Stories and photos by Rene Cormier
Click on image for info on the ’09 calendars
Welcome to the homepage of the Around The World With Rene
(ATWWR) series of articles – chronicling the five and a half
years/154,000 km journey of Edmontonian Rene Cormier as he traversed
the globe on his BMW F650GS motorcycle.
To see each update click on the title image below. Please note that we tried two different formats of updates – standard articles and photo essays – to try and best portray Rene’s experiences.
THE RENE FILES
 |
Story
Before
Africa there was the Americas! It took Rene a couple of years to
complete this leg of his journey but we didn’t stumble across his
travels until he’d just finished it. North and South America squeezed into one handy update.
|
 |
Photo Essay
The first on-the-road update is from South
Africa – A trip to Namibia turns out to include a visit
to Mozambique and Swaziland where 10,000 virgins do a topless
dance for the king … |
 |
Photo Essay
A road trip from Johannesburg to Cape Town, taking in the Golden Gate
National Park, Lesotho and the Hell …
|
 |
Photo Essay
Still in South Africa, Rene
takes a trip to the Karoo desert and finds out all about the potential
dangers of getting a flat in the middle of nowhere. |
 |
Photo Essay
Rene decides to hit the road again and heads north through
Namibia, Botswana and into Zambia, finding a few drunks along
the way … |
 |
Photo Essay
Rene times his entry into Zambia
well and catches a lunar rainbow over the Victoria Falls and a
hippopotamus with a lettuce crown … |
|
Photo Essay
Rene heads north out of Malawi and
into Tanzania where he finds good food but also suffers a couple of flat tires … |
 |
Photo Essay
Crossing the Equator, Rene heads into Kenya but has to take a rest to get the BMW fixed.
|
 |
Story
Guy and Marleen are a couple of travelling Belgians that I’ve been
bumping into all the way up Africa. They used to have a BMW 1100GS that
they’d ride two-up through many of their tours of Africa and South
America but for this altogether tougher… |
 |
Story
Last week we left Rene at the Koobi Fora Museum with not enough fuel to get to Ethiopia on the planned route …
|
 |
Story
“Two Belgian Tourists and Two Yemeni Guides killed by Al-Qaeda”.
The news told the story of a convoy of five Land Cruisers in a remote
but well-known tourist valley. |
 |
Story
We catch up with Rene as he spins his wheels in the Middle East, unable to find a way out. |
 |
Story
Rene heads out of Pakistan, into Iran with the hope of getting to the
‘Stans to the north. Only thing is, his carnet says otherwise. |
 |
Story
Rene heads through Tajikistan on the famed Pamir Highway and its many mountain passes and peoples. |
 |
Story
Rene’s penultimate leg on his way east and back to North America –
Mongolia. Landscape, people and the weather make it one of the
highlights. |
 |
Story
We left Rene battling a windstorm in Mongolia, just before the
border with Russia. For this, our last update of Rene’s momentous trek
around the world, his plan was to ride through Russia to the east coast
port of Vladivostok from where he was to ship the GS back to Canada.
|
|
Rene would like to thank Touratech Canada, Motul Oil and Sidi Canada, Avon Tires for their help.
