We woke up with bad news: Clare was pretty ill, having spent the night visiting the toilet, with aches and nausea whenever she sat up. Fortunately, she had packed a course of antibiotics, so she started on those. We made sure she had plenty of water, and headed out for some climbing.

First we did a few of the routes behind the hotel, so that we could stay nearby and check in on Clare. The routes were pretty easy; I led a 5.7 that was easy, except for the strung out bolts, with only 3 or 4 anchors on a 25 meter pitch.

We climbed a few more routes, checked in on Clare, and then hiked down the road to the Petit Gorge, a wall with about a dozen sport routes of varying difficulty.

About 2.5km down the road, we spotted the first bolted routes and set down our gear. We climbed several, in the 5.9 to 5.11a range, with Barry leading and me cleaning. The routes were pretty long, fully plaing out a 60 meter rope; compared to the 30 foot routes in the gym at home, these 100 foot pitches were quite the endurance challenge. The rock was sharp, clean and solid, good for sure footed climbing, but a bit rough on the fingers.

After a little wihle a French family came by, and the parents started climbing while the kids played in the river.

A couple people 50 feet up a sheer rock wall was quite the attraction, for natives and tourists alike. People driving by would look up and stare in amazement, and a group of Australian tourists sat and watched us climb for a good half hour.

As it turned to the afternoon, I was wearing down, and my legs were getting a little shaky. We decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel.

I was hoping it was just a little sun stroke, but we were only halfway back and I was exhausted. By the time we arrived at the hotel, it was all I could do to pull my shoes off and crawl into bed.

For the next 40 hours, I would stay in that bed, getting up only to use the toilet (often) and get more water. Along with the diarrhea came aching muscles, fever and headache. To make matters worse, the mattress was hard as a board; eventually I took the comforter and stuffed it under the sheet for extra padding.

Fortunately I packed some immodium and ibuprophen, which helped, but not nearly as much as the damp washcloth I had packed. You hear "room in a cave", and you think that it'll be naturally cool, but here it just served to prevent any airflow.