Lago de Atitlán..

Awakening at 6am to catch a shuttle bus to Lago de Atitlán : a 3-hour ride through the mountains that brought us to an amazing lake surrounded by volcanoes...

What about starting the day trip by a nice breakfast on the lakeside ?
You´ll notice the extra instant coffee powder on the table, kindly given by the waiter after we asked him why the ´cafe negro´ was so clear... ;-)
(and of course the Central America lonely planet guide)

Tough beginning of the day actually...

After the breakfast, we went for a nice hike along the lake, in order to reach the next village, Santa Catarina Palopo :

There we had a great meal in a small local comedoria. Our cook and waiters were the 12-14 years-old son and daughter of the owners, as their parents was out during the day !

On the way back to Antigua, the shuttle bus driver gave us a dramatic scenic ride through the mountains, showing us the damage caused to the roads by the last wet season´s landslides... We even had to drive through the river since the bridge was gone...

Mercado de Chichicastenango

Today we took a bus to Chichicastenango, as Thursday is market day. The town is absolutely different from Antigua, which is all clean and touristy! This one is very crowded (with local people this time :-) ), and somewhat more dirty...

After a couple of hours wandering around the market, we went for local market cuisine. Let's hope our intestines are ready to take it after only two days here... We were told by the owner that only Europeans venture there, Americans being too afraid of getting sick (it is excellent food though, and 4 times cheaper than anywhere else...)

Yes, the food IS delicious (petage de bide en regle, as would say Moliere). I know Sevag agrees...

Yet another delicious coffee break...

And in the special category, I like that ideally placed No parking sign...

This last picture is actually from yesterday: Antigua's cathedral by night... That was just minutes before attending a memorable local concert. The video will have to wait!

Let's get started - Antigua, Guatemala.

Avant toute chose, parlons langues :-). Je reçois régulièrement des plaintes de défenseurs de la langue française - dont je suis pourtant un piètre ambassadeur - concernant la langue de rédaction du blog. Pour régler ça à la régulière, je compterai les commentaires des prochains jours. Si il y en a plus en français, on repassera au français (oui monsieur). Sinon, sinon...... 

Before anything, let's talk business... Since we are French all three (baguette!), we have not really decided yet on the language for the following posts. More english comments will mean posts in english. If french comments win, we'll switch soon. spanish and swedish are off the game (indeed :-P)...

So the trip really starts on Monday, 0am, time to checkin in order to get the emergency exit seats (check :-) ). 

Arnaud, Sevag and me all met in Madrid on Monday night, eventually ending our scare of flight disruptions.

We had some time to read the guide brought by Arnaud over the 12-hour flight, direct to Guatemala city, with a quite surprising route over Halifax, New York, Florida,... Landing eventually arrived - for the record, an hour delay on a 12-hour flight is much more confortable than the 8-hour delay I had on the 50-minute flight from Toulouse to Madrid last week. After a short time of bargaining, we got on a cab to Antigua, which used to be the capital of Guatemala until a terrible earthquake teared it down in 1773 if my memory is correct (and the Lonely Planet's).

The city is surrounded with three massive volcanoes. But we probably wont climb any of these, we will wait for smaller ones further south (still digesting Christmas).

And here is a picture to prove that we all got here alive...

I will try to keep the map to the right updated, with as usual the blue flag showing our position, and the different planned stops. Red pins are the places we will go to, whereas blue pins are only ideas so far (and might remain that way)...

New trip - new blog...

I've had some technical problems with the previous layout, the server with the jeans broke down :-(. So here we are, introducing the new style... Any comment is welcome (well, maybe not ANY).

As some of you know, a new trip is planned this winter. As it is, no real plan. Arnaud, Sevag and I have booked flights to Guatemala on Dec28, and back on Jan 22 (Jan 15 for Sevag), from Costa Rica.

As of now, we are simply looking for a nice place to spend new year's eve (we dont want to re-iterate last year's fail with the missed fullmoon party). Also, if you have been there, and have some advices on which place to go to, please let us know... As usual, we'll fill the map in the right panel as much as possible.

Any idea for new year's eve?? Maybe in Antigua?

Afterwork in three steps... (Del Mar beach)

San Francisco

After about 10 months avoiding each other, we eventually managed to arrange a week-end... And since Paris did not work too good for us, San Francisco appeared to be en excellent option, as it was their summer roadtrip last stop (have a look at their nice blog...). For me, it was a nice 3-day break in my summer research at UCSD. I flew in Friday, and out Monday night...

On Saturday morning, we went for a walk between the Golden Gate bridge and Cliff's house, where we had lunch, american style....

Despite all recommendations, I went to SF without a jacket, wearing a light sweater. (Which by the way ended up being a good choice, as we had an amazing weather all three days).

In the afternoon, we visited the Golden Gate park - which is by the way not close at all of the bridge :-S.

On Saturday night, another nice restaurant, with nice people, followed by a jazz lounge, around Japan town.

San Francisco has to be one of my favorite cities on this side of the atlantic. Its ambient is absolutely amazing. On Sunday we went to see some of the highlights : Fisherman's wharf, chinatown, Lombard St, some more Golden Gate bridge...

And to the museum of modern art on Monday morning (note that it is at least the second reference to a museum on this blog, I am getting literate...).

If you dont have enough, I think there is another nice one on J&C's blog...

And here are some pictures I took on the flight back. The first one does not need caption I guess...

This is UCSD from right above (bottom left is the Geisel library, and close to the center is the building where I "work").

And back to downtown San Diego...

San Diego

I eventually made it to San Diego... Luckily enough I managed again to get an emergency exit seat :-).

After a long flight from Beijing to San Francisco, here is the first contact I got with the US... An apple juice can (how sad...). Note that I am getting healthier, as my first post last year was about beer.

The thing is, I still wonder what 100% apple juice mean... Especially as it specifies just below that it is apple concentrate, with "added ingredient". I am guessing they are trying to keep it secret. shhhhhhh.

It took me a couple days to adjust from the 15h jetlag. I even woke up at 8.30am this morning, which is not very usual for me on a Sunday.

I was glad to see Teddy again. I actually see him everyday, as they serve the best coffee there.

Tsinghua University

Here are some pictures of this week... On Tuesday, the cultural event of the Symposium : Tsinghua University's orchestra. The program consisted of both chinese and european classical music. For some surprising reason I enjoyed more the chinese part, but I think that mostly had to do with the interpretation of Berlioz and Tchaikovski...

I did not go to the small Great Wall excursion (900 scientists, 20 buses, bad weather...). There are already some nice pictures of it on this blog :-D. Yesterday was the banquet, in the "small" ballroom of Beijing grand hotel.

Unfortunately I had my talk in the next morning, so I could not abuse of the wine. It was not too hard, as I had never had such a bad wine (I might be exagerating a bit). And they said it was French. I would say it was a cheap copy...

And this picture is for the best readers of the blog... I took it 30 min before my talk, that went well btw.

I'll try to publish some more pictures this weekend, now is time for celebration, I am staying here until Sunday!!

Beijing

And back on the blog... After a couple months without writing anything, I'll try to make it up.

I arrived in Beijing yesterday, after a pointless flight, and a stopover in Frankfurt.

It was surprisingly very productive day : I got to my hotel around 10.30 am, showered, took a one hour nap, went to another hotel meet a colleague, had two 3-euro coffees in a fancy hotel with the boss of combustion, then went for a 4-hour walk downtown... To end up attending the excellent "most alternative dance show in Beijing", in a no less alternative theater. We then had an excellent dinner in a chinese restaurant despite the fact that there was no comprehension whatsoever between the waiter and us...

Here is a suggestion to Madrid, where bike lanes are (almost) inexistant. Take this example :-)

Tenerife - Puerta de la Cruz

Tenerife has an amazing potential for hiking, biking, windsurfing,.... all sorts of things I really like. Unfortunately, I'll have to go back to fully enjoy this potential, so I put it on my top list of next places to go (back) to.

The 3800m high volcano makes it the highest point in Spain, the best to has an observatory.

Landscapes are varying every 10kms...

This restaurant had the best view AND the best fish in town. White wine is also excellent.

I was wrong, this has to be the best view...

Hafengeburtstag - Hamburg

I spent the weekend at Jacques' in Hamburg, for Harbor day - la fête du por(t/c). I liked the variety of boat you could get into a single picture... Check these ones out.

The boat on the left is exclusively solar-powered, it was presented there for the first time (or so I was told)...

This is the boat from the famous Thalassa TV-show... Look at the black smoke at the exhaust (!¡!). A shame for an environmentalist show.

This is the largest model railway in the world. It's german, and on this picture, you can only see a 5% of it (I'd say even less...). It is more than 1500 m2, and has over 15kms of tracks... It is actually quite impressive a must-see in Hamburg.

Luang Prabang Part 2 + Vientiane

Apres les deux jours de trekking+kayak, nous avions choisi de faire une journee plus tranquille... Destination Kuangsi, un parc dans lequel on trouve plusieurs cascades et des piscines naturelles : on ne savait pas a quoi s attendre, on a adore !

Voici quelques illustrations...


On en a profite pour faire quelques seances de saut acrobatique :



Hier, nous avons eu 10h de bus a travers les montagnes pour rejoindre Vientiane, la capitale : superbes paysages, particulierement sauvages ! (surement qq sauvages egalement dans la region puisque l un des employes du bus portait un fusil d assaut...)


Et aujourd hui, retour a Kuala Lumpur par Air Asia, compagnie low cost "Number one in the world"! Ce soir, on va essayer de profiter de Kuala Lumpur by night afin de commencer notre decalage horaire...