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Hacía horas que explorábamos el balcón podrido.

Hacía horas que explorábamos el balcón podrido.
We had been exploring the rotten balcony for hours.
From Lesson 242:Past duration (hacía... que)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about Hacía horas que explorábamos el balcón podrido.

Why do we use hacía here instead of hace?
You use hacía (the imperfect of hacer) because the entire situation is set in the past. It means that at that moment in the past, you had already been exploring for hours. If you used hace, it would mean you are still exploring the balcony right now.
The English translation says 'had been exploring'. Why don't we use a past perfect tense for explorábamos?
English uses 'had been [doing something]' for actions ongoing up to a point in the past. Spanish uses a simpler approach for this specific time structure: hacía + [amount of time] + que + the imperfect tense (explorábamos). The imperfect naturally shows that the exploring was still in progress at that past moment.
Can I put the time expression at the end of the sentence?
Yes, you can flip the sentence around. If you put the action first, you must drop the word que. You could say: Explorábamos el balcón podrido hacía horas. Both versions are very common and mean the exact same thing.
What verb does the adjective podrido come from?
It comes from the verb pudrir, which means to rot or to decay. Podrido is its past participle, which is often used as an adjective (rotten). Notice that the stem changes from a u to an o.

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