A travel enthusiast from an early age, Charlotte swears by escapism. We're not talking about travel in the tourist sense, the kind where you lie on the beach with your toes in a fan. No, we're talking about "adventures", as she describes them. Her first adventure on her own was at the age of 11, and all the years after that (in fact, she never really stopped). Her other passion is photography and video, capturing stories through her lens. Today, she's a content creator and social media manager in everyday life.
Hyper-connected because of her job, at the beginning of July 2022, she escaped to take a break in Mongolia: 17 days, a horse and a childhood dream to find herself.
Can you tell us how you got the idea of going to Mongolia on horseback?
I've been riding since I was 3, and I grew up with horses, so Mongolia on horseback was a childhood dream. In my head, from the start, it was a trip I imagined on my own. At the age of 27, I knew I had to do it now , and that it would be beneficial. As well as the desire and the deep-seated need to leave, I also needed the budget, and I've been saving for this trip for a while now.
The trip...
I left for a total of 17 days. I spent two days in Ulan Bator, I was in full jet lag mode when I arrived, I was sick. I think it was the stress, the fatigue accumulated over the year, that was taking its toll, I was feeling the after-effects of my year. But strangely enough, deep down inside, I felt great, serene and fulfilled.
As I was going off on my own to find myself, I decided to turn everything off: the internet, social networks, my phone, so that the immersion would be total.
After 10 hours by bus and 2 hours by car, I arrived in the Orkhon Valley. From then on, I did everything on horseback.
Did you meet anyone else during these 17 days?
The first person I met was Nagui, my French-speaking guide. I hesitated for a long time about taking one on, but when I got there I quickly realized that I'd made the right decision, as very few Mongolians speak English, let alone nomads.
After that, I lived with 3 nomadic families. I lived the same life as them. I learned to cook and eat like them. We prepared dishes based on potatoes, carrots, onions and mutton, sometimes adding pasta or rice. I would lasso the foals and dzo with the men, then milk them with the women. For drinking, washing up and bathing, we had water from the river. For cooking and heating, we cut wood in the forest. The rest of the time I was on horseback.
At no time did I feel I was lacking in comfort; I've never slept so well in my life, despite the fact that the mattresses are made of wood, the dogs bark all night long, the yaks graze all around the yurts, etc. I loved washing in the bathtub. I loved washing with cold water in the river, which suited my lifestyle. The only downside was the food, which was excellent but not very varied, and I must admit that after a while you just had to stop talking to me about potatoes and carrots.
In the end, the language barrier didn't prevent you from communicating with them in a different way.
No, because on a day-to-day basis you manage to make yourself understood: you show them carrots and they show you how to cut them. And my guide translated quite often. But still, I would have liked to learn a lot more about the culture. It was a bit frustrating, I admit.
Did you have any expectations or objectives when you left, or did you go in rather "head down"?
Ever since I went on an expedition to the geographic North Pole, I've seen travel differently. I work on the assumption that every trip is a unique adventure, and that all the adventures that are part of it will make it an unforgettable experience. Just like when I was in the middle of an ice floe, in the middle of Mongolia with my horse, I didn't know what I was going to do the next hour, I didn't really know what route I was going to take, and I love that because you don't live with disappointment when you see things like that. Every new thing that happens is a surprise.
So the only expectation or objective I had for this trip was to find myself and live the nomadic way.
What was it like there?
The people, the culture...
When I arrived in the families, I was extremely well received. I found the people beautiful, their faces very bright, very smiling, very benevolent, and it immediately put you in a kind of positive bubble.
They move 3 or 4 times a year, depending on the season, and live off the land and livestock, which means a lot of work. They never stop, but they don't complain, they're very calm and composed.
And that gradually changed me. I'm a very speedy person by nature, and it's hard for me to settle down. But here I had no choice but to learn to live at their pace to fit in. During the trip, I kept a logbook, and sometimes I'd write " I'm fed up, I'm impatient, I can't wait that long "...-laughs- I'd express it, because I had to remember it. And as the days went by, I saw that I was able to manage it a little better.
Also, there's no time there, no notion of time. When you ask them how long it takes to get to a place, they can tell you a day when it's really 2 hours.
When people saw me with my camera, they tended to pose and smile. So I'd smile back, then we'd look at the photos together and check each other out. That kind of moment will stay with me for a long time. On a day-to-day basis, I work with models who are kind of formatted to pose, so I have to trick them into looking natural. Here, it was so spontaneous!
The landscapes...
Well, I saw plains, very green mountains, a few lakes, rivers, canyons... What surprised me were the volcanic rocks in the middle of the plains and the fir trees growing in them. It's amazing how nature can be reborn and transformed.
On the other hand, the climate... Well, I wasn't expecting that, and it's a good thing I had Flotte products, because I wore them every day without exception. I even regretted not taking several copies. The weather changes very quickly, you can be in a t-shirt with 25 degrees and then have a hailstorm in the next second. I've had rain every day. I even spent a day riding in the rain and hail with my Flotte raincoat on !-laughs- So the weather was a bit capricious.
And as we were between 3400 and 3800 meters above sea level, it was really cold at night, so I slept with my Flotte fleece, my -5° down jacket and a blanket.
Did you encounter any difficulties at all with technical aspects, content creation...?
Yes, that was a challenge too, because when you leave and you know you're not going to have electricity, how do you manage?
With 4 Canon batteries for my camera, 4 GoPro batteries and 2 external batteries for 17 days of adventure. Before turning on my camera, I said to myself, " Is this photo worth it? Is it worth using your battery for this, knowing how precious it is? And so it really forced me to think about my compositions, to be sure of myself in my creative eye, in the story I wanted to tell... On a daily basis, when I work for myself or for brands, I have this obsession with storytelling, for me an image without emotion, without a story, is an image that's "useless".
Photography has been my means of expression ever since I was a child, and I sometimes find it hard to express what I've felt, seen or experienced on a trip or in my everyday life. Through photography or video, I find it natural.
Finally, the last challenge: photos taken in a car or on horseback. I'm used to doing content standing up in a car, in the boot of a car and so on. But here the roads are full of ruts. So it was sporty. And people drive fast, so you'd better be super-reactive in your settings and approach.
In France, I take photos on horseback, which is normal. I was thinking of doing the same thing here, but when I arrived, the guide told me that the horses hadn't been ridden for 2 years because of the covid and therefore the lack of customers. So, at the beginning, I had very strict instructions, such as " don't pet your horse, you'll have to take it easy, when you're on it, don't make any sudden movements, don't take out your phone. .." I was like " ok... well, it's not what I imagined "-laughs-. The guide finally let me take my photos after 2 days on horseback.
On a day-to-day basis, I take a lot more risks than that to capture images, and that's what drives me in a way, going after what others wouldn't dare to do. I like taking risks, that's how I feel alive.
We saw that you were sharing a travel diary on Instagram. Can you tell us about it?
Actually, I noticed that a lot of people were afraid of traveling alone, of simply being alone. So I wanted to show that it's cool to do that, that it's important to come face to face with yourself. You shouldn't be afraid of that. For me, this trip was so different from all the others, that I wanted to show who I am in a more intimate way. I think it's also going to be a turning point in the way I work, create and communicate on the networks. I want to be fully me and share a little more of that side of me, my thoughts, my reflections, the other side of my business...
You've already told us about the Flotte pieces that have come in handy with you, so what made you want to work with the brand in the first place?
I got to know the brand in its early days via Valentin, a model who had done one of your campaigns. On a shoot, he told me about Flotte, so I looked it up on insta and loved it. After that, I had ads running all the time with Valentin's face, and it was funny, although sometimes I couldn't stand to look at his face anymore -laughs-. Then when I was planning the trip to Mongolia and saw that we needed a raincoat, it just clicked. It was such a good fit, the products I really needed to go away, it was coherent, there was a real project, a real feeling with the brand and the team.
So you left with the Amelot Indigoraincoat and the Belleville bonbon sweater .
Yes, I knew what I wanted! -Laughs- I might have chosen a different color for the raincoat, but I couldn't ride in a color that was too light, it would have been messy, so I chose navy. I chose a long one, because otherwise I'd have soaked my buttocks on horseback -laughs-. And the fleece... I thought it was really too pretty, so I chose pink for the girly side. I didn't want to stain it, so I kept it for comfort, cocooning in the evening and staying warm at night.
Find Charlotte on Instagram la_petite_bert
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