Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Overland the Americas on Venezuela, Planning a Long-Term Overland Trip, and their 78-Series Land Cruiser

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Overland the Americas on Venezuela, Planning a Long-Term Overland Trip, and their 78-Series Land Cruiser · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:03
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast.
0:06
Speaker 2: My name is Ashley Durdana and senior editor at Overland
0:09
Speaker 2: on Explanation Portals, and today we are at Overland Expo
0:13
Speaker 2: West in Flagstaff, Arizona, in the Black Series podcast studio
0:18
Speaker 2: with two special guests, Ernesto and Tays of Overland the Americas.
0:22
Speaker 1: Welcome guys. I'm so excited to have a great chat
0:25
Speaker 1: with you today.
0:26
Speaker 3: Thank you, Hi, Ashley.
0:27
Speaker 1: So you guys have an amazing story. You drew from
0:30
Speaker 1: Seattle all the way down the Pan American Highway to
0:33
Speaker 1: South America and really dove into some unique countries down
0:38
Speaker 1: there that don't necessarily get hit as often by Overlanders.
0:42
Speaker 1: Give me a little rundown on your trip.
0:44
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1:45
Speaker 5: Yes, in twenty fifteen, Toys and I embarked on this
1:50
Speaker 5: trip from Seattle, Washington to the tip of the continent,
1:53
Speaker 5: made it all the way down to Aswaya, and our
1:55
Speaker 5: goal was really to try to travel all twenty three
1:58
Speaker 5: contiguous countries in the America, which includes those three countries
2:02
Speaker 5: that you're talking about, three nations really French, Guyana, Suriname,
2:05
Speaker 5: and Guyana. It also includes my home country where I
2:08
Speaker 5: was born, Venezuela, which is kind of difficult to travel
2:11
Speaker 5: for a lot of people right now, and.
2:13
Speaker 6: We really enjoyed Brazil. Not everyone has a chance to
2:16
Speaker 6: kind of tackle Brazil, but we highly recommend it.
2:18
Speaker 1: It's a big country too. What were your favorite parts?
2:21
Speaker 5: I think that people, not parts, more people in Brazil
2:25
Speaker 5: really charming. What's really charming about Brazil. We kind of
2:29
Speaker 5: gravitate around the mountains, and Brazil is not a country
2:32
Speaker 5: that is known for pole mountains, still very beautiful. There
2:37
Speaker 5: are areas where you can find some beautiful canyons, like
2:40
Speaker 5: it sort of resembles Utah, a little bit more lush
2:42
Speaker 5: with some of the vegetation, but like sort of like
2:45
Speaker 5: Desserty type of landscapes. But people, really, I think that's
2:49
Speaker 5: what I impacted was the most all from the south
2:52
Speaker 5: to the very north of the country.
2:53
Speaker 3: Where it gets very rural, people were always.
2:56
Speaker 1: Charming, awesome. So I want to go back in time
2:58
Speaker 1: a little bit because there's quite a lead up to
3:01
Speaker 1: this trip that I think is really important and interesting,
3:03
Speaker 1: And I want to go back to your time in
3:06
Speaker 1: Venezuela and how you two met, because tastes from the US,
3:09
Speaker 1: you're from Venezuela. Share the story if you wish about
3:12
Speaker 1: how you met.
3:13
Speaker 6: I'll take it away and of course a best so
3:14
Speaker 6: feel free to jump in because we have two different stories,
3:17
Speaker 6: but two different versions, two different versions. But I studied
3:20
Speaker 6: abroad in Venezuela my junior year of college. I lived
3:24
Speaker 6: with the Venezuelan family, and I was studying Spanish was
3:27
Speaker 6: my minor and geography is my major. And I got
3:30
Speaker 6: to do some awesome classes of botany of the Andes
3:33
Speaker 6: in Spanish. So it was a great opportunity for me
3:35
Speaker 6: to really learn a ton experience the culture by living
3:38
Speaker 6: with a family, and in the evenings I might have
3:41
Speaker 6: gone out every single night with fellow other Americans students
3:45
Speaker 6: in ed Anesota bar and I was studying Spanish and
3:48
Speaker 6: he was studying English, and the rest was history. There's
3:52
Speaker 6: more in there. Yeah, I guess it's one of those
3:54
Speaker 6: moments where I got super lucky that I got to
3:57
Speaker 6: meet Atnesto that night. I was almost not going to
3:59
Speaker 6: go out that night. I took a yoga class and
4:01
Speaker 6: I was like, I'm going to go home tonight and
4:02
Speaker 6: not go to the bar. But then I saw my
4:05
Speaker 6: friend and got.
4:06
Speaker 7: To meet him.
4:07
Speaker 1: Where was this in Venezuela and the andes in a
4:09
Speaker 1: beautiful university town called Media, Venezuela. So there's a second
4:13
Speaker 1: version to this story.
4:14
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I will even go a little bit further back.
4:17
Speaker 5: The reason why I was in that city is I
4:20
Speaker 5: experienced a life changing event. I had a terrible cat
4:25
Speaker 5: accident or accident that really changed the direction of my
4:30
Speaker 5: plants and what I was doing. So I was doing
4:32
Speaker 5: architecture school. After the accident, I fell behind. I spent
4:37
Speaker 5: six months recovering my dad. After that was like pretty adamatans,
4:41
Speaker 5: like making sure that I made up for the time
4:44
Speaker 5: that I had lost. So I thought, Okay, I'm just
4:46
Speaker 5: going to travel to the US transfer my credits from
4:49
Speaker 5: architecture school. And one of the first steps was moving
4:52
Speaker 5: to the city Medida, where I had a condo that
4:56
Speaker 5: was under our names, my sister and I, with the
4:58
Speaker 5: intention of selling it to be able to pay for college.
5:01
Speaker 3: So I was there focus on doing dad, studying in English,
5:05
Speaker 3: not going out every night. Not going out every night.
5:07
Speaker 5: For once, a friend of mine from college showed up
5:11
Speaker 5: on my door how to broke up with his girlfriend
5:14
Speaker 5: and he needed some emotional support, and I really didn't
5:17
Speaker 5: know what to do, and so I just said, okay,
5:19
Speaker 5: let's go to a bar. That's where Taysa and her
5:22
Speaker 5: fan Shelley were, and yeah, that's that was the beginning
5:24
Speaker 5: of our any close year relationship.
5:27
Speaker 6: And then also said to me that first night, Oh,
5:29
Speaker 6: I really want to move to the States, specifically Seattle
5:32
Speaker 6: to study graphic design. I also love the music scene.
5:35
Speaker 6: And I was like, cool, I'm from Jersey. I'd never
5:37
Speaker 6: been to the West coast and who knew that? I
5:38
Speaker 6: was then not that much longer later, like I guess,
5:41
Speaker 6: six months later, after I graduated, I ended up following
5:43
Speaker 6: Atnesto because he got into a graphic design school in Seattle,
5:46
Speaker 6: and then again that was history from there.
5:49
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you, because you obviously would
5:51
Speaker 1: have finished up your program in Venezuela and gone back
5:54
Speaker 1: to the US, and how you reunited in the US.
5:56
Speaker 1: Did you keep in contact during that time.
5:59
Speaker 5: Or stice my plans were to go to Seattle. I
6:02
Speaker 5: had done some research and you know, mountain lover hiking.
6:06
Speaker 5: I also asked about English you know, accents, and how
6:10
Speaker 5: big the Hispanic community was. I actually was pursued, you know,
6:13
Speaker 5: the opposite a place where there weren't too many Hispanic
6:16
Speaker 5: people for me to be able to earn English.
6:18
Speaker 3: A little bit faster.
6:19
Speaker 5: I loved the idea of like having Canada right right there,
6:23
Speaker 5: the mountains always calling. In the music scene, for sure
6:27
Speaker 5: was a big influence. I grew up nineties generation X.
6:31
Speaker 5: I loved all the grunch scene, and.
6:33
Speaker 6: I joke that, like I moved to Seattle because of
6:35
Speaker 6: Pearl Jam and then it's true slash.
6:38
Speaker 3: Up master a little bit.
6:39
Speaker 1: That's awesome. So you guys spent some time in Venezuela,
6:42
Speaker 1: would you, Well, obviously you spent a lot of time
6:45
Speaker 1: there because you grew up there. But did that overlanding
6:47
Speaker 1: culture that's so prevalent there, did that have any influence
6:51
Speaker 1: over what you ended up doing later in your life
6:54
Speaker 1: or did something else kind of spark when you were
6:57
Speaker 1: in the US.
6:57
Speaker 5: That's a great question. I think subconsciously, yeah, I think
7:00
Speaker 5: that it was so ingrained in normal for right, force
7:04
Speaker 5: in Venezuela are like so common it have been for generations.
7:07
Speaker 5: Like even when my dad was in college, his first
7:10
Speaker 5: truck was a fifty five Series and Iron pig and
7:12
Speaker 5: it was a toddler.
7:14
Speaker 3: Right.
7:14
Speaker 5: My dad was in college doing environmental engineering. He had
7:19
Speaker 5: founded the Search and Rescue team and they got donated
7:21
Speaker 5: as truck and as as a kid, I was just
7:23
Speaker 5: like remember vaguely, just like standing up in that like
7:26
Speaker 5: bench seat which student on the truck, going up to
7:29
Speaker 5: the mountains and camping, and even smaller I was like
7:33
Speaker 5: in my dad's backpack while while he was fishing. There's
7:36
Speaker 5: tons of photos like this little little guy in the
7:38
Speaker 5: back of his backpack. So nature, I think it would be,
7:43
Speaker 5: you know, first influence. I grew up around trucks. I
7:47
Speaker 5: never thought anything of it, never thought of anything special
7:49
Speaker 5: bottle land cruisers and like this stuff. But a lot
7:52
Speaker 5: of my friends in high school had trucks in the
7:55
Speaker 5: back in the nineties. They had grouped of tents and
7:59
Speaker 5: they travel across the country to go to an area
8:02
Speaker 5: of the country called like a savanna where there's very
8:06
Speaker 5: little infrastructure. It's a massive national park. It's gorgeous. So
8:10
Speaker 5: I think that was kind of like the first time
8:13
Speaker 5: of like the car camping.
8:14
Speaker 1: Isn't that wild? You know. I think overlanding kind of
8:17
Speaker 1: picked up in North America way after that in terms
8:21
Speaker 1: of like, you know, the first time we've all seen
8:23
Speaker 1: a rooftop tent, but actually was going on in Venezuela,
8:26
Speaker 1: like you said, so much earlier than that, So cool.
8:29
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean it wasn't even called overlanding, right right,
8:33
Speaker 5: no one. It was like, let's do a road trip,
8:36
Speaker 5: let's go camping.
8:37
Speaker 1: That's great, so interesting. I think sometimes we don't necessarily
8:41
Speaker 1: know the history of overlanding in other countries going back
8:45
Speaker 1: that far and further. So it's pretty cool to hear
8:47
Speaker 1: about different experiences that different people had sleeping in rooftop
8:51
Speaker 1: tents before they came over to the States into Canada.
8:54
Speaker 5: And the four by four culture was so big, you know,
8:56
Speaker 5: that's what most people referred to as like four by four.
9:00
Speaker 5: There was a raise that was very very well funded.
9:03
Speaker 5: The logistics of it were impressive. In fact, it was
9:06
Speaker 5: called a fund raise. You can still go on YouTube
9:09
Speaker 5: and check them out chopper support.
9:12
Speaker 1: Wow.
9:12
Speaker 5: Yeah, pretty cool. I would go and say that probably Australia, Malaysia,
9:17
Speaker 5: and Venezuela that fur y four culture and competitions. I
9:20
Speaker 5: wasn't aware of that, but like you know, I later
9:22
Speaker 5: became aware of the like how prevalent that was.
9:25
Speaker 1: So you guys got together, You're in Seattle, you're working,
9:28
Speaker 1: you went to school for graphic design, I'm trying to
9:31
Speaker 1: get an idea of, like, what was your life like
9:33
Speaker 1: before you made this big decision to go on this
9:35
Speaker 1: great adventure.
9:36
Speaker 6: So Messo finished graphic design school and got a great
9:40
Speaker 6: job in Seattle. I decided to go to California to
9:43
Speaker 6: pursue my graduate studies and international environmental policy, and then
9:47
Speaker 6: I came back and got a job working for the
9:50
Speaker 6: state doing just that. So I was working graphic design jobs,
9:54
Speaker 6: just paying stuff off, you know, applying what we've learned,
9:57
Speaker 6: but then feeling kind of unfulfilled. Yeah.
9:59
Speaker 1: I wondering what that moment was when you realized that
10:02
Speaker 1: this was something that you wanted to do and who
10:04
Speaker 1: that came from was both of you? Yeah, how did
10:07
Speaker 1: that happen?
10:07
Speaker 5: I'll go a little bit back again. So as a kid,
10:10
Speaker 5: I had these I was always drone to like world culture.
10:14
Speaker 5: I don't think that I was a weird, weird kid,
10:17
Speaker 5: but maybe I was. I started collecting stamps and paper
10:19
Speaker 5: currency and coins, and I was always fascinated by like
10:22
Speaker 5: the images like shown in these like who is this queen?
10:26
Speaker 5: Where's this landscape? But just this mean I don't understand
10:28
Speaker 5: what this language is. And just as music, I was
10:31
Speaker 5: something no one really. Actually it was like something very natural.
10:35
Speaker 5: But you know, as a kid, you just travel with
10:36
Speaker 5: your parents. When I made it to college, I decided
10:39
Speaker 5: I made it a point to travel overseas at least
10:42
Speaker 5: once a year being in Venezuela. And when I moved
10:45
Speaker 5: to the United States to go to school, that actually happened.
10:48
Speaker 5: You know, I was traveling abroad, but really what I
10:51
Speaker 5: was doing which just like visiting back home. And my
10:53
Speaker 5: mother lives in Italy, so I would just kind of
10:55
Speaker 5: do one year in Venezuela and South America, one year
10:58
Speaker 5: in Europe, and you know, you start like traveling a
11:00
Speaker 5: little bit more here and there. Two weeks were didn't
11:03
Speaker 5: feel that it was enough and start to look at
11:05
Speaker 5: you know, yeah, I like this, then I want to
11:07
Speaker 5: keep traveling.
11:08
Speaker 6: And after I studied abroad in Venezuela, I always knew
11:11
Speaker 6: that I wanted to see more of South America, and
11:14
Speaker 6: I studied geography, and I was always interested in like
11:16
Speaker 6: the intersect between people in place. I think in my
11:19
Speaker 6: heart I always knew I wanted to travel the world,
11:21
Speaker 6: and definitely Central and South America more. I just loved
11:24
Speaker 6: the culture and the language, so we kind of knew
11:27
Speaker 6: that we wanted to do that, but felt like, well,
11:29
Speaker 6: we got these degrees and now it's time to like
11:32
Speaker 6: pay those off and also like work, right. But then
11:34
Speaker 6: you know, it quickly quickly changed into like seven years
11:37
Speaker 6: at that same job, and we wanted more.
11:41
Speaker 7: We wanted to see the world.
11:42
Speaker 5: I did quite a bit of backpack here in Europe
11:43
Speaker 5: when I went to visit my family, and you know,
11:46
Speaker 5: kind of every year were reminded of how good it
11:48
Speaker 5: failed just to experience something different. I kind of craved
11:51
Speaker 5: and was waiting for that to accrue, those two or
11:53
Speaker 5: three weeks of vacasion, just to go and travel overseas.
11:57
Speaker 5: And then I thought, weirdly enough, somehow, how like this
12:01
Speaker 5: drawn to South America in Venezuela. You know, I feel
12:05
Speaker 5: that I don't know my culture well enough. Something that
12:07
Speaker 5: started happening. But then you look at Latin America or
12:10
Speaker 5: South America and it's massive, it's huge. How do you
12:14
Speaker 5: do that? The infrastructure is not that such as Europe.
12:17
Speaker 5: It's not as easy. I mean, it's doable, but I
12:19
Speaker 5: wanted to kind of like get deeper into it, like Okay,
12:22
Speaker 5: I don't want to do just like this sight scene
12:24
Speaker 5: and CITs how can we travel and get a little
12:27
Speaker 5: bit more remote?
12:28
Speaker 6: And then and also was the one who pitched the idea,
12:30
Speaker 6: And he'll tell you, I think in a moment who
12:32
Speaker 6: inspired him. And when he pitched it to me, I thought,
12:34
Speaker 6: long road trip. I have backpacking experience and hiking experience,
12:38
Speaker 6: and I don't know the thought of car camping or
12:40
Speaker 6: like a long road trip wasn't that appealing to me
12:43
Speaker 6: because I don't know, like family road trips not the best.
12:46
Speaker 6: But then I realized that way of travel was going
12:49
Speaker 6: to provide much more freedom to do that hiking and backpacking.
12:52
Speaker 7: So I'll let also take it away from here.
12:54
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it was this seed of like, is
12:57
Speaker 5: it possible to actually drive all the way down? There's
13:00
Speaker 5: something called the Pan American Highway? I mean's that real?
13:03
Speaker 5: How feasible is it? So we started kind of like
13:05
Speaker 5: putting together back in the day we're talking. It took
13:08
Speaker 5: us forever to leave.
13:09
Speaker 3: So we are.
13:10
Speaker 5: Maybe in two thousand and eight when we started fiddling
13:13
Speaker 5: with the whole idea, and you.
13:15
Speaker 1: Had actually a coworker. This is so cool. I love
13:18
Speaker 1: this story so much because you're at work and it
13:20
Speaker 1: was like a coworker that suggested this team. So you're
13:23
Speaker 1: like at your place of work is where you got
13:25
Speaker 1: the idea to like leave work?
13:28
Speaker 3: Yes, just fun exactly.
13:30
Speaker 5: So we were like definitely uncertain that such thing could
13:34
Speaker 5: be done because you will look online in terms like
13:38
Speaker 5: overlanding or like you know, from the US to South America,
13:42
Speaker 5: I mean nothing really kind of connected. Yes, you can
13:45
Speaker 5: controvel to Mexico. And then I sort of like put
13:48
Speaker 5: it together, so like, Okay, if I start looking at capitals,
13:52
Speaker 5: they have to be connected in a way to the
13:54
Speaker 5: rest of the country into borders, right. So I started
13:57
Speaker 5: thinking more and more about it, and I started sharing
13:59
Speaker 5: with workers and family, Like very early on, they got
14:02
Speaker 5: very tired about, you know, hearing this this thing was
14:04
Speaker 5: like come on already. But one of my co workers
14:07
Speaker 5: mentioned that in the seventy which I thought was very
14:10
Speaker 5: interesting because like Central America was going through unrest, Columbia, Peru,
14:16
Speaker 5: and even Chile where they were from. You know, it
14:19
Speaker 5: wasn't all rosy back then. She traveled as a very
14:23
Speaker 5: young kid with their parents in a Volsbagen.
14:26
Speaker 3: Beetle all the way to Chile.
14:28
Speaker 5: That was the moment I thought, if they did it,
14:31
Speaker 5: then in a Volsbagen.
14:32
Speaker 3: It can be done.
14:33
Speaker 6: Now, wait and how many people in Thattvolkswagen again? Because
14:36
Speaker 6: that was the crazy part. I thought, parents and three siblings.
14:39
Speaker 1: Incredible.
14:40
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe it.
14:41
Speaker 5: But like she started just kind of elaborating on like
14:44
Speaker 5: the things that she vaguely remember being so little hardcore.
14:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, a pic trip. So you had this idea that
14:50
Speaker 1: this was possible.
14:51
Speaker 5: And got more into Okay, let's piece it together because
14:55
Speaker 5: you're not going to enter it in Google maps. They
14:57
Speaker 5: were in like many boots or resources online where you
14:59
Speaker 5: can actually find that info. There were some, but you
15:02
Speaker 5: really had to dig. What we started doing was like
15:04
Speaker 5: what would it take to travel from Tijuana to Mexico
15:08
Speaker 5: City and then from there to the biggest or settlement
15:12
Speaker 5: in Guatemala and so on? Right, So that way we
15:16
Speaker 5: were able to kind of start like piecing it together.
15:18
Speaker 5: I mean really really had no idea was like where
15:20
Speaker 5: are the ruins that everybody talks about? You know, it's
15:23
Speaker 5: definitely not lined up with that you know route. It
15:26
Speaker 5: eventually came all together.
15:27
Speaker 1: So vehicle wise, how did you decide what you were
15:30
Speaker 1: going to drive?
15:31
Speaker 5: That was a process. We had a lot of time
15:33
Speaker 5: to think about that as well. Now I think that
15:35
Speaker 5: is a no brainer, super biased.
15:38
Speaker 1: It's easier now, it's easier back.
15:40
Speaker 5: Yeah, back in the day, I think the first reference
15:43
Speaker 5: was van life, the vanagons, and like being able to
15:46
Speaker 5: be self contained and I have your kitchen and be.
15:49
Speaker 3: Able to sleep in the car.
15:50
Speaker 5: I started researching that a little bit more even back then,
15:54
Speaker 5: Like the prices for in the West Coast for Avanagon
15:58
Speaker 5: one in good shape twenty years old, was like thirty
16:00
Speaker 5: thousand dollars, and I was like, that's very expensive. And heard
16:03
Speaker 5: stories from other travelers like dry natural drive, and you know,
16:07
Speaker 5: like the endless situations that they found themselves in, like
16:10
Speaker 5: swapping engines, you know, in different continents and like having
16:14
Speaker 5: to wait for weeks. And we even became close friends
16:17
Speaker 5: with the Vanogun Club and up in Washington, super tired
16:22
Speaker 5: group of friends of her, and every time that we
16:24
Speaker 5: went out with them, someone broke down. So it was like, ah,
16:26
Speaker 5: maybe not the Vennegon. So I started looking at, you know,
16:31
Speaker 5: the usual suspects, land rovers, land cruisers. At the time,
16:36
Speaker 5: we didn't have I say this, but like you know,
16:38
Speaker 5: we didn't have.
16:40
Speaker 3: The financial means to buy a land cruiser.
16:43
Speaker 5: So we started looking at older ones, and then I
16:45
Speaker 5: thought something interesting was going on in Venezuela, where like
16:48
Speaker 5: you could bring a vehicle in and then like pretty
16:50
Speaker 5: much profit from it, like quite a bit. Just very
16:53
Speaker 5: a very volatile situation with the current exchange that was
16:56
Speaker 5: going on at the time. I said, well, maybe we
16:57
Speaker 5: just get a new vehicle. I'm not very kind of
17:00
Speaker 5: clean client, so that was appealing to me. Just get
17:02
Speaker 5: a car where like, you know, we're not going to
17:04
Speaker 5: encounter that many issues, and ended up going with a
17:06
Speaker 5: Forerunner Trail edition at the time in twenty and twelve.
17:09
Speaker 5: It had like real lockers, and it seemed like the
17:12
Speaker 5: right idea.
17:13
Speaker 3: We went for it.
17:13
Speaker 1: One of the other stories that I love was that
17:16
Speaker 1: you went around to a bunch of mechanics in the
17:18
Speaker 1: area and asked them which vehicles drop down the which
17:21
Speaker 1: ones they worked on the least. I thought that was genius,
17:24
Speaker 1: like a little bit of investigation, and what they obviously
17:27
Speaker 1: said some sort of Toyota.
17:29
Speaker 5: Yes, And that's that's a fun story because.
17:32
Speaker 7: I almost bought a land Rover.
17:33
Speaker 3: We all almost bought a land Rover for sure. Yeah.
17:36
Speaker 5: I went to this dealership to used cars and there
17:39
Speaker 5: was an L three or like six thousand dollars and
17:43
Speaker 5: I'm like, no way, I'm buying it tomorrow. And I
17:45
Speaker 5: talked to the guy. He's the manager of the dealership,
17:48
Speaker 5: and I was so excited. I was so stoked. I
17:49
Speaker 5: think he just saw my face. And I was sharing
17:53
Speaker 5: what we were planning to do with a vehicle, and
17:55
Speaker 5: he immediately goes, I don't think this is right vehicle
17:58
Speaker 5: to take down to South America. I asked, but why
18:00
Speaker 5: as parts are expensive, you know, there's a few issues
18:03
Speaker 5: this and that, And I was bummed out. But he
18:07
Speaker 5: was the person who said suggested that. I went around
18:11
Speaker 5: asking mechanics why were the vehicles that they worked on
18:14
Speaker 5: the least obviously you know, vehicles that have support or
18:18
Speaker 5: you can find parts for along the continent.
18:20
Speaker 3: So I did that.
18:22
Speaker 5: I went like this crazy person, stopping randomly every time
18:26
Speaker 5: that I saw a mechanic shop, Hey, you don't want.
18:28
Speaker 3: To do this, or you know, what are the vehicles
18:30
Speaker 3: do you see?
18:31
Speaker 5: You know the least or like you work the least
18:33
Speaker 5: on he said, old Chevis in Lan Cruise and Toyotas.
18:36
Speaker 5: He didn't say, and Toyotas. I was like, oh, immediately,
18:39
Speaker 5: what came to mind was.
18:41
Speaker 1: And then you outfitted your vehicle. What were some of
18:43
Speaker 1: the things that you decided to accessorize.
18:46
Speaker 3: With slipper slope truth.
18:48
Speaker 1: Yes, especially taking off for the first time. Oh yeah,
18:53
Speaker 1: Like we'll talk about your the build that you have now,
18:56
Speaker 1: which is quite different from the first build, and how
18:59
Speaker 1: you guys decide I did what you were going to
19:01
Speaker 1: do with that, with all this experience that you had.
19:02
Speaker 5: But at the time, at the time the overland scene
19:06
Speaker 5: was growing, it was being adopted quite a bit. More
19:10
Speaker 5: things started like popping off accessories. There were no bumpers
19:14
Speaker 5: from rear bumpers. There was options for upgrading your suspension
19:19
Speaker 5: from AARB, but not from any other manufacturers at the
19:21
Speaker 5: time for the Forerunner, for the Forerunner, the newer, newer
19:25
Speaker 5: Forerunner fifth gen. But because we took so long to
19:29
Speaker 5: actually be ready to leave, years went by, and we
19:34
Speaker 5: have our vehicle and again things are just like happening,
19:37
Speaker 5: right Things are bubbling up and says yous are coming
19:40
Speaker 5: out and I in the midst of it, and it's
19:42
Speaker 5: like we had jobs and it was a little bit
19:45
Speaker 5: out of control right now.
19:49
Speaker 7: It was like a constant Amazon Christmas in our house.
19:54
Speaker 4: And special thanks to three h three Stable for supporting
19:58
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20:35
Speaker 5: Definitely a lot of unnecessary things as well. I mean,
20:38
Speaker 5: you know, I think that our bumpers and drawers and
20:42
Speaker 5: all these I mean, there was a lot of money
20:44
Speaker 5: that went into it. It took time for us to
20:46
Speaker 5: understand that that's not necessarily the way.
20:48
Speaker 3: To go, right.
20:49
Speaker 1: What were some of the first things that you got
20:50
Speaker 1: rid of immediately or like in the first few months.
20:54
Speaker 5: Some of the modifications that we did to the vehicle
20:56
Speaker 5: were like, you know, heart mounted blumpers now and like
21:00
Speaker 5: skid plates and all this stuff. I mean that's kind
21:03
Speaker 5: of like a pain just to remove it so that stayed.
21:05
Speaker 5: We had drawers that some of them I had to
21:09
Speaker 5: sail while on our trip. We took We talked about
21:12
Speaker 5: this today one of our presentations. It's super embarrassing, but
21:15
Speaker 5: like we took all of our scuba gear including weight.
21:19
Speaker 5: It was a massive doffel bag with like BCDs regulators,
21:24
Speaker 5: over re overpacked.
21:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, because you don't know what to expect.
21:29
Speaker 3: No, no, no, you want to be ready for everything.
21:31
Speaker 5: So we couldn't fit our paddle boards, we couldn't fit
21:35
Speaker 5: our water heater to take showers.
21:38
Speaker 3: I mean a bunch of stuff. I was super frustrated.
21:40
Speaker 6: Some of the main accester, like some of the main
21:42
Speaker 6: things that we did keep and like were key. Where
21:45
Speaker 6: was our rooftop tent? So that was a Magellina auto
21:49
Speaker 6: home Magelina Extreme that served us super well throughout our travels.
21:53
Speaker 6: And we had that a few years even before going
21:55
Speaker 6: on at the long trip, and so that was key
21:57
Speaker 6: and of course we kept that.
21:59
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's what we met. In twenty thirteen, my brother
22:02
Speaker 5: immediately came visit and we went on this three week
22:06
Speaker 5: trip through the Canadian rockies BC and Alberta. And we
22:09
Speaker 5: had followed been following each other. You guys were building
22:13
Speaker 5: getting red Rich and I got in touch as we
22:16
Speaker 5: were coming to VC and we met you guys in Vancouver.
22:19
Speaker 3: I remember, yeah, no, twy thirteen. That was a long yes.
22:22
Speaker 6: And we also talked fridges at that time. And I
22:24
Speaker 6: again come from like a backpacking and hiking background. I
22:27
Speaker 6: was like, what, we don't need a fridge? Who is
22:30
Speaker 6: just fine? And I think you guys at that time
22:32
Speaker 6: hadn't decided on a fridge yet either game changer.
22:34
Speaker 7: The fridge was awesome.
22:36
Speaker 1: Yes, was this the shakedown trip?
22:38
Speaker 5: Kind of absolutely we thought it was. I mean, we
22:40
Speaker 5: still had a lot to learn, but yeah, it was
22:42
Speaker 5: very helpful.
22:43
Speaker 1: So you said that it took you a long time
22:45
Speaker 1: to leave, Why was that? Life is complicated, so it's
22:49
Speaker 1: not easy to just leave everything right away.
22:51
Speaker 5: But we wanted to pay the truck off. We didn't
22:53
Speaker 5: want to have payments on the vehicle. That was one
22:56
Speaker 5: of the reasons. The other one was I was in
22:59
Speaker 5: the process of in my citizenship, so that also took
23:02
Speaker 5: a little bit of time. My family, as I mentioned
23:04
Speaker 5: in Venezuela and in Italy, and I knew that we
23:08
Speaker 5: were going.
23:08
Speaker 3: To be gone for a while.
23:09
Speaker 5: Being used to go and visit them every year, so
23:12
Speaker 5: I felt that, you know, maybe this time I brought
23:14
Speaker 5: them over to the US, spend like quality time for
23:17
Speaker 5: like a couple of three months, and then after that,
23:20
Speaker 5: you know, I will feel better about you know, taking off.
23:22
Speaker 6: And then we also had some things to pay off.
23:24
Speaker 6: And then we also really wanted to be able to
23:27
Speaker 6: save for the trip. So actually we had roommates and
23:30
Speaker 6: like we changed different parts of our lifestyle to really
23:33
Speaker 6: kind of fast track some of that savings, especially the
23:36
Speaker 6: last couple of years.
23:37
Speaker 7: Takes time.
23:38
Speaker 1: What were some of the things that you did to
23:39
Speaker 1: fast track the savings.
23:41
Speaker 6: I guess again the roommates, but also just you know,
23:44
Speaker 6: trying to eat out less. I mean, I didn't end
23:46
Speaker 6: up buying a second car, so I was taking the
23:48
Speaker 6: bus everywhere and we shared the vehicle.
23:50
Speaker 5: Didn't really go out to have drinks like every weekend,
23:52
Speaker 5: you know, like pretty common just go out for dinner
23:55
Speaker 5: and have drinks with the friends. And we stopped doing
23:57
Speaker 5: that because it outs up stocks up.
24:00
Speaker 6: For Instead, like we'd go, you know, have cook or
24:02
Speaker 6: go for a walk instead, come out with us camping
24:06
Speaker 6: things like that. And actually we got quite a few
24:07
Speaker 6: friends to do that with us.
24:09
Speaker 1: Eventually you left. This is a pretty big lead up
24:12
Speaker 1: to the time that you left, and then now you're
24:14
Speaker 1: on the road. What were some of the maybe preconceived
24:18
Speaker 1: ideas or thoughts about how it was going to go
24:20
Speaker 1: and how it was going to be that changed when
24:23
Speaker 1: you got on the road. What did you expect and
24:25
Speaker 1: then what was the reality? That's a clearer way of
24:28
Speaker 1: saying it.
24:29
Speaker 5: Yes, different things and different kind of subjects, I would say.
24:33
Speaker 5: So one of them was our friend Louise Getter, one
24:36
Speaker 5: of the ogi's house. We call him Louis and Lazy.
24:39
Speaker 5: We met them in person finally after following his travels
24:42
Speaker 5: for a while at one of the overland rallies. And
24:46
Speaker 5: we had been doing a little camping for a couple
24:48
Speaker 5: of years, right, like doing a little hiking and backpacking
24:51
Speaker 5: in our rooftop tents, and Louise basically made it clear
24:55
Speaker 5: that we were not going to be experiencing the same
24:59
Speaker 5: way as we were doing it in the States and especially
25:03
Speaker 5: in the Pacific Northwest, where like you go out to
25:05
Speaker 5: a national park in a national forest and you have
25:07
Speaker 5: it all to yourself and it's all in the middle
25:09
Speaker 5: of like a beautiful forest and you know, it's like
25:11
Speaker 5: you're gonna be camping in dirty parking lots, volunteer firefighter
25:16
Speaker 5: you know, compounds. You know, don't think there's gonna all
25:19
Speaker 5: going to be like super rosy like you guys have
25:21
Speaker 5: it here.
25:21
Speaker 3: So I was like, oh wow, it was right.
25:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, we camped at some interesting
25:27
Speaker 1: places like an abandoned playground in Bolivia and gas stations
25:32
Speaker 1: and like places we wouldn't camp in Canada. But that's
25:35
Speaker 1: the reality of it when you get on the road,
25:37
Speaker 1: and that's something you don't necessarily see. So that was
25:39
Speaker 1: good advice.
25:40
Speaker 5: Also, I was very wrong, assuming that I was very
25:44
Speaker 5: I was generalizing, making the generalization that Latin America probably
25:49
Speaker 5: wasn't ass.
25:50
Speaker 3: Varied or diverse as I thought.
25:53
Speaker 5: Being from there, I thought the communications were gonna be
25:55
Speaker 5: a little bit like more streamlined, the difference in accents
25:59
Speaker 5: or like the slang. I mean, sometimes I couldn't understand
26:03
Speaker 5: whether they were saying, Like for me to finally grasp
26:07
Speaker 5: the day to day chats between people in Chile, that
26:11
Speaker 5: was hard.
26:11
Speaker 1: And you're both fluent in Spanish, so it's really showing
26:14
Speaker 1: you how different the language can be based on where
26:18
Speaker 1: you are it's like me from BC listening to like
26:21
Speaker 1: somebody from Newfoundland. Yes, in a way.
26:23
Speaker 5: Another one who would say would be the anthropological side
26:28
Speaker 5: of it. It is incredible due to learn and to
26:30
Speaker 5: experience obviously how different like the cultural differences people from
26:35
Speaker 5: city to city, but also there are so many still
26:40
Speaker 5: prevalent indigenous settlements and you know, all across the America culturally.
26:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was fascinating.
26:46
Speaker 1: How do you think being fluent in Spanish helped you
26:50
Speaker 1: understand the people in more depth? I guess it's hard
26:54
Speaker 1: because you are fluent in Spanish, so you don't really
26:56
Speaker 1: know the other side of it. But what were some
26:59
Speaker 1: maybe like deeper conversations or things that you learned because
27:03
Speaker 1: you were fluent in Spanish.
27:05
Speaker 6: I think that there's maybe the trust factor happens faster.
27:09
Speaker 6: I don't think that it's one hundred percent necessary to
27:12
Speaker 6: just speak the language, like if you connect with someone,
27:13
Speaker 6: you connect with someone, right, But I think that it
27:16
Speaker 6: helped people open up faster to us, specifically to Adnesto,
27:19
Speaker 6: but to me as well. I think I met women
27:22
Speaker 6: that were curious about what I was cooking, like that
27:24
Speaker 6: was always really special, And I'm thinking I'm making this
27:27
Speaker 6: super basic stir fry. But for them they're like, whoa,
27:30
Speaker 6: I've never done that to the pepper before, you know,
27:33
Speaker 6: things like that. Or I met a woman when we
27:35
Speaker 6: were camping at our first gas station in Guatemala.
27:38
Speaker 7: But it was like gorgeous.
27:39
Speaker 6: It was you know, in the mountains, in this coffee region,
27:42
Speaker 6: and we were making breakfast, my friend live and I
27:45
Speaker 6: and she had some I think almond milk, and I
27:47
Speaker 6: had some peanut butter or something, which is you know,
27:49
Speaker 6: not exactly common. She was observing with her little girl,
27:52
Speaker 6: and we offered her some food and she just started
27:55
Speaker 6: talking with me about my age and if I was
27:57
Speaker 6: going to have a family, and so I told her
27:59
Speaker 6: my age and she told me her age, and basically
28:02
Speaker 6: I thought she was like at least, you know, ten
28:04
Speaker 6: years older than me, but she was like ten years
28:06
Speaker 6: younger than me, and she had just really been working
28:08
Speaker 6: the land for that many years, and so she was
28:11
Speaker 6: you know, sun kissed and different resources than I have.
28:14
Speaker 6: These very intimate connections maybe wouldn't have happened if I
28:17
Speaker 6: didn't speak Spanish, or maybe they would have, but I
28:19
Speaker 6: did feel like we had some intimacy more quickly and
28:23
Speaker 6: trust absolutely.
28:24
Speaker 5: I think that it does help have those very intimate moments,
28:27
Speaker 5: not with everybody, but like sometimes a lot of the
28:29
Speaker 5: stories that we share stories that like, really they were
28:33
Speaker 5: very impactful and they were just like conversations or you know,
28:37
Speaker 5: around dinner.
28:38
Speaker 4: And a special thanks to on X Maps for supporting
28:41
Speaker 4: this week's podcast.
28:43
Speaker 3: For me, being prepared is all about having the right tools.
28:46
Speaker 4: One tool I use is the on x off road
28:49
Speaker 4: map and navigation app on my phone. I use it
28:51
Speaker 4: to find trails and off grid camping, and I use
28:54
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28:57
Speaker 4: all know that's usually where the best parts start. It's
28:59
Speaker 4: intuitive to use, and let's be fined open trails anywhere
29:02
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29:05
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29:11
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29:14
Speaker 4: public and private land boundaries, which are very helpful for
29:18
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29:20
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29:22
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29:25
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29:29
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29:43
Speaker 1: What was the moment or conversation that impacted you the
29:46
Speaker 1: most or were there.
29:48
Speaker 7: Act for you?
29:50
Speaker 3: There were a few.
29:51
Speaker 5: I mean, there were so many beautiful ones where, like,
29:54
Speaker 5: you know, things weren't necessarily bad, you know, it's just
29:56
Speaker 5: like beautiful moments, like experiences. They had some of those
30:01
Speaker 5: intimate conversations that stick with you, those that make you
30:06
Speaker 5: that makes you reflect on how lucky we are, right yes.
30:12
Speaker 6: Yeah, So like the very very essential and basic things
30:16
Speaker 6: that we have, like water and food. I think I
30:20
Speaker 6: didn't fully understand until I had a certain moment in
30:23
Speaker 6: the Guahita in Colombia, where it's very dry and it's
30:28
Speaker 6: very rural and they don't have that many resources, and
30:32
Speaker 6: like some people really do not have enough water and food.
30:36
Speaker 6: And we stopped to meet some kids and they were
30:38
Speaker 6: asking kind of for candy and money for kind of
30:41
Speaker 6: a toll to cross their land. And this is again
30:43
Speaker 6: in like Guehda and Colombia, and we just didn't understand
30:46
Speaker 6: that what they what they needed, and we had given
30:49
Speaker 6: out like all of our candy and food and other stuff,
30:52
Speaker 6: and so we passed on some toilet paper to the mom.
30:54
Speaker 6: It was a mom and two kids, and then they
30:57
Speaker 6: were pointing at our water bottle. So I passed along
30:59
Speaker 6: my water botle all to maybe like the two year old,
31:02
Speaker 6: and she just started gulping the entire thing and her
31:05
Speaker 6: older brother maybe who was ten, just was kind of giggling,
31:09
Speaker 6: I think out of nervousness because I think he needed
31:12
Speaker 6: some too, And so that was like that hit me
31:14
Speaker 6: like a hard, super deeply.
31:17
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I think had.
31:18
Speaker 7: A situation where I was thirsty like that.
31:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's powerful stuff, and I think that depending on
31:24
Speaker 1: where we come from, we have these glasses that we
31:27
Speaker 1: see out of, and to take those glasses off is
31:30
Speaker 1: very powerful and lightning. So yeah, thank you guys for
31:35
Speaker 1: sharing that experience. What were some of the most hilarious
31:39
Speaker 1: things that happened now that we're all crying here at.
31:43
Speaker 5: All, I think some of the I don't know, kind
31:48
Speaker 5: of like traumatic events hilarious, but because they eventually are
31:54
Speaker 5: the funniest things to talk about, but like funny right away,
31:58
Speaker 5: I have one go for it.
31:59
Speaker 6: Okay, So Ronto, we were in uh Wahaka, were actually
32:03
Speaker 6: in the town of Tule where they have this beautiful
32:05
Speaker 6: tree if you're ever there, and they had a local
32:08
Speaker 6: festival going on, and as part of those festivities, they
32:11
Speaker 6: had toritos, which are basically these like apra mache donkeys
32:14
Speaker 6: with like fireworks inside, and they placed them on their
32:18
Speaker 6: heads and then they dance around.
32:20
Speaker 7: In the square literally and these fireworks are shooting off.
32:23
Speaker 6: In this particular celebration, they were like from the eldest
32:26
Speaker 6: folks of the community to the very youngest, and then
32:28
Speaker 6: at the end they still had some leftover and ask
32:31
Speaker 6: folks to come in from the crowd. Now, mind you,
32:33
Speaker 6: in the meantime, they're worrying mescal to all the people
32:36
Speaker 6: in the town. They had gathered money for months for
32:39
Speaker 6: this event and then they just like pore you these
32:41
Speaker 6: mescal shops. So it ass was like kind of saucy
32:43
Speaker 6: and all of a sudden jumps up to volunteer to
32:46
Speaker 6: do this torito, which basically means holding like fireworks on
32:48
Speaker 6: your head, dancing around to this like very like fun
32:53
Speaker 6: folk or Mexican music.
32:55
Speaker 7: It was kind of hilarious.
32:56
Speaker 6: I'm glad he didn't start a fire or anything like that.
33:00
Speaker 3: I had a baja how do you call those?
33:02
Speaker 6: Yeah, was like baja sweaters, you know what I'm talking about.
33:05
Speaker 6: He had just bought it right in town. And he
33:07
Speaker 6: started like baja started getting sparking up as he was
33:10
Speaker 6: dancing around.
33:11
Speaker 7: Firework donkey.
33:12
Speaker 5: I didn't really know how to do the whole thing,
33:14
Speaker 5: so I was just running around and getting really close
33:17
Speaker 5: to like the audience, and they were just like yelling
33:19
Speaker 5: at me, just like go.
33:20
Speaker 3: Away like fireworks.
33:22
Speaker 5: I was just like shooting in all directions and everyone else.
33:26
Speaker 1: How long day were you on.
33:27
Speaker 5: The road for exactly three years and eleven months.
33:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a long time. That's so amazing. And you
33:33
Speaker 1: ended up going back to Venezuela on that trip? Yes, yeah,
33:37
Speaker 1: was it both of you? Because I know that Taysa
33:39
Speaker 1: went home for a little bit at the end, so
33:41
Speaker 1: you're both there. What was that like after driving this
33:45
Speaker 1: Pan American highway for so many years and then coming
33:49
Speaker 1: back through where you met and where you were born.
33:53
Speaker 5: Venezuela was stuff because family and the current situation and
33:58
Speaker 5: what they have been going through. It made us realize
34:01
Speaker 5: they probably were struggling more than I thought they were
34:04
Speaker 5: here we were traveling, so that was that was hard.
34:06
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I think people ask like, what's your favorite
34:08
Speaker 6: country and after and of course we both love Venezuela
34:11
Speaker 6: and we would have loved to have really traveled it overland,
34:14
Speaker 6: but we did cross by foot from the Colombian border
34:17
Speaker 6: to spend time with Anesso's family for a few months
34:19
Speaker 6: over the holidays. I guess after Venezuela we had, you know,
34:22
Speaker 6: a very special time with his family. It was very
34:25
Speaker 6: difficult at the same time, and then we were we
34:28
Speaker 6: still had months and many more countries to go, and
34:31
Speaker 6: in Colombia right afterwards, we just kind of were processing
34:34
Speaker 6: everything and it was just really it was really difficult.
34:37
Speaker 6: We really questioned if we should continue, we should go
34:39
Speaker 6: back home to work, to support, to change our trajectory,
34:43
Speaker 6: but that's not what his family wanted, and we had
34:45
Speaker 6: planned for this trip for a long time. But it
34:46
Speaker 6: really was very difficult to enjoy it, as I guess,
34:49
Speaker 6: as much as we were before.
34:51
Speaker 7: So right, for example, like.
34:53
Speaker 6: Colombia was difficult for us, even though Columbia's did a
34:55
Speaker 6: beautiful country. And so whatever you're going through emotionally is
34:58
Speaker 6: going to affect how it's like the next place.
35:01
Speaker 1: So true, very very true. So after these three years
35:05
Speaker 1: wrapping up and you go back to the US, you know,
35:08
Speaker 1: I've talked to a couple of guests actually about this
35:10
Speaker 1: like transition zone and how it's hard to reintegrate, and
35:15
Speaker 1: I think we're always wanting to get back on the road.
35:17
Speaker 1: We need to go home. But talk about the importance
35:19
Speaker 1: of community in the over lens sphere and how important
35:24
Speaker 1: that is to you. Guys.
35:25
Speaker 3: We have wonderful friends from work.
35:28
Speaker 5: Prior to the trip, we have built beautiful friendships with
35:32
Speaker 5: travelers like you and Richard. For years we were super
35:36
Speaker 5: close to you and many other travelers that we made
35:38
Speaker 5: along the way. The importance of that, the support of
35:41
Speaker 5: our community is especially when you get back. It's sort
35:44
Speaker 5: of like the support group that you need when you
35:46
Speaker 5: come back, and it's like you're experiencing reverse culture shock
35:49
Speaker 5: in a way.
35:49
Speaker 7: But it's even deeper than that. I think.
35:51
Speaker 6: I think it's like you come back changed and you
35:53
Speaker 6: hear all the things. Because people say like, oh, it's
35:56
Speaker 6: so hard to come back. I was like, come on,
35:57
Speaker 6: how hard is it? Like you get a job, you
35:58
Speaker 6: suck it up, It was so hard because maybe not
36:02
Speaker 6: that much changed when you left. I mean did they did,
36:04
Speaker 6: but then they kind of didn't. And then you've changed
36:06
Speaker 6: so much and you're still understanding how profoundly you have
36:09
Speaker 6: changed and why and what your priorities are, and it's
36:12
Speaker 6: a lonely place. You feel kind of like an alien. Also,
36:15
Speaker 6: Like I came back and I was like, oh, dang,
36:17
Speaker 6: I've aged.
36:18
Speaker 7: Of course I did.
36:19
Speaker 3: You know?
36:19
Speaker 7: It was Corey. We all had.
36:20
Speaker 6: Yeah, but there's so many There's so many things, and
36:23
Speaker 6: so many people come back to so many different things, right,
36:25
Speaker 6: like you jump into a class, or you go back
36:28
Speaker 6: to your old job, or you're helping aging parents or
36:31
Speaker 6: I don't know, there's so many things. So the transition though,
36:34
Speaker 6: was definitely harder than we had expected. And so then
36:36
Speaker 6: the community, the overlading community, like you guys, even just
36:40
Speaker 6: spenting of how we're feeling was key.
36:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's super important, and I think too, like putting
36:45
Speaker 1: your passion into something. You've put your passion into your
36:48
Speaker 1: next build, which I think it's so great to have
36:51
Speaker 1: the vision for the future and to be working towards
36:53
Speaker 1: that through a vehicle. We're going to wrap up soon.
36:55
Speaker 1: But I want you guys to talk a little bit
36:57
Speaker 1: about your troop be your line, cru'se your troop by
36:59
Speaker 1: and what you've learned about traveling that you've applied to
37:02
Speaker 1: this new vehicle again.
37:03
Speaker 3: I was just going to go a little bit back. Yeah,
37:06
Speaker 3: of course, the wise right, Yes, thank you.
37:09
Speaker 5: Our trip was extended for like months, what a bit,
37:11
Speaker 5: So we planned to go on again a year and
37:14
Speaker 5: a half and almost four years. We were so into it.
37:17
Speaker 5: It was clear to me that I wanted to continue
37:20
Speaker 5: to travel, and I started thinking, obviously in a few
37:23
Speaker 5: things that we wanted to change.
37:24
Speaker 3: Being exposed to the.
37:25
Speaker 5: Elements as harsh. It hit me when we made it
37:28
Speaker 5: to Uswara and then we had to start driving back
37:32
Speaker 5: because for the first time we are now it felt
37:34
Speaker 5: like the beginning of the end right life. For the
37:37
Speaker 5: first time, we're driving north and getting closer to home,
37:39
Speaker 5: which meant that, you know, it's sort of of significance.
37:43
Speaker 5: I didn't want the dream to die. Sort of what
37:45
Speaker 5: is the next thing, so you I have to put
37:48
Speaker 5: the next movie motion, you know, take the next step,
37:51
Speaker 5: put the next plan in motion. And that was like
37:54
Speaker 5: knowing that we wanted to get a new vehicle or
37:56
Speaker 5: to be a little bit more.
37:57
Speaker 7: Comfortable with inside living space.
38:00
Speaker 3: I live in space.
38:00
Speaker 5: I started inquiring in different places around the world, like Australia, Venezuela, Dubai,
38:06
Speaker 5: getting quotes. Yeah, so that kind of was the beginning
38:10
Speaker 5: of the new built the new vehicle. We made it
38:13
Speaker 5: back to the to the US, and that was pretty
38:15
Speaker 5: much alive.
38:16
Speaker 3: You know.
38:16
Speaker 5: I kept inquiring and investigating and doing a lot of research.
38:19
Speaker 5: We were we didn't have any money, like we were
38:21
Speaker 5: broke from the trip, but we had some credit available
38:24
Speaker 5: to us, and I knew that if.
38:27
Speaker 3: We didn't make the move then it.
38:29
Speaker 5: Was kind of going to die out. So I just
38:31
Speaker 5: basically went for it. I was like, Okay, I found
38:34
Speaker 5: the vehicle in Dubai, got in touch with the dealership
38:37
Speaker 5: before I made.
38:38
Speaker 3: It back to Seattle. On a whim, I.
38:41
Speaker 5: Bought a plane ticket to Dubai because I couldn't I
38:43
Speaker 5: couldn't see how I was just gonna be sending X
38:46
Speaker 5: amount of money to buy a car in a foreign
38:48
Speaker 5: vehicle without seeing it. Say, for whatever it was, it was.
38:51
Speaker 3: A mad idea.
38:52
Speaker 5: What's the making model Toyota lank Custer seventy A series
38:56
Speaker 5: there was I had like a plane ticket to go
38:59
Speaker 5: to Dubai round trip eight hundred dollars. It wasn't that bad.
39:02
Speaker 1: That's pretty good, Yeah, Dubai, Yeah nice.
39:05
Speaker 3: Yeah. The hotel was was pretty cheap.
39:08
Speaker 5: Too, and it was actually really really good. And I
39:10
Speaker 5: rented a Fia penda, like the cheapest thing that I
39:13
Speaker 5: could find to get me, you know, be able to
39:14
Speaker 5: get around.
39:15
Speaker 3: Yeah. I got over there and I really like, we
39:17
Speaker 3: both like scrape every.
39:20
Speaker 5: You know, scent that we had to get this vehicle.
39:23
Speaker 5: There's something else. So I went to Venezuela and bought
39:25
Speaker 5: like some older ones that I was going to restore.
39:28
Speaker 5: So I don't know what I was doing. I was
39:29
Speaker 5: kind of desperate, trying to come up with this next
39:32
Speaker 5: plan that was going to help us continuing to day
39:34
Speaker 5: on the road and obviously get our own vehicle. So yeah,
39:38
Speaker 5: it really was like I look back and I was
39:39
Speaker 5: just like, what was I thinking? But somehow everything came together.
39:43
Speaker 5: Taking advantage of having dual citizenship, got the vehicle ridge
39:47
Speaker 5: in Venezuela, shipped to Mexico, drove it with my dad
39:51
Speaker 5: into the US, started building it with the support of
39:53
Speaker 5: many companies of course, and most of the of the
39:56
Speaker 5: work being done by me and friends were very very
39:59
Speaker 5: very helpful.
40:00
Speaker 1: So you did a pop top on there, right, the.
40:02
Speaker 5: Pop top, the full built you know, the usual upgrades
40:05
Speaker 5: that you do to your vehicle, suspension on tires, opers.
40:08
Speaker 3: Some lights and this stuff.
40:10
Speaker 5: But what was really key was definitely the pop top
40:13
Speaker 5: in the interior. I worked with a friend, the same
40:16
Speaker 5: friend that I went to college with and you know,
40:19
Speaker 5: was broken hearted, made me take him out, Oh.
40:22
Speaker 1: My gosh, f Aull Circle. Yeah, and he designed it.
40:25
Speaker 1: Was it the cabinet tree system?
40:28
Speaker 4: Yes?
40:28
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was a joint effort between him, our friend Daniel,
40:32
Speaker 5: and I spounced an idea on how to solve the
40:35
Speaker 5: certain problems with the cabinetry and all that stuff. It
40:37
Speaker 5: was very fun.
40:38
Speaker 1: The bill turnout absolutely studying, so beautiful. It's very clean,
40:43
Speaker 1: it's very classic. It gets a lot of attention here.
40:45
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of fomo on the street
40:47
Speaker 1: when you're driving by and people stop you and want
40:49
Speaker 1: to chat about it and how did you get this here?
40:51
Speaker 1: And I want one so bad? So it's fun to watch,
40:54
Speaker 1: but yeah, it turned out really nice. What are your plants?
40:57
Speaker 1: Where are you going to take it? Do you know?
40:59
Speaker 5: We built with the idea of doing the same thing
41:02
Speaker 5: that we did in South America, which was to circumnavigate
41:05
Speaker 5: the continent and do that in Africa. So that's what
41:08
Speaker 5: we really wanted to do. Then COVID happened. Just had
41:11
Speaker 5: to wait and realign you priorities also like paying dead saving.
41:16
Speaker 3: Right now, I think we're pretty ready.
41:18
Speaker 5: The vehicle is like, there's not nothing else or not
41:21
Speaker 5: much else that we can do to it. We have
41:23
Speaker 5: this venture, which is like restoring and bringing two piece
41:27
Speaker 5: into the US. I think that we should be hopefully,
41:29
Speaker 5: we should be ready to ship some time later this year.
41:32
Speaker 5: We have talked to our friends and put a tentative
41:36
Speaker 5: date or September first ship overseas hopefully, and I were still.
41:40
Speaker 7: Open to kind of where awesome.
41:42
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to see what the next steps are
41:44
Speaker 1: for you guys. And I guess my final question this
41:47
Speaker 1: is one that I ask almost everybody. I guess, but
41:50
Speaker 1: if you could travel to any country right now, what
41:53
Speaker 1: would it be and why?
41:55
Speaker 6: I feel like you've asked me that the other time,
41:57
Speaker 6: and I think it's still the same answer.
41:58
Speaker 7: It's like Thailand.
42:00
Speaker 6: Actually, recently, our friends Joe and just Say have been
42:02
Speaker 6: posting all of their fabulous photos of their journey in Thailand,
42:07
Speaker 6: and they were fellow Overlanders who did the Pan American
42:10
Speaker 6: and I think they're they're kind of doing a more
42:11
Speaker 6: backpacking style, but in any shape for whatever manner. Just
42:16
Speaker 6: the beauty of the beaches and it looks like the
42:18
Speaker 6: culture and the food.
42:19
Speaker 7: I'm just super drawn too. So I guess Thailand nice.
42:22
Speaker 5: That's a tough one, but I think that probably Iceland
42:25
Speaker 5: and New Zealand, Japan, India, go Tolis.
42:30
Speaker 1: That was great. Well, thank you guys so much for
42:32
Speaker 1: being here. I so appreciate you sharing your experiences, knowledge
42:36
Speaker 1: and stories with us. And if people want to find
42:39
Speaker 1: you online or learn more about your your trip or
42:42
Speaker 1: the troopees or your next adventure, where can they find you.
42:47
Speaker 5: Our website is Overland Americas dot com in Overland America's
42:51
Speaker 5: everywhere else in social media.
42:53
Speaker 1: Well, thank you guys so much for coming, Thank you
42:55
Speaker 1: for having us Ashley Overland Journal, thank you, and thank
42:59
Speaker 1: you so much to all the listeners out there for
43:01
Speaker 1: tuning in to another episode of the Overlain Journal podcast.
43:05
Speaker 1: We appreciate your time and we will see you next time.