- 05/12/2009
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The Big One
This was the big one, the one we’d been waiting 40 days for, the one which was going to be rammed with beautiful girls and great music. We’d had our warm up parties in Zurich, Barcelona, Hall, and Chamonix, but the Saturday night party at Mello was the one which we’d been saving ourselves for.
With nothing to save for the next party we went all out, showered, shaved, and put on our last pair of clean undies. Upon arrival at the party things were looking promising, with nice beats pumping out of the tent and copious amounts of liquid nourishment. Gaz and James had climbed their last route of the trip and subsequently their bodies had gone into a semi shutdown mode, but within 15 minutes this was all forgotten about as we were inside the tent jumping around like madmen.
It’s always important that you “make sure you know before you go, the dancefloor bro-ho ratio... 5 to 1 is a brodeo” and a brodeo is exactly what we’d walked into. Climbing isn’t a sport with an abundance of beautiful women, which I find exceptionally strange when there are so many hunky men like us, but we thought that an event like Mello would bring out the best of the climbing world. If 5 to 1 is a brodeo then the Mello party was much further along the scale, perhaps best described as brodown. If I had to have a guess the bro-ho ratio was somewhere in the region of 15-1 which came as a great disappointment. The music pounded on and without girls to try and impress we did the next best thing which was to dominate the dancefloor.
This was all going well and good until a little before 4am when the DJ grabbed a mic to make an announcement. I thought he was going to say something along the lines of “YO MELLO!!!! Are you having a good time!?! The night is young and the beats will outlast every single one of you!”. Unfortunately he declared that the party would be ending in 20 mins so we had to do our best to expend all of our energy by that point. None of us could believe it! A party that ends at 4am is not a party but a mere gathering of acquaintances. I’m not sure why there was a 4am limit but when the last beat dropped and the final clap was heard there was little else to do but search for the after party party. This didn’t result in any success with James and I eventually giving up and heading back to the van for a few hours of shuteye. The others, who were a little higher on life than us, pushed on to try and rekindle the party but eventually conceded that there was no after party to be found, giving up and returning to the van.
Whilst it’s often true that the brightest stars burn for the shortest time, it’s only partly true of the mello party. The music was truly excellent with the DJ playing some superb tunes, but such an early end was a bitter sweet end to the trip. Our warm up parties had all lasted until at least 6am so to have our final big one ending at 4am was a little disappointing. However, when we awoke in the morning the night was remembered with fond memories as we’d all had a good time whilst it lasted. We simply sat around in a beautiful meadow, soaked in some sun and tried not to be too sad that this was all coming to an end.
The beautiful view in the Mello valley
Sunday was to be our final full day together as the tripod of stability would be broken the next morning when Gaz boarded a plane to his new home/car/life in Spain. With no pressure to either climb, drive, lecture, film, or edit, we spent the day enjoying each other’s company, reliving the many glorious moments we’ve had on this trip. As the sun set I even managed to squeeze in an hour of bouldering which marks my return to climbing which felt amazing.
The trip may nearly be over but the blog isn’t quite there yet. A few balls have been set in motion and you can expect more regular updates for at least 1 week, with hopefully a video or two if we find a hard line into the internet.
All of the photos from the previous days will be uploaded tomorrow as we are now in a new place which has a stable data connection... the location will be revealed soon!
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Comments
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Glad to see the editing skills are a bit sharper today.
Posted by: Emily | 05/12/2009 at 09:48 AM
Yeah it reads a bit better now....anyway not being on the inside i imagine it a case of spending too much time together.....someone had to crack eventually.
Posted by: Morgan | 05/12/2009 at 11:35 AM