Trip update & final route

Yes, in this Friday August 16th, I just decided few things about my trip after few weeks brainstorming about them:
1. I will extend the trip :-) No return to Geneva anymore in few days, but Mid October at the earliest, end November at the latest
2. I will divert a bit (a lot!!!) my route, as I will go US & Canada after a week in Brazil, and will come back to Brazil afterwards...

So why all this?

Well, the most important point I think, is that after few months traveling, I really love it, and I am comfortable not having a job, nor being registered to any unemployment benefits. I thought it was risky, but as was commenting a friend... it might be even more risky to not live the dream fully! ;-)

I have to admit I was a bit scared back in March to be without a job for more than 4-5 months, and to not look seriously for another one, but now... Now I am sure traveling few months more will enrich me personally much more than coming back to Europe, and trying to "secure" a job or benefits without a real purpose. So yes I will keep spending more the savings hardly earned in the last years, but this travel time is so special, good, precious, unique.
The return to reality might be tough, but I am well aware of this and feel anyhow that after 7-8 months of travel, I will want to go back and find a work: my brain needs challenge & activity!

On the route itself, well... clearly, US & Canada are not really close to Brazil and on the way back to Europe, but I have friends getting married in New-York, and I just do not want to miss this. Plus it will give me the opportunity to see good friends, then travel to Chicago, Toronto, Montréal & Quebec which I have not seen yet.

After US & Canada, I'll be back to Brazil / Rio, head quickly to Paraguay /Asuncion, go see Iguazu falls, then will go around the country to see Sao Paulo, the Amazon, the North & East  coasts. Many more exciting adventures to come and tell!! :-)))

My world-map flights are now all over the place, up and down North / South few times, and the total km I will be flying are insane... I am not sure yet how many hours I will have spent in planes & airports, but that is for sure a lot. Hopefully, it is a personal trip.
Also, I will definitely have to plant few trees (or a forest?) to balance my terrible 2013 carbon footprint!

Crossing the Pacific: how I gained 1 day :)

When you do a round-the-world trip, crossing the Pacific is a dream. Or at least for me it was, as a European, or because it always looked crazy to me that you could reach those 2 extremities of the world-map in 1 flight.
Crossing the Atlantic has been a common trip for me in the last 10 years..., but flying over the Pacific has been an hypothetic move, which I wasn't supposed to do unless I would lived East of Asia or West of US and going to the other side.

With a RTW trip, clearly, you have to cross all oceans :-). So I was looking forward to this trip, even though it has been a long one as I was going from New-Zealand, back to Australia, followed by US/LA, then Panama... in total, 46h of trip for me, but only 26h for my watch. I gained 20h :-)

In details, it happened like this:
- left my Auckland hotel Monday June 17th, 7am
- after missing my 7:30am flight... (humm... yeah i was late, partied on Sunday night, hopefully I had put some buffer here), I grab the 9am flight
- flew for 3h... and landed in Sydney at 10am
- boarded the 747 plane at 1:30pm, to take-off at 2pm... but technical issues made us stay on the ground, in the heat, for 3h before to finally take-off at 5pm
- 13h flight... :-/
- landing in LA around noon, still Monday 17th!
- stayed 2h in the airport to solve administrative, travel issues
- went to the beach 7h
- back to check-in and wait at the lounge at 9pm, for 2h30
- board the plane at 11:30pm then take-off midnight
- land in Panama City at 8am after 5h of flight
- reach my friend's flat Tuesday June 18th, at 9am

Spending more than 16h in the same plane was quite "constraining", but I still liked this crossing experience, thinking/dreaming while I was sleeping that I was traveling in time. As I will not fly in the other direction and "lose" 1 day, I have really gained that day. If you look at me, think I am actually 1 day older than I am saying ;-))
Also, I wonder if we would keep flying a plane eastward, we could gain months, or even years I think... why has no one ever done that to travel in time?

Panama's Caribbean coast view before to land

The LA beach break
Otherwise, with a 12h break in LA airport... I grabbed a taxi to spend the afternoon on the beach. A bit costly for the round-trip ride, but so much better than waiting inside an old airport hall!!

I went to Manhattan beach pier, then walked to Hermosa beach, which looked nicer. As before, a lot of volley-ball courts and players, a lot of runners & walkers... the active & fit California I knew!

An american sandwich. i.e., put as much as possible between
those 2 bread slices...

Hermosa beach waterfront

Los Angeles's bay

wow, I could order a beer without showing my ID...
Definitely older than 10 years ago!

Volley-ball court, sunset & the Californian Republic flag

Last days in Africa & some thoughts

Oh!!!!!! What a lazy boy I have been since 2 weeks to not post the below. Ok, here it is then :)

WOW (#??), so I have made it, crossed a good part of the Southern Africa continent, doing more than

7,000 km by bus, taxi or truck and flying "only" 2,200 km. Sleeping in more than 21 different places and discovering more than 30 places/cities.
I am ending this RTW (the classic acronym for Round-The-World) part 1 with another 3 days in Jo-Burg then I'll fly out to Dubai... really had a great time there, I will miss it.










In Johannesburg, I got the chance to get my friend Sina from Geneva who unexpectedly took a week-off to fly down there see Aurelien and me too then :-). Good to catch up with friends from home and hear the latest gossips.

Sina and I take the opportunity to see a bit more of Jo-Burg, with quite a trip in the dark side of the CBD district, to see the National Museum... The trip to the museum location was more the highlight than the museum itself: in the middle of this previous central & rich area occupied by whites until the end of Apartheid, buildings are squatted by blacks only since the early 90s, with their own set of rules. Very lively though, but it's true, a bit scary! ;-) You better not be white and/or not from there once night is down.

Inside the museum... nice building, but more European artefacts inside than African ones, it's a pity.  

Sina in admiration of a local contemporary item (no kidding, it was really exhibited as art... I got more pictures...)

 A view on few CBD buildings and a busy market

Views of Jo-Burg from the Top of Africa (50th floor)

We end these 3 days with a good party of course, even though on Wednesday evening it is not that crazy in Jo-Burg!!

Southern Africa
It was so great to discover this world part. I will definitely come back, and want to see few places I could not go to. My highlight, if I only quote one, would be the Namib red dunes...I could get few days there, contemplating this huge but unwelcoming area, where the sun and wind play with the shapes and colors all day.

I'm not going to pretend I know the continent after just few weeks of traveling down there and 5 countries partially discovered... But can still say few points (i hope ;):
- Great to see how the 2 previously-opposed "colors" in South Africa try to live together now, even though it is of course not easy. Many challenges remain, and the gap created with a century of low to non education of blacks make the challenge bigger. I deeply & sincerely hope this keeps improving over time, now that the young "peaches" & "browns" (the new name children learn at school to name whites & blacks, I like it, quite symbolic) are a bit more mixed and live together from a young age.
- The variety of landscape is amazing, and I had never realized that Souther Africa mostly stand as a "mountain" for us Europeans... most of this Africa continent part is indeed standing at 1,000m or more (Jo-Burg is at 1,500m), making it of course a great base for canyons & falls sceneries.
- The special atmosphere of Africa is really great to experience. It sounds to me it can be lay down around 2 points:
   1. "Beautiful Africa": yes, environment and wildlife makes it beautiful, as well as people and their natural joy, songs & smiles. They are right to be proud of being from Africa :)
   2. "This Is Africa": the tougher side... used as an excuse to almost all non-working well situation. Which is basically many things... I think this is however overused, and people live it through like things can never improved. They and we shouldn't accept this, there is always room for improvement (is this the business man talking? not even). Hopefully, in Harare I discovered the (new it sounds) concept of TINA for This Is New Africa, which is meant to give back the optimism and hope vs. TIA. Let's hope it helps.
- On many other points, time has been too short to really understand them and what are the potential developments. But you cannot travel there without hearing about the serious issues on corruption, tribes racism, HIV/AIDS, prostitution / sexual traffics... as anywhere in the world unfortunately, but those seem deeply anchored into some African habits, so I hope they can invent a new way of behaving / living together while growing economically.

Loved you beautiful Africa, see you soon xxx

`

Blog updates

So... catching on the blog since yesterday, here in Harare, while enjoying the HIFA festival. It is true it is quite some work to have a blog, but I like it.
It helps me to note down a bit everything that I am doing and seeing, and I am sure this will be great when looking back at this trip in few & many years.

I am about a week late... just uploaded the Chobe park pics, and I have to now choose the Victoria Falls pics (really amazing), then talk about the Zimbabwe adventure to the Great Zim ruins and here in Harare.

Now flying back to Johannesburg for few days, where I will end this African part of my world tour... I feel a bit sad about this, but also very eager to keep touring the planet! :)

Road trip start :)

Saturday afternoon April 13th

Et voilà, our group of 9 persons meet the truck which will carry us, our bags and all the camping stuff to go through North South Africa, Namibia, Botswana then Zambia, with the Victoria Falls as final goal. With of course, many many things and landscapes to discover on the road :)



More details on the trip: http://www.acacia-africa.com/acacia_overland/desert_tracker_19_days_2013.php

The group is quite diverse and friendly, with 3 Australians, 2 New-Zealanders, 1 Korean, 1 Spanish and 1 German.

We start driving for 3 hours through the Northern Cape towards the wine wards of Cederberg and Stellenbosch, with nice views on the way, which have almost some Mediterranean feel ;)














View from inside the truck /bus (a 24 seaters but we are only 9)

In the evening, after learning how to mount the tents and all the things for cooking & co with the truck, we have a good wine tasting session, perfect to meet each other. The wines and the tasting are a bit poorer than what I am used to in France / Europe... but I am being picky and an arrogant French here ;) Still bought few bottles for the road, of course!

The start: a rush departure!

WOW. So I made it!!! I am in this 2pm train leading me to Frankfurt, where I start flying around the world :-). I really thought I would never get there:
- only had 4-5 weeks to prepare this trip
- this morning status wasn't promising for a successful start... my bag wasn’t prepared at all, my flat up and down with stuff all over, my 2012 taxes  unfinished...
Finishing the taxes at 10am, flat finally cleaned at 12:30pm, I have about 1h max to gather my clothes and stuff in my bag... Well, it worked, as I am now in the train, crazy! Almost "as usual" for me, but I definitely stretched it this time!

How did I end up in this journey? 2 months ago, I would have never ever thought I would do this "round-the-world" tour.

Early January, I was still enjoying New-York City after New-Year, thinking it would be the best city for me to move to. Then things and events accelerated. Back to Geneva, it was clear I could not keep long doing what I was doing. My job and the team I was working with was good, but I was looking for more and most of all, in a different place.
A job proposal in Dubai made me believed I could be able to find another job whatever I would be doing... So I took a risk: I quit my job, did not accept the Dubai's offer, and decided to start planning my dream trip: a round-the-world :-))

End-February, once out of P&G, I start looking at what it takes to tour the world from East to West. And I quickly realized that organizing this kind of trip isn’t that easy. People are usually preparing it months to 1-2 years ahead, studying destinations and options.

Ok, I cannot afford to take that time, so what should I do? Take a prepared world-tour package as some operators specialized themselves in? Focus just on 1 region and not disperse myself?

No way for that 2nd option, doing a tour around the planet always sounded amazing to me. Not sure if I read too much Jules Vernes "80 days around the world", or looked too much at airlines world-map routes while flying in the last 7 years... So I choose the 3rd option of course: I'll organize just the minimum in the next 3-4 weeks, then I will sort things out on the way!

After many calls with Star Alliance / Lufthansa, I can sort out a world-tour ticket. Then I sort out the medical/ vaccines points, get a new passport with many white pages, and that's it, it should be enough to make this dream happen! 

This is where I am now. In few hours I will be in this Frankfurt to Johannesburg flight, reaching South Africa early Friday morning to meet a friend living there. The 2 first nights are sorted out, then we'll see... let the adventure begins!

The plastic boy I was offered by Geneva friends... he needs to come everywhere with me ;)
Also few books in the background to prepare a bit!

That's it, I left... bye-bye Geneva, hello the world :-)