Behind a hill at Curahuara, we indeed see a cliff and some bouldering, but most of it tackles terrifying, crumbly rock. We climb for the day and find that most of these boulders are not only loose but pretty difficult, too. On one problem in particular, Tony spends a good while hell-bent on sending, but the poor dog never does. Curahuara is a good start, but beyond the scrappy boulders and a small cliff, there isn’t much else to sink our teeth into. Boulders, yes, everywhere, but very flaky and covered with impressive patches of stout lichen. We haven’t flown halfway around the world for choss.
We head south in search of our original objective: Valle de las Rocas (Valley of the Rocks), a boulderer’s eden described by two friends who, many years prior, trekked by the place and came home raving about “tons and tons of volcanic boulders.” However, we discover during our search that there are many Valles de las Rocas in this vast country that is twice the size of France. Lots of valles, lots of rocas. Which one is the Valle de las Rocas, we don’t know. We will just have to keep looking.