gate.  To our disappointment the camp ground was like 17€ a night just to pitch our tent, not exactly a deal.  Luckily it was only a couple of euros more to stay in a air-conditioned bunk house, and being as it was the off season we got an eight person bunk house to ourselves.  Pretty much a no brainer.

We got a good nights sleep and headed towards the canyon for our first day of climbing.  You have two choices for approaching the climbs with in the canyon itself.  Either you can take the Camino del Rey, an abandoned walkway precariously tacked to the side of the canyon 300 ft above the floor; or you can walk through 4 or 5 railroad tunnels.  We opted for the tunnels.  I was picturing us hearing a train and having to feel around in the dark for a crevous to tuck into to avoid being rail kill.  Surprisingly this was not the case at all.  There was plenty of room to not get hit by a train.  We had picked out a crag that was just off vertical that the guide said was the best intro to climbing at El Chorro.  The rock was perfect bullet proof limestone full of really fun pockets.  Lisa was a bit upset because the rock was literally crawling with bugs.  Little red mites of some kind as well as larger silver fish.  I suppose she had good reason because when you came off of the climb you hands were polka dotted red from smashing the bugs.  On another route, Lisa looked into a pocket in which she had just had her hand to see a bat staring back at her.  I was pretty sure she was full of it, but sure enough when I went up I saw a little bat face with chalk on its nose peeking out of the pocket!  At this point we were starting to get a little nervous about the climbing here.  Apart from all of the critters, the climbs were really sandbaged (for all you non-climbers that means much harder than the published grade), we were getting shut down on grades that we would usually cruse up.

We told ourselves that it was just because it was slab climbing (less than vertical) and that is not our forte.  Luckily we were right.  The next day we went to a nearby vertical crag and again got shut down, but at least at grades where we would expect to get shut down.  We had a great time slowly tag teaming the routes to the top anyway.

We decided to take our third day as a rest day (at least from climbing).  Since we had not been climbing our usual five days a week, two days had made us nice and sore.  This was the day we would tackle the Camino del Rey (Walk of the King). This would have been a sketchy endeavour in its hayday, let alone now after 90 years of neglect and corrosion. The walkway was built in the 1920s as a way for workers to access remote sections of piping for a hydroelectric plant and was walked by King Alfonso VIII for who it is named. After the death of a tourist the hydroelectric company officially closed it and removed the first and last 30ft to keep tourists off. Luckily a few years ago some climbers installed a via ferrta system to allow access to the walk as well as to make walking it a (semi) safe adventure.

We opted to start at the down stream end of the canyon. We started by walking out an unprotected ledge that was about 18 inches wide for 30 feet. I guess this part was not protected because it is only 30ft of of the ground; a small hop compared to the beef of the Camino. We next clipped our daisy chains to cables and steel rungs and continued on using a combination of re-bar holds, old rusting railway ties cantilevered out of the rock face that had been used as the beams for the walk, and natural holds in the rock. After about 60 feet of this you head straight up an easy but vertical climb, cruising because there are rungs that double as steps and your protection points. You clip one runner to one, then another runner to the next, alternating runners on every rung such that you always have one connected. At the top of the vertical section the protection ends again for about 30 feet. No biggie because the path here is a wopping 3 ft wide. With a thank god gasp (me only, Lisa was not at all bothered. She obviously does not understand gravity) we clipped back in to cables and we were finally on the original Camino. ( Up until now it was all just shenanigans climbers came up with to reach it!) We went along just walking and leap frogging our daisy-chains for a few hundred feet. The next challenge was a 10ft section where the concrete had completely eroded away. For this section it was a matter of walking sideways on a heavily corroded railway tie that was thoroughly secured to the cantilevered structural members via 14 gauge steel wire, while trying to reach the wall 4ft away for some balance, all the while getting a great view of the river 300 feet below. Have I mentioned even though I am a climber I am afraid of heights?

At this point I was starting to question our decisions. True we were clipped in 98% of the time, but unlike climbing where you can check the bolts and hangers before you clip your life into them, in this cable system you are relying on two bolts, one of which you can check, but you can't see the second until you are finished using it. If either fails you are toast. Luckily all the hardware seemed to be in good condition. After the airy balance beam it was time to cross the bridge. When you are on the bridge you are walking on a 8ft diameter pipe. There are no cables to clip here but not to worry, there are handrails on each side of you. Unfortunately they are so corroded that they look as though they could go at any moment, and due to the wind funneling through the narrow 30ft opening of the canyon, the whole bridge is vibrating like mad.

After the bridge the route became somewhat mundane, just leap frogging our slings and climbing over the missing sections every few hundred feet. At one point we passed a couple of Spainish climbers in neon Lycra getting ready to start a pitch just off of the Camino. There are routes both above and below the walkway, most of witch looked very good, but we did not have our gear and I didn't think I wanted to go through all of this again the next day when there are thousands of other routes to choose from.

The rest of the Camino went very quickly and we were soon deep in the canyon and finished with the Camino del Rey. We hiked down to cross the river and were very pleased to find a couple of orange trees. Lisa enthusiastically hopped up into them to get our post walk treat. We returned to camp via the railway tunnels and found it strange that we ever considered them to be an adventure.

Even though it was supposed to be a rest day we decided to take the afternoon and go climbing. We were so far west in the time zone that it didn't get dark until close to 10:00. After a few routes it was time for our usual 200ft walk to the bar for cheap wine and tapas made by the rude Scottish woman who ran the place.

The next day was our last full day in El Chorro. We headed for Escalada Arabe (Arab Steps) which is a large crag located on the very top of the mountain. The approach took over an hour but it was worth it. It was bullet hard limestone full of huge jugs and pockets and long reaches between them. Our favorite type of climbing. Just as we were about to pack it in for the day I noticed a short route ascending the free standing tower behind us. It was a really fun crack route that because we were in Spain was bolted even though it would have eaten natural protection like skittles. This was good for us since we had just sent all of our trad gear home because Lisa was sick of carrying it. (Can't really blame her as it weights about 15lbs and we only used it once a month or so.) I quickly climbed the route, hooked in to the anchor and Lisa took me off belay for a photo op. I came down and we switched positions. When Lisa was on the top a nearby climber commented that I should have belayed her from the top and he would have taken our picture together. We thought this was a good idea so Lisa stayed on top while I climbed again. At this point we became models as there were several parties of climbers taking our picture from all angles. It was a great way to cap off a good day of climbing.

The next day we were to catch the train out of El Chorro but we wanted to get a few more routes in first. We went to the crag with the shortest approach racked up and both realized at one we had left our Gri-Gri (expensive belay device) at the base of the tower yesterday! I was temped to say forget it but it costs around a hundred dollars and makes life much easier. I said I would run up and get it. Remember it was over an hour approach! I took off running up the trail going in what I thought was generally the right direction. We we starting from a different point then we had the previous day so it was a new trail. After about 10 minutes I came to a sign that read ATTENTION ABEJAS! Hunh, I thought, I wonder what Abejas means. I quickly found out. I came around a corner to find myself in the middle of 50 or so stacked bee hives. It was too late to turn around so I sprinted through. I made it through by about 20feet and sensed one or two still following me. Just as I turned around to swat it away one got me! Not really a big deal, but I have not been stung by a bee since I was 10 and I was really hoping that I was not allergic. I kept running and checking my leg to see if it would swell. Luckily it did not so I assumed I was fine and continued on. After a little while I was in familiar territory and decided to take a bit of a short cut by scrambling up an easy face instead of running around it. About half way up I heard a rock fall and looked up to see a whole herd of Ibex just above me looking at me like “what the hell are you doing here.” It was all worth it in the end though because the Gri-gri was still there and I even got back in time to get a couple of routes in before we had to catch the train.

In typical Spanish style the ticket office at the train station was closed and a sign said it opened at 3pm. The problem was our train came at 2:58pm so we could not get tickets. We figured we were better off just getting on the train anyway. We did. The conductor came around almost immediately to collect tickets. We frantically started trying to explain our situation in our now excellent Spanish. He was not at all concerned and just sold us a ticket on board. We were now officially on our way to Algiceras where we would catch a ferry to Morocco the following day.