Scanning my way around the globe...

I've been pretty silent lately..

on top on catching up with my former life, i've started scanning my 300+ rolls of films.. and it's a lot of work!

the cool thing about shooting film is... "film?".. sorry: "film", some of you may recall is what your grand parents used to take photographs before cameras became convenient!.. in those prehistoric times cameras had no screen to display the photos and they had to be loaded with a roll of silver coated plastic film that reacted to light... never mind.

the cool thing about shooting film, i was saying, is that on top of carrying 20kg of films on your back all the way, you can't see anything you've shot until you get back home and have it processed.. then only you realize everything is blurred!

..where was i going with this?..

my point -somewhere down the line- was that during all this time i could only imagine the images i had taken, and try to remember my favorite ones... and it's an incredible feeling, a year after, to re-discover all the moments i had captured along the way..

most of them i had forgotten and they awaken tons of memories.. but it's funny also how some images have stuck so vividly to my mind to this day...

this guy for instance, that i met at Dr Pong, in Berlin... it was so bizarre to find him there.. and i only had my CL with a 100ASA film in it, in this dark place (smart me!).. i must have taken these 2 shots at 1/4th of a second or less, handheld.. and i was sooo hoping it would work!

say what you will but i never managed to shoot anything decent below 1/30th with a digital camera.

in crazy Berlin, everything is allowed, from derision to provocation.. or anywhere in between?

Phat come back!

This blog has been created for the sole purpose of showing off in front of my friends, there's no reason i should stop now!

The best thing about not skateboarding for a long time is that you don't expect to be able to do anything; every little success is raw pleasure!

Backside kickflip

Photo: Jean Feil

It's good to feel at home..

..or so i thought until i realised the mess my brother and his friend left in the appartment!

(and that's just after they "did some cleaning up"!)

The most in the world!

After visiting many of the most beautiful places around the world, you may excuse that my standards have reached higher levels and by now, i barely go anywhere unless it's at least the most something in the world...

Here for example, just this morning, a train took me on the southern outskirts of Paris to a fascinating grey building, packed with grey corridors along which are aligned dozens of absolutely identical grey offices containing grey computers... judging by how packed the train was with people eager to get there, i was already sensing this was going to be special, but there i was now and i couldn't help thinking : this got to be the most boring place in the world!

And the good thing is that i'm now going to have heaps of time to explore and appreciate this new -and yet so familiar- environment of mine!




More seriously, the most scary thing of all is how quickly i got thrown back to my parisian life, finding everything unchanged exactly as i left it a year ago, and honestly, if it wasn't for this blog, i would doubt myself that i ever travelled anywhere and that it wasn't just one big fantastic dream!

The earth is round..

...I checked it for myself: after 11 months of travelling east, i finally made it back to my starting point!


Heaps of thanks to the many people i've met and who've helped me in a way or another and became part of this adventure.. special thoughts for

• Mark Nickels
• Claus Heuwinkel and Lina
• Daniel Etter
• Owain Jones
• Liva Krieke
  
• Laura the queen of the R's
• Natalia Ermilova
• Albina
• Vladimir V'yurkov
• Gene Kamushin
• Liliya Filonova
• Sergey
• Assunta and Egidio
• Silvia Gi
• Terry
• Ci Ren Djoma
• Bharat Sherstha and his family
• All my family in India!
• Mary Raja
• Jon West
• Marta Karwowski
• Jana Tegtmeier
• Cedric Zuwala
• Paula and Pablo
• Sebastian Gruenewald
• Katharine Davis
• and all the people i've met even more briefly at some point on the road...

It's a strange feeling when such a big project is finally behind you... it's like "so now what?!"

But i know there still will be more to come.. and i'll keep you posted!

The walls of Buenos Aires..

The last few days in Buenos have been pretty hectic and i found myself caught in a strange remake of Cube! But in spite of not seeing too much of the city, it was a great time and i mostly owe it to our hostess Katharine Davis.. thanks Katharine :-)

So just a last few walls before i say good bye to Buenos Aires...

and this was actually a window, but it still looked cool..

.. good bye Buenos Aires!

My album is out!!

Quick! Go get it!!!


(it's actually the Argentinian artist Charlie Garcia... but you'll have to admit it's somewhat striking!)

On to the final destination!

..there were a few more days of carnaval after that but i decided it costs me way too much in films so i decided to move on this time!

The funny thing after traveling for a while is that you hear yourself say things like "oh it's only 14 hours of bus!"... so 14 hours later i arrived in Cordoba, fresh as a... i don't know! how fresh can you be anyways after 14 hours in a bus?!

After a few hours of walking around Cordoba, i decided that Rosario was only a mere 6 hours away... so i went straight on!

I hung around Rosario for a day, but sunday isn't the most lively day of the week in a provincial Argentinian city... and on monday morning i was in line for the last bus ride of this travel.. 4 hours to Buenos Aires; my port of acclimatation before returning to the real world!

And can you believe it? I didn't tell anyone i was arriving to Buenos Aires, but as soon as i got there they were already all parading to celebrate my arrival!

On top of of the scary witch look -some of you may not have recovered from yet- i've been called "Jesus Christo" by everyone over the past month, with an enthousiasm i couldn't bear anymore! So as part of my reintegration process into the real world i decided it was about time to get trhough a quick relooking...

and guess what.. there was a face underneath all the hair!

well.. it's not much better but at least it'll last me another few months!

The scary old witch!

Shoot.. barely a week before a get back and i haven't given any news in a while!

so... where were we?!

After shooting like a maniac all the colourful mountains in the area, i was about to move on to new adventures.. when a young indigenous went "WHAT?? you can't leave just a day before the biggest cultural event of the year!!"

Absorbed as i was by the crazy landscape, i didn't realise that people had come from all over for the up-coming carnaval... so i postponed my departure a bit..

And sure enough, the next day people started to parade and dance all over the place, giving a totally different feel to the most quiet village of Purmamarca..

and before i could say a thing, i was transformed into a terrible old witch!!... (sensible souls please skip the picture below!)
my friend Basti who manages to look good in any situation got out of this in a much more decent way, i must say!

..then it went darker and the music went louder and last thing i remember it was somewhere around 6 in the morning and i collapsed in my dorm bed!

Pumamarca y los salinas grandes

A quick fix before i get started.. obviously my last entry was misunderstood: I am not in Bolivia! Actually i won't have time to make it to Bolivia (hence the hilarious "i can't bolivia" pun.. ha ha ha.. hum) so from here i go back down towards Buenos Aires (with a couple of stops on the way)..

So were was i?

After another shower in Tilcara..

and a beer to let it pass..

and a quick stop in over-praised Humauaca..

admiring the view on the giant quebrada..

we finally found THE dream spot!.. the tiny village of Pumamarca has the best view on the quebrada de Humauaca that we've found so far.. if Cafayate was bright red, this is just a mountain carnaval!! Red, green, yellow, turquoise, violet, blue, orange.. you name it, this place is out of control!

just to give you an idea...

These mountains alone would make this place the most beautiful in northern Argentina.. but on top of that, close to here are the Salinas grandes.. a fantastic salt desert similar to Chile's Atacama desert (i sure can tell you about it, i've never been there!), but this place, if not as famous, was beyond my expectations!

we even had a beautifu sunset with a storm coming on us for a more dramatic sky effect!
burning shadows in the setting sun..

and a little fire juggling for the folklore!

and of course no proper excursion would be complete without the traditional group photo!

I can't Boliv'ya!!

The more i travel north towards Bolivia and the more fascinating it gets.. the landscapes, the villages, the people.. everything.. and now, as awkward as it seems after almost a year of travelling, i find myself counting the days for what i can still squeeze in before my return... but there's just no way; as much as i'd love to, I can't Bolivia!

Although, entering the last and northmost province of Jujuy, i got a pretty good preview.. the contrast seems pretty sharp with the rest of the country: the architecture, the faces.. just 3 hours north of Salta and everything is different -not the street names of course!- i feel like i've crossed the border already.. and this province is obviously much poorer than the others..

Another unexpected contrast of this country is that the more you travel north towards the "desert" and the more it rains!!.. the past 10 days, since we reached Tucuman, have been drowned in frequent and heavy rains.. deserts are never quite what you expect them to be!

Salt'Art!