Several hours of flight, quite a long time of waiting, 2 different airlines, I set foot in Denpasar, the lively capital city of Bali. The 4-letter enumeration of this bit of land announces some idyllic holidays on a heavenly island for a lot of people. My family picks me up at the airport with a large smile. Quite 2 months we haven't seen at each other. Everything seems to go by so fast. We negotiate a bemo (local van) to rush to the Legian district. The Legian and Kuta area gathers a great number of tourists and all the relating economy. Succession of hotels, restaurants, travel agencies, craft and surf shops. The urge is too tempting. Several years Jo and I have dreamt of breaking waves, tubes and gliding. Being at one with the ocean. Alone with his board to stroke the element. More than a sport, the surf enthusiasts consider it to be a way of life. Perhaps it will be ours in a few hours after our introductory session. On the beach, every 50 meters, stalls offer boards for rent. Longboard, mini-malibu or thruster, we quickly learn the terms. We book a 2-hour lesson. Private coaching on the beach, our instructor breaks down the moves to stand up. Then, the board wedged under the armpit, we cheerfully walk towards the waves. A set of advice later, a special pleasure-tinted feeling overwhelms me. I keep standing on the board! The road is still hazardous before turning in the giant waves but the joy is definitely here, as an obvious fact.
But the learning will be still long, very long... Because before being on the front cover of the surf magazines, We entered for the greatest fall competition.
Armelle and Magali join us and the entire team is gathered for a 15-day Balinese adventure. Loving reunion.
To extend the soft and gilded Kuta life, We go to visit the south of the island. Balangan, Dreamland or Padang-Padang, a coconut-trees-fringed or cliff-flanked paradise. Something in common goes through these light-sanded strips watered by shapely breaker. While we look at the surfers and body-boarders who compete for a wave, a leitmotiv constantly comes back. Dumbstruck, our look doesn't come off these heavenly expanses any more ; last shangri-la for the people stressed by the urban hubbub.
Our eyes decipher the waves in the distance. Only a board is missing...
At the end of the day, we visit the Uluwatu temple. Sanctuary of more-or-less-aggressive monkeys which have the unfortunate tendency of grabbing everything that juts out from the pockets. The sun goes down on the horizon, our eyes leap from the ocean to the reddening sky. The twilight sweeps away the last rays of this wonderful day.
Keyword - first steps -
Tuesday 12 August 2008
Discovering the surf at Bali
By dorian on Tuesday 12 August 2008, 18:19 - RTW2-Indonesia
Monday 16 June 2008
From a cape to another one
By dorian on Monday 16 June 2008, 16:08 - RTW2-South Africa
A 10-hour flight to leap from an hemisphere to the other. I fall asleep in London and I wake up in the Nelson Mandela's country. As the plane goes up to the airstrip, a stack of corrugated iron and twisted wood shape a makeshift city. Shanty towns stretch out over hectares and reflect the image of a sad reality ; the stakes of a country who, clearing away the evil spirit of Apartheid must bustle about filling the disparities between two universes – the opulence one and the need one – who justapose without looking at each other nor confront one another.
The recent events causing the flight of herds of Zimbabwean immigrants don't put my mind at rest while I put the foot down on the African ground. I disembark in a small airport – Welcome to Cape Town. I load my bag, take some information from the tourist office before hopping on a collective taxi that drops me off by the guesthouse where I have an appointment with my brother and his friend Ronan.
We hire an Opel Corsa that will acompagny us throughout our African odyssey. And our first outing has a still mythic name for generations of navigators and explorers : the cape of good hope. Vasco de Gama was the first one to open the maritime way to the Indian subcontinent skirting around Africa and, not far from the rocky promontory, a cruce has been erected in tribute to the great navigator he was. Along the road, small seaports brighten up the ride. Winds and bad weather are the everyday life of the intrepid sailors who lives here.
Our road stops at the end of the peninsula. Welcome to Cape point, a jagged lighthouse-topped hillock. A cable-car saves the laziest people walking uphill. Beyond the luminous marker, millions of cubic meters of water separate us from Antartica, the white continent.
On the right side, about one hundred meter away from Cape point, the foam runs aground the cape of good hope. And for the sailors, the ending sign of heading south. Bear to port! Still a few miles and the sailing northwards the African continent will be started. The cap of good hope is not the southernmost point of Africa since it was supplanted by the Agulhas cape but it's far more representative in the change of heading that the boat took and keep on taking.
The wind pulls our last remaining hair out but the view of the breathtaking cliffs of Cape point is worth struggling few minutes against Eole.
On the way back, we make a short break at Boulders beach where few families of penguins settled. Uneasy to near them. So we sit down and delight in these moments.
In the evening, we chat with Zimbabweans, Congolese and South-africans who, despite the political tension in their respective countries share a certain joie de vivre. The first day of my round-the-world trip ends, far from the apprehension I had this morning as I arrived... A day which starts a 2-month African adventure between deserts, safaris, meetings and a laidback way of life only Africa can offer.
Tuesday 4 December 2007
In the sweet Argentinian capital city
By dorian on Tuesday 4 December 2007, 18:13 - RTW-Argentina
I arrive in Argentina with a few clichés in my mind: football, tango and meat. My first steps in Buenos Aires will prove me that a trip in Argentina is not only these 3 words.
However, it's true that here, the football is a religion and Diego Maradona is a legend. As such, I quickly learned I didn't have to say his name and it was better to call him "El Diego". It's true as well that a part of Buenos Aires lives at the rate of the milongas where we can watch or learn how to dance the Argentinian tango. A sensual and complex dance. It's still true we can enjoy a thick steak which covers the three-quarters of the plate without paying out more than 5 euros. But it's not for these clichés we like Buenos Aires but for its lively, fiesta-like and epicurean atmosphere. For its smiling and warm-hearted inhabitants. I don't really like the cities in general but I like Buenos Aires.
During an afternoon, I go to the Bombonera stadium to share the deep passion of the Boca Juniors supporters. A seething atmosphere where the bleachers tremble and the singings resound.
I wander about the San Telmo and Micro Centro districts where European architecture and rushing people match. I escape a little bit further for a colourful stroll in the "El caminito" symbolic street of the Boca district. An extract of Argentinian culture.
Waiting for heading to the Iguazu falls, in the northeast of the country, I go to enjoy a savoury steak in a black pepper sauce. A necessary fill-up of proteins to intensely live a 20-h bus trip.
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