Yesterday we booked a sunrise climb of the Tawal cliffs, so I woke up at 4:30, dipped in the sea to cool off the sunburn, filtered some water and packed for the climb.

We started the climb at 5:30. The day before we’d heard that a guide had fallen, and was now in a coma… That didn’t install confidence, but neither was it to put us off.

We walked through the back streets of the town, surrounded by sooo many roosters crowing all around. Then got out to the start of the jungle that we were to climb through. It swiftly became apparent that this was definitely a climb and not a trek, everything was jagged limestone rocks, everything was at least 45 degrees, it was intense, we were all dripping with sweat (the guide, my Canadian buddy Nick and I) by half way, it was also 28 degrees and very humid, our hands were getting a bit cut up too. After almost an hour’s climbing by torchlight (I got to use my Pretzl e-lite head torch, it was perfect, exactly what I needed, thank you mother :)) we got to the top, to see the incredible view before the sun started to rise over the other rocks. But the sun was blocked by clouds as it had been raining for the last quarter.

After going a little higher we decided to head down. This was a lot harder as the rocks were now getting slippy from the rain. I did slip and one point and bashed my shin pretty solidly on the edge of a rock, got a good cut and a lot of brushing. We also saw all the gawes packaging and a lot of blood where the guide had fallen. We also crossed a couple with a guide going up, they were much more sensible, with climbing cloves and helmets (well the couple at least). After a long dripping wet decent we got back to town and went and had a well deserved breakfast of tampori I think it was called, sticky chicken, rice and eggs (everything here is meat, rice and eggs).

Then we both went back to our dorms to shower and nap, as we were tired and it was still tipping it down with rain.