Kalymnos developed originally as the sponge divers' island, but due to the desease that dessimated the animals in the 80ies, the island had to focus more on tourism.
(Climber as part of the tufas, Lolita 7a perfectly executed by Pau)
Rock climbing has become one of the niches for generating tourism revenues. By now Kalymnos is a well-known and popular destination with the worldwide climbing community. Its barren landscapes remind me a lot of Callanques, another Mediterranean jewel for some reason less popular with climbers lately, but full of incredible routes and adventures for the willing and courageous ones as well.
We have continued our experience at Kalymnos with a trip to Cicati cave. This required renting motos (a perfect advertisement for moto journey around the island below):
After a drive and a hike we arrived to this strange formation, where apparently a roof collapsed over an old cave, making it an open-sky wonder full of tufas, over 50 meters high and far from a fully developed climbing potential. The Cicati Cave, where capturing with a camera all its beauty remains a challenge:
We concentrated on a route opened by Andrada, called Lolita. It became the first project of the trip, to go at the second try despite some promising distance between the bolts. The climbing here is pretty exagerated in many respects. The tufas give a 3D feeling to the moves, and body has to be placed in all credible and incredible positions during the climb. It is very interesting to figure it out, actually a joy to jump monkey-like from tufa to another tufa. Below myself redpointing la Lolita, the crux of the route:
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