Cuscuzeiro

After a few days in Rio the group decides to leave the city pretty early as the climbing logistic is too much of a pain. So next destination, Cipo, which is by the locals the BEST crag in Brazil. We're pretty sure it is. At least it looks awesome with some crazy overhanging walls up to 60m and a very featured limestone like rock. Unfortunately  for us it's just rained, rained, rained for 3 days in a row.... and even the overhanging routes were completely soaked :'(
So we decided to move to a supposedly less rainy area further south, Cuscuzeiro !
Good bet, the weather was much better (only a few showers) and the rock, a very thin sandstone, absolutely wonderful. All this in a very jungle scenery full of insects, birds, huge lizards and supposedly full of snakes like rattles snakes but we haven't seen any :(
In the middle of our stay there we went to a mountain festival organized in a nearby University where we met very friendly brazilian climbers but the lectures...in portuguese...haven't convinced the HotRockers back to Uni to sleep...

No more gas... Remy cooks on fire

Wouhou there are trees ! Slack time

Cuscuzeiro

Sandstooooooooone

Kitties hanging out in Ernie :)

Crazy insect...like a HUGE firefly

Huw and Tobby

Back to Uni

The hard routes spot

Rio de Janeiro

Rioooooooooooooo !! Here we come in one of the biggest city in the world also named the marvelous city surrounded by forests, huge beaches and impressive rock peaks. Despite of this it is also known for its high criminality surely due to the high contrasts this country has. However no one in the group had any problem at all... but some places surely feels a bit dodgy.... 

One of the main attraction of Rio is clearly its beaches which in opposite to France beach are widely used for sport like surf obviously, beachvolley, futvoley (only with feet...aye aye), slacklines which are absolutely everywhere and an impressive number of workout stations to do pull-ups, abs, etc... Yeah body culture !

Copacabana beach (or Ipanema)

Pao de Azucar on the left

Dinner and icy beer in a nice Rio's bodega

Concerning Hotrock the only choice for Ernie was to be parked quite outside of the city in one of the only campsite of city...30 km from the centre... We did the way and back to Rio one day but as any huge cith thze traffic can be absolutely insane and we decided to move in a hostal inside the city near the famous Copacabana.

Climbing concern the weather was not really with us either damn hot or raining...Thankfully we managed to climb the famous Corcovado with the huge redemptor Christ on the top. Starting pretty early we had perfect conditions in the pretty easy K2 route the classic of the classic of Corcovada. The climbing is nice with a little bit of trad but clearly its more for the setting and the view than the climbing by itself :)  

1st pitch of K2

Huw over Rio

Myself over Rio

Reaching the Christ after the climb in the middle of tourists, pretty unique :)

Tobby, happy at the end of the climb

Pao de Azucar and Rio centro

Rio pano from the Corcovado

Mmmmh hangovered guys ??

Pedra do Bau

That's it we're in Brazil, no more desert, no more cold ! Wouhou it's now  hot and humid :)

First place we visit is Pedra do Bau a nice climbing place with almost everything, trad, sport and multi-pitches. For Woody and I the decision was easy, after having spent a full week of mental feet climbing we directly headed to the hard roof sector ! Very nice granite like stone very soft and roundy. Unfortunately we haven't been able to stay long in this place where we've been amased by the brazilian friendliness. We partied hard on the last day in Sao Bento de Sapucai and by trying to find a nice club we ended up partying the whole night with a group of brazilians.

View on the Pedra da Divisa crag

Brazilian farms

Laid out brazilian cows :)

Danny on the lead with his new hat

In the roundy roofs, very bouldery !

The refuge just for us !

With even a small bouldering wall

Iguazu Falls

Just the most beautiful falls I've ever seen. Way much nicer than the Niagara ones. On the Argentinian side they created a protected area and the surroundings are beautiful with lots of animals and jungle.

Friendly coati 

Gargantua Del Diablo, stunning

Danny takes some risks....for a bloody nice hat..worth it !

Los Gigantes

On the way the way to Argentina after the Chilean border right in the middle of a huge no man's land Ernie decided to fuck up again... This time 50 km from the nearest town in the Northern Argentinian higlands and a major breakdown which ended upo being the water pump.
In consequence not really wanting to spend one week in a former dusty mining town we all packed our bags and left the truck to go the next planned crag. After 20 hours+ of bus and one week supply shopping in Cordoba we arrived in the Los Gigantes crag. Without the truck logistic was a bit more complex having to carry climbing gear and one week food to the crag.
Concerning climbing Los Gigantes is THE traditional climbing place around Cordoba. By traditional it means old-school climbing on slabs, chimneys and cracks with generally run out gears in opposition to modern climbing in generally overhangs and well protected. Therefore it is more a mental game rather than muscle game :) One  week was more than enough to destroy my feet !

Nice sunset in the camp site

Our camp site

Rock and condor

Cerro de la Cruz, one of the biggest sector and very slabby

Woody loves slabs

After climbing relaxing beer and feet in cold water, what else ?

Hot rock alcoholics

One of the almost no slabby route on a nice red granit

Socaire

Quick detour in Chile to go check some crags in the north of the country. Impressive change right after Bolivia we're like in Europe ! Better food, clearly less "authenticity" and higher prices. After a quick day in a trad place called Toconau we head to Socaire supposed to be an excellent crag and it is ! Very nice bush camping in the canyon near a river which saly disappeared the first night... Some locals changed its way ...
The climbing is awesome on a very solid volcanic rock.

Our camp 

Chris leading a nice trad crack

Woody on our 7a+ project "Tortura Digital"

Morning Didgeridoo

Nice boulders as well on volcanic tuffas !

Very nice face offering three stars climbs