It’s a kind of initiatory journey that she needed. “I had always planned to leave, always wanted to see what was happening elsewhere,” she slips. In February 2021, the Breton Isabel Del Real took a bike and joined Tehran, the Iranian capital, from Plouër-sur-Rance (22). Ten months of travel that she recounts in a graphic novel, “Plouhéran”.
15,000 km to cross Europe from West to East
“My friends and relatives were used to me getting into this kind of stuff, it didn’t surprise them when I told them about my project,” smiles the 26-year-old Bretillian. Daughter of a Spanish father and a Franco-American mother, born in San Francisco, she grew up on the banks of the Rance where her parents settled in the early 2000s. a master’s degree at Sciences Po Paris, but I didn’t want to embark on a traditional course”.
I chose the bike because I realized that it might be a bit long walking!
Passionate about the Silk Roads, Isabel first imagined going to Iran… on foot. “It’s funny,” she laughs. Today, everyone associates me with cycling when yes, I love it, but it is a rational love. I chose it as a means of transport because I realized that it might be a bit long walking! »
It was in February 2021, during the curfew, that she started. “I didn’t really have a specific itinerary in mind, I just knew that I wanted to follow the mountain ranges of Europe, because the atmosphere of the mountains was what I liked the most. » Direction the Massif Central, then a detour via Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia and finally Iran. More than 15,000 km in total.
To the “roots”
Often alone – “loneliness makes everything even more intense” – the Costarmorican bivouaced a lot: “It was a bit ‘roots’ so that it cost me less too. But I also used the Warmshowers app which allows cyclists to find places to stay with locals”.
I was told that I was jeopardizing my future, that it was a waste, they asked me what I had to prove…
Returning enriched from her trip, Isabel, touching, nevertheless confides that everything was not easy: “The first five months, I asked myself “but what am I doing”… And then, above all, certain comments that they were able to do to me were not easy to live with: they told me that I was jeopardizing my future, that it was a waste, they asked me what I had to prove…” a year after her return, before Christmas 2021, the Breton woman still has very vivid memories: the Euphrates gorges, the Venetian roofs or the very foggy atmosphere of the Massif central, she quotes, among others.
A first drawing
These are the atmospheres that Isabel wants to transcribe in the graphic novel that she imagined during her journey, then designed in 2022. “Never, at the start, had I considered doing such a thing. I drew a little but on the sidelines of my notebooks… I was frustrated very quickly! And then, in Dubrovnik, in Croatia, I made a drawing of which I was satisfied with the level… It started from there! »
I hadn’t taken any notes, just a few photos. I worked like crazy for this graphic novel
When she returns, she decides to give herself a year to carry out her crazy project. “I was in civic initiative service in Dinan (22)”, she explains. Before continuing: “It’s a time-consuming and solitary exercise, I hadn’t taken any notes, just a few photos. I worked like crazy for this graphic novel”.
At the end, 242 pages of introspection, discovery and adventure where the Breton takes the reader with her, her questions and her encounters. “I asked myself the question: ‘What do people say about such long journeys?’ I wanted to relate everything that was happening, what you see as a young woman, describe the exchanges, the conversations you can have when you meet someone for the first time, in particular”.
Feeling of dizziness
Printed in Morocco, his “baby” is beginning to be delivered to people who pre-ordered it thanks, in particular, to online crowdfunding which made it possible. “Not everything is perfect but I wanted to tell a great story,” says Isabel Del Real. “Making this comic strip was the same energy as the trip, when I started facing the blank page, I had the same feeling of vertigo as when I passed the Plouër-sur-Rance sign and that I knew I was going to Tehran, ”she slips in conclusion. Impatient to have, in hand, the fruit of an adventure that she did not suspect, a little over two years ago.
