No, I’m not Italian nor Spanish. I get that question a lot, or people ask me right out if I’m a gypsy.
I might not look like it, but I’m a “good German citizen”, except for the fact that my parents were kind of hippie and took me kayaking before I could walk. The climbing started shortly after I could walk.
Then, when people realise I speak Spanish as well as Italian and French, they ask again if I’m sure my mother isn’t Spanish? She isn’t, but she had a longing for faraway places, so we went to live in Bolivia when I was 9. I grew up with my father climbing Huayna Potosí and Mururata on weekends, was dragged through days and days of Inca Trails, sometimes without food …

… and went to school on 3.600 metres every day.
Mostly I preferred to be on horseback during that time. My climbing career took up again when we moved back to Germany in 2003, a much greater culture shock than the first one. I adapted, halfway, even though I never really fit in and took up kayaking during all times of night and day. Even back then I had a hang to exercise my passion at minus 6 degrees in the dark. At age 18 somehow I chose climbing over kayaking, maybe just because I could get there by myself without a car and two tonnes of gear. And I do like the control that defines a great part of climbing for me; water is much wilder and less controllable than rock. Dozens of trips, instructor certificates and experiences later I discovered I liked being even more independent: by choosing where I place my gear instead of following a line of bolts (never liked following anything).

I’ve been doing that ever since and even topped it in 2022 by finally choosing my own line in a face of granite, long-standing dream of mine. It may not be the boldest line, but it is mine. Have a look at PMDD – my first first ascent in Val Bedretto: completely clean, including the belays, as God and time created the wall.