Joël Lodé was born on October 3rd, 1952 in Nantes, Jules Verne's homeland.

He is the elder of two brothers, Thierry and Lionel, and a sister, Yveline.

Joël grows in a rural village, almost without his father, but with his godmother and her husband, uncle Claude as well as his grandmother who give him all the necessary love. This tenderness from his godmother and her husband is due to the painful loss of their young child Yannick, died some months after his birth. Joël is going to replace him in their heart. A happy and blessed childhood, of which we find partially and rather faithfully the history in Jean-Loup Hubert's film “Le Grand Chemin”. Only one person of the film whose true name was kept is the Dr Vilaine, the doctor who lived in front of his grandmother's garden. Eating baby eels (in winter, not in summer!), the church, the cemetery, fishing roache with Uncle Claude (played in the film by the actor Richard Bohringer), the quarrels, the kids playing the fool are also the reality of this childhood spent in the Country of Retz, west of France.

As a child, Joël Lodé is fascinated by Jules Verne's books and goes at 10 years old as a member of the Nantes Museum of Natural History Association (the SSNOF, Nantes Natural History Society, section Prehistory, then Earth sciences, thanks to the historian Pierre Fréor.

At this time, Joël is part of the high-Breton traditional group St Jean de Boiseau's Sant Yann; he becomes organist of the church and continues the Prehistory trips, discovering one of the most beautiful fossil piece of collection of the region, a Lepidodendron, fossil giant fern from Carboniferous.

At the age of 12, he decides that like Jules Verne, he will go around the World. On a bicycle!

At the age of 14, he goes for the first time in a desert, the Sahara (1966).

After a difficult adolescence, he tries one's hand at doing magic, also theater, then turns out himself to the Dramatic art school (the Conservatoire), where he will certainly not leave a great souvenir, if it is not that of a bad actor! Neverteless, he played in a television serial: "Jack".

He becomes as a simple bank employee, but not for a long time...

The National Service is made in... Mururoa (Pacific islands, French Polynesia) where Joël will have in 1973, the sad privilege to attend the explosion of 6 Atomic bombs, sat on the bridge of an old passenger ship, the Maurienne... He practises submarine dive in the lagoon. Then, at the end of his National Service, he comes back again in Tahiti in a Magic show!

There is always a dream to be realized, and in spite of the opinion of his parents, Joël Lodé leaves on Saturday, January 18th, 1975, 4 days after resigning to the bank, for a world tour on a bicycle!

France, Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Iran.... Joël discovers his first flowers in the Great Salty Desert of Iran, Dasht-i-Kevir. They are tulips! Then a passion for the deserts and a long work begin on plant adaptation to the arid zones...

Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, then banned to enter in Burma or in China. The journey continues towards Thailand by plane, the Philippines, Japan and Tahiti where he is nearly of being expelled for irregular arrival (no flight ticket back!).

1976. Employed at the Library Hachette-Pacifique, a too short friendship connects him with the singer Jacques Brel who surprisingly comes to see him one fine day at the bookshop.

The journey starts again, in the United States where he meets the first cactus (not really the great love, because of flat tyres!) and especially the extraordinary flowers of these plants. He establishes a world record by crossing on bicycle Death Valley in August, 1976.

Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, where he falls in love with Rina, a Native Indian of the Pipils, Maya tribe. Then, he goes back home and begins a collection of cacti and other succulents plant in the garden of his grandmother.

Back to France, he drafts a first book on his adventures (Le Tour du Monde à Bicyclette, Le Temps d'un rêve, ed. PAC). Back again to El Salvador where he gets married in 1978. He meets Philippe de Dieuleveut, Nicolas Hulot, Philippe Gloaguen (the "Guide du Routard"), Didier Régnier and many others, a whole team of adventure trip lovers, who often meet themselves with Joël on television in adventure shows and series.

During the same year, Jacques-Chaban Delmas, then Prime Minister, put back him in Paris the Prize of the Sporting Adventure. Without waiting for the end of 1978, we find Joël Lodé in the Kalahari desert in Botswana. Joël knows of the death of his friend Jacques Brel in the plane returning back to Paris... A decisive encounter will also be that of Theodore Monod who encourages him about desert research.

Then, Joël begins a series of conferences financed by the Ministry of Culture, the Region of the "Pays de la Loire and the City of Nantes. They will last 12 years.

1979. Rina follows him in an epic, incredible adventure through the deserts of the United States and Mexico. Joël writes his second work: " The Guide of the bicycle around the World " ( ed. PAC).

They discover new plants, Coryphantha macromeris var. rinae among others, but arrive in full civil war to El Salvador and finally goes back to France after many difficulties. Joël presents in Nantes the Walt Disney's film "Living Desert".

Fascinated by the material and the contact with the public, a young child comes to all projection shows that Joël gives in the region of Nantes. His name is Olivier Sauzereau. Also born in Nantes, lover of his city and great admirer of Jules Verne,  he will become astrophotograph and also a well-known writer.

1980. The deserts of Australia, 4 months of an extraordinary journey on a bicycle, another world where Joël becomes gold-digger. Journey in the country of kangarooes and crocodiles, specializing exactly on Australian reptiles. Well before Crocodile Dundee! With Rina, he crosses the deserts of Simpson and Gibson, goes to Ayers Rock, living with the opal diggers at Coober Pedy in the centre of the red Australian desert.

1981. The Deserts of South America, in Peru and in Chile, the desert of Atacama, always on bicycle. Joël and Rina cross the deserts of Lurin and Nazca. Encounter with the mummies of Tintin and the looters of graves. Then Chile, with the Valley of the Moon and San Pedro de Atacama.

1982. The desert of Thar in India with Rina, in tandem. Joël ends his Encyclopedia of Deserts. The correction of the manuscript is made at Théodore Monod's house, Joël sleeps at feet of the bed of his master, on the Island of the Cité in Paris! Also, he also begins an Exhibition " Unusual Deserts " with the Community art centre of Nantes and  Loire-Atlantique.

1983. The Deserts and steppes of Kenya. Solitary encounter with wild animals. Joël is cycling in many parts of the country with some succulents plant still unknown for the science at this time and which will be (particularly several species of Euphorbes) described some years later by Susan Carter (Euphorbia Journal, n°6-7). Marcel Kroenlein, Director of the Monaco Exotic Garden invites him as a speaker for the fiftieth anniversary of the Exotic Garden.

Death rapes his small brother Lionel.

1984. Birth of his first daughter, Karine. Solitary and very hard journey in the Deserts of the United States and Mexico, notably in Baja California where he touches the death and is saved by an American pilot, in the desert of Mojave.

1985. Journey in the Jordanian desert, where he discovers the northernmost Aloe of all the genus, then completely unknown, and described 15 years later by his friend John Lavranos: Aloe porphyrostachys.  Petra reminds him one of the Tintin adventures. Later, Petra will be one of the famous location used for shooting the film " Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ".

Joël writes his third work on his adventures with Rina: “ The Desert Runners” (ed. PAC, Paris). Great success.

1986. Last journey on tandem with Rina: the Nordeste of Brazil 4 months of a long, hard trip in a region excessively altered by man, who is distroying forest and rivers, searching for precious metals and stones. Collection of orchids for the Botanical Garden of Nantes.

1987. Journey in Canary allows the discovery of a fascinating world for Joël, always on bicycle. His passion for the canarian succulents is going to lead him to begin an Identification Guide.

1988. The American Deserts in winter! Cacti under the snow, a very different standard from what we are in the habit of seeing. Birth of his second daughter, Alexandrine and at the same time, creation of the Association ARIDES and the congress CACTUS in Nantes. Also, he creates the quarterly journal Cactus-Adventures with a first free issue!

1989. Joël planned to cross the desert of Gobi and Ordos in China, but arrives at the worst time: tanks have taken the place Tien an Men. Everything was stolen, from the bicycle up to his two cameras and lenses. Repatriated thanks to the French Embassy in Peking, however he is able meet the successor of Pu-Yi, the last emperor (who did not finish his life as a gardener, but director of the Peking Botanical garden), and who is also fascinated by cacti and other succulents. His name is Xu Min Chen.

Of course, Joël was not able to make a report of the trip, he loses his employment and his divorce is imminent.

Then he writes an Encyclopedia of cacti and other succulents (Ed. Edisud), in the form of index loos-leaf cards that will be published until 2002 and represents nowadays the largest encyclopedia written in French language with approximately 2400 illustrated index cards.

1990. Joël becomes a Saharian guide working for the travel agency "Deserts" in Paris. Also he organizes botanical trips in various countries. His Cacti and other Succulent seed catalogue whose seeds are harvested on his own plants becomes (and until nowadays) the most important in France.

1991. Everything stops, no more job, the war in Iraq prevents any tourist journey in Algeria.

1992. Joël develops his association and his Journal "Cactus-Adventures”, who quickly takes an International fame. He is elected as a member of the IOS, a botanical Commission of the UNESCO.

1993. Divorce is going to be pronunced, the journey for two arrives to an end and Joël has to find quickly solutions to his professional life, because he is unemployed. He manages nevertheless to bring together famous people within the cactus and other succulent world during the congress CACTUS in 1993: Charles Glass, the Dr Alfred Lau, John Lavranos, Werner Uebelmann, that was never seen before in France and will be never repeated!

Joël proposes to the Mayor of St Herblain, a project of Exotic garden in the former quarry of Pontpierre. The press speaks a lot about this, but the project is regrettably pushed aside for lack of funds.

1994. It is then necessary for Joël to leave Nantes with regrets, but with his cactus and succulent collection (except some rare plants given to the Nantes Botanical Garden). A work was proposed in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, as a Director of the Botanical Collections at Cactus-Park. Not for a long time regrettably, the owner does not respect the rules of the CITES, and illegally imports plants, but also animals. Joël has to leave this dubious place and to find one more time another work.

1995. Norbert Kropf from Canary Cactus, suggests Joël to develop the production of seeds in his company. During all this time, Joël Lodé prepares a work on Succulents of Canary Islands: An identification guide for succulent plants who will set him more than 11 years. The adventure makes him glance through the island  to discover the vegetation from the sky in paragliding.

1996-1999. Work at Canary Cactus, journeys in other countries, Cactus-Aventures International first publication in English, and the cacti and other succulent Encyclopaedia File Edisud grows year by year: about 2400 index cards will be published. Another passion of Joël: flying. Sometimes his friend Jesus and him fly away for a small tour in the South of Tenerife. Joël does not forget his Breton origin and play bagpipe in succulent habitat...

2000. Joël Lodé is sent to Spain for the creation of a cactus golf in Andalusia, Desert Springs. They ask him to stay, we know the answer. He moves to Andalusia. Several trips are done between 1999 and 2005, in Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, South Africa, Reunion, but this time not in bicycle! His daughters come to visit him regularly.

2004. New proposition of a Botanical garden, this time in Spain, at Cuevas del Amanzora. Joël Lodé plans to fit out there also a Museum of deserts.

2005. Desert Springs receives the first prize for the Environment " Madera Verde ”.

2006. St Herblain's exotic Garden is created, but Joël was not informed. The "Joël Lodé foundation" is created in Spain, in Cuevas del Almanzora, Andalusia. The botanical garden and museum should become a reality in the next years to come.

The adventure continues...