Why Rock Climbing?

I never liked baseball or basketball… Well the only sports that I used to play in school were on Nintendo. So, when Carlos and Quírico invited me to practice Rock Climbing I accepted because it involved risk, ropes, heights, swat style equipment, and all that stuff, besides the course was given by Young Life, an entity with a quorum full of girls from different schools. The point is that I begun to get involved more and more with this sport, and I realized that it was different from all the rest. At the beginning I thought that it was a matter of one against the rock, not a team, where a player can rely on the others, and still emerge victorious. But I didn’t realize that actually, it is a matter of facing an enemy, that was immutable to insults, an enemy that won’t get disturbed with mental games, or intimidated with anything; it was just there, and would remain there after we leave the place, with a victory in our pockets, or frustrated with an incomplete route. With time I realized that Rock Climbing means much more than that. I realized that it means hard working afternoons, tendinitis, a lot of falls, wasp stings, broken bones, infections, etc. But also I learned that it means a cold beer with a bunch of friends in a remote place after a day full of 5.11’s. I learned that it means trying the route again tomorrow… and the day after. It means sleeping under the stars, on a solitary beach, after eating sausages with sand, and sangria; hours and hours of driving, listening to Pink Floyd, Rush and Juan Luis Guerra, get stuck in the middle of a river and seize the situation, swimming in that same river; look for some refuge, under a storm at 3:00 A.M. after camping without tents, because “in Barahona it never rains”; it means yelling from the belay station to a climber that is on the crux of the route: “come on, you can do it”; it means to be on the crux of the route, with no more strength, preparing to fall, and in that moment hearing someone yell from the belay station: “come on, you can do it”, and find the strength to pass the crux and complete the route; it means be on the top of “Camaleón”, look at the landscape, and feel like a giant instead of small. I realize that Rock Climbing is not about fighting against the rock, but fighting against our own paradigms, against our prejudices, against our limits; it’s a challenge against ourselves, where the stone is just a medium. And where we are not alone, but with all the people involved in this sport, from whom we'll never stop learning, and who we need to belay us, not only in climbing, but in life.