Last minute trip to Annot

With Ian and Susan. The drive down kind of sucked because we left late. Tons of traffic, and we did the last (very windy) part in the dark. We eventually made it there though.

Montaud

Rode Montaud with Ian today in between the raindrops. Legs felt ok at the bottom and pretty bad after le Coing. We went most of the way up to the tunnel in the end.

Annot, Day 2

More bouldering








Ian found a pretty bird feather, the ownership of which led to much consternation and tears.

And then it was time to drive back. We stopped for lunch in Annot, but it was overrun with retirees for some reason. We couldn't get into the pizza place, so settled in for a nondescript meal at the PMU bar (France's version of off track betting). Later, we were surprised to see a convoy of Willy's jeeps drive by with American flags. Weird.

More traffic on the road back to Grey-noble, but the Trieves was glorious as usual
. We were behind a Ferrari Maranello for a while, and eventually overtook. As we did, I glanched over and saw a very old woman driving it! I'm, guessing at least 70 years old. The other weird thing is that it did not have Swiss plates.

Annot, Day one

After a relatively good sleep at La Rouie and a big breakfast, it was off to the boulders. Annot has featured many times in this blog, but just to recap: it's a small town in the Maritime Alps which is a funny mix of mountainous terrain and Provence. The cicada features prominently as in other places, but it gets cold here. In fact, we have been here a few times when there was still snow on the road. Anyway, it has an extremely rural, somewhat yokel-ish feel to it. It's a bit of a drive from Grenoble, but we always come back very relaxed and refreshed after wearing ourselves out on the boulders. It works pretty well with the kids, too, as long as the weather is not good. The best way to do it is to just play it by ear and not feel obligated to go just because you have planned it, because it is kind of miserable when it gets cold and or rainy.

Anyway, we had a great day on the blocs. Nothing very hard sent on my part, but we all got to try new stuff and the kids got to run around like little savages
























It was the Place Vendome sector, like last time. And I got spit off the same boulder as last time!

Ian and Susan in town! The kids are so excited!

Lab picnic

Retreat

Off to a work retreat this week in Germany. It's been full of hijinx so far. First, I somehow ended up on a flight a day too early with the Big Boss. Then two taxis came to pick us up, so I went in one and he went in the other (these are one hour taxi rides, by the way). Then I ended up in a pretty odd hotel-apartment away from the conference venue. It was up the hill, which was a pain for me because I pulled my right hamstring on Monday, and it was of course raining. The room was in a building away from the main hotel, and shared with what appeared to be privately owned apartments for pensioners! There was no soap to be found in the room. Since I did not have anything scheduled, I settled down to watch the last set of the Murray Djokovic match which included lots of panning to Sir Sean Connery in between points. I realized that in all my years of playing tennis, I never bothered to figure out the origins of the bizarre scoring, so I wrote down a note to Google it. Why not just Google it then? No internet in the room. Then it was back to the venue for dinner, then back up the hill in the rain. Did I mention that the hotel room smelled of cucumbers? Could be worse, I suppose.


n.b. According to The Internet, the origin of Tennis scoring is not definitively known, but might have something to do with a clock face --15 being 1/4 of the way to "full". 30 being halfway, 40 uh... I guess that one doesn't fit. "Deuce" from "Deux", as in you need two points to win and "Love" from "l'oeuf": an egg, which looks like '0'. I'm not sure I am convinced.

School

The kids started school last week, and it was a little rocky. Both were crying, and Alex in particular was cause for concern after his experience with the Creche (He would cry nonstop for hours until we had to come get him). Today was the first day of his first full week in school and we had been talking it up all weekend. I had also ordered new backpacks for both of them, to be given to them this morning. I dropped them off and it actually didn't go too badly. No tears at all until Alex realized that school was not a one week thing and that he would be going back. Then there were a few tears, but much better than last week. Phew!





 

Porte, Eynard

Went for a ride today. My legs felt pretty terrible for most of the way, but managed to give it a little bit of effort on the climb up to the Fort St. Eynard. Full route: Quaix->Sarcenas->Porte->Sappey->St. Eynard->Quaix

Ice Cream!

Green Arch, of course. We ate them on the curb next to the fountain just up the street, and midway through we heard a loud splash and saw an unsupervised toddler that had fallen in! Chloe ran over and rescued the waterlogged little girl, who was not very happy and eventually her father came out.

Earlier we had a pretty decent Chirashi plate at Ozenya! I'm so happy to have real Japanese food again.

Kalymnos->ATH

The flight from the kalymnos airport to Athens was unfortunately fully booked so we instead went via Kos: drop off the car, clean up the stuff, get ripped off by the Taxi guy for the ride from the studio to Pothia, then hop on the faster ferry to Mastixari. From there, cab ride to the airport and a plane flight to Athens. After a long wait, the Holiday Inn shuttle showed up, we checked in and had an overpriced and terrible meal and collapsed. Poor Alex had developed a heat rash and was in great discomfort. Thumbs down for the Holiday Inn, by the way.

Solo

I got away from the Massouri rat race for some quality time on Telendos: lunch at Zorbas, then a hike past the naked beach and up to the new sectors in the caves. More stunning lines. If only.


Then, a final meal at the Aegean + doughnuts!

Sikati Cave

On our last visit, the guidebook had a picture of a huge cave on the Northeast side of the island, with some text suggesting that it might become the next major area on the island. This was in 2005 and there was actually route development already starting in the cave (called Sikati cave). Videos have been circulating ever since, and Chloe and I had basically been waiting for six years to check it out. A friend of ours had recently been to Kalymnos and had done the somewhat crappy hike out there and told us that it was stunning, and that there was a wonderful and empty beach just below, with perfect sand (a bit of a rarity on Kalymnos). It would be perfect: the kids could play on the beach and Chloe, and I could finally visit the cave to climb. We knew the kids couldn't do the hike, so we asked around at several places, bargained a bit and eventually reserved a boat + lunch for 250E. Not too bad split among all of us, and it would be an adventure! So we showed up this morning at 9:00 at Myrties, met Ionnis at his boat (the Carpe Diem), got all the stuff on board




and we were off!

As we rounded Telendos, Ionnis started up his bitchin sound system and Lionel Richie came wafting over the sounds of the motor and bow spray. Normally I would laugh if someone started playing Lionel, but here in the Aegean on a motorboat bound for a remote beach in perfect weather, it just felt … right. Hard to explain, really.



Soon after, I saw a delicate, tiny bird skimming the waves. It had wispy little wings, almost like … a FISH! I saw a flying fish! So, so cool. Nobody else saw it, unfortunately. Zoe unfortunately got a bit sea sick, but eventually was ok. After rounding the point the beach and cave eventually came into view


After shuttling everything to the beach, installing parasols etc, Chloe, Christine, James and I went up to the cave. James decided he did not want to go down the fixed ropes, so it was soon just the three of us in the cave. We warmed up on a 6 to the left

And then did one more climb to the right: Mort aux Chevres which I did a vue (yes!). It is a spectacular line up huge tufas. Stupendous. The cave was turning out to have been worth the wait. Chloe was climbing strong. This could be her first 5.12… her first of the grade and no better place in the world to do that.




But after only two climbs, we headed back to the beach


Now, we figured most people would consider it pretty cool to be in a deserted Greek beach like this





But there are always people waiting to crap on your parade. Too hot, kids being too kid like etc. So we could only do one more route. It was devastating: Chloe and I were in great shape… the climbing was probably the best place either of us had ever been in our lives (and we have been to a lot of places), but we had to cut it short. Zoe had been bitten by something but was calming down by the time we left. We walked up to the cave again

and got on bar none the best route I have ever been on





Huge tufas, wildly overhanging: the route was Morgan and I almost had the on sight but part of a hold broke. Of course, no time to work the route because of consequences down below, but at least Chloe got on it and was similarly amazed. We quickly got the gear together and got down to the beach were there was even more pleasantness waiting. Nice. So we packed up the Carpe Diem (irony!) and headed back to Myrties