061202 - Return to La Ola... And going home with broken knees

"Thomas - wake up! Your friends are here!" What? What? Where am I? That cannot be right... I just fell asleep - on the couch. Man, it is 6am! But, right, Pacchu is waiting outside. We wanted to go to La Ola for the day to climb. This is gonna be tough.

The night before we had a big, big party at the hostel. Many people showed up and had a great time. I was probably the only one there who hadn't had a sip of alcohol or dope as everybody else seemed to be carried away. Well, now I am exaggerateing but it was a lot of fun. Luther put on his usual show which turend the girls crazy. And the guys stood in awe of disbelief. The party ended around 5am and many continued on to an after-club. Finally I could crash on the couch and wait for Pacchu to arrive. Why didn't I go to bed earlier? Well, my room was right next to the party area. No chance at all to even think of getting some sleep. But at least I got a quick power-nap.

We arrived around 8.30am to La Ola and started climbing right away. It was a really nice day and within a few hours we already had climb 7 routes. We changed to a different location. As I wanted to improve we had climbed many routes of 6a, 6a+ and 6b. The next one would be a 6b+. Pacchu wanted me to be the lead climber. So I started, but a few meters into the mountain I realized this would not be happening. Not this one. Not today. So Pacchu tried. He got a little further but also didn't make it to the top.

Now we had to think about how to dismantle the route. We went around the rock and climb on top. Unable to see the route from atop, but we saw the neighboring one. We armed the rappel on this one - and suddenly Pacchu realized that this is not gonna work. I wanted to see for myself, armed the rappel, took a peak. And yeah, it was not going to work, because rappeling from here meant a 4m jump down and possibly breaking every bone. Realizing this the last thing I heard was Pacchu saying "Wait!" - I lost my balance and fell. BUMM!! CRASH!! "%$·*ª?" O-U-C-H... My knees and toes had hit the wall. Pain was rising in my body. And there I was: hanging in the rappel. Adrenaline kept me awake. But the pain was growing on me. And we still had to dismantle the route. I hung in there and with Pacchu oscillating me to reach the mosquetones we achived the task. I rappeld down. Barely abe to walk. Initally we wanted to do some bouldering to finish the day, but now? No way! Pacchu was also tired , so we returned to the car. On the way back, the knees started to swell up. We stopped along the way to get some ice. When we had to stop in Villa Carlos Paz to refill the gas, I could hardly get out of the car. My knees were like stiff. With thehelp of my arms I lifted my legs out and had to push up on the roof of the car to be standing up. By the time we got to Cordoba Pacchu and his girlfriend had decided to bring me to the emergency hospital for a check up. Slowly, bt very slowly I walked (well, not really walking) over to the entrance. The doctors were very nice. First he checked for torn ligaments, then i got x-rays (and no, they didn't 'protect' my goodies) -- and luckily, nothing was broken. The next days I had to lay down, minimize movement, cool with a lot of ice and take some medicine. And yes, it got better.