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- We started the trip as The Nashville
Sprockets performing a show with Coreen Hartley,stilt
walker and country singer. Pascal Cornier, a French
engineer, joined us in Italy with his dog Cartouche.
They were part of the group until Goa, India.
- Aaaaah... Italy, good weather, great
food, generous people.
- Julien was mistaken for an Albanian
(!?) in Crete and was arrested and beaten up by
two dreadful policemen. When we finally found him,
his face was ashen, his shirt was torn and he was
shaking with fear. Despite us presenting his passport,
they still kept him overnight and threated to lock
us up. Beware of Greece, we won't be back.
- In Olympos, Turkey, we were invited
to stay at Kadir's Top Tree House. We liked it so
much, we stayed and stayed and stayed.... After
6 weeks of performing and saving money, it was time
to hit the road again.
- With us came 4 passengers to help
with the finances. John and Jayson left us in Bam,
Iran. Kate hoped out in Delhi, India and Billy came
all the way to Goa, India.
- After the excessive heat and overwhelming
crowds of India, Nepal was a relief.
- We were the first Western circus
to take our show in our rucksacks and perform to
the villages along the Anapurna trek in Nepal.
- Whilst working with children on
a holiday camp, 18 km from the Tibetan border, we
met Sandji, principal of The British School. She
invited us back to her school in Katmandu, where
for three months we taught the children circus skills
and helped the year 6 to put on their own production.
- Theo had Malaria in Calcutta and
Scott in Bangladesh.
- In Bangladesh, living in the bus
was rendered impossible by the heat, the mosquitoes
and the overwhelming crowd. We were lucky to meet
the Whitlesey family who put us up in their house
for over 3 months whilst we were trying to
organise a boat for Singapore. They turned a nightmare
into a fun, enjoyable and unforgettable moment of
this trip.
- The Millennium didn't really happen
for us as we were stuck in Bangladesh where the
official year was 1406.
- We performed the same show for the
richest and the poorest (i.e.: The Sultan of Brunei
and the street kids of Calcutta and Bangladesh).
- We couldn't save money in Thailand
so we flew from Bangkok to Japan where we performed
for 2 months.
- Working for the Festival of Darwin
was the high point of the Australian tour... run
of course by an Italian, Fabulous Fabrizio (as we
call him).
- Most of the people of Queensland
were perhaps the meanest and least receptive of
this trip...
- Whilst we tend to generalise about
the people of countries and regions, it is the individuals
whom we met that made this trip possible. In Queensland
we met Heidi who put a smile on our faces and is
the creator of this website.
- Returning to New South Wales, the
Australian tour ended abruptly when we met Scott
Bordie and Jerry Furnace, rangers of Byron bay shire.
They reported us to the Immigration for entertaining
hundreds of families in front of the bus whilst being
holders of a tourist visa...
- ...Thank you for sending us to a
better place, New-Zealand was a totally different
matter. The Immigration proved less heartless. They
thought our story interesting enough to give us
a one year working visa.
- After Asia and the misfortunes of
Australia, the friendly people and the green countryside
of NZ has invigorated us. Recharged, we are now
full of hope and excitement for the rest of the
NZ tour and the other half of the world tour.
- We were flown to Dubai for the 10
weeks Summer Surprises Festival, by Sid and Max
of Circus Works, whilst Theo enjoyed his stay in
NZ with Julien, where he started learning how to
read at the Takaka Primary school in Golden Bay.
- Julien fell in love for New Zealand
and decided to leave the Sprockets to continue his
work as a sculpteur.
- It was the generosity of the people
in New Zealand that enabled us to go to South America
and meet Patogiro, Mauricio and Felipe with whom
our life has certainly taken off in a new direction.
- In Chile, we were amazed by the
thousands of talented jugglers, acrobats and aerial
artists busking at traffic lights.
- It is in Valpairaiso, Chile, that
we met up with Mauricio and Felipe. Together we
exchanged skills and ideas and work on a new show
incorporating Aerial skills. It is with this new
fun group (and family) that we toured South America.
- In Peru,173 km North of Lima, we
unfortunatly met the most talented bunch of thieves
on the trip to date. They liberated us of the 3
Deutch bykes that we had from the beginning of this
trip, Theo's BMX and every bycicle wheels not chained
up. They were so quiet that also we were sleeping
inches away in the bus,we didn't hear a sound.
- In Quito, Ecuador, We met Ariel
Tozi who was fantastic at helping us getting contracts
and finding a school for Theo.
- Colombia, the world's most beautifull
country with the world worst press.
- Cali, Colombia, we encoutered "Circo
para todos", a social circus school, who provided
us with a place to park the bus and to train and
amazed us by their high skills.
- It is in "Circo para todos"
that we left the bus while we went touring Brazil
(The Amazone), Uruguay and Argentina.
- Whiles back in Chile to pass their
driving test, Mauricio and Felipe met up with Royal
de Luxe, a French theatre company and were invited
to join them for a few months. A few month that
might turn out to be much more as Mauricio will
soon be a proud dad with Karine, member of Royal
de Luxe.
- In Chichiriviche, Venezuela, Julio
a small bundle of a street dog of about one month
old adopted us and join the travel. It took us days
of queuing in offices in Caracas to get all the
papers work for Julio the dog, to leave Venezuela.
- We couldn't find a boat crossing
from Caracas to Panama at a decent price.
- We finally crossed from Caracas to
Guatemala and so It was with delight that Scott,
Theo, Julio and me arrived in Guatemala to discover
a new continent.
- In Santo Tomas de Castillo, Jo Bertrandon,
Theo's new school teatcher joined us and together
with the CNED (French home schooling), they are
doing a great job.
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