Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Crossing Continents: Stuck at the Border of Djibouti

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Crossing Continents: Stuck at the Border of Djibouti · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: All right, hello and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: This is going to be a very unique episode recorded
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: at the border between Ethiopia and Djibouti. So on the
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Ethiopian side is the border post Towel and on the
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Djibouti side it's Galle and we have been stuck here
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: for a few days. We're actually on our third day
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: here at the border and Brian, We've had so many
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: great conversations on.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: The trip so far.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: And I'm joined right now by Brian Bass. Some of
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: you may know him from at least two previous podcasts,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: So doctor Brian Bass, thanks for having on the podcast.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: And special thanks to Overland Explorer Vehicles also known as OEV,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: for their generous support of this week's podcast. The OEV
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: is one of the most respected camper builders in our industry,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: using premium four season construction and the highest quality components
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: to manufacture campers capable of traveling around the world. Even
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: the Overland Journal podcast host Ashley Giordano uses one of
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: their trade model pop up units on their Tundra for
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: traveling throughout Europe and Northern Africa. From the composite panels,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: aluminum exoskeleton and even their own aluminum tray beds. OEV
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: is built to last your next overland journey. Thanks again, Ohev,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: But more than that, thank you so much for being
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: with me on this journey. You're someone that I have
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: such respect for, your travel prowess, your skills as a driver,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: your calm under pressure. You've traveled around the world by
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: forhel drive and motorcycle, both as an archaeologist and as
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: an adventurer, and I just love traveling with you. And
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: we were really being tested, I think as travelers. Now
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: sitting here for three days and we're still having fun.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: We're we're reminding ourselves that we need to have fun,
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: that's right. I mean, we're we're definitely in a situation
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: that that has never come up in in my experience
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: of travel crossing borders, even between countries that don't necessarily
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: get along. But yeah, right now we're we're certainly in
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: a a predicament that will be solved. That's right, That's right,
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: But it's we're definitely having to overcome some adversity right now.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: We are.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: And and the you know, I think the closest that
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I've had I spent two days at a border crossing
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: between Russia and Mongolia, and you know, that's probably something
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I should talk about at a podcasts at some point
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: in time. But things got crazy because people got drunk.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: So there was a bunch of people all stuck at
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: the border, and there was free flowing vodka. So no
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: alcohol here, that's right, exactly. So it actually feels relatively safe.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I have not felt even a moment of discomfort, other
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: than just the fact that I'd like to leave the border.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: But I've not felt uncomfortable. Obviously.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: The one concern that we have is that the longer
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: that we're here, the more people are aware that we're here.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: That's true, that's true, So are we are being mindful
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: of that. We've also got in touch with the American
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Citizen Services at the Djibushian embassy just to make them
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: aware that they have two Americans stuck at the border
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: post for three days. So I guess we'll give a
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: little bit of backstory on what's going on, and we'll
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: also talk a little bit about some of our experience
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: before the border and what we're planning to do after.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: But we we came through Ethiopia, which is just really
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: not happening right now for many overlanders because it's extremely
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: difficult to get into Ethiopia. It requires a letter from
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: a certified tour operator that goes to the Minister of Tourism,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: who then writes a letter from the Minister of Tourism
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: to the embassy in Nairobi. The embassy in Nairobi is
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: the only place that you can make this happen. You
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: go into the embassy in Nairobi and they check all
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: of your documents. They basically vet you out, but you
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: also have to bring in your own letter explaining why
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: you're going to Ethiopia as a tourist, information on the vehicle,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: and then once that's complete, then the Embassy in Nairobi
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: writes a letter to the Minister.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Of Customs in Addis Ababa, and then.
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  Speaker 1: The Minister of Customs then creates a package of documentation
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: that goes to the border control post between Kenya and
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Ethiopia at So that was extremely challenging in and of itself.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: That took me several weeks of work, five trips to
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: the Nairobi Ethiopian Embassy, and then it probably took us
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: you know, I would say somewhere around.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Well. We spent a night there too too.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we had to spend the night there too, but
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: it was clearly just procedural and actually even the officials
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: were on board with what was going on. They just
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: had to make sure that one person signed this before
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: that got stamped, and yeah, exactly. I think their actual
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: process the morning we crossed was about two hours and
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: forty five mesures. Let's say that's right, or so, yeah,
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: that's right.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: So what the challenges that we have here is we
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: got to the to the Ethiopian side that had its
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: own difficulties because of an error that they had made
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: on the document. So that required a bunch of phone
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: calls and a bunch of permissions and efforts. So it
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: took us about six hours across the Theiopian side to
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: come to Jibouti. It was already dark. We arrive on
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: the Jibouti side very quickly. They check our visas, they
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: stamp our visas in, then they stamped our carne. They
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: checked the vehicle and they tell us that we're free
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: to go, and that just as we're driving out, they
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: come running out and they were asking for this obscure
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: carne june, which is something that you don't have as
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: an international traveler so they held us at the border overnight.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: They also rec they also mentioned that now supplemental insurances.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: That's right, there was a supplemental insurance requirement.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: And then we.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: We spent the first night and then we spent the
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: entire next day trying to resolve that, and they told
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: us all we needed to do was provide They finally
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: agree that we didn't need the Carnes.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: June, and then they needed us to just provide this.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: It's a slightly different insurance policy than what we already have,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: so it's something specific to Commessa. So we received that
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: insurance policy. They said, all you have to do is
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: give us the insurance policy. We got it, we showed
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: it to them, and they told us we would be
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: free to go, and then we were not free to go.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: So apparently it had escalated up a couple levels within
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: the customs department, and they basically said, we're going to
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: hold your vehicle until the day that you take it
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: to the port, which is the thirteenth, so two more
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: days from now.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: The challenge and it's important to point out the part
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: of the backstory of the backstory to get to this point,
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: which is that my cell phone only kicked in this morning.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: We're now one morning two. Yeah, we just spent the
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: second night and the service that we have is no data,
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: just waste calls and standard SMS text messaging. And to
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: be clear, the the immigration did let us log in
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: to their Wi Fi and that was that made all
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: the differ is not the right word. I mean, we
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: wouldn't have been able to establish connections outside of the
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: area without that.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because in order for us to get those documents,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: we needed to forward some information images of documents in
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: order to receive that camesa insurance. So fortunately, I mean,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: the immigration here has been great. To be clear, they
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: stamped us in very quickly. They've been very supportive. They
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: even went and bought us water, and we had enough
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: water as if we were okay on ask when we
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: needed food. We were okay on water. But I thought
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: it was a good idea since we didn't know how
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: many more days we might be here, to go.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Ahead and stock up on water.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: So we're really in a bind in the sense that
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: we cannot go back into Ethiopia because we don't have
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: all of those permissions go back the other direction. We
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: also don't have an Ethiopian eVisa to go back in
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: the other direction, which takes four or five days to receive,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: so we really are stuck here at the mercy of
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: the Djibouti processes. So the fortunate thing is is that
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: we were preparing to ship the vehicle to Greece from
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the port in Djibouti. So we've been working with a
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: company called Marril M A r I l L. And
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: they're a very professional outfit. They actually do a lot
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: of vehicle importation. I think they run all the Toyota
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: dealerships in Djibouti, and they also managed huge logistics shipping
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: container shipping of goods in and out of Djibouti. So
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: we were already working with them, so I had a
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: contact person. I was able to get a hold of
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Zara and she has been an absolute angel in providing
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: us with support because she's actually an now able to
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: go this morning with a letter from their company. And
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: morel is a large logistics company. They've been around actually
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: for one hundred and fifty years, so they're well respected
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: in Djibouti. And she's at a high enough rank that
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: she's able to write a letter to this Customs commissioner
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: to hopefully this morning get us released from the border.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: If not, it sounds like we have to or at
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: least I need to be here until the thirteenth and
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: then I can drive the vehicle directly to the port,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: which of course completes the goal of crossing Africa and
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: everything else. It would just be so unfortunate to not
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: to be able to see this beautiful country of Djibouti.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: I mean have Djibouti has the rare distinction of having
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the lowest point in all of Africa, five hundred and
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: fifty feet below sea level in a crater, and it's
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: called Lake Asol, and we're so.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: To see that.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: And there's this awesome there's this awesome French legionnaire that
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: has a you know, kind of like a camp site
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: up in the mountains that overlooks the bay coming in
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: from the sea. And he's Ali. Ali has been extremely supportive.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: He's an overlander, runs an overland camp. He's also been
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: helpful trying to contact the Minister of Tourism. So the
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Jibusian people have been wonderful, The immigration has been wonderful.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: Isn't Ali supposed to be bringing us croissans? He said
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: he would do it.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: He asked me if I needed if we needed any anything,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: and I said, once you bring is a couple of croissants.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: So maybe we'll get lucky and he'll show up here
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: in the next couple hours.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it's it's uh.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Brian and I were talking the last couple of days
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: that it's times like this that it's easy to get frustrated.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: And we we did yesterday because it was it was
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: just a series of ups and downs. Hey, the documents
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: are on the way, you guys going to be hitting
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: the road within about a half hour. Then that got
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: pushed on and then actually the official, the customs official here,
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: who said all we need to do is demonstrate the
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: insurance and then we would be on our way. He
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: when we did present him with the evidence of that insurance,
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: then mentioned that there were some people up the food
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: chain that still had to approve that supplemental insurance before
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: we could receive our carne back.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we're already stamped in.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: I mean the karne is already stamped and processed today
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: to stamped.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: Our passports are stamped.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: And yeah, so that was that was a little bit
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: of an up and down.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: It was it was, and I think I think the
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: lowest point for me was we've been told all day
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: that all you have to do is show this insurance
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: document and you're free to go. And then we showed
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the insurance document, and.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Then we were not.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: And then they I mean, it got really weird because
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: they said, you are going to leave the car here,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: You're going to go into Djibouti and then you're going
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: to come back the day that you need to take
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: it to the port and drive it directly to the port.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: Like we're going to put our rucksacks on and just
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: start walking down exactly.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: There's a bunch of challenges.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: There's not a reliable transportation at this border. There are
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: some buses and some just some pickup trucks where you,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: you know, you kind of stand in the.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Back, so it's not particularly safe.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting that people don't do it, but I've
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: certainly done more more of that that I.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Care to admit. But it requires us to leave the vehicle.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: We can only carry so much of our personal effects
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: with us, and then we don't speak the language, and
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: we also don't have a data connection, so we can't
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: even use a translate app. We can't make sure that
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: we're in the right place, you know, to be able
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to get additional support, like like even trying to get
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: accommodation or or trying to get in touch with people
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: using WhatsApp, which is a very common form of communication
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: in Djibouti and most of the world. So we to
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: be restricted to only voice calls and SMS. So real challenge, but.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: There are some you know, we do have some plan
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: B and C and we d we do certainly that
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: that we've already talked through. I mean, as the crow
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: flies were probably one hundred and some short change kilometers
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: from Djibouti city, and so in theory we could find
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: someone to come on out and pick us up. We
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: haven't identified.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: We could pay, we could pay a driver to.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: Come out, but at the moment the vehicle would have
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: to stay here in this sort of customs immigration no
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: man's land on the Djibouti side of the border, and
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: that that's not a desirable option at the moment.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really it's really not. It's really not.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: And and you know the goal, I mean, it's been
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: six months getting to this point and we only have
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: one hundred kilometers to go to finish the objective. So
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: I think that that's the part that's that's challenging. But
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: you know, we've been talking the like last night after
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: we got the bad news, and I mean, I think
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: it was the low point for me. But then you know,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: we we rallied and we we had a good conversation
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: and we went and got that's right. We have several options.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: We have several options. We're also getting support from American
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Citizen Services and SO and and our good friend Jonathan Jensen,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: the RSO in Kenya, has also been helpful.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: He's on the podcast a couple episodes ago.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: So everybody's been really helpful trying to trying to make
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: this all happen. I do have a high level of
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: confidence in the Marile group that they're going to be
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: able to make this happen today. But I think my
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: confidence has been tested a little bit the last couple
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: of days.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, cautiously optimistic. I think is really, you know,
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: how we have to approach this. I mean, we're certainly
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: we're certainly safe. You know, as somebody from from California,
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: from a Western culture, we're certainly out of our cultural element.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: And it's been it's been really interesting just seeing what
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: occurs at this customs and immigration processing facility at this outpost,
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: because really this is a border out post. There are
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: abandoned Toyota land cruisers everywhere, which breaks my heart. But nevertheless,
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: we thought we could do a podcast just on that.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: There's a couple seventy six is on flat tires. Over there,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: there's an LJ seventy eight. There's an old Mitsubishi. There's another,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: there's an LJ looks like a seventy three.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: So there's the ones. The goats are standing on over
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: that way. Last night they were just standing on top.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Of the roof.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Another thing we were concerned about. You leave the car here,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: the next thing, you know, it's a perch for the goats.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: They start, It would be would they would start, they'd
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: start climbing up all over the top of the grenadier.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: It's a nice green color. They think it's that's.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Right well, and I think I think for us it
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: was helpful to you know, the people here at the
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: border are they're now very familiar with us. We're part
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: of the We're now part of the landscape. We're part
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: of the landscape. They they propped us up in two chairs.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: The police officials yanked a couple of chairs out, and
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: so we're just sitting right literally right in front of
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: where all the customs officials are examining everyone's bags.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it was a lot of entertainment, a lot
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: of entertainment.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: They're they're confiscating things, they're letting people through with things.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: Nothing's really labeled that people have in their bags.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: I'm sure they have. I'm sure they have a rhythm
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: to it, but I can't figure it out. I can't
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: figure it out yet.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: And I was actually I was able to clear out
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: all of my unread emails for the last three months
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: sitting there, sitting, they're sitting there doing that. But you know,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: we we after that initial disappointment, we or I guess
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: maybe that's a third or fourth this y.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: I think it was.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: It was the biggest disappointment when we were told that
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: we would be free to go because we have satisfied
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: everything that the border requires. There's nothing that we don't
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: have or haven't provided them that they need to let
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: us go. They are just choosing to hold this vehicle.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: What they say is that people are going in with
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: a car and then they're not shipping it and all
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: this other stuff. But we have flight records that we
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: can show them.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: We have for the night before we we they're.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: The shipping agent. They're a shipping agent.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: They're in touch with the shipping agent who's shipping the car,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: which is obviously what they're going to provide in the
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: letter today of like we're going to be shipping this vehicle.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: This is all the process, this is when it's all happening.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: So hopefully that'll resolve it and we'll know fairly soon.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: But we did, we did rally a little bit. We
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: were reminded ourselves that this is going to be a
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: great story. This is going to be a lot of
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: part of it, a lot of great memory, a lot
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: of great memories. We we got to see a lot
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: of amazing culture and a lot of cultural dynamics. We've
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: seen at least three brawls since we've been here. Yeah, yeah,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: without a doubt there. Yeah, but conflict seems to resolve it.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of yelling, and I know that that's
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: that's part of the culture. It's interesting when you see
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: the older women kind of step in and uh and
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: sort things out. And and it's also interesting, you know,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: everyone seems to be willing to when they're asked to
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: show the customs officials what's in their bags and you know,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: provide their explanation. A lot of a lot of kids
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: coming in, a lot of a lot of land cruisers
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: without license plates, just shuttling people. We're very close to
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: a couple of different borders right now, so so I'm
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: guessing that we're not far from Somaliland. We're actually not
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: far from Somalia either, as the crow flies. So yeah,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: so we enjoyed watching that. We had some great conversations
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: with one of the police officers who used to work
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: for the UN. He spoke pretty good English and he
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: really kind of adopted us in a way, was very kind.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: He's the one who stamped our passports right when we
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: showed up. That's super efficient and very very kind. He's
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: taking pity upon our circus a couple of first world guys.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: And then after that we decided it was time to
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: eat to feed ourselves because we had not been doing
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: a great job.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: We've been having some nuts throughout the day.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: We had some macadamia nuts, and we had a big
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: protein shake in the morning, which is kind of my
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: go to so that was a little bit of home,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: a little bit of familiarity. And then I went to
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: the truck I pulled out.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: I used just the.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Standard but tane stove, So these are the same stoves
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: that you can find anywhere in the world. They use
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: a buttane canister. They cost about twenty five bucks, and
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: I've got a bunch of butane canisters that broke out
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: the stove. I got a cup of top ramen for me,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: and I got some pasta penny adabata for Brian in
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: a cup as well.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: Kicked it up to the next level with some chopped
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: biltong too.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: That's right, we.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Had We had quite a bit of biltong left, so
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: I broke that all up into the into the the cups,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: and then we heated up some hot water. Seat A
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Summit makes this really cool collapsible hot so it packs
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: really small and thin inside. The box, uses some form
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: of silicone and then of course has an aluminum bottom
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: so that it can heat up the water. So we
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: boil the water. We made the pasta. We made the
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: top ramen.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: In front of the customs at a house and police
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: station on their table.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: We did, yeah.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we did, And I think by that time, they
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: were mostly I mean everything was pretty quiet. Yeah, the
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: mazi's had gone away, and it was a nice breeze,
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: it was darker ready, and uh yeah, they were kind
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: of just hanging out and doing their own thing. People
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: got out of their out of their uniforms, they did,
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: and they were socializing.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is also the beginning of Ramadan, so
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: it's a really interesting cultural time. That could be why
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: we're seeing some increased activity at the border as well.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: People getting to family, making some journeys. So really interesting
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: part of the Islamic faith. So it's been interesting to
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: see that all so unfold for the folks here.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: But we had a good meal. We got our bellies full.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: We had a Yeah, I was full. I was, you know,
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: the smaller cup. But I think probably because we haven't
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: been eating that much in the last couple of days.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: And we've not been consuming a lot of calories. We're
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: not doing any hiking and.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: Walking around too much, certainly laying low.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: We're pretty we're pretty chill.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: The police officer offered us some chot and we wanted
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: to chew on.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Explain what explain what chot is.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: Well, it's a it's a plant. It's it's widely used chewed,
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: although I'm sure in some areas they probably use other
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: components of its stocks and things. Actually, I've seen some
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: people brushing their teeth with the stocks office and yeah,
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: it's it's chewed. Well, it's sort of similar to beetlenut
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: or even coca leaves in in in Peru, and it's
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: quite popular in this region. It's grown in the region,
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: and uh so we see a lot of people bringing
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: that in and and it looked like once once everyone
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: went off duty last night, the uh the police officers
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: and the customs officials all kind of sat down and
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: we're chatting, chatting and chatting and chewing chewing, that's right exactly.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: And so they offered some to us, uh maybe as
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: an after dinner, but we said we would happily, you know,
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: have it this morning.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: But we did try some.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: We did try some in the in the old city
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: of Harah. You know, it's kind of like a chewing tobacco.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: I would say it's similar to that.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: But it does.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: They do it in enough volume that it seems like
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: it does get some of those guys a little bit
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: more fired up.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: But pro level, Yeah, it's pro pro level.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so we we had a full belly, and
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: then we decided it was time to time to go
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: to sleep.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: We did dust the last batch of our amarula.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: We decided we were gonna We're gonna have a little
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: bit of a sleep aid. We probably had enough amarula
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: to pour in coffees. But uh uh so we.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: That's gone now, by the way, our supply of amarula
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: amara from South Africa. That's that's gone.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: And I decided I I was going to work on
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: my sleep hygiene last night too, So I put in
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: a set of ear plugs. We leveled the truck so
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: that I was my head was no longer pointed downhill.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: I actually put in Yeah, so I put in the
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: ear plugs.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: The truck was level and I got a.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Little bit more of my clothes off so that I
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: had some more coolness from the breeze. And I actually
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: got a lot better sleep last night, which was good.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I mean I slept well both nights.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you got an eighty five the first
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: night in an eighty eight last night on your.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: On the our ring that my mom gave me to
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: try out. Yeah, so it thought I slept really well.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: I think it like the length of time.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: That I was racked out.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And in the back of the Grenadier, it's
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: really I mean, we have we have to we have
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: to take all of the personal bags and put them
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: in the front seats. I take the Dometic fridge and
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: I stick it up on the rack. We put some
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: water bottles and stuff up on the rack too.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: I mean I can more or less sit up.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: The roof it's higher than it looks.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: It's a big car, so even you and I sleeping
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: side to side, I mean it was super comfortable. We're
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: sleeping on these Melville and Moon sleeping pads and they've
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: got a wax canvas cover, so they kind of have
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a blanket built into them. And
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: then I'm using my Nemo pillow that I have had
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: since I think two thousand and eight or two thousand
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: and nine.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: I could be wrong on that, but it was my.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Very first Nemo pillow and it's the same one that
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: I have taken to all seven contents. And my goal
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: was to finish this trip with this super cool pillow.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: And the reason for it is Cam Brensinger, who is
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: the CEO the kind of the champion of Nemo equipment.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: He's been a longtime friend. We've traveled a lot together,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: and it's just it's nice for me to bring a
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: little piece of the people that I care about in
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: my life with me and and support his business.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: So it's been fun to bring.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: Now. My Nemo pillow, on the other hand, had had
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: a blowout, which I've also taken it pretty much everywhere
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: it got at had a little blowout and in hur
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Are and uh so I don't have my repair kit
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: with me because this is not that kind of trip
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: where I'm gonna carry a lot of that those kinds
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: of spares.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Does it?
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: The gorilla tape worked for maybe about an hour and a.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Half and then and then it Yeah, it found its way.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: It found its way. Uh, that's all right. I'll get
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: that that back up and going. But actually, you know,
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: sleeping here, I got to say, like one of the well,
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: a few of the things that came through for me
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: is uh uh, Patrick Ma and the team at Prometheus
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: Design Works hooked me up with one of their their
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: recent shamas that they made.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: You have that dark gray it's cashmere.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: So that's been my blankie and it's big enough, it's
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: it's cool enough yet warm.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Enough, and it also blocks the light, blocks.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: The massis and the light. I'm sleeping under that thing.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: If somebody looks in, they'll think that just one person
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: was sleeping in here, which Scott and then also using uh,
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: their their down hoodie that we've also had forever. That
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: that that was my pillow.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: It's cool how it Kentucky either into a neck pillow
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: or into more of a little square pillow.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I use it as the neck pillow, but not
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: around my neck. I just kind of propped my head
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: under it and that sort of looks like a croissant
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: and with our croissants. But so that that that was
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: pretty key to just helping me, uh get some good sleep,
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: some comfortable sleep, because I think, especially in situations like this,
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: it's it's important that that you try to sleep and
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: or you know, catch up on rest when you can.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: And hydrate and food.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: And the police officer also gave us the key to
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: their latrine, yes, which was super nice.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Because there are no latrines really otherwise there's a place
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: to urinate with no doors, but it's there is no
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: hole that I can see in those spots too.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: We just have to kind of I don't know where
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: you'd really find them.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: You'd have to walk out into the.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: Hide behind the broken down land cruisers, which would be
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: sacrilegious for me.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's right, but that that really helped out. Yeah,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: So we've seen a lot of kindness at the border.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: We've also seen a lot of challenges. But we wanted
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: to share this experience because it is a part of travel.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: And when you find yourself in this same scenario where
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: you've got some delays or some logistical issue issues or
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: challenges at a border, look out for each other, make
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: sure you get hydrated, make sure you get your rest,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: and then try to keep as positive of an attitude
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: as possible because the officials also see that, and then
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: they become a part of your story and then they have.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: A vested interest in seeing you succeed. And we've seen
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: that certainly.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: My interactions with the Marile group have also been very
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: positive and supportive of each other. So because of that
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: they have been they've gone over and beyond to be
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: supportive as well. So maintaining that positive outlook, maintaining that
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: respect and kindness for others at a border, and then
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: being kind to yourself. I was probably a little less
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: kind to myself yesterday, just feeling really frustrated about the situation.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: And you know, we just we woried.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: Exactly and it's without a doubt it we hit a
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: pinnacle of frustration that was that was certainly bordering on
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: on anger. And and I think, you know, we just
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: reminded ourselves that that this too will pass. We really,
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: we're we're not paint are pat We We could a
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: taxi if if a taxi existed, and go on into
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: town and kick it at the beach. So it's it's
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: the vehicle is currently sort of stuck in the customs process,
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: and and and so when we just kind of reminded
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: ourselves of of what's really going on and the greater picture.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: And then we're gonna have some amazing memories. We got
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: to do it together. We're gonna have a great story
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: to tell, which we look forward to sharing with all
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: of you. And then hopefully the next installment of the
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: podcast after this on the Africa trip will be Brian
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: and I talking about Djibouti in our wonderful time in
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: the country, getting to go to Lake Asol on the
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: lowest point and spending time on the beach and then
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: getting the vehicle into the port and shipment onto Europe.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: So thanks Brian again for being here. Buddy, happy to
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: be here.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: I'm glad that I could be of assistance as in
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: the process and experiences all with you. You know, it's
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: it's not just our experience, but the experience that we're
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: having with all these different people from different cultures and uh,
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: and you know along the way, even now, everyone has
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: been really friendly. It's just sometimes when you dive deep
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: into a bureaucracy, Uh that isn't ready for a UK
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: registered vehicle that has never entered Djibouti before. Uh, there's
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: a process that's going to happen.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: And then yeah, and it was interesting because you know, Ali,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: the French legionnaire, says that's not normal. Zarah, who works
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: with the Marill group, says she's never seen that happen before.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Even within the last thirty days they had tourists coming
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: through this border to head to the port for shipment.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: So we're part of a first.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: We are we are certainly a first to be detained
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: yet not detained yet the Jibouti border for going on
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: our third day so I'm going to miss him.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna miss I'm gonna I've got a good
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: crew here.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they do have a good crew here.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: So we uh we recorded part of this podcast when
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: we were at the border in Djibouti for three days,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: but now we're going to cover what happened and for
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: the rest of the trip and leading us right up
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: to the to the ocean and the Gulf of Aiden.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: So thanks again for being on the podcast, Brian.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems like it seems like it was maybe
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: yesterday or or a year ago when we recorded inside
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: the Grenadier oh Man. Yeah, a lot.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: There is a lot of like no food, there is
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of living. There's a lot of living that
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: happened in that moment. And you and I have talked
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: about this briefly, but there are definitely times that I
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: wish I was back there, that I that I like
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: those moments in my life. I've come to really take
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: great joy out of the hardships that come during travel,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: you know, as long as someone's not being injured or
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: you know, there's not you know, genuine chance of death
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: or something like that, but just just those challenges, those obstacles,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: I think I think I miss them sometimes.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: Well yeah, and I think obviously, you know, with our
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: our posting uh on on social media and texting and
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: stuff like that. Uh, some people, some friends thought that
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: we were still there, Yeah, sort of stuck, stuck at
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: the border. But the interesting part about that experience, you know,
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: before we move on to other stuff in Djibouti, was that,
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: I mean physically we weren't detained. It was the vehicle
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: that was detained.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: But there wasn't like a bus stop right at the
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: end of the corner where we could just go scooed
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: into the local local town and and hang out and
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: have a cold one and right, and and the guards
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: and everyone there, the I should say, the immigration police
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: and the customs guys. I mean they they gave us
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: internet access. They just stip right next to their able
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: where they're going through everyone's stuff. And uh, I don't know,
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: you couldn't sign up for that, that kind of uh
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: that that kind of first person in view of how
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: life is at a remote border outpost between Ethiopia and Djibouti.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: And then like the goats would come in and start
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: eating all the cardboard or or chewing on the bags
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: of cot or whatever you were trying to trying to
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: smuggle into the country.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, or some lady had a duffel bag full of
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: flip flops. The customs guys, you know, they took it
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: from her. It must have been like fifty pairs of
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: the same color, probably the same size of flip flop.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: And then they just kept throwing all they kept throwing
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: all of the all of the unmentionables or the undesirables,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: the gear into that one room, and then every couple
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: of days they would unload it all into the high
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: lux and haul out the room.
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: And some of it I think it was because it
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: was going off. There were those orange drinks, yes, I
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: can't remember what else. And then somebody would come and
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: clean it and then they would just start throwing stuff
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: back in there. Again. You can't. You can't sign up
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: for that duty.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: That's no.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And it was, it was. It was so cool.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: And of course we talked a lot about what was
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: happening at the border experience on that other conversation. Perfect
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: it Okay, So so now that we've just let you
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: all listen to our recording at the Djibouti border, what
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: ended up happening was shortly after that recording, we actually
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: received all of the documentations that we that we needed
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: and the customs officials at the border finally showed up.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: So the team at the Marill Group in Djibouti City
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: and even the customs officials had done good work in
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: basically accomplishing everything that needed to be done in order
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: for us to be able to be let go. We
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: got some clarity over what was happening. Essentially, what occurred
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: was this vehicle was not in their system. They had
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: not been having tourists coming to the border, and the
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: customs official was just concerned that we were going to
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: bring this brand new, you know, one hundred thousand pound
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: valued car into the country and either just leave it
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: there to use for ourselves without paying duties or sell
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: the vehicle. So that's why they had come up with
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: the conclusion that all right, you're going to be stuck
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: at the border until the day that the vehicle ships,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: which interestingly enough, the vehicle has still not shipped out
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: of Jibouti as of today, so who knows how long
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: we would have been at that border. But fortunately Zara
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: and the Marill Group was able to get the customs
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: customs official to agree for the Marill Group to take
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: all financial responsibilities and to ensure that the vehicle was
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: properly exported. And then once that happened, they actually tried
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: to get a hold of the customs the lead customs
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: guy at the border, and he was just not available,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: wasn't answering his phone, nobody knew where he was. He
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: was completely Mia, remember.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: Well, And the funny thing was, at some point, I
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: guess it was on day two, like going into the evening,
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: one of the one of the junior customs officers pointed
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: out that that the senior guy was just sitting off
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: to the side, hanging out, drinking a Fanta. Yeah, and
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: so actually he was there the whole time. He just
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: probably had his phone to it. I mean he was
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: what twenty meters from us, he could see it. He
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: just put his phone off and he was drinking a Fanta,
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: that kind of hanging out.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: And then on day three he literally was Mia and
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: he finally showed. He was supposed to show up at
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: ten in the morning and then twelve, and then you're
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: starting to see, like, I see where this day is
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: going to go. And then I well, like what time
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: because then you know, then you know, Lee showed up,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: which was awesome, and then we actually decided to take
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: a drive into town.
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they were off leash. And actually the immigration police
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: officer was sort of the one that prompted it. Yeah,
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: I think he had been chatting with Ali, because apparently
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: everyone in Djibouti knows Ali and including that officer, and
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: he said, well, if you guys want, you could just
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: go with him into town or go move around do
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: something while we wait. So we actually did. I mean,
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: we had already been stamped in as far as immigration
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: was concerned.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: We hopped into the vehicle, hopped into Ali's little truck,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: and we went to the bank and we got some
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: Jibusian cash, and then we found out that there was
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: only one place likely that had fuel, which we came
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: back to that later. And then at some point in
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: the in the time in the little town, I got
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: a call from Zara that everything was done and that
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: all that needed to happen was this guy needed to
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: be found so that way. So then so then you
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: and I are back at the border and sitting and
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: just waiting for this guy to show up. That's right,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: And it was interesting because he shows up. You saw him.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: He goes into that back room and he and he
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: goes into the room for what maybe a couple of minutes.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then he walked documentation the carne.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: That's right, he had it all on lockdown, and he
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: walks out with the carne. I walk over to him,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: and he wouldn't even make eye contact with me, Like
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: clearly he was ashamed about the way that we were
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: treated and to some degree at his hand, so he,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: you know, wouldn't even make eye contact, ended me the carne,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, after three days we were free.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: Have a good one, guys that it just set us
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: free in the country of Djibouti. Yeah, and you know,
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: to be honest, the the immigration officers and the police
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: at that border crossing were it wasn't like they took aside,
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: but they totally understood what was going on, and they
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: did they were very apologetic and they were awesome. Yeah. Yeah,
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, so the experience as far as the law
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: enforcement side of that border crossing was, couldn't have been
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: any better.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: I agree, I agree, And yeah, well and in hindsight,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: it was exactly what needed to happen. And it's so
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: easy to in the moment just wish that things were
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: going to always be frictionless in our travels. But it
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: was that challenge and that friction, and you know, you
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: and I got to spend a lot of time together
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: and we all got to we've we've been in hard
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: situations together before, but that was a really hard situation.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: It really tested each of us and our patients. And
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: I just kept reminding myself that I was there by
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: my own choice, and this is exactly what I want.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: I want to have an adventurous life, and that when
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: adventure happens, which means the unknown or the unexpected, that
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: I need to keep myself patient. I need to be
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: I need to be have joy and be patient until
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: its result.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: And adversity happens when you travel. And I think in
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: this case, we might have set ourself up because I
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: believe that you had seen on the web, Oh, once
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: you cross the border, it's like fifteen minutes. Some Germans
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: in a unimogu hit it like six months prior, and
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: next thing they knew they were snorkeling with whale sharks
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: over by the beach. We just assumed that that's how
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: we were going to blow through the border, and it
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: interested't all it was.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: It was I think it was the longest time I'd
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: ever been stuck at a border. You know, I did
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: have a couple of days at the Mongolia Russia border,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: but this was definitely the longest. Yeah, it was an experience,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: for sure. And the next thing you know, we're out
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: and we're we're driving the Grenadier in the last country,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden I n go by the.
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: Way and we talked about that, you know that we're
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: both comfortable. It's night, but there really weren't that many
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: people on the road and we needed.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: To just get We need to get to all these
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: camp is where we were, and we needed to get fuel.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: So we went back into that little village and Allie said,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: you know, there's this other gas station over by this hotel,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: and sure enough, we got there and we asked if
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: they had any benzine, and they had it in you know,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: twenty liter jugs, which is always a little terrifying. But
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: what I did was I pulled out I always bring
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: along on a funnel with a filter in it, and
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: the fuel looked like it was in pretty good shape.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: It didn't clean. I'm sure because they go through it
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: so quickly. There, you know, all the motorcycles tanking up.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: As a matter of fact, I got some great video
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: of kid trying to kick start his bike that that.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: That's right, yeah, station Well, and we were really trying
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: to strike the balance because we knew we had some
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: driving around to do in Jibouti, but we also had
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: to deliver the vehicle with less than a quarter tank
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: of fuel for it to be shipped out from you know,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: from in the in the container. So we're trying to
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: strike the balance about how much fuel do we actually
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: take on board. So we only took twenty leaders on
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: board and it ended up being just about right.
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I guess one of the things that
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: maybe some of the listeners and watchers would find interesting
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: is that Jibouti is it's a pretty small country. It's
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: twenty three thousand and some small change square kilometers, so
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: let's say it's like what is that it's like eight thousand,
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: eight hundred square miles the whole country actually, when we'll
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: get to it. But we crossed pretty much almost the
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: east west of it going to Lake Asol, and we
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: did that and like I don't know, an hour and
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: forty five minutes stopping and taking picks and stuff. So
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: it's not that large of a country.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: It's really not so so we get fuel and then
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: what did we do next?
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: Brian?
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: What was the plan from there? Was starting to get dark?
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was when we kind of had our discussion,
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: because we got some great sundowner picks at that gas station,
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: and then then we thought we would hit all these places.
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: This former French foreign legionaire who at least for part
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: of the year he lives in Djibouti's got a kind
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: of like an Overlanders camp there, and as we were
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: to find out over the next couple of days, pretty
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: much everyone who does anything act if in Djibouti knows
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: Ali related for sure anything, Yeah, I think. Well, when
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: we were there, uh, some officer, some woman from from
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: the French army showed up and she was there to
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: do parasailing, I guess at his little encampment, which obviously
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: has a beautiful view overlooking the coastline and the Gulf
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: of Aiden and everything like that. And yeah, I found
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: some uh, some guys from un Commitment and some troopers
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: that came out of the hotel that we were staying later,
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: and and they they were hanging out and chatting with
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: Ali like he was you know, one of their old
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: buddies from a military unit or something.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and uh.
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we we uh it started to get dark,
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: and I actually it ended up being dark, and and
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: I think we got into some comms with Ali via
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: just the uh texting with your phone. My phone decided
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: that it didn't like the networks in Djibouti. For the
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: entire time we were there, I guess all.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: I had was all I had was voice and SMS,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: no data. Yeah, Booty does not allow tourists to have
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: a data connection on their foreign phones. I do believe
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: it's possible to get an you know, a card like
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: a SIM card, and then we could have run that
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: on our burner phone, but we were only there for
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: a couple of days, so I chose, I chose not to.
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and then uh yeah, so we we we
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: got in comms with him, uh, just SMS style, and
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: and we were asking him because you know, our our
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: NAV was telling us, you know, how to get to
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: his camp. And there were some nuances that really weren't
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: clear when we were passing through the nearby village, and
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: basically he just said, you know, when you turn right
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: off of the main road, follow the white rocks. Yes,
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: that's right, and especially at night, that was that was
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: a pretty pretty good call on his part. Paint all
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: those rocks white. And that was probably at least for
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: for my portion of the entire trip from northern Kenya
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: all the way through to to the coast in Djibouti,
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: that was probably the gnarliest road that we were on.
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, it was range kind of road, Yeah,
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: for sure. I mean, I guess it would be perfect
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: for the guy who who has you know, overlanders and
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: unimogus and other you know, former military vehicles that had
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: been converted into adventure trucks. Yeah, it was off and
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: down at his place. It was awesome. Yeah, that was
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: That was really great. And then then when we got
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: to his place, we couldn't see anything. I mean, it
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: was dark, so the view wasn't really upon our eyes
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: until the next morning. But he had he had roasted, uh,
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: some chicken and some potatoes and green beans and yeah,
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: and he had like some slice bag adds and stuff.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: I think for the first twenty minutes, I don't think
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: I said a word.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: I was just saying, well, we had had not we
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: hadn't had much food, and we certainly hadn't had I mean,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: they tried to be as hospitable as they could be
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: at the border, but it was just this this very
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: stark contrast from you know, even a couple hours before.
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And I mean we had been living kind
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: of on protein powders. Yes, and there's only so many
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: little cookie snackis and thingies that you can get from
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: the one kiosk that's right next to the to the
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: customs and immigration office. And so it was pretty much
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: like three three full days of living on water and
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: protein drinks.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: Really that was interesting actually for the listener. It was
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: interesting because when we were at the border, I tried
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: to change some dollars into jubus, and they were all
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: about it as long as it was one hundred dollars bill,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: which you know, I got a little uncomfortable about.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: You know, how do I know what currency I'm receiving.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm suspecting that they're not giving me something bogus.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: But the guy was only interested in one hundred dollars bill.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: So I think it's a good idea to make sure
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: that you've got one hundred and that you're all of
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: your US dollars when you're looking to do those exchanges
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: are newer dollars, so for example, yeah, twenty seventeen and
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: newer seems to be.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: What the money changers are looking for. Yeah, we also
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: found out once we were in town in Djibouti City
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: that people, even if you had super fresh ten dollar bills,
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: that they didn't prefer those, maybe because they're not seen
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: as often. And even though they were about the most
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: current run or tends, they didn't like those either. Now,
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: this is like a regional thing. It might just be
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: that locally it's harder for them to do something with
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: the ten dollar bills.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: I think that's the I think that's the difficulty. But
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: that was that was interesting at the border, And eventually
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: the guy in the little kiosk just took a ten
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: dollar bill for two cokes and two little like cake
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: cookie things. So he gave us about two bucks with
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: a food for a ten dollar bill. It was all
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: it all worked out. I mean, it was all again.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: It just all added to the experience. But you know,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: Alie was so generous and the food was so great.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: And we just we talked adventure all night, you know,
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: we just we just hung out and just really enjoyed
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: being with this very well traveled gentleman. You know, he
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: had a full career in the French Foreign Legion as
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: a as a paratrooper. He drove around Africa in various
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: overland vehicles, from Nissan patrols, Towe hundred one oh five
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: land cruisers to these really unusual French ex military like
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: equivalent to a deuce and a half here in the
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: United States, big military French military trucks. So he was
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: just he was an absolute joy to hang out with,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: you know. And he and he found a cot for
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: you to sleep on under the stars, and.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, because I could have gone inside, and but
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: I thought, you know, wait a second, at this moment,
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: and at least at that point of the evening, it
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: was there was not a cloud in the sky. Right.
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: It turned out it it got stalked in with fog
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: in the morning, but I did. Harry hooked me up
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: with a cot and I used those Melville and Moon
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: sleeping roles that you had, and uh, yeah, it got
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: kind of cold later in the night, but but it
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: was great. I had to pull out some some extra
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: gear to stay warm. Fortunately I had it with me,
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: but uh, yeah.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: That was it was.
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: It was a great, great experience, just and I.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: Knew for me it would be the last night that
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: I would be camping out in the Grenadier most likely
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: in Africa. So it was just it was I just
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: really I really was glad that we weren't in the hotel.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: I was really glad that we were camping out at
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: this great person's overlander camp and under the stars. And
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: it was really a neat a neat moment.
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: So yeah, and you could tell I was kind of
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: looking forward to to the morning because all around you
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: could see like NATO fuel cans and some pults of
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: of old overland vehicles that they tried out to be
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: the French ones kind of off to the side of
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: his of his out his veranda, and and it was
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: kind of hard to make it all out in the evening. Obviously,
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: once once we woke up, you know, that was what
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: greeted us, all this gear, land cruisers and the high lux,
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: and it was just like, wow, this is great.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: It was really he built every last thing on that
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: property with his own hands and with some help from
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: the locals. I mean he built his house. He built
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: and even his house was cool, like everything was in
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: like you know, Ammo crates and just but also like
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: well organized. It had like it definitely showed his disciplines
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: in life, and and uh yeah, it was just it
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: was just great. And then the then morning came and
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: we got to have some breakfast, which was cool.
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, definitely, you know. I mean I think I
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: had a bag out with some Natella on it right
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: just to kind of go in on it, you know,
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: head head first and have some good breki. And then
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: then I think I wandered off to oh no, I
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: took shower. Actually he had pretty cool little gravity fed
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: you know four days. Yeah, we're pretty pretty rank, and
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: uh and that was that was good. And then I
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: think it was during that time I wandered off to
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: take some photos of some of his uh military trucks,
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: and then you and Ali went down to a viewpoint
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: down below maybe underway, to have a look. Ye yeah
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: it did.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: That's when things got literally a little sideways. So Allie
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: was just he was just stoked. He was so happy
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: we were there. He loved the Overland Journal, and we
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: gave him a bunch of gear, like I donated, you know,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: all the recovery gear. I donated the fuel cans and
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: just all the stuff that I knew that I wouldn't
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: need in Europe, and I gave it to him all
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: because he was so generous with us, and I thought,
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: what about what a great home for that stuff going forward.
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: So he was all just stoked to have us there
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: and excited, and we were taking photos and he got
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: up on the bumper of the Grenadier to kind of
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: do like this this arms raised photograph and he's like,
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: he's like, I want to do the Toyota jump, and
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: and and and I should have like in the moment,
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: been like that's a really bad idea. But he's super
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: he's not a young man, but he's super fit. Like
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: he's super fit. So I really didn't think twice of it.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: And he he aired it out, I mean, like being
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: the good paratrooper that he was, Like, that was a
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: huge jump. He did the full Toyota jump off the
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: off the bumper and then he was just a little
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: bit off axis when he landed, so his feet were
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: a little bit out in front of him, and as
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: soon as he hit the ground, his feet slid out
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: and he went to catch himself like a like a
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: skateboarder would, and that was basically what he ended up
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: with was a skateboarder's break. It was on his I
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: believe his left arm, wasn't it.
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: It was on his uh right arm, right arm, Okay,
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: so his right arm.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: He came down and uh, yeah, no.
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: You're you're correct, left arm.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: Sorry, yeah, he came down hard and like immediately he
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: grabbed his arm and he's like, Scott, it's broken.
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: It's broke. My arm's broken.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: And it was like it was immediately swelling. There was
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: a dislocation at a minimum from what I could from
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: what I could see, and so immediately I'm like, nope,
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: we got you. Like, so I yelled for you to
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: come down, and then I'm like, let's get you up
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: to the house. So I got him in the truck
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: and he's, you know, and he's stabilizing his arm, and
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: then we get up to where the house is. And
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: You've got so much experience with this the Sheriff's department,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: with search and rescue, you're an EMT, and a lot
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: of other remote medical experience, So why don't you take
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: the story from there? Now you've got a guy with
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: a broken arm.
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, And it seems all of my latest trips,
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: you know, the last one was out into uh into
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: the desert in in Nevada, where Mario O'Donovan, owner of
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: at Overland, had a break on his tip bib break
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: when when he was riding an Enduro motorcycle. That was
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: that was pretty crazy and I was there for that
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: be the T E M T. And so then I
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: couldn't believe looking at Ali and looking at his wrists,
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: I'm like, no, this is not happening. But yeah, basically
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: it was. It was pretty obvious that there was there
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: was either just location and or break in there. And
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: you know, he had cap refill in his uh in
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: his fingertips. He could grab my finger and he could
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: feel when I kind of pinched his fingertips. So I
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: knew that that once I had it stabilized and kept
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: checking him, that it was not going to be comfortable.
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: But at least everything was in its nearly correct anatomical position,
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: and it was really just getting him to definitive care
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: and uh, I I travel, uh I think all the time.
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: I'm really I was going to say frequently, but I
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: always have one of my son's old swattles with me there.
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: They're made out of Egyptian cotton. For those of you
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: who don't have kids, you kind of wrap a baby
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: in it, almost like a like a burrito or something,
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: and kids like that. They feel secure and but they're
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: made out of some really nice material. So I brought
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: one of his old swattles that has uh giraffes and
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: elephants on it. I thought I was appropriate for being
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: in Africa and basically use that as a sling. And
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: we got him in the UH got him in the
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: grenadier and uh he was already on the phone. It
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: turned out that there were quite a few components that
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: we were not aware of. There. There isn't for for
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: for civilians, so to speak, in in Djibouti. There's not
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: the best primary care there.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: Apparently it came up from pretty much everyone we interacted with.
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it is available, but it's almost like
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: you'd have to plan in advance to go visit, a
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: more like concierge style, and it's mostly set up for
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: the expats. So so Ali was on his phone. Of course,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: we had a deal with the fact that the Grandeer
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: was set up just for two people in the front seats.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: And a quick announcement of our new Tires for Overlanding
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: educational series that is going to be brought to the
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: Expedition Portal YouTube channel here in the next week or so.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: This is a six part series that is going to
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: be released over the months of May and June and
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: it features detailed insights on mud tires, all terrains, airing,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: down driving insand vehicle preparation, tread lightly and more. And
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: we're grateful to Handcook Tire for helping to support this
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: new series. So take a look at the Expedition Portal
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: YouTube channel for more details. Yeah, so it was interesting
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: to hear so many locals talk about the fact that
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: there's just not good medical care. And in fact, one
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: of all these first comments was I probably am going
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: to need to fly to Europe uh to get help.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and we were. We were, No, there must
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: be a hospital somewhere, and I think the first thing
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: that we planned to do was get him up to
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: a French military garrison. That's that's not too far from
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: his camp. And uh so I was lying down in
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: the back of the grenadier we rode loaded all in
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: the front seat of course with you. And then I
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: was like lying down like I was, you know, going
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: to do some land speed record attempt at the Bonneville
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: Salt Flats or something. And we got we had to
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: go up his road, which of course was another fun
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: test of the Grenadier. Uh and and you know you
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: had to do a lot of left foot to.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: Be as trying to be as gentle as I possibly could. Yeah,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: but we're at all so didn't take forever because you know,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: we didn't know how developed the swelling was going to get.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: Would he develop compartment syndrome and have some restriction and
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: blood flow, So we also didn't want to take too
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: long to getting him to good care. But he even
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: even in his discomfort, I mean, he was such a trooper.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: He's still talking to us and telling us about stuff,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: and which was good. I think he needed a little distraction,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: but complete it was like this car is really comfortable
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: and it's it was good. Yeah, I think we had
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: nice ac that's right, Yeah, No, it was. It was
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: pretty amazing because the last leg of getting the Grenadier
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: to the coast, it was serving as an ambulance for
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: an ex French foreign legionaire, so pretty pretty fitting end
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: to the to the route.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, we got I guess you know, we got
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: up to the top of the well. We didn't intend
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: to take him all the way to Chibouti City, that's right.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: We got him up kind of on on near the garrison,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: and it turned out a bunch of the French troopers
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: soldiers were jogging down the road, so he told us
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: to pull over. And I don't know if it was
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: a CEO or whatever whoever had more stripes on a sleeve,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: but they came over and said, oh, the ambulance, the
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: land cruiser ambulance isn't over at the garrison. It's in
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: Djibouti City. So we just we flipped the UI and
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: then we're driving him as like what an hour and
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: half something like that, about an hour to get back
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: over to Jibouti City and then to the French military hospital. Obviously,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: when we got there, everyone knew Ali, so they knew
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: he was coming because he had let him know. Yeah,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: so they came out, one of the troopers came out
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: and picked him up and put him in a car
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: and just took him on in and then he ended
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: up that day having surgery. There was a doctor that
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: was on staff, an army doctor on staff, and took
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: care of him right then and there. Yeah, we actually
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: passed by the.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: Sea as well, Uhi right to the ocean, right to
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: the ocean with the grenadiers serving as abul. The crossing
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: of the continent included the crossing in ambulance mode and
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: it's just so fitting. It's such a fitting way to
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: do that, and it's it was. It was very cool.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: But so once we once we got him squared away
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: at the hospital, then you and I were thinking what
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: are we going to do with these next couple of
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: days we have in Djibouti. So what was next for us?
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: Well, that was when we learned that you could cross
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: almost the whole country and about two hours or so.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: The hours, yeah, we we we trucked it on east
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: and went to Lake Assault, which is it's the lowest
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: lowest point in Africa. It's a it's so one of
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: those hyper saline lakes there. There are a bunch of
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: them around around our planet, and it's the and I
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: guess it's the third lowest spot on the planet, and
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: it's the second lowest saltwater lake after the Dead Sea.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: So I think I think that.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously in North America it would be wouldn't
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: it be bad Water Basin. Wouldn't that be the lowest
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: point Death Valley?
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: Well, I think Death Valley. Yeah, it's eighty four meters
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: or so below sea level, and we were at one
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: hundred and fifty or so. We were at one hundred
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: and fifty five meters below sea level.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: And also just so you know, some of the some
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: of the viewers and listeners will know, you know, like
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: seawater has three point five grams per leader of salt,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: you know, which is usually also sodium and potassium and
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: other stuff in it, the salt and sea maybe some
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: some people that are from the southwest of the US
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: that has four point four point four grams per leader,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: and and Lake Asall has three hundred and forty eight
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: grands of salt and other minerals per leader per per leader.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: That's insane. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess we'll
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: get to it a little while. But I had a
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: good time testing one of the terrain three sixty five
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: knives in it because it's about as corrosive and nasty,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: including on the vehicles too, as it can get. But
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: but that was really neat.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: I mean it was interesting coming from that higher elevation,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: and I mean it got very very hot when we
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: finally made it. Also, like we're below sea level, so
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: it's going to make it even hotter than you would
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: be at the sea. Very little wind, it was. It
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: was toasty when we were there.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's definitely in a basin.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, like I've been to the Dead
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: Sea a bunch of times, and maybe because of the
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: shape of that huge valley, there's more of a breeze
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: blowing all the time. And yeah, I don't know. Maybe
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: because of the topography, you don't really realize that you're
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: that far below sea level, But at Lake A Salt
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: it's very apparent. Yeah, And it was beautiful.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: I mean it was you could see that they do
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: some salt mining there. They looked like there was an
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: operation where they were probably extracting minerals out of the
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: water with these big silos. It was right up at
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: the water's edge. But other than that, there really wasn't
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: anybody there. There was no other vehicles that we saw.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: There was a couple of kids that were trying to
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: sell some salt bath salt walls or something like that. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: and uh, but we got we got a bunch of
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: photos and and if we had had more time, you
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: go a little bit further. There's some volcanic areas that
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: we were we would have liked to have explored. But
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: all he had some concern about us getting through because
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: the water was a little higher than normal because of
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: the rains that they had been receiving for the previous
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks. So we didn't even we didn't even
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: attempt it. But you know, we took a whole day
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: and enjoyed going to what was the lowest point in
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: in Africa. I mean, I'd gotten the grenadier over eleven
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: thousand feet when I was in on Mount Kenya and
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: then got it down to about five hundred and something
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: beat below sea level on Lake a Saul.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's it's quite austere. Yeah, I can't.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: I think that word kind of sums it up, really
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: does It's. I mean, in antiquity, the salt from there
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: was traded off on the different trading and spice roots
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: and camel roots elsewhere in Africa and over in the
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: Arabian Peninsula. But I certainly want to wouldn't want to
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: be harvesting that that stuff. And we were there really
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: I think it's one of the cooler times.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: Of the year, that's right, Yeah, we were because we
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: were there in March, so pretty interesting. So yeah, then
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: we get back into Djibouti City. We decided to get
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: the truck washed, which is a good idea before you
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: ship anyways. And also we had had that salt from
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: Lake Asol, you know, on the chassis and other components
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: of the vehicle, so we wanted to get that off.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: So they did a really good deep cleaning on that,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: and then we decided to go a little bit baller
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: and we stayed in a really nice probably the nicest
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: hotel in Jibouti City, right there on the Gulf of Aiden.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: So to be sitting at the Infinity Pool with a
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: couple of cocktails and Yemen was what thirty seven kilometers
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: to the north from where we were north and east
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: from where we were located, which at the time that
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: we were there, this was nearly at the height of
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: all the conflict in that region, and the Hoothy rebels
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: had been using drones to attack ships and missiles to
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: attack ships, and here we were, you know, the we
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: could see the other shoreline.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: So yeah, it was. It was, and it was in
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: stark contrasts to our time at the border, Yeah, crossing
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: over from Ethiopia into Djibouti. Uh, just a few really,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: just a few days prior.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: That's right. So it was.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: And travel is often about contrasts, and staying in places
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: like that isn't a high priority for me, but it
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: certainly felt appropriate given what we had experienced and the
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: fact that we wanted to get reliable internet connection. We
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: wanted to be able to organize the vehicle in a
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: safe location and there just really are not very many options.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: And as a point of I guess consideration is that
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: the hotel was it wasn't like it was one thousand
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: dollars a night. It was just a couple hundred dollars
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: a night, so it you know, you spend more than
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: that on the Best Western in Seattle, so it was
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: it was still very affordable.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was. It was a nice place. They had
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: great food and uh. And then the Valley team out
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: outside was totally totally into us, pretty much taking everything
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: out of the truck kind of, and we were right
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: near the front door there was some dignitaries and things
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: were showing up for some meetings and things, you know,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: related to more regional things and more regional importance. And
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: we had all this overland gear and boots, and we.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: Did, we did.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: I was putting out the refrigerator, the Dometic fridge right
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: there in front, and and.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: We had to get the vehicle ready. So I'm trying
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: to decide what am I going to haul back? How
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: many carry ons or how many check bags could we have.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: There's one Air France flight week that goes out of there,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: which was definitely our best option. Otherwise you're doing some
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: other weird kind of loops to get to get back home.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: So yeah, we ended up, you know, with four check
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: bags between the two of us, and some carry some
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: carry ons and then really all I needed to leave
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: in the vehicle was whatever I was going to need
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: for driving across Europe.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: So there was a lot less left.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: In the vehicle.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: And we donated a bunch of gear too, so which
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: was good.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we even we even came up with
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: some some other gear for Ali that we we hooked
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: the giant loop fuel back ladders and some other small
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: bits and pieces yeah, and.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: Then we we we went and got some great photos
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: right there on the coast and captured some videos, and
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: you know, I was certainly feeling an enormous amount of
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: relief to have made it across the continent and the vehicle.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: When we drove up to the ocean and actually put
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: the tires within within a eater of the water, there
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: wasn't a single warning light on the dash. I had
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: had no failures in over twenty thousand kilometers across Africa.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: The only thing that I had to replace was something
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: that I damaged, which was the steering stabilizer. It got
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a rock hit and needed to
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: be swapped out. But there was just no issues at
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: all with the vehicle, which I felt so so fortunate
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: to have happened. So, you know, I'm curious, Brian, like
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: you spent weeks driving a Grenadier and you've driven all
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: the cool toys throughout many decades. What was you know,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: kind of your unfiltered thoughts on the car?
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: What did you think? Yeah, that's I mean, I've had
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 3: a lot of people ask me that I have a
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: good colleague down in Los Angeles. He his wife picked
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: up a Grandier, but Obviously at the moment, she hasn't
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: really gone off highway anywhere, and so we had all
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: these questions because they've just been using it to go
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: shopping and crews around town. Yeah, the first thing I
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: could say was that it's comfortable. You know, obviously the
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: seats were designed by Riccardo. There's no I know, this
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: is already out there there. There's no electric motors or
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: anything like that. So you've got to kind of dial
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: in the seats figure out, you know. I think I
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: would maybe make one or two micro adjustments on the back,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: like when I would switch from when you had been driving.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: But but other than that, you know, once you get
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: it dialed in, it's very comfortable. And you know, for
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 3: for a guy like me who's over the age of
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: twenty five, you know, comfort, comfort matters in vehicles, and
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: so it's not just the sitting position, but also just
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: the ride itself. It reminded me a lot. We have
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: an l R four Discovery four for for the rest
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: of the world, and it feels a lot like that.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 3: On the inside. You know, when you when you close
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: the doors, there's there there's a good solid sound. You know,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: you're sealed out from the outside as far as the
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: elements and all of that kind of helps with with
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: limiting fatigue when you especially when you're driving long days,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 3: when you're when you're driving over roads that are pretty rough,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: when you're just alert all the time, especially as the
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 3: driver because of the conditions traffic, trucks, animals, people crossing
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: the roads, yeah, other drivers not paying attention to to
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: road rules things like that, trucks passing other trucks and
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 3: all kind of all of that can kind of make
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: your your driving experience quite tense. And then you know,
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: obviously when the when the seats comfortable, when the AC works,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 3: the steering wheel, I really like that, it feels it's
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: just it's just the er gone have been really well
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: thought through, and you can tell that I'm kind of
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 3: dwelling on that because I think that's what matters up
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: front before you then start talking about the suspension and
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: the solid front axle and all that other kind of stuff,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: which of course gets you to where you want to go,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: But I.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: Would would you think of the engine power and stuff?
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that I think that's That's one of the other
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 3: points that I think sticks out because when you get
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: your foot in it, you know that that ZF, that'
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 3: z F transmission, that eight speed training, that that that
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: thing really it moves that that truck along. And you
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: know there are plenty of times when you got to pass,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: pass a truck, pass a string of cars, just get
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: around something, avoid something, and then jump on the highway
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 3: and just be able to cruise at a speed that's
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 3: that's that's acceptable, so you can get somewhere, especially when
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: you're traveling in places like Africa where you don't want
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 3: to travel at night. And I'm not talking about breaking
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: the lawn speeding. I just mean, you know, getting yourself
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: up to the speed limit and cruising it the speed limit,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: and I was.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: Really impassed pass being able to pass pass efficiently. I
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: think it's good to kind of compare it against its piers,
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: which you're going to be comparing it, you know, against
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: land cruisers and you know, older defenders and things like that.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: And the power is quite a bit more than what
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: you would find in most vehicles. And I found it
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: to be on par with the new three hundred series
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: land cruiser and I've driven that in both the diesel
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: and the gas variant. So I think that the vehicle
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: being you know, powerful and efficient enough for fuel economy. Thought,
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: I thought that was a nice benefit of Yeah.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: And we also did have that one but one day
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: when we spent now this was down in Ethiopia, but
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 3: we spent you know, a quite a few hours in
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 3: Mueller's seventy six series land Cruiser, which was like a
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 3: year old or something like that. And the contrast is
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: very obvious once you jump from from the grenade ear
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: into a stride and true platform that is certainly more spartan,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 3: not just in how it's appointed on the inside, but
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: the ride. Yeah, that's right.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, lankers are basically built to not fail, like
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: your spine will give up before the car will.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: And then and then what did you think about kind
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: of like the room inside, how we had things, What
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: did you think about the buildout? What did you think
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: about like how we had the car set up that, Yeah,
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: we feel that we had well or didn't work work well.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: There's a previous podcast or even on YouTube a video
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: that you have where you discussed the build out and
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 3: uh and the platform that you had put in. I
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: want to stay by the front Runner team down in
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 3: South Africa.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 2: And.
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: So we we had to sleep in there, not by choice.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: That was the only place we could sleep early when
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 3: we were when we were at the border, the Jibusian
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: Ethiopian border, and one of the things that became apparent
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: to me, I mean, I'm I'm not the smallest guy
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 3: in the world, but you know, both of us could
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 3: sleep sort of feet to head comfortably in the back
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 3: on that platform, and at the same time, for example,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: when I had to sit up, there was actually plenty
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: of space to sit up, which I was very surprised.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 3: And this is not it doesn't have a pop pop
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 3: up top of any kind. This is just the stock
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 3: configuration on the inside. So I really liked that, you know,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 3: that was for two people. Anyway, I liked the possibility
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 3: of sleeping inside the vehicle. I thought the the fridge
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 3: that you had installed there was just the right size
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 3: for everything you need to keep cold, and it doesn't
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 3: take it very big.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: It's just that little CFX twenty five, So it's the
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: smallest fridge they make other than a console fridge. And
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: now that I've done that, I think that's the size
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: I'm going to use for all of my international travels
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: because it's just nice to have a smaller, lighter weight fridge.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And if you have things like certain kinds of
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 3: beverages that you want to keep cold, but you can
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 3: rotate those in. They don't need to be in there,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 3: you know, packed with you know, twelve of your favorite
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 3: you know, sodas or beers or whatever you want to
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 3: have in there. You can just rotate stuff in. But
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 3: it is nice, you know, if you have other items
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: that just definitely need to be cold. I'm a I'm
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: a very big proponent of having comfort food when you can,
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 3: like you know, even just bar chocolate. You know, times
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 3: get tough and that's come adversity and you split a
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 3: bar of chocolate and everything's okay at that moment.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: Really, And if I have I have a chocolate bar
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: when things aren't going well, that's usually all I need.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it reminds you that, you know,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 3: everything's a right. And and I like the rear door
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 3: configuration of Grantite. Yeah, you know, it's it's I like
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: that on the left side it has that that sort
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 3: of corter door where you can kind of get in
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 3: and out and you had set up the fridge over
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 3: on that side. But also if you just need to
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: kind of quickly open it up, grab something. It's it's
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: quite handy. Obviously. The tire is on the other side.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: There's a ladder on the on the smaller door as
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 3: well for climbing on up and getting to the roof
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 3: rack and you know, anything that you have up there. So,
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 3: you know, I really like that. It looks similar to
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 3: like a one ten, you know, it has that the
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 3: design on the outside, the body design. It looks like
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 3: it should be narrower than it is. And I know
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 3: it's actually much wider than a one ten, But unlike
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 3: a g wagon which just has sort of slab sides
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 3: going straight ate up, uh, visually, this one has that
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 3: little bit of a flare uh and and you don't
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 3: feel that when you're inside because actually it's it's it's
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 3: not as narrow as as the one ten, which was
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 3: nice for sitting in the back and and and chatting
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 3: in the sleep.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's actually a pretty pretty big car, bigger than
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of people realize. I mean, it's not like
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: being in a shabby tahoe or something like that, but
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: it's big. No, but it's a lot bigger than a
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: lot bigger than a patrol a lot bigger than a
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: land Cruiser, so.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. But overall, the driving experience in it was
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 3: was really nice. I mean, you know, we we obviously
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 3: went through a lot of different types of terrain, different conditions,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 3: everything from literally from from from a highway uh with
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 3: great tarmac to volcanic roads that you know you just
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 3: had to creep along with with lockers on, you know,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 3: engaged and and and everything in between, and and it
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 3: just performed flawlessly. And it wasn't like like, I feel like,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 3: you don't have to have decades of experience to drive
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 3: that vehicle as as it's intended by Ineos. And I
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 3: thought that's really cool. You know, you don't have to
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 3: you know, know what you're doing and have been to Baja,
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 3: you know, twenty times over the last you know, decade,
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 3: in order to kind of get around with it. And
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 3: I think that's that's really good thinking on their part.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 3: It just works.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: It just works, and it's got the payload for all
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: the fuel that we needed to have along and for
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: us and our gear. And I was just impressed that,
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is such an early units. It's only
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: granted Deer number three hundred and seventy two and they've
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: now made tens of thousands of them. So it's pretty
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: interesting that such an early model was so problem free.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: It's I think it gives me a lot of encouragement
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: over the what will be the long term reliability and
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: durability of the vehicle. So now let's talk a little
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: bit about some of the gear you brought along. So
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: what did you bring along that was like a long
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: time standby that you you think people should know about,
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: and then what were some of the newer things that
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: you brought along to test?
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 3: All right, well, yeah, so since we're all we're all
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 3: friends here, I think some of the things that don't
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 3: get talked about are the personal hygiene items. And I'm
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 3: the guy at the different like the Northwest Overland rally
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 3: who talks about going to the bathroom in foreign places
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 3: and what you got to do, and so one of
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 3: the things that I bring along because you never know
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 3: what happened, are these individual I think they're just called
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 3: hemorrhoid wipes. I don't have hemorrhrights currently, but at the
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 3: same time, these they're individually packed. You can use them.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 3: For example, they have witch hazel on them, so they
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 3: have their their you know, anti bacterial. You can use
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 3: them like if you get a scrape or a minor
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 3: cut or something, or you got to clean your hands
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 3: and there's no other place to do it for whatever reason,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 3: you can use those. They fit in your pocket. They're
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 3: they sort of look like almost like the old packet
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 3: of of of like a T bag or something like this,
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 3: and so you can stash them. And I usually have
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 3: a bunch of those on me. I found like here,
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 3: I even brought it here, this this thing here, you know,
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 3: you can see it. It's this one's made by Max Edition.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 3: I think it's actually made for for e MT and
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 3: paramedic gloves. Sure, but I carry that like a cargo
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 3: pocket or in a back pocket because you never know.
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 3: And and case in point was when we were at
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 3: the Jubusian border, and I don't know it was the
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 3: end of day one maybe when I went and asked
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 3: the one of the police officers, is, hey, by the way,
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 3: is there is there a toilet around here?
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 3: And and then you know, you got to start to
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 3: deal and that just comes up, and it's not talked
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 3: about that often. And I don't mind, you know, talking
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 3: about some of my little tricks of the trade. I
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 3: always have those with me. On airplanes, there's just things
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 3: happen where you got to do what you gotta do.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: And make sure you got plenty of toilet paper because
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: you don't know how long you're going to be at
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: a place. Make sure you got plenty of wet wipes, yeah,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: because that just makes life a little bit easier, so
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: you can you can clean up, you know, late at
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: night when you're finally getting tucked in, you can kind
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: of just clean up a little bit from the day
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: and you know, clean your face off and everything else clean.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 3: And it's important, you know, for not just you know,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 3: because we're from first world countries or something like that,
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 3: but personal hydrien is important. I mean, if you want,
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 3: especially if you're going to be in a multi week
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 3: trip or a multi month trip, you have to take
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 3: care of yourself. And you don't want to all of
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 3: a sudden be getting sick inadvertently because you you just
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 3: didn't wash your hands or something like this, and you know,
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 3: you just have to pay attention to that. And I
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 3: think it's important. Some of the other tried and true
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 3: things that I now swear by. One of them is
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 3: a product it's called biosponge. It's basically just diatamacious earth
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 3: and these little gel caps.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: Times.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's made by a local company. Coincidentally, that's that's
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 3: in the area where I live in California, called Platinum Performance,
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 3: and they use them for horses and you know when
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 3: they call it and things like this. But they have
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 3: a food grade one that's that's made for humans, and
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 3: I take it as preventative sometimes. You know, let's say,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 3: you know, you're in that village and you got to
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 3: eat that food and you're and you're just going, oh
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 3: my god, this is going to torpedo my stomach. I
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 3: already know it's it's you know, so you'll take one
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 3: or two of those and everything will be fine. Now
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 3: it's not obviously you got to look into it, you know,
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 3: for your own applications, but it's quite inert. It's just
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 3: diet tomation earth, right. But if you suspect that that
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 3: something's starting to go south, obviously, you know, you can
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 3: then jump to things like lomatil and other other meds
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: down the line. But this is sort of.
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: My definitely got onto some emodium for a couple of days.
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, you never.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: Know, but I tried not to take it. But when
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: you've got to drive, when you have to go, you know,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: when you have to drive, you got it. Sometimes you
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: just got to take that stuff because you don't have
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: access to a bathroom.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: And then now you had you had these really handsome
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: like Marino wool, long sleeve collared shirts and who made
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: who made those?
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: Oh? Those are those are made by Icebreaker.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: And it just looked like you were on day I
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: don't know, day one hundred of wearing that thing, and
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: and it looked it still looks as sharp as the
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: day that you put it on.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 3: I mean it was.
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: It's a really not and it drapes well, you know
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's probably available in you know, a bunch
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: of different colors, but you know it's you said, it's
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: made by Icebreaker.
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's just a button down sort of Oxford
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 3: style shirt. It's made out of obviously Marina wool. I
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 3: think they only have one weight of them, and they've
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 3: kind of changed them over the years. They used to
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 3: have some kind of funky buttons on some of the
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 3: earlier ones, and I don't think there's that many colors
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 3: you can choose from. I have black one and a
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 3: kind of like a brown one or something like that.
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 3: But wear them to dinner, you can wear them in
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 3: the field. They don't take on the smell and the funk,
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 3: like you said. They drape really well no matter. And
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 3: I was wearing them. We were we were in some
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 3: pretty warm conditions, and I didn't have anything underneath them,
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 3: but I was. I was very comfortable in them, and
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 3: I kind of bring those along as my one of
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 3: my one stop shopping kind of shirt. It's sleeping them
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 3: if you need too. I mean exactly. They're really warm,
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 3: and you know.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: You could wear you could wear it into an embassy and.
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 3: Not look like you're homeless or anything like that. So exactly,
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 3: and then go out to dinner. But then the next day,
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 3: if you have to climb under the truck and wrench
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 3: on it or or look for the engine block number,
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 3: you know, for the customs official, you can roll up
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 3: the sleeves and you can do it and and uh yeah,
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 3: and it'll hold up. Yeah, exactly exactly.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: And then when when we were when we were having
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: to sleep at the border, it was so hot that
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: you really didn't want a blanket on you. But you
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: you kind of tossed this. It's a Prometheus design works.
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 3: Ye still.
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: I mean some would call it a shama. I would
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: just call it are.
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's called the a g cashmere schma and yeah, yeah,
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 3: that's what they call it. And uh so it measures
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 3: because of course I I measured it just just for giggles,
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 3: and I'll be you know, writing it up. But it
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 3: measures like forty eight inches, so it's like a meter
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 3: one meter twenty two centimeters square so each side. And
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 3: so it's basically four feet by four feet for those
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 3: people from from the US and one meter twenty two
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 3: cms and by meter twenty two cms and measurement so
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 3: you can use it. It's it's thin enough, you know,
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 3: it's not this like super thick cashmeror where you're gonna
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 3: be sweating yourself to death. But it keeps the massis
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 3: off of you. Now you obviously you can wear is
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 3: a scarf or a head wrap or whatever else. I've
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 3: always warned a scarf. Yeah, And I did that one
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 3: night sleeping at all these encampment when the fog kind
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 3: of rolled in and I needed something a little bit
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 3: warmer around my head and neck. But but when we
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 3: were in the back of the Grenadier, I just threw
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 3: that thing over me as a blanket obviously, you know.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 3: It went from let's say, my I kind of tucked
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 3: the corner under my head and that was because of
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 3: the mosquitoes, Yeah, because we were we were definitely in
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 3: the Mosquito country and uh, and then I just kind
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 3: of had it draped over pretty much my all of
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 3: my torso and it kind of went down, you know,
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 3: to my like upper thighs, and uh. I was snug
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 3: as a bug with that thing.
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: Well, and then it was these really bright security lights,
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: so it probably camped some of that down. I'd be
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: I'd be up at six thirty in the morning when
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: the lights started to kind of from the sun and
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: you were still saw and you were you were totally
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: which is right. And I had I had one with
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: me as well. And that morning, of course, I ended
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: up being the last morning that we ended up needing
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: to have slept in the vehicle. But I was like,
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: I'm going to use that for the next night if
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: I were still here. Oh yeah, yeah, And I hold mine.
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: I've used mine around the world and it still looks
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: brand new, even though I've been wearing that thing off
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: and on for years and years and years.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 3: So well. I mean the other thing about that, similar
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 3: to let's say that the button down shirts that we
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 3: were just talking about, is you know, the the schmalk
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 3: that I got. The color is, uh, I can't remember it.
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 3: It's it's like gray heather gray. Yeah. And it's also
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 3: one of those one stop shopping kind of products where
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 3: you could dress up with it, you can dress down
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 3: with it. You can you know, use it as a
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 3: wrap when you're going from the shower facility back to
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 3: your truck. You know. I used it, as you saw,
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 3: as a blanket on numerous nights, including some of the
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 3: nights that we just had mosquito netting over us when
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 3: we were staying in little inns and stuff along the way.
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 3: You know, I just use that as as my cover up,
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 3: keeps the massies away, keeps a light out, keeps me warm.
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 3: But it's just not it's not too warm.
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: Then you had a you had a cool watch with
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: you and also your auror ring maybe talk about Yeah.
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 3: Also on the lines of the Prometheus design works, uh,
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 3: they sent me out one of their Gen two the uh,
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 3: their Expedition watch band compass. It's titanium. I did a
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 3: test uh and a write up for for the Overland
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 3: Journal for their first gen one and and I like
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 3: I like them. It's it's a cool thing to have
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 3: on your wrist, especially well, especially when you're in locations
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 3: where you just don't have your bearing. And also, you
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 3: know when you're south of the equator. I'm a north
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 3: of the equator guy. That's where I live. And you know,
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 3: it's not always obvious you know which direction is where,
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 3: especially when it's overcast and or if you have to
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 3: take a quick look where you know, maybe you have
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 3: some directions. It says turn north on the highway and
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 3: that is your direction. You can quickly kind of take
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 3: a take a gander, you know, at the uh, at
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 3: the at the watch band compass and and uh, they're
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 3: I think they're waterproof to like one hundred meters, a
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 3: lot more than any sport diver is gonna go.
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: You had it on a NATO band. But talk a
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: little bit about the watch you had here. I got
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: a can have it here.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 3: Figured you're gonna I know you're a watch geek too,
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 3: but here's the here's the it's an old Seko diver watch,
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 3: diving watch. We we even wrote it up. There's this
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 3: is the Prometheus design works that there gen two uh
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 3: titanium compass. But yeah, I was I was a watch
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 3: that belong to my father, and I had one of
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 3: my buddies put in a different dial and uh and
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 3: put on he'd be blasted it and put on different
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 3: hands and stuff like that. My dad would have liked that,
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 3: and uh so I kind of use that as my
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 3: generic travel watch. There's a sentimental part to you know,
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 3: it's it's yeah, I mean, all the stuff that says
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 3: Seiko or anything else or one hundred meters or three
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 3: hundred meters, all that's that's gone. There's nothing on the dial.
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 3: So it's quite generic looking, even though obviously dive watches
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 3: do indicate that the wearer might be of some some
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 3: means physically or otherwise. And and so you know, it
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 3: is what it is. But you know, I want to
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 3: have a watch that can you can beat up automatic
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 3: and you know, I like taking my dad places, and
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 3: you know, to be honest with you, if all of
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 3: a sudden somebody said, hey, give me your watch, I
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 3: would hand it over and that vibe would just go
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 3: down the line. You know, there goes my dad's watch
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 3: somewhere and and we would probably be proud of that too,
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I used the garment watch the entire trip
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: across Africa, and I really liked how it did a
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: good job of keeping me up to date on my sleep,
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: which is something that I monitored very closely.
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: It doesn't have too many notifications that show up. I
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: like the fact that it does provide the elevation, so
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: you know, even like at Lake Asol, you could see
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: what elevation that you're at. So there, you know, there
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: are a lot of things that I really like about
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: those garment watches. But like, yeah, even today, so this
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: is my dad Sekah, which we talked about before. So yeah,
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: we both got our dad's dad's with us today. Which right, yeah,
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: now you use you use the R ring, which is
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: also something that I've got.
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 3: I got that one of your way to here here
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 3: it is you know, it's titanium or titanium finish. I
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 3: don't actually know what the whole build is on it.
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 3: And my mom uh gave it to me for for present,
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 3: and I mean I was I have to say, I
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 3: wasn't necessarily into it. I wasn't not into it, you know,
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 3: of course I accepted it. But one of the things
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 3: that I think is cool about it is tracking your
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 3: different stress levels. It picks up on that stuff it is.
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 3: You think it won't, but it does.
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: And it's also telling. It's going to tell you when
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: you're starting to get sick because it knows when your
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: body temperature starts to go up.
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 3: And I can confirm that with myself and Yanina using it.
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 3: It's when you go back and look at the data,
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 3: you're like, whoa, there's my body temp going up. And
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 3: then a day and a half later, that's when I wasn't,
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 3: you know, feeling so good. And and but also it
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 3: helps you track your sleep, which is kind of funny
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 3: because the two of the best nights of sleep I had,
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 3: you crushed it over where when we were detained at
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 3: the border, sleeping in the back of the Grenadier on
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 3: a platform with my Prometheus design works smog over my head,
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 3: and I, yeah, I got like, you know, the Crown
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 3: rating and all this kind of stuff. I didn't. I
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 3: did not.
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: I think I had four and a half maybe five
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: hours the next night something like that. I didn't I
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: didn't do quite as well as you did.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, no, but I think it's a handy
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 3: piece of gear. Obviously it needs to be recharged. I
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 3: think mine I've gone like six days without putting it
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 3: on the charger. That part for me is to turn off.
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 3: But it is what it is, obviously, you know, it's
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 3: devices like that, even our garment inReach. You know you
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 3: need to charge that up. I just you know, I
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 3: don't always like having these cables and things all over
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 3: the place and finding the right one that fits and
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 3: stuff like this. But but you know, once you get
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 3: past that, it's it's a pretty cool little device to
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 3: have with you. You can also, of course, I lost
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 3: mine once down down at a barn here on the farm,
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 3: and I got online and clicked on my phone on
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 3: you know, where's my ring? And literally, you can't make
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 3: this up. It was in the drawer where I have
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 3: my metric wrenches and it must have come off, or
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 3: maybe I took it off. I don't I don't remember
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 3: how it got in there, but there it was.
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, crazy pretty, it's a real Yeah, the ORR ring is.
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: I think it's great because it also allows you to
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: wear an analog watch. Like if you want to wear
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: your dad's watch, it's a way for you to still
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: track your sleep and have have something old school. And
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: I think maybe that's a good pivot to the to
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: the garment in reach. So when we were at the
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: Jibusian border, my phone switched over normally where I then had,
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: I could make phone calls and I could send and
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: receive SMS, no data, because that's the it's just a
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: policy of the Jibusian government. But your phone never switched over.
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: It never once connected to the Jibusian network.
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 2: Not once.
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 3: UTI and we have the same system, I think mine
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 3: is going.
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: We're both on AT and T and we both had
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: iPhones and we were both in the same spot and
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: it just never it never switched over. So you know,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of times people that are traveling are like, yeah,
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: you know, I've always I've always got my my phone
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: with me, or I don't really go that remote. Well,
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: there's times when maybe things don't switch over, and then
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: you were you never skipped a beat. You were able
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: to communicate back home and with work and everything else
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: like that using your in reach.
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I have the mini to our garment in reach
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 3: the many too, and I mean literally. I mean, it
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 3: wasn't a lifesaver. My life wasn't on the line, but
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 3: on and I was able to just start sending texts, Uh,
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 3: we're really it's letting family know everything's fine, but we're
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 3: you know, maybe a little bit you know, behind the
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 3: curve as far as our our you know, profile, the
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 3: trip profile. Obviously in places, especially border zones anywhere. Really
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 3: it didn't have to be at the JUBUTIONI border. You
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 3: should be discreet about pulling out your your satellite communication equipment.
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 3: It's just not appreciated because you know, it's not really
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 3: clear what you're doing. You know, are you sending a
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 3: message to your to your son's iPad back at home,
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 3: or are you, you know, trying to give some other information,
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 3: collect some some intel on something. And so you know,
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 3: I don't feel like I'm giving away any trade secrets here,
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 3: but I keep mine, especially when it's going to be
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 3: on the dash of the car. I put it inside
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 3: of a little those little stacks that come when you
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 3: buy a new pair of sunglasses. And uh, because obviously
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 3: it has to have a view of the sky well
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 3: the best of you it can, you know, in order
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 3: to get good coverage. And so I found that just
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 3: having a little black bag with the you know thing
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 3: inside of it floating around, you know, on the dash
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 3: helps out. I also put it in where where the
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 3: door latches and the door that's a good spot for it.
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 3: And then for example, when we're you know, in places
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 3: where I have my boots outside maybe to kind of
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 3: you know, dry out the end of the day or
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 3: just kind of air them out. Sometimes I'll drop the
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 3: inReach down in one of my boots so that obviously
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 3: it's pointing straight up, but if somebody walks up, they're
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 3: just a stinky old pair of boots there and kind
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 3: of like hanging your underwear up at the end of
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 3: the day. Most people aren't kind of going fidget with
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 3: that stuff.
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: So yeah, and I had the inReach messenger, which is
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: the newest one that they have, and it just looks
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: like a little power brick that you would use to
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: charge your phone, and actually it can do that if
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: you plug in USBC. You can go into the menu
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: and have it set to actually charge your phone. So
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: it's very discreted. It doesn't even look like they sounded
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: like communicator anymore. And I just keep it in my pocket.
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: I keep it with me all the time because you
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: can use it without the phone. If an emergency happens,
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: there's an SOS button right on it exactly. You can
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: even you can even in a very clunky way, you
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: can send a message, you know, by scrolling through the
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: various letters, so you can even do customized messages. Presets
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: too as well also do that. Yeah, so I just
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: keep it on me. I think that there it's just
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: a very powerful tool for travel and it's like we
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: we never expect things to go wrong, but sometimes they do,
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: and it's just I think it's just one of the
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: best tools on the market to make sure that you
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: have a way to communicate if you need.
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 3: To, yeah, out of doubt. And obviously, you know, we
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 3: got into the situation where where we needed those those
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 3: devices definitely for me. And then also when you're just
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 3: traveling along and even if you do have normal cell coverage,
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 3: you're going to fall out of coverage in more remote places,
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 3: you know, like in parts of north in Kenya, and
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 3: when we got into Ethiopia, there were areas where the
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 3: just there was no cell coverage. It just was no
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 3: coverage at all, that's right.
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, really powerful tool and I think, you know,
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: looking back on it, everything that we brought with us
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: worked great. We didn't really we didn't have any failures
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: on anything that I can think of, and uh, you know, overall, Brian,
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: it was just such a joy to travel with you.
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm always grateful for the time that you
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: and I get to spend together, and we've been into
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: some of the coolest places on our trips together. So
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: for me, it was just it was just such an
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: honor to have you there for that final leg, and
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: you were an incredible addition to the journey, and during
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: one of the most challenging parts of it, I had
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: someone there that I trusted completely to have my back.
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 3: So thanks so much for being along. Brian. Being the
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 3: pessimistic optimist that I am, there's nothing wrong with being
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 3: out of a circumstance.
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: I think I would I would describe you as a
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: rational optimist. I don't think you're I don't think you're
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: very pessimistic, but you're pretty rational.
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 3: I don't.
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: I tend to stay on the very extreme end of optimist.
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: I don't really tend to even go far into rational,
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: but sometimes I do.
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And I think some of my world experience.
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 3: I just know that you know, in certain places at
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 3: certain times of the year. Uh, you know, it's like
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 3: being around the Mediterranean countries that still practice like Siesta
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 3: Fiata or something like that. You know, hey, let's go
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 3: do something. And it's noon. You know that from noon
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 3: until five, a lot of shops aren't going to be open.
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: It just is not going to happen. It's just it's
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: just not gonna matter how much you.
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 3: Will, like you know, some local bank and a small
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 3: village to be open, it won't be you know, that's right,
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 3: that's right.
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: Well, and it's just it was just an incredible end
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: as well, and you know everything, you know, the fact
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: that the vehicle arrived without any failure. It didn't even
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: have a door ding on it from a shopping cart.
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: I mean it like the car is in as good
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: a condition as when Inios handed me the keys. And
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: I feel grateful that the vehicle performed so well and
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: that we didn't have any accidents or major issues along
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: the way. And and also just a huge thanks to
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: Tzara from the Marile group because she really stepped up
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: to our aid at the Jibusian border problem, and and
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: JJ from the State department in Kenya. He was actively
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: keeping an eye on us and communicating with us to
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: make sure that we were safe in that and he
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: was updating his his uh you know, partners and cohorts
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: in Djibouti of our current situation. So I just think
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: there's just so much to be grateful for. Ali was
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: just an absolute gem, and anybody who goes to Jibouti
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: make sure you look him up. The ali Uh French
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: Legion camp that he's got there very worth this.
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if you do an Internet search, it pops up,
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 3: and then if you can't find it that way, I
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 3: think you just have to ask somebody at gas station
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 3: or fueld station attendant's gonna know exactly.
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: It's on Ioverlander as well, so it's easy easy to
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: find it. So well, Brian, thanks man so much for
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: being on the trip, and thanks for being on the
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: podcast today to kind of do our little recap. Is
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: there anything else that you wanted to share with the audience.
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I would say that just in closing. You know,
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 3: we obviously there was a lot of homework that had
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 3: to happen for this trip. You know, you did a
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 3: lot of it, but it's important you know, before you
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 3: go to places that you cover not just your logistics
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 3: but things to do, things to see. You know, we
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 3: had kind of our A list and then a B
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 3: list and of things along the way, not just in
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 3: in Djibouti, but in Ethiopia and and you know, lesser
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 3: extent for me anyway in Northern Kenya, but but it's
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 3: important to have things to check out and and also
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 3: just contingencies for for your own travel. You know, your
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 3: your trip's going to take on different flavors along the way,
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 3: and so you might not be able to hit everything
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 3: and just be flexible and uh, you know, do the
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 3: homework ahead of time. I mean, obviously we did a
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 3: lot of a lot of homework on on just you know,
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 3: online online resources, you know, State Department. I always check
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 3: for the British Foreign Office. You know they have they
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 3: have stuff you know, you can get on and find
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 3: like recent travelers and their experiences in these countries and
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 3: and and I think that's important to kind of go
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 3: through and uh, you know, just make sure that your
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 3: trip is going to be as safe as possible. Talk
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 3: to your local medical professionals about not just vaccinations or
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 3: other things you might need because it doesn't matter, you know,
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 3: really that you might want to eat it some whole
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 3: foods and and and have a just a really great
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 3: organic diet. But when you go to some places on
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 3: the planet, you know you're going to become vector number
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 3: one for for things they have there, and so you
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 3: just have it. It is what it is, and it's
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 3: important to find out, you know, things that you can
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 3: do ahead of time to make make a trip so
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 3: you're more as healthy as you can be on your trip.
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 3: And then if you have issues on the trip, and
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 3: we talked about that a little bit, you know during
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 3: this podcast, make sure you take along meds and we
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 3: should cover that maybe at a different time, but just
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 3: kind of gear that we that we had with us,
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 3: which we didn't really dive into at all because we
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 3: had a lot of other medical stuff in case things
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 3: went from good to bad to worset to operating theater.
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 3: You know, we had that level of stuff with us
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 3: in air medically sealed kits that in case we had
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 3: to provide you know, all the bases, you know, so
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 3: it's important obviously taking a you know, a week long
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 3: trip to Italy, you know, go to Rome, I wouldn't
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 3: be carrying a lot of that stuff, but at the
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 3: same time, you know, where we were, it was kind
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 3: of important. And yeah, I think that's that's really it.
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 3: Just get out there and have fun and and our
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 3: trip was great. You know, God's kind of playing it down.
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 3: But there was an interesting point at the end there
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 3: where he even came the first guide across seven contin
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 3: is by a vehicle.
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: I think that's I'm grateful for grateful for all of it, Brian,
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: And I'm just so grateful for your friendship and for
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: you being such an incredible part of the Overland Journal
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: team as well. And I look forward to whatever you
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: and I are going to get up to next. We're
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: gonna we'll find some other place to get in trouble.
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 3: I'm already scheming it.
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: I know I saw the email. We'll make sure we share.
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: We make sure we share that soon. So well, thank
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: you again Brian for being on the podcast, and we
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: thank you all for listening, and we'll talk to you
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: next time.