13 July 2009

Pushing Up North...

Hey Gang,

It’s been 3 months now I should have given heads-up. Only valid excuse being complete a bliss immersion in the journey.
Since we last talked, a lot has happened; in mere luxury of time.
I’ve jumped up north from Brazil to Costa Rica, where Frauke has joined me, and there are now four eyes to slide over the road’s beauty.
Central America has been home from the past 3 months, from the paradise Caribbean Islands of Panama, through the nature’s marvels of Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras…
…and finding myself now on the Mayan’s trail of Guatemala.

Pushing up North over the summer, Mexico is next on the map, to end this second chapter of the StefWolrdTour at the Burning Man Festival in Nevada.

If things go as planned, I should be home, whatever that means and wherever that is, sometimes in September.

You’ll find below the usual drill, loaded with pics and blabla about what the hell has happened over Spring.

More than anything, I hope that this note finds you all, spread around the globe, light-hearted and smiling at Life.

I miss you all loads, and keep carrying you on the tracks in my heart.

Sending you the strongest Love and Lights.


Mister Lucky Bastard

12 July 2009

Guatemala - Walking the Mayan Trails

Now we're talking. There's dense matter to dig in. History. Colours. Scents. Trails. Guatemala has been a top favorite, and I recommand a million times to anyone to go discover the country. Everybody has spoken high about it to me, and I pass onto you the message...

The authenticity of the place, the beauty of its people, the million colours, the buzzing cities, the perfect mountain trails...There's to eat for everyone.

I have humbly to share something I hadn't know until I've experienced it. That the mayan culture isn't a marvel for history books, but still a living and vibrating community, contrasting with the westernization of the country. Its dissolution is a worry, indeed, and many are those who contribute to keep the profound culture of the Mayan alive. Here is no place to expend on their values and history, but their philosophy, connection to earth and nature, beliefs, are a marvel to explore.

A first catch for the eyes is the poor condition of garbage infrastructure, if any. Very few nature places aren't sparkled with trash. But this is a surface matter, for the struggle is deeper beneath, from successions of corrupted governments, heavy history of civil wars, and a massive intrusion of the American Banana Republic economy; but there's hope from what we've heard, as youth seems well aware of the dilema, and stands for the protection of their people and history.
As for the Maya religion, it's been widely dissoluted in an impressive presence of the evangelic church around the country, proning family values, and home protection, appealing for the women population, suffering widely spread domestic violence. You often encounter mixed ceremonies, where both mayan rituals and christian iconography coexist.

The country has a million faces, 26 different languages, and travelling around is an everyday surprise. Antigua, colonial heritage city, shines from beautiful architecture. The Lago de Atitlan is home to many mayan communites, along with the backpackers crowd enjoying the site as party land, or esoteric encounters. Up north, Chichicastenango, an entire market city, offering the most beautiful crafts.
From there, a trek in the mountains, from Nebaj to Todos Sentos, discoverting very remote mayans villages, sleeping with the families. Very untapped trails, only few kilometers away from Huehuecastenango and the craziness of big cities.

Semuc Champey, a nature's marvel of successing natural pristine pools and waterfalls...
Rio Dulce and Livingston, and its Garifuna community, heritage from past centuries slavery, a country by itself in the country, with its creole dialect.
Finca Ixobel, a chill paradise, where we've met so many beautiful travelling souls...

And Tikal, one of the most impressive Mayan ruins to be visited, inside a deep jungle...

It's been a month and a half, and could easily have been six.

Thank you so very much to Lars, Lizzie, Pedro, Maiju, George, Roy, Britt, Rowina, Anna and all the others for sharing this adventure.

Here are few snapshots of this chapter:

1 - As an album
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/72157620978670061/

2- As a slideshow
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/72157620978670061/show/

08 July 2009

Costa Rica & Panama - Nature's showcase

Costa Rica is a wonder. This tiny piece of land could be Nature’s lab to fill the rest of the world. Its mere 51 000 km² is home to 5% of our planet’s biodiversity with 25% of the territory occupied by reserves and natural parks.

Ecotourism means everything and nothing. Most of the time absolutely nothing. You can hit a so-called ecotourism resort, and witness the owners cutting the wings of a parrot, so that they can enjoy the bird walking the floor without flying away. Costa Rica however makes a point on preserving its treasure, and the absence of military spending is all the more so put into the mission. If you simply cut down a protected tree in your own garden, you have to replant 10 of the same species.

Strongest mitigant: the outrageous cost of travelling. The country has become an easy couple-of-weeks adventure vacation hit from the US, and the prices have been sky-rocketing. This is, to no extent, a backpack budget destination. It still remains a not-to-be-missed.

My journey there started as Brazil ended, on a dance-floor. Absolute blast and honor meeting Christof again, and discovering a fresh foreign scene, soft in the heart, hardcore on the way.
As Frauke met me few days later, we escaped the Semana Santa crowd (holiday week before Easter, when zillions of Ticos and travellers alike hit the coast) on the paradise Bastimentos Island, on the Caribbean coast of Panama. This hidden enclave is a gathering of all paradise islands clichés.

After smooth riding from one deserted beach to another, the journey back to Costa Rica was a perfect cruise into some of the many countries marvels, from volcanoes climbing to mountain hiking.

Warm warm warm thank yous to Christof (Absolum), Dany (Menog), Tamiris, Ganeisha, Ensi, Carlos, Piloy, Anthony and all the Ticos Beataddicts gang for welcoming me as family.

You can get a glimpse of the ride right here:

1- As an album
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/72157621106819722/

2 - As a slideshow
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/72157621106819722/show/

07 July 2009

The Single Shoe Mystery...

I might have not paid sufficient attention over the bizarre pattern on my previous travel. But on this very journey I couldn’t help but notice an increasing number of single ownerless shoes.
The impressive number of the above-mentioned is still providing food for thoughts.
I mean…I’ve lost loads. Keys, phones, glasses, socks, umbrellas, my mind, books…But I can’t help thinking that if I ever were to lose or miss a shoe, I would most certainly notice it soon enough, independently of my alcohol level.
So here I send to you, my friends, all around the world, this simple question: Why Like This? What has happened to all those people? To all the vanished owners of those single shoes?Abducted? Scared to the run? Land mines? Foot fetish? Please, if you or any of your friends has heard anything of help, please feed us. I’ll keep you posted on the investigation…I mean. A shoe. How can you lose a shoe…???
Some disturbing images on the following links:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40274176@N02/sets/72157621198614542/

02 July 2009

Nicaragua & Honduras - Colonial Diving

Nicaragua and Honduras have been a faster travel through, and I won't be ranting about the amount of knowledge accumulated about both countries.

But as soon as the border of Nicaragua has been crossed, it's been a notch up on real travel immersion, away from the travelling crowd of Costa Rica. Of notice, the beauty of its colonial cities and architecture, as Granada and Leon, some small nature's beauty like Isla de Ometepe, and the warmth of Nicaraguans.

After 3 weeks of cruising, and paying the standard cost of a casual extreme food poisoning, the road was set to Honduras.

The first destination there has been Utila, in the Bay Islands. It remains the cheapest diving paradise on the globe, and flying underwater was the main activity. The place is a chill-vortex, and the amount of travellers stuck on the island for months speaks for it.

Pit-stop then to the Copan ruinas, a mind-blowing Mayan's heritage, and a perfect apetizer to the following journey in Guatemala. Hey ! And by the way, thank you so very much to Linda and Chris for everything...

Here are some shots of both countries:
1 - As an album
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/72157621105521094/

2 - As a slideshow
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/72157621105521094/show/

08 March 2009

Brazil

Some of you have clearer insight of what the first ten days of the journey has been. There isn’t much I can verbalize here, nor share trivially on a blog, but we’ve encountered there a great deal of Magic. It’s been a few-years long awaited shamanic travel, that touched and marked us beyond all expectations. We all grew up and came back stronger from the ride, individually for very different reasons. I’m happy to share with anyone who would want to know more about it…Just write me.
Mathieu, and obviously Gideon, in the name of all of us, thank you for having lead us to open these doors.

That done, here are Avy and Stef on the go, up north to Alto Paraiso, west-inland from Brazilia, in the land of crystal and waterfalls.
The village is settled on the edge of the Chapada de Vadeiros, a protected area in the middle of the Brazilian Serrada. This is the second biggest ecosystem in Brazil, after the Amazonian forest, holding 33% of the country’s biodiversity. As of today, only 16% is left of what the Serrada used to be. Most of the land is now used for soja plantations, which is shipped mostly to Europe to feed the cattle of meat industry. Hey. Sorry for the demagogic environmental blabla, but when you’ll flip through my pictures, just keep in mind that most of it is now gone so that we can enjoy our meat back home.

Swimming in crystal clear waterfalls, Toucan birds passing by, all that so very cliché of paradise that Avy and I had to laugh our hearts loud.

After 3 weeks of Ancestral Magic and nature at its best, how could Avy and I resist to the call of the dance-floor? As the carnival was raging in Rio and Sao Paulo, here we are on the go for Soulvision 2009, in Altinopolis. I would lie if I said I came there with high expectations, but both of us will remember those five days for long. Welcomed as family by the Tribe, mostly onstage meeting all the great names we cherish for years, receiving a million hugs and thank yous, along with fresh killer sound. Pfffffffff. Wow.

Four days and four nights of dancing later, back to Sao Paulo where I had to say good-bye to Avy, back to France. From there, after some clubbing, Edhec meeting and Ableton Live teaching, I made my way back up north to Trancoso, from where I write you now.

The tiny village perched on a cliff, above white sand and coconut trees kilometres-long shore, is now my base, and as much as there is to discover around, I have to say that I feel now here kinda like home. Probably lazy for the days to come…

Next steps for me now: Rio de Janeiro for Danielle’s birthday in a couple of weeks, and a very new chapter of the Stefworldtour starting March 26th, direction Costa Rica, where my little finger tells me my heart will explode.

That’s it for the blabla. Let me just bore a you a second more with most needed thankyous.

Many many many thanks to Avy for having shared all this with me.
Mathieu, Aurélien, Mylena, Gideon, Orimar, Fabiola, the Frog and all others for having shown us the Light.
Leo Casagrande, your family, girlfriend and tribe, for having welcomed us like brothers and open the doors of your home.
Alban, for the warm unconditional welcoming at your place, truly appreciated.
Stéphane and Théo for having seen you again. Borat for the swim.
And to Malana, Rodrigo, Christof, Charles, Arnauld, Eran, Eliran, M-Theory, Shone Gobe, Ivys, Defo, and all the Soulvision Tribe for the mornings in heaven.

All the pictures you’ll find in the album down there are a mix-up of the above-mentioned. Here they are:

1- As an album
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/72157613803591154/

2- As a slideshow
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/72157613803591154/show/

05 January 2007

A Six-Month Long Landing

Someone told me the day I left traveling: “Relax. Leaving isn’t the hard part of the journey. Coming back is…” Experience proved him right, and the maneuver was touchy. This picture sums-up pretty good the feeling. Waking up from a long long dream in a war zone…
I guess I broke a new record in the history of civil aviation. A six-month-long landing to get my aircraft down on reality field. I’ve kept bouncing up and down, traveling here and about, started a working on a book (thank you Cedrik, my agent, for still holding on), decided to do something more serious about photography, lived in a thousand different places, on a million different couches (thank you all for making me the luckiest homeless person on earth).
I considered leaving for another year, but decided to settle for a while. I’m not done with my traveling, and I promise this very diary will be again full of new discoveries, but I still have a lifetime.
I got two of my closest friends married, who actually were the reason I came back (they might have saved my life, according to some).
I found myself in Corsica for this purpose, Switzerland in the mountains, Berlin with my team and silver companion, Turkey with the guys-gang to celebrate our 30th birthday and 10 years of friendship, Israel to catch up with family and friends, unfortunately during the Lebanese conflict, and came back and left France about a dozen times, where I am settled now.
As for those three guys pilled up over me on the black and white shot, they are my traveling dream team, Ruth, Natalia and Tai. We shared a common fairy tale in India, and were so happy to be back together after having been split for so long.

I’ve gone through my Black Box today and recovered some snapshots. Sorry though for the Israeli crew, no images from there. Random selection, nothing fancy, just so that you can assess that life still is a party, and always will. Those are some of my friends and family back home.

1- As a Album
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/72157594436869440/

2- As a Slideshow (there is a timer you can set passing upper part of the pics)

15 May 2006

Easter Island - Climax of Mystery

Easter Island was meant to be a pit-stop. Simply turned out to be the most intense place I've experienced in my life. The most isolated piece of land on the globe sweats mystery, intensity, mysticism...As for landscape: volcanic. In every respect...
Get the feeling of riding a bike surrounded by wild horses, aiming in the horizon at 15 giants statues facing the ocean...Simply no words for it...

Please help yourself and get a glimpse.
1- As an Album
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/72057594128381891/

2- As an Slideshow (there is a timer you can set passing upper part of the pics)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/72057594128381891/show/

14 May 2006

New Zealand - In the Hands of Mother

I've done it. Experienced the happy-hippie life. Bought a van, that I called home. Decorated it, and launched the cruise...My garden ? A shore, a field, a forest...Whatever was the mood of the day.
The lesson New Zealand offered me, I wish I could give it back to all of you as a simple download on this blog. A mind-set everybody should be entitled to lock and cherish. An absolute, unconditional, non-questionable respect to the power of Nature. This country isn't about humans. Only very few of them crossed my way. It's been true silence, living like an hermit, mesmerized everyday by a Nature's showcase. Perfection.
As cheesy as it will sound, my friends, I felt everyday like her son. Like we were all its siblings. She is our Mother. Of us all. As much as we like to look down at it, she decides, breeds and feeds. Walk in a forest, once, slowly, and just listen. It breathes. It moves. It grows. It sleeps...As alive as we are. If not more. And being in her arms, for so long, felt safe and warm. Well. Warm. You see what I mean...

To Laura, her housemates, Tracey and her family for the human dimension of the discovery...

For once, the pictures aren't about people...She deserves it.
1- As an Album
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/72057594106746613/

2- As a Slideshow
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/72057594106746613/show/

10 May 2006

Tahiti / Moorea - Lost Paradise

Tahiti has unfortunately been a missed appointment. I was planning to stay for a longer while on lost paradise, but friends can't wait. Especially the ones getting married. I'll call it a date anyway, and will come back. I have to.
Postcards don't lie. Women, beaches, mountains are pristine. Flowers around necks, and lying on the sand. Nobody moving beyond first gear...Palmtrees...The whole drill. Short album on this one. Simply a teaser.

1- Album
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/72057594127536694/

2- Slideshow
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/72057594127536694/show/

21 March 2006

Thailand & Laos - Mini Series

All right. I could have made up tons of stories of big white sharks, man hunters, deadly spiders, erupting volcanos, and near-death experiences, but the very truth is that you could be 8 years old and blind, and travel through those both countries. It's been nothing but vacations.
So let me try and feel guilty...No...Nothing. Let me try again...Nope...Still not. So guys, you'll forgive me, but it's just been a little bliss of coral reefs, hill-tribes, hammocks, trance-parties organizing, and I just feel great about it.
Again, my lucky star tossed on my way some great companions, Austrian punk-rock band, Israeli gangs, Lior, Elia, Swedish fairies, German divers, London smilers...
Like for Tibet, a sound advice. If you are planning to visit Laos, rush. Now. In 5 years, nothing will be left of whatever authenticity.
As for Thailand. Oops !!! Too late...Sorry.

For the pictures, usual drill. Hope they'll give you a glimpse of how beautiful those people are. Just a mini-series for both countries.
1- As an Album
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/72057594081951446/

2- As a Slideshow
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/72057594081951446/show/

06 February 2006

India - Part 2: One Country / A Thousand Colors



Second part of this journey in India, after coming back from Myanmar, has brought what have simply been the most intense and beautiful months of my life (it's funny how everyday seems to be again the most beautiful day of my life. My happiness starts to be a worry).

From the people my lucky (silver) star brought on my road, first. Ruth, Tai, Natalia, Jo, Je, Danny, Pino, Celina, Manish, Charlotte, Avit, Alon...Fire-starters and beautiful souls. We've been giving each other a lot, and I can't thank you enough for what I got from you: a warm heart, and wide-open eyes.

India itself ? A 10,000 faces country, pushing you through 15 emotions in one day, that would take you a month to experience back home. Ups and downs. Strikingly interactive. As if Indian had a sixth-sense westerners forgot. If you're happy, events and people will shine around you. If you're angry, or on the defensive, be sure to open your catastrophe-umbrella before going out. It is a fight and a cuddle. Exhausting, draining, but god...so much worth it.

From Calcutta to Pondicherry and Auroville, travelling Kerala with my sister, cruising the dance-floors of Goa, joining 200,000 Tibetans around the Dalai-Lama for Kalachakra, retreating in the mountains, I've seen a same country under a thousand different lights. Kaleidoscopic travelling.

Kalachakra...A ceremony taking place every year, a teaching preaching World Peace, attended by both exiled and in-land Tibetans, making their way to the Dalai Lama in India, some of them dying on their journey, some others on their way back, some meeting their families for the first time in 40 years. There is very little to say about how it feels to be surrounded by a nation gathering, sometimes at the expense of their own lives, to preach for nothing but World Peace. You'll see some Tibetans again in this picture album. That's who they are...

More pictures of India in the Varanasi posting, down on the blog...

28 January 2006

Peace Workers: We all make the difference...

For new year's eve, I'd like to go with a little story. A high tide is tossing thousands of fish on a shore, and slowly all of them are on their way dying. A man passing by goes down to them, and drops two back in the water, then two others...Another man walks to him and says: "My friend, what you're doing won't make any difference. Can't you see how many they are? Go home. Leave it". The other grabs a fish from the sand, and before putting it back in the water answers: "For this very one, my friend, it is making a huge difference". This story is the motto of Peace Workers, an freshly-born organisation that crossed my road, helping a lot in many fields, hoping to spread around and open eyes. I'm not advertising an NGO, but sharing what I've thought being a moving philosophy. So here's my very private New Year's eve wish for all of us: rather than keeping saying that all troubles we read and hear are just out-of-reach, how about we all save a single fish from our own waters this year? Just one. And start making a difference...

25 November 2005

Myanmar (Burma)

This month felt like a year. A full-on ride. Country is vibrating from the beauty of its people. Openly warm, as shown by all the attention and affection I've received from a burmese family, that having just heard from me, welcomed me like a brother and a son. Yiyi, Nauwlang, Koukou, Anna, Catherine...I can't thank you more for everything ! You've just made me happy.
Supposely the Pearl of Asia. Let's agree on that. Once you've overcame your fundamental questions such as "why do they all talk about Manchester United all day and ride their bikes with nazi helmets", it's a daily ration of delicious slaps in the face.

Germany and France are doing a damn good job though trashing the main hubs with package tours that gave me the creeps. Visiting monasteries as you'll visit a zoo. I even saw someone bitching at young monks because they were not smiling on a picture. Man. It will be so good to eat you once you'll be an oyster in your next life...
Anyaway. Here are the links to some of the pics...to get a glimpse.

02 November 2005

India - Part 1: Varanasi / Calcutta

Someone said that Varanasi was older than legends, older than tradition and older than history. It looks older than all of them put together I have to agree.
I've just been transiting for few weeks, but have chosen probably the hardest entry point to India. But hey...Ex-New Yorkers believe they can handle anything.
Strange balance of peace and intensity. Enhanced by the sight of burning or floating corpse, at your convenience. It is actually crazy to assess how fast the human mind gets used to it. A matter of minutes. Death suddenly feels like nothing...
Mmmmmm....Maybe I need a beach resort for a few days...???
Here are some few pictures
1- As a Slideshow

28 October 2005

Nepal


Nepal has been a smooth ride. I was that close to have you guys winning your bet, that I would never leave Kathmandu. After a month and a half, I felt like home, had an everyday life and my habits, my friends. Special thanks to Raj, Nima, Aino, Ken, Olli, Laura, Josh, Guillemette, Clinton, Shiva and the others to have made my entry point so easy. Nepali can't be more smiling and friendly, and cruising around the country was made pretty easy. Overall political climate, even though unfelt mostly by tourists, cast a cloud over the bright picture... Despite recent cease-fire, super sad stories are still heard of.
Trekking the Annapurna was an everyday slap in the face. Please. If you smoke a pack a day, and like your daily drink, please come enjoy a 330 km walk with a 5 416m-high pass, carry a 13 kgs backpack, and come dance in the clouds. I can't remember having both enjoyed and suffered that much...
As a matter of sweating a last time, bungy-jumped 160 m with a 2 hours-fresh hangover. Better than Nurofen.

Here are some of my pictures from Nepal

1- As a Slideshow
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/1189956/show/

2- As an Album
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/1189956/

22 October 2005

Tibet

This trip to Tibet has been truly overwhelming. I came back exhausted, both physically and nervously. Waited a month to get in, so that the chinese could re-open the border, that they decided to close to celebrate in family the invasion ("The Liberation" for them) 40 years ago. I'll try to stay polite and won't expand.
The country is as I was expecting it. Breathtaking sights, beautiful people, mind-blogging temples' athmospheres.
Day-after-day, though, chinese military enjoy making your life miserable, and suck the happiness out of your blood, twisting your nerves.
Supposed to fly back from Lhassa, we had to ride back in Landcruiser all the way down south, for a missing piece of paper. When militaries are not sleeping, they're just non-sense-mind-crushing worms...
I guess that the Beijing-to-Lhassa train, opening in 2007, will finish to trash the place. If you have any will to go there, please hurry...
Hope you'll get a glimpse of the athmosphere through the pics. Despite the above-mentionned circumstances, this place is paradise...

Here are the links
1- As a Slideshow

15 August 2005

Sur Les Routes de Kathmandu


That's what I call a departure bash! It's been so good to have you all before I left. It's been so good to feel pushed by all my friends. You'll find few pics on the link below. I love you all. Please take a super good care of yourself during this year.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefworldtour/sets/743549/

ps: when you play the pictures as a slideshow, pass the mouse over one of the pictures to hide the thumbnails and enjoy a full view...

21 July 2005

How does it work ????

Hello everybody !! I might not do the whole blog in english during the trip, but wanted at least to give basic explanations that way.
This will be my travel agenda, and I'll keep you posted on future updates.
There is an additional link "All My Pictures" where I'll post all my pics on my way. Check it from time to time if you want to see my growing beard and hair. Lots of love to everyone...On my way to post pictures of our demented departure and birthdays bash... ;-) Stef