As you might have learned, I’m in Paris, after more than one year of travelling around the world. Over 80 000 km if you count the plane trips. 372 days and four hours.

Being back doesn’t feel too bad. It might be because of the two friends who came to get me at the airport (her and her), or the numerous picnics, evening beers, wine parties that ensued with my friends in Paris. It might also be the fact that I’m still in a “travel” state of mind because I’m staying on a friend’s (him) couch, that I’m doing nothing except seeing people and minding my own buisness. I’m landing smoothly. Next week I’m going in the south, at a barbecue with other travellers I met around the world. And then, back to Bordeaux, to live a few days with my parents, because there’s no better motivation to go look for a job and a place than living again with parents. Then I’ll look for a job in graphic design/motion design/web design in Paris or elsewhere around the world. I’m not afraid to travel (as I might have shown). I’d like to start working again in November. If you know people who might be interested in working with me, well, contact me.)

There’s one more week of answering the same answers to my friends, because they always ask the same questions. So yeah, do you know how I got Dengue Fever in Vietnam? Japan’s really nice but it’s expensive… I don’t have a favorite country, it’s different everywhere, depends on the different experiences. Some are human, some cultural, or some downright bizarre, yet not all were perfect.

But these posts are not all. I forget vegan soups with mutton in Mongolia, coming back to the hostel, drunk and lost, in a foreign city, night train rides with a chinese soldier sleeping on my shoulder, discovering a new subway, a new currency system, a new Hello, Good-bye, Thank-you and No-thanks-lady-I-won’t-buy-it-and-that’s-definitive in a new asian language every few weeks, or learning to express myself in Spanish… also, there’s the ability to know where to find stuff in your backpack in the dark, or being able to pack it in less than half an hour, knowing who’s the liar and the one you can trust when you meet people, sharing so much with interesting, funny, surprising people that you might never see again (except maybe on Facebook), eating horrible-looking things while knowing what it is, or eating delicious food while not being able to know how to order it again, sleeping in a new bed every day and waking up to a new horizon every morning, digestive problems due to bad curry or not-so-fresh chicken hearts, vacation days in the travel, where you do nothing all day (except late postcards),weeks that stretch for years because nothing happens or days so packed with new things happening that they look like weeks, the girls met on the road and the complications ensuing sometimes, and people, locals, those who seem invisible to some tourists, those who seem always up to bad things to some travellers, but mostly those who can be your best friend for a day. All of this I’ll miss, and much more still. And I know they won’t ever leave me. And perhaps in some time I’ll rediscover them when I’m back on the road.

While I’m not travelling this blog will be way less active. Only postcards will be published for sure, perhaps a few more pictures… but I don’t know if I’ll have more to say. I might also add some AdWords ads on the articles now the micro-sponsoring project is finished… my next travel projects are not for today (I’ll have to learn to drive a motorbike before).

So I thank you my friends to follow my adventure around the world, to leave me comments. If you’re travelling and you find the advice on this website worthwhile, please tell me! And if you were just looking for dreams of travels, please help yourself…

… and happy trails!

PS: and I just learned that this website of mine was on a french teen-girls mag named Muteen… the scan’s here : twitpic.com/2p7im2 (in French). Merci Muteen, merci Benjamin-who-fond-the-scan! And cheers to Nico & Johanne who are also on it!

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You might know that my trip ends in a few days.

One of the big things during this travel was the making of pictures. Photography if you prefer. Or the collection of pictorial aides to remember, or a visual recreation of reality through photosensitive archiving technology.

You’ve got to know something first. When I talk about my relation to photography, it’s a whole history of broken cameras.

That’s why I never bought a digital single lens reflex : it’s only for wankers or people who use them professionnaly (and I’m neither), it’s heavy, fragile, and in three years I’ll want the next one with 15,2 megapixels instead of 14,7 right now. Fuck megapixels. When you buy a $1000+ tool you want it to last a lifetime or two, not three years. But well, that’s the fashion of the time, disposable technologies. Some things still can’t die, like Leica cameras, that is some sturdy toys (alt-tab, MS Office, new document, save as… “santa letter wishlist 2010.ppt”) and anyways nothing’s better than film, except of course the new Canikon that’s just been announced and that will be the Death of Film, and it can film HD Video and transmit it on Vimeo (regular video are uploaded to YouTube after going through CuteCatFilter), also you can use it to print buisness cards and as an ashtray. Professional use, I said. Then for the wankers you’ve got the overcompensating entry level camera that looks like you’re In Charge but that gets stolen at a market in Mongolia, or falls on a stone in India or drowns in Pisco Sour in Chile because it’s a hard life being a crappy level entry Digital SLR that even Peruvians won’t steal.

Besides that, people who know me say I’m such a nice guy.

So yeah I was saying, my relationship with photography is on a bed of broken cameras. I know my cameras will have technical issues, will fall or will decide to take a day off, but still at the end of the day I’ll have some pictures I’m happy about.

During the course of this trip I owned and used five cameras. Two suffered from bad technical failures, one from a mild electrical problem that goes to prove that too much electronics in a camera is bad news for you. I left with a digital camera, a compact, the Ricoh GRD II, that I had bought second hand for this trip. It worked very well for some time then, when the waranty expired, it decided to die. It conquered me though, the ease of utilisation and the sensor weren’t unlike using a film camera. Almost. But not quite the same though. I also had a Canon Canonet QL GIII which hasn’t had any problem, also I love it because it’s very compact. And I had my favorite medium format camera, a Yashica Mat 124G, a nice TLR whose lightmeter started getting troubles and who wasn’t as fun to carry around as I thought it would be.

So I replaced my Ricoh GRD II with a Ricoh GRD III, its immediate successor. I bought it in Guangzhou, China, so it wasn’t very expensive. Less expensive than in Hong Kong, and waaay less expensive than in Europe. The sensor is a bit different on the new one, but it was a matter of weeks until I could use it with greater ease than its predecessor. Fast and simple, and with a wide engle prime lens.

When the Yashica started not working I didn’t want to replace it with another medium format : film is hard to find, the thing’s heavy and not practical to carry around on strolls around the countries of the world. Even though I loved it. So I sent it back, from Bangkok, with the Canonet. And I bought a very good film SLR, the Pentax LX, with a rare 40mm “pancake” hypercompact prime lens, which makes it just a little bit bigger than the Canonet but better, basically. The Pentax LX is one of the most famous unknown best pro film 35mm SLR. And it’s black, so it looks very, very sweet. The problem I discovered one week later is that it eats batteries in a week. I was already out of Bangkok and couldn’t bring it back though, it would have been too simple. It’s a technical problem I couldn’t address at the Pentax Repair Center in Tokyo because it took too much time and money to repair it. So I sometimes had to Use The Force to mesure the right exposure for my shots. Nothing’s better than the Sunny F/16, yo.

And all the films, what did you do of them, do you carry them around? Nay my beloved. I sent them back in bunches and no package has been lost so it’s perfect. And now they are waiting for me in fridges around France until they will be developed in the travel order : Russia, Mongolia, China… and so on. I’ll see if I publish it here on the net as soon as I get them, or if I’ll wait to have something to show. But yeah, that is the super projects for the future.

And now, here’s about thirty pictures chosen among the best of the digital pictures I liked. I used a lot the square format but I grew out of it, then I abandonned black&white to go play with colours. Look for turquoise blue skies.

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So yeah. 365 days today.

And I’m currently in New York City. As it’s my birthday I’ve got other things to do than blog!

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A week in New Orleans can go so fast, between Café du Monde beignets, Abita Purple Haze at the Spotted Cat, Po’Boys at Guy’s on Magazine, Satchmo Fest on Frenchmen, grilled oysters at ACME, new friends who host me and with whom I go to the pool or see the latest Steven Soderbergh, and most of all the wet heat that never leaves you… Will summer ever end?

Anyways who wants it to end? Not me, if it means I’ve got to go home. I’d prefer stay among the gosts of New Orleans.

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I left South America almost one month ago, and I don’t know why, I don’t have many pictures of the last three weeks of my stay there…

I finished the South American arm of my trip by travelling North : from Chile to Peru, to Ecuador and Colombia. Then I flew to Texas, which isn’t technically South America anymore, but still has spanish as its most spoken language.

Going through three countries in less than two weeks didn’t leave me strong memories. From bus to hostel, from hostels to busses and few pauses on the way to enjoy the view…

I started in Peru by staying in Huacachina, an oasis between sand dunes. It’s nice, quite touristy but still peaceful. Then I saw Nazca, and the lines. But I talked about that in my previous post. I went to Lima without taking one picture, then I went to Ecuador after the border guards gave me the address of their blog.

Ecuador appeared nicer than Peru, though the ceviche wasn’t as good. Quito isn’t a bad city, I could have wanted to stay two or three more days there. Then a village near the border with Colombia, where I saw a military parade celebrating victory in a battle that was finished two or three centuries ago, and I ate one of the best gelato in South America.

Colombia the next day. Cali, where I spent two days with Sarah and Aurélie, mighty french girls who followed me since China. We went to salsa clubs and had fun. Then I left to Manizales, where I bought a panama-style hat, but it’s not a real panama, because panama hats are made in Ecuador, and only in Ecuador. And then Medellin. Not remotely as dangerous as before. And from there I took a plane to Texas, to meet friends again and meet others for the first time.

When you travel, you’ve got to make choices : where to go, how much time to stay… Sometimes it’s too bad, but imagine, if there was no decision to take, would it be as fun?

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While I was in Peru, I stopped in Nazca, a little city which lies near a desert famously known for the famous lines that had been traced hundreds of years ago by the civilisations living there.

And so I got to do a plane ride to see the lines from above ; as they are quite big you cannot see them from the ground.

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I don’t have lots to tell about this series.

La Isla del Sol, during a full day, with a surprise encounter with my friend Marie, who’s a french traveller I met in Patagonia, then again in Tihuanaku for Willkakuti, and then on a beach of the island, by surprise. Also, her brazilian friend. And all the little girls who sell souvenirs.

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Since I was a kid I dreamed of seeing lake Titikaka. I don’t really know why, but it’s a big lake in the mountains, so that must be the reason.

If you ever go to Copacabana, the city on the lake, don’t miss the trout. It’s so good.

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