(And now for something completely different!)

International Headstand Guru, Carsten Dausel from Germany set heads turning at Faleolo Airport last night when he took photos of himself posing in his favourite position – you guessed it – upside down!

To look at him you might think modern hippie – neatly trimmed, full black beard; an array of tattoos covering his feet, legs and other parts of his body all from the places he has travelled; cool sunglasses and peaked cap – back-packing his way around the world.

But there is much more to this young man than meets the eye.

After ten years of travelling, this 31 year old German carpenter (apparently they are ‘built’ to travel!) has seen five of the seven continents with plans in mid 2011 to visit the last two – South America and Antarctica! He has done all sorts of work as he travelled – a ski-instructor in Austria, a chef in Japan, a dish-washer in Australia, a WWOOFer* in New Zealand, and most recently, a SWAP volunteer in Samoa.

SWAP’s latest guest and volunteer was of course delivered in style to the airport in the SWAP Limousine, and duly performed to his trusty camera on the red carpet in front of a curious crowd of onlookers.

Apart from his German connection, Carsten wanted to visit Samoa to add some South Pacific islands to his list of countries visited, and he wanted to add more photos to his current file of over 700 – doing headstands at unusual and well-known tourist spots all around the world.

When practising Yoga a few years ago, he found that the headstand position was also a novel way to “map” his travels and the photograph collection blossomed. His photos are usually taken with a simple time-delay setting on a small tripod mounted camera. He has collected photos doing headstands outside the Taj Mahal; with Canadian Mounted Police during the Vancouver Winter Olympics; imitating a column at a famous Italian building; at sunset on Falealupo beach; and most recently – on the red carpet outside the SWAP Limousine at Faleolo Airport, Samoa.

He says that headstanding always attracts interest from the locals. “This gives me a lovely way to connect with them, something I love about travelling. One day I will probably publish another book and share my photos and experiences with the world.”

While in Samoa, he worked hard for his food and accommodation helping get the SWAP Headquarters in Falelauniu started, clearing land and getting vegetable gardens under way.

Of his experiences in Samoa, the ones that stick in his mind are some beautiful sunrises and sunsets, especially those at Fanuatapu Island where he stayed alone one night after being dropped off by a local fisherman. (Fanuatapu was originally a leper colony and now just houses the main lighthouse for shipping in the Aleipata coastal region).

Carsten Dausel Camera setup

How it is done:

Travel the world – into every continent
Seek and find a famous or interesting tourist location
Get up before dawn to catch the sunrise, or calculate the best lighting, position and time to get the best photo
Set up your camera on tripod and 10 second timer
Race back to your photo location
Perform a headstand
Smile and wait for the Click!
Check the photo (and repeat if not perfect)
Move to the next country or destination for the next photo

SWAP is proud to have hosted such an enterprising traveller and wishes Carsten well on the snowfields in Wanaka, New Zealand, and then at his next stops, Chile and hopefully Antarctica.