Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / The most traveled overlander you have never heard of Adam Shani.

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The most traveled overlander you have never heard of Adam Shani. · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I am
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: your host, Scott Brady, and I'm here with Adam Shaney.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: He's the story that I think about is you hear
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: about the people who go off and see the world
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: and they never really tell anybody about it. And you're
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: one of those guys. You're one of the most well
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: traveled people that I've met, and you have some incredible
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: stories just in our brief conversation that we've had in
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the last few minutes. But it's not out there on
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: social media. You're not all over national, geographic or everything else.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: But we have so much to learn from people like
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: you that have seen the world. I remember Randy Perkins,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: who's here in the room with me. Randy was telling
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: me a story about how you finished writing I think
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: across the Americas and you got done and you thought,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: you know what, Actually, I'm going to go turn around
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: and go do it the other direction, so that the
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: adventures that you've had or are incredible. But let's start
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: by talking a little bit about where you grew up.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: First. Thanks for bringing me here. You're welcome, really good
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: to be here.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: So I'm Adam Cheney from Israel born and raised on
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: a little farm down in the south part of Israel,
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: and yeah, just kind of small town living. Didn't know,
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: you know, much about out the big world.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: And yeah, that's did you grow up in one of
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: those kind of collective communities something similar.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: Yes, there's a lot of variance to them, but yeah,
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: something pretty much similar.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: So and what do they what do they call those
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: in kibbutz?
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, that's what I most of us are familiar
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: with hearing that term.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: So yeah, it's a big call basically, and the family
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: know that kind of they share the tractors on the land,
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: and there's you know, to various degrees. Yeah, and they
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: kind of evolved into different communities by now standards, but yeah,
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: that's a big that's our biggest farming area in Israel,
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: the south part.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: It's kind of flat, a bit like your Midwest. Okay, sure,
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of corn and yeah, sure.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: And we eat sunflower and uh yeah, tractors and that's
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: kinda that's so like a.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Small place, you know.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: The uh, the whole concept of a kibbutz, I think
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: is so interesting because as humans, we've evolved in villages.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're used to these, we're used to operating
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: in smaller communities. And I think that that's why so
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: many people feel unhealthy today, is because they don't have
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: a sense of community. They're not surrounded by others that
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: can help them if they're sick, like as I understand it,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: like in the kibbutz, like if if someone's having a child,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: that there they aren't expected to do anything but but
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: be a great mom or be a great dad, or
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: or if someone's ill or if they have an injury,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: that the rest of the community steps in and helps.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: And I think that that's something that's really missing. So
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: when you were growing up in that kind of a community,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: what are some of the things that you learned that
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: you've now taken into your other relationships and your other
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: travels around the world.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Oofuh, where to begin first?
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Like you said, you're a part of a community, so
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: it's not just about you. You know, you're a little
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: piece in a big in a big story. So I
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: think some maybe humility. Yeah, teamwork is a huge thing,
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: you know, a community, communal, you know, caring for the other.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: It's not always about money. It's actually never about money.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: There's there's yeah, you don't do it for the salary,
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: for the money. Self reliant, it's a big value for us.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: We always, you know, fix all of our equipment, we
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: fix all of our machinery. We did everything for ourselves,
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: you know, a simple life, love of nature, non consumerism, society.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: You get a pair of shoes a year, I think
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: it was four sets of clothes, and you get a.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: President at your birthday. Yeah, sure, that's pretty much it.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: That's so fascinating though. I mean, as I understand, they'll
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: even be like a small motor pool and and if
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: you need to drive to the big city to go
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: do something, then you just go and you get a
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: car from the motor pool. But you don't have to
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: worry about your own insurance. And there's somebody who's taking
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: care of the car.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: But everybody's working together. Yes, that's still there.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: And again you know, I think there's about two hundred
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: keep it seem in Israel now, so you know, each
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: community it's completely democratic. So each community has a total
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: voting right. Once you're a member, once you can finish
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: your service and you come back, you can become a member.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: They've got a vote on you.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: Doesn't matter if you will bonder or not, still a
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: vote and that community within the boundary of Israel, you know,
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: will decide how exactly they want to run it. So
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: most of them used to share the cars. They will
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: share the means of productions a lot of times. I
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: know it's kind of maybe a bit of a chargeboard nowadays,
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: but there was health was done together.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: They will all chip in and have a clinic on site.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Amazing older people were good taking care of We always
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: made sure there was a doctor in the community and
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: at least one nurse, so you had someone very near
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: twenty four. It was very well organized and they are
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: the most successful farmers and Isabel a way far.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: And it makes sense that it would also help the
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: society as a whole, because you know, it's interesting to
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: watch and this isn't true and everywhere everywhere on the planet,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: but there are places that are right at the doorstep
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: of population collapse, you know, where the birth rates are
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: so far down that and it kind of makes sense
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: if someone doesn't feel supported, or you think about someone
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: who's maybe thinking about having children in the United States
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: and you're like, how could I afford a home? How
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: could I afford to really spend time quality time with
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: my kids? So to be in a community that fostered that,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: that made it easy to have children and to support
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: them and for them to get a great education, and
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: I think that that's lost in a lot of modern
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: day and so it's no mistake then that you see
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: a higher birth rate in Israel because they have support
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: for people having kids.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, totally. It's if they want to, if they choose to. Yeah,
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: we do. You're right. Out of the fifty developed countries.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: In the world, I think we have the highest birth
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: at the moment, Yeah, which is so rare.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so difficult to find that Israeli make kids.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but you're right, it's a sign, right, people
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: are comfortable, they feel yeah, they feel you know, surrounded
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: by a good community and a good society.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: So we had that, Yeah.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: Good place to grow some really giant some of those
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: people you know, those old farmer neighbors, they were just giants. Yeah,
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: people from Israel, people that survived the Holocaust, people that
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: immigrated from other countries. So it was a mix of
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: just incredible people. Yeah, a lot of highly educated people,
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: a lot of people very basic education, and there was
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: a room for everyone. And yeah, it was I was
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: very fortunate to grow up there absolutely.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Well, and it sounds like it taught you a lot
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: about solving problems, fixing things, self reliance, which that should
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: make you for a great traveler, I would think.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, camping rough, traveling without you know, the camaraderie,
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: the value of friendship.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: I think also it's yeah, you're just combined with money.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: And it also it to me it kind of makes
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: sense why you haven't tried to be an influencer. You're
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: not trying to put your experience and your accomplishments up
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: on a billboard, because for you, it seems to be
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: since you're not so much into consumerism, you're about having
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: the experience itself exactly.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and honestly, just another guy and I did follow
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: my dreams.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: And we would probably talk about it, but.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: I kind of see myself as an ordinary guy.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Who just did a few extraordinary things.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Honestly, in my village, there's a lot of people who
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: could have done it. Yeah, they put their mind into it.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, maybe we start with that because as
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: part of growing up in Israel, there's compulsory service in
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: some form for everybody, for all of the citizens of
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: the country. Talk me through that process, so you get
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: and I think it would be great if the United
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: States had something similar. I don't think everybody needs to
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: go into the military, but they should be a part
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: of something beyond themselves, especially at a young age, because
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: that's what I learned in the military is like chill
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: the ego buddy a little bit and become part of
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: a team, and it knocks you down a whole bunch
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: of steps, which I think is needed. I definitely needed it.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: I didn't have a rudder. I needed to get some
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: direction and some discipline. So how old were you when
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: you went into the military.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Eighteen? You know, so, yeah, you've seen Ajia.
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, finish high school twelve years is mandatory in Israel
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: pretty much. I think most people will do a twelve
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: year of school and at eighteen you kind of grow
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: up and you know you're going to join the army.
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  Speaker 3: Man and woman doesn't matter.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: And the only thing you can do is choose what
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: role would.
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  Speaker 3: You do in the service? Yeah, and you can ask
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: to be anything from a combat soldier to a teacher
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: to an engineer. You can go and study and become
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: a medical doctor, a military doctor. So there's a lot
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: you can kind of choose. According to your abilities where
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: you'll serve. I think, just like the American Army. But
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: one thing is for certain, you're going to serve. Yeah,
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: that's a given. So and I was eighteen and growing
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: up in that community where I did, people are very patriotic.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: Everybody volunteers.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, everybody does whatever they can, you know, to kind
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: of give back the country something, you know, for its defense.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I volunteered, and yeah, I was kind of
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: sucked into it and woke up five years later.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and is that if I remember, that's five years
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: is longer than the compulsory term. So you chose to
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: stay on a little bit longer. And for the things
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: that you can talk about, share a little bit about
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: what you did when you were in the military, whatever
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: you'd feel comfortable sharing.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: I volunteered to the Special Forces. There's like you guys,
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: there's different branches. But had some family in it. And
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: I thought, you know, of new some guys, very few
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: guys who've been to those units, you know when I
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: was growing up, and I thought, man, that looks I
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: just I think I wanted to see if I can
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: do it.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Test yourself, sure, test myself.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: And yeah, that was like, you know, the hardest, the
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: better it was, you know, the hardest role was the
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: better for me.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: So volunteered and did the selection and all of the tests.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: It takes a few weeks or even a few months.
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: You can sometimes start the regular army and then be
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: pulled out, and in my case I was sometimes and
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: you can just volunteer from the start, So that was
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: my case. And yeah, then went through the training. It
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: takes about two years to get you up and ready
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: to become an operator as you guys call it here.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: And then yeah, they signed you on a minimum meter
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: five or eight or twelve or twenty years service.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they're not going to train you for two years.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sure to get another because the minimum mandatory I
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: think it's.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: Three years for men, okay and two for women. So
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: I knew it's going.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: To be a bit more, but yeah, I yep. So
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: I went to that, finished the training and just went
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: to work, and.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Time just flew. You know, people think, oh, five years.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: In the service, but it was just one day, one
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: one position, you know, chase that other and always working
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: on something, always doing something. You know, you grab your
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: bag today, you're here tomorrow year, you know, five mile
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: a thousand miles away, everything else, same group of people,
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: sometimes different. You switched to your teams, and you know
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: that happens all the time, a lot of super interesting things.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: I think, you know what, I kind of remember it's
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: thirty years now.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure I can relate.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's sometimes you know, it's something really feels like yesterday.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: But the guys I serve with, you know, are pretty
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: most of our generals now are yea, we were either
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: in the same year or so. It's kind of funny
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: to see them today.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: What was when you were going through the training? What
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: was did you have a moment when he didn't know
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: if you were going to be able to keep going
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: where it was just so difficult and or you maybe
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: had an injury. Let's talk a little bit about when
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: you got into that moment and how did you get
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: through it?
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: How did you make it through that?
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think everybody goes through those moments where you
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: kind of deep inside, right, because if you raise your
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: hand and say hey, I want to quit, that's it.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: You're out. Yeah, they will have a talk with you.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Probably and kind of say hey, they'll pull you aside
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: and say, hey, let's talk about it.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: What's going on.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think they're gonna but definitely if you
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: raise that hand and say, hey, I want to out,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: you're out.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: It's a voluntary unit.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: So we all had moments like, deep inside, you're not
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: going to raise that hand and say it, but deep inside,
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: do you think you know, do I really want to
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: do it?
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Do I can? I really can I really do it?
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: And from the side, I decided I'm just gonna push,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: you know, until if they decided that I'm not the
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: right guy for them, that's that's totally okay. You know,
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: maybe they want a different kind of person. But I'm
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: going to try at least to just dig deep and
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: just keep going, even slow down, but keep going until
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: I get through it or collapse, you know and fall
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: on the ground. Those those you get those moments too.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: You know, sometimes there's a limit to what your body
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: can do. But of course it's the big limitation is mental.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: You're just especially, yeah, the physical aspect of it is
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: just daunting, caring, you know, heavyweights, and this is months
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: on end. There's no remorse or pity, you know, in
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: those places, there's a if you do get a weekend
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: pass or if you do it on the weekend. You know,
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: we normally you get the one day off, and of
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: course you're going to spend it in the messhole doing
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: scrubbing dishes. Sure, there is just yeah, we used to
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: shoot on a Saturday. I mean there was not a moment.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: So yeah, those moments were always there. No, I never
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: had a moment where I was like just stuff it.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: But I had a lot of times, but I would say,
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: you know what, if I want to quit, I'm going
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: to quick it next month. That was that was my system.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: I was like, you know what fine today is let's
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: say March first. So on April first, if I'm still
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: going to quit, I'm going to quit a month away, okay,
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: And that kind of carried me a month and I've
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: actually done it to myself a lot of times. And
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: then you come April first, you know what, you feel
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: a bit better. You already went over that that hard
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: week or hard course, you know.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: And then a few.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: Months later there was going to be another time, and
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: he was like, you know, okay, this is it.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: The next month, first of May. That's it. I'm gonna
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: raise that hand and you know, come first May.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: So then he kept going, and I kept going, Yeah,
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: you really learned how to dig deep, and that was
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: maybe one of the best lessons for life. You know,
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: it's bad and hard things will always happen, and it's
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: not more it's not what happens to you, it's just
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: how you dealing with it. Yes, you know that you're
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: going to get handed, you know, hand of cards, and
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: it's how you play it.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: It's not about the cards.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting when you think about it. The only
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: thing we actually have any control over in life is
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: our response, our attitude.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: We can't.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: People get sick all the time, really healthy people get cancer,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: you know, family members die unexpectedly. There's so many things
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: that occur in life. But the only thing that we
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: actually have any control over at all is how am
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: I going to respond to it? Am I going to
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: maintain a positive attitude or the best attitude that I can?
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Am I going to make sure that I don't take
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: my frustration out on others?
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Make sure that I have the character that I employ,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: the character that I believe in in my actions.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: But that's it, Like everything else is. It's like you said,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: it's a deck of cards. You just don't know what
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: you're going to get that day.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: So Yeah, you just got to plow through it.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: And everybody responds to that service differently. We spoke years
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: later with guys in the group, and you know, we
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: will talk about a couple of really hard months and
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: the guy the next guy will says, that was.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Actually, that was actually that hard.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: I nearly died, but like from exhaustion, seriously, and he
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: was like, nah, man, that was actually the easy one.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: And so everybody takes it differently.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, and it depends on the day, depends on
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: the day, depends on your team too.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: You can you know, it's you can be thrown with
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: six different or ten different guys and different dynamics, you know,
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: so there's no two services alike.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: I think, And what do you think were some of
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: those things that you took out of your five years
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: in the military that's then helped you with life and
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: also helped you as a traveler. What are some things
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: that you take away from that?
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: So dig deep, you know, when the trouble come, dig
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: deep and try and solve them. Don't just throw your
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: toys off your bed and just say just quit.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Don't quit.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: Dig deep, try to control your response, Okay, persevere, keep going.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: If you set a goal.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: You said, Okay, I'm gonna ride next year from here
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: from A to B.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: That is it.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: And once you started that trip, you either get to
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: that destination on your motorcycle. I always used to say
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: with myself, maybe it's not a good advice. I'll be
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: flown back in a coffin. That's the two outcomes for
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: this expedition. Kids don't try that at home. But that's
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: how serious I used to take, notore. But so if
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: I decided for myself and I and by the way,
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: I never used to declare on any kind of social
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: media or whatever, maybe just for family and friends. Yeah, yeah,
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: I want to ride across Africa. I would never publicly really,
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: I won't hide it. But it wasn't something I.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Went and declare.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: It was a personal feeling, personal commitment, and I decided,
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: you know what, I want to cross that content. I
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: want to see, you know, I want to see all
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: about it. And then when the hard moments do arrive,
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: you just keep going. So that I took that from
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: the Army. Just just keep going. Quitting it's not just
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: not worth it, you know, because if you do quit,
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: you're gonna feel so bad afterwards.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: The regret thereat and the guild.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: And guess what, I've seen a lot of people and
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: eventually they will try to do the same trip again,
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: you know, so you don't get caught in that loop.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: Better give it your bed.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: Sometimes you know, you just can't do the trip because really,
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: let's say it's some borders closed and you know, and hey,
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: it's but I think so I've learned. I asked yourself, really,
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: is it really the condition or is it me just
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: did I just have enough? So I took that organization
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: or logistics, I would say, I would call it. So
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: we definitely learned that about how to plan around, how
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: to look at the weather, how to pack. So organization
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: logistical skills definitely came from the army. A bit of
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: survival skills, sure, I have that. I feel comfortable alone
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: in nature. I feel comfortable in different environments, could be
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: just desert, jungle mountains. So a bit of survival skills
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: and maybe not the world expert, but I feel comfortable
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: and I know my abilities. So another thing is, yeah,
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: I know your limits. Yeah I know what I can do,
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: but I also know what I cannot do physically and mentally,
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: so I try and I try not to buy it
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: or plan a big trip that I was.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: Like, no, Adam, that's just you know, going to do it.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: So yeah, so I think, yeah, those are part of
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: the things I took from the service.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: And if I remember, you grew up at least part
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: of the time in South America. Was that part of
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: what made you think, I want to go see the world.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: This place is interesting, I'd like to go see the
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: other interesting spots.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's you.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Know what, That's actually a really good point, Scott, because
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: my dad and mom, you know, parents used to say, hey,
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: you know, so when you're coming back home, I said, well,
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: this traveling is that's your fault. They when I was
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: I think two years old, they packed us up and yeah,
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: we lived in South America for a few years for
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: my dad's work and as kids, you know, we were
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: just kind of, you know, we were just growing up
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: children kind of. Mom was spending a lot of time
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: with us, and yeah, but we traveled. Even back then.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: The memories I have from like Chile and Argentina was
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: like camping trips. Yeah, we will just grab a car
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: and put a tent sum on some lake and you know, just.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: It's beautiful down there. Jesus and the food is.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: So good and yeah, so yeah it wasn't a bad deal,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: yeah for sure.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: But yeah, that traveling, You're right, that's I think I.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Go to for a moment.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Then, and what would you say was your first You
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: mentioned a little bit about because you were you know,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: you grew up in Israel, so you were close to
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: so many interesting countries. But what was the first really
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: big journey that you thought, I'm going to have to
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: really plan this, I'm going to need to take time
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: off work. What was your first really big adventure?
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Africa? Okay, so now tell me where did you travel
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: in Africa?
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: So I always as a kid, you know, I always
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: dreamt about you know, animals and Safari, and you know,
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: I had this image of Africa as very like you said,
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: it's actually not that far from Israel. It's just across
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: the Sewis Canal, so you can drive a car ten
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: hours basically across the canal, and you're in Egypt, which
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: is part of Africa. So Africa was the first my
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: childhood dream and I thought that, you know, that was
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: I would just do a tripping across Africa, and you
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: know that would be me like a gap year after
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: the service. So so yeah, that's the first plan I had.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: And so is that what you did? You hopped on
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: a bike and what what motorcycle did you choose?
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was kind of out of the service. I
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: remember I was harvesting wheat back in the South. It
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: was harvest season, and you know, we actually made pretty
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: good money for back of those days.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: So we saved a few thousand dollars. I think that
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: was kind of we thought we were really, you're rich.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: We were rich beyond our dreams. And there was a
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: friend Doutain from you know, the next door village. So
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: me and him riding XR six hundred.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Perfect, yeah, not even streetly simple, yeah, not even street legal,
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: and we realized we thought, you know, Africa, hey, you know,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: it's kind.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: Of dirt roads and we'll be fine, and uh yeah,
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: so we decided we're gonna ship the bikes to Cape Town,
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: South Africa and ride all the way to Ethiopia, across
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: South a little bit of Central and then East Africa.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: So that was a plan and it's amazing.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and basically, yeah, about a year or eight months
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: that was our route and very low budget, and we
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: had no clue it was before GPS was even a
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: commercial thing.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: So this is year two thousand before.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: For social media, internet or email was just I think
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: it was my first email address, which I still actually
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: have to kind of write home.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: That's when I got it.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: And of course no information on there's no you know,
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: no internet. Maybe I'm sure there was books and people
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: done it before, but we just kind of heard from
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: other travelers that you know, you can't do it, and
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: maybe buy like a travel guide, like a Lonely Planet.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: It was back then. And a couple of maps we made.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: We landed in. So we took the bikes apart.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: And that was before nine eleven, you know, when the
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: airlines became really strict. So we took them completely apart,
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: put them in like six different Duffel bags, and.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Basically flown to Cape Town and they didn't.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: We got away and I carry the engine in the
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: in the you know, the checking in my backpack, and
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: some granny was trying to pull it out, you know,
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: and the in the flight because she was looking for
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: her back and she nearly got to x.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: R six engine in her face the face.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: But we yeah, so we landed inside. Yeah, we got
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: away with it was yeah, we got away, we didn't
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: pay for extra luggage.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Basically that's incredible.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: And someone told us before you go, you need these
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: travel documents for a vehicle called carne the passage. And
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: again we were new into the new into overlanding, so
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: we knew we needed the passport. We kind of realized.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: We thought, okay, you need a driver's license to do,
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: you're legal to drive, and you need to approve that
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: you're the owner of the vehicle.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: All of these are still true.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: And someone tell us now in Africa of those days,
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: and I think maybe even today, you need like a
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: passport for your vehicles called called a carnet episode. It's
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: to avoid customs in each country. So someone in the
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: last like three days before departure, someone threw it and
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: my mom kind of heard about it, and we just
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: started running circles and eventually someone said, yeah, there's We
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: managed to get a document that kind of looked liked it,
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: which was for exporting a temporary export and import off.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: I think like professional goods, like if.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: You're that's how you get your camera across something.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: We just kind of rode motorcycle.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: You know, that's hilarious and let us see you know, yeah.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how we started. And what year was that
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: two thousand? You said that was November two thousand.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Wow, South Africa would have been such an interesting place
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: to be in two thousand, like amazing, incredible changes happening
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: in that country. And then did when you got to
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: the other end, when you got to Ethiopia, did Ethiopia
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: still have access to this see through Eritrea or had
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: they already lost their access to thee? Yeah, it was
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: how did you get how did you get you know about.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: You know, your geography? Yeah, it was I think it
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: was definitely debated. Yeah, let's kind of you know, I
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: think debate.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: It would be a good war.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: I don't think there was still a civil war every
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: three you know, they were trying to break away, so
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: there was no access to the sea.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: But we knew we're going to fly out. I see,
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: so adam adis yea of.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Addis, as Israelis, we couldn't go into Sudan. I don't
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: think we still can so well legally.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: At least so maybe not Jibouti.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: Possibly so Djibouti, Uh yeah, civil war Jibouti we could, yeah,
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: and but just fly out of Addis. You know Addis
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: has an Ethiopian airline that's a massive area today.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: There were mentorshipped so many goods out of there because
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: they don't have access to the.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: Sea right and mentored by luftans from Germany. So a
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: very good airline for African standards. There's a lot of
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: export of agriculture.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: From Ethiopia, so there's a lot going on. So we
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: knew we can help.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: Either hop on a cargo plane from Ethiopia or ride
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: down to Kenya again and try again. From Kenya, I'll
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: go to Bombasa and see freated so rode to Ethiopia.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: We bought a map in a bookstore, like a map
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: of Africa. Yeah, literally the one the one piece, and
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: then you see Zambia and that's just kind of and
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: it's incredible and just bumping into people. We had one
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: two main tent, me and my friends slipping in the
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: one tent.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Our budget was two hundred fifty dollars a month each.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that kind of gasoline and this rice and
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: beans and a bottle of Coca Cola once in a while,
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: which my friend decided is off the menu after a
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: few months. Yeah, so rich Ethiopia and I basically I
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: was offered we were both offered a job in Botswana.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: While we were riding through, we made some farmers in
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: northern northern Botsuana, made really good friends and he said, hey,
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: why don't you boys come and work for me.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: I'll pay you good money.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: Near mountain or it's next to it's about an hour south.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Of Choby Okay. Nice.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: So if you're going from mound up north, there's a
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: tiny village called Pandama Tanga and uh there's a farm
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: area and those flat areas. So yeah, just an hour
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: north of the Zambian border. Yeah amazing, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, elephants, lions,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: It was right in the middle. You know, you'll wake
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: up elephants are hitting the crop. So from Ethiopia, my
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: friend went back to Israel, went to university study agronomy
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: and became a farmer. And I headed back to Botsuana
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: and that was kind of my first job in Africa.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: And how long did you work there?
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: That was about a year, just under a year in
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: ten months. Yeah, a bunch of africaners.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah there, and they're and they also are they're pretty sturdy.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: They like to solve problems. They dig in and solve
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: problems make a plan absolutely, that's right, you know, it
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: makes a plan, that's right.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: So that was a great introduction to the African er culture.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: These guys are Africanas, so that these are the Dutch
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: South Africans. But they did settled in Botswana, I don't
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: know if you maybe fifty years before us, trying to
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: kind of establish agriculture. And they also had like a
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: safari company, a bit of hunting, a bit of photography
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: was of course all legal. So yeah, they had a
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: lot of tractors and a lot of unimogs and land
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: cruisers and they just kind of wanted to get some maintenance.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: How cool maintenance and you know, kind of in place.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: So that was us.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I was there for almost a year and
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: it was pretty incredible.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: You know, like lions.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: They told me, don't tell those things definitely on someone's
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: podcast because people won't believe you. It was just like, yeah,
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: you see lions kind of chopping and you know, catching
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: a cow or elephants. We sat in that pool, you know,
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: and the elephants will literally come and drink from it.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: And these boys were some of them served in the
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: South African Army during the South African Bush War. So
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: we had a lot of similarities. I think, you know,
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: both kind of been through the service, some of them
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: been to combat and and all of them they were
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: extremely knowledgeable of the bush. They knew every animal, every name,
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: every Latin name. They could see the tracks, Is that
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: a female?
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Is that a male?
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: They could know what's the pregnancy period. They were they
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: were just masters of the bush really in the highest level.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: I was amazed at how knowledgeable of the bush they were.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: They knew everything. You know, to get a hunt, to
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: be a hunter, you had to be there was an
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: apprenticeship program and that a whole bunch of tests.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: So these guys they didn't always hunt.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: They mainly farm, but sometimes they will take lines either
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: or a photography round and sometimes Yeah.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: So it reminds me of that book Death in the
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Long Grass. I don't know if you've ever read it,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: but it is the stories are just unbelievable, and they
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: you know, they go back into the eighteen hundreds, but
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: it's like these near death or death encounters with wild
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: animals in Africa. I mean, that's one of the things
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: I think I've always loved about Africa is I moved
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: down the food chain. You know you have moved down
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: the food chain.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Any better watch it? Yeah? Oh yeah,
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: I mean yeah we can. I can talk two weeks
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: about that year alone.
• 30:24
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• 30:27
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• 31:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, camping putting a fire was always be nervous. I
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: was like, I'm going to sleep in the back of
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: the of the pickup. You know they call it a
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: bucky Yeah, the back of the Lancers or the Uniworm.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: And there was four brothers. You know, they're like na, na,
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: we're totally and so they'll put a fire and go
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: to sleep, and you can hear a gun shot in
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: the middle of night and there was a line creeping
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: on one of them, so he just shot in the air,
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: and you know, unbelievable and really like some One night,
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: I was on the back of the truck and the
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: whole thing on of moves, you know, and I look
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: around and I could see in the moon it was
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: a line as she was on the hood just warming up.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, and then she took off, so man, it
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: was yeah.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: Snap, people get bitten by snakes and almost losing a hand,
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: you know, it was pretty wild.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: I think that's what calls us back to Africa, all
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: of us that love adventures, because it's just every moment
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: just feels that you don't know what's going to happen.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: You don't really don't know what's going to happen. So
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: what made you decide to go with a motorcycle instead
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: of a regular four driver?
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Always had a huge fascinating with fascination with motorcycles. I
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: grew up riding horses in the farm. We had a
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: really good horses and we rode them, took care of them.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: So that was kind of one of our chores as kids.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: And I think when I was about twelve or thirteen,
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: we found like an old vespo something a bunch of
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: us and nobody really mind, so we anyway, we kind
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: of made it work. And from there on I was
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: just hooked on motorcycles, hooked and you know, guys had that,
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: you know, in dirt bikes was starting to come in.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: We rode, we fixed and rode, like nineteen forty one
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: World War two motorcycles. That's what kind of was laying
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: around the farms. Sure, so you'll work for the guy
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: for a week or two, or a few bags of potatoes,
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: you'll give you that bike and we'll strip them. That's
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: kind of how I learned my trade too, just fix
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: them up and fabricate parts. And people around us, you know,
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: we maintain farming equipment. So there was a lot of
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: no how and we were riding those things and it's
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: just yeah. And then from nineteen forties bikes into vespas
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: and then eventually some kind of secondhand third bikes.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Sure, So biking was always my passion.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and yeah, when I realized that you can actually
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: travel on a bike.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, that's signed me up. Yeah, sign
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Now recently, have you always ridden BMW's or as soon
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: as you had the chance to get a BMW you
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: just kind of stuck with that, Or what's been a
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: couple of the bikes that you've you've enjoyed the most.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: Well, I've Yeah, BMW was always in the background when
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: we were travel riding as kids on those old British
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: singles and vespas and Italian vespas and maybe like old
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: Japanese old monocross.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Some guys had.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: Old BMW's, you know, old farmers and you know old guys.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: It will be like, yeah, nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties BMW's,
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: and we always kind of had a lot of admirations
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: just for like how smooth.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: And beautiful, beautiful bikes.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: Beautiful bikes, fish and world design smooth. And when I
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: was in the service, I actually bought an R sixty
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: and a R sixty that was my That's how I
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: got around. Had the two John Deer stickers on the tank,
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: and then everybody knew that it was a green bike.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: Everybody knew that bike, and that's kind of I fell
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: in love. I just realized just how I love the
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: Boxer configuration. Yeah, the chef drive and yeah, it's just reliability.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: So I started on a Hondykes R six hundred and
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: after that African trip, you know, I worked in the
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: Botswana farm and saved some money sold that bike, and
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: then back then we earned dollars in Botswana. Like obviously
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: most of the time in Africa, if you're a foreigner,
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: they will kind of negotiate dollar wages with you because
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: the currency is just too just change is too much currency.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: So if you had dollars and you convert that into
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: a South African round the exchange rate alone, it was
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: probably the cheapest place in the world to buy a BMW.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: I think we bought.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: I bought an eleven fifty gs brand new for I
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: think it was seven grand back in two thousand and two,
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: so that's cheap. Yeah, that was that was half the
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: price of Israel.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: So this this bike parked out front here probably looks
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: a little bit familiar.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: That's a two.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: Thousand and four eleven to fifty GS Adventure, which is
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: my current machine, and I do like the fact that
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: it still has a metal tank. I think that's why
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: I chose that one. But it's hard to find them
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: that don't look all plastic now.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, it was a beauty. You got the Bumblebee, Yeah,
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: that's a classic. Yeah, oh for sure.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: I bought an eleven fifty gs the that's it was
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: a two thousand and one I think, and it was
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: compared to the XR you know, the six hundred single, No, lie,
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: it was anyway, it was like an endurabike. So I
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: didn't even have a speedometer.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: It was, you know, leaps ahead of its time. It
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: could carry luggage and amazingly it was kind of capable,
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: not capable, but it could do any kind offer what
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: I wanted, you know, just take it slow, deflate the
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: tires or put noby tires. And I realized that the
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: kind of trip if I want to cross a continent,
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: if I want to travel far, most of the time,
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: I'm going to be on some kind of a decent road.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: Even if I'm a guy who's really or a girl
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: that does a lot of dirt. Most of the time,
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: I don't know sixty percent. I know, maybe about your
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: last Africa trip if you can think about it. But
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: most of the time you're in the main absolutely, so
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: you don't really need the extreme dirt capability. So I
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: realized that I don't want a bike that is good
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: for thirty percent of the time. I want a bike
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: that's good for seventy percent.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: So the Bimmer was a good.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: And then you can gain that that fuel range too.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: I think that's one of the things that really makes
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: a difference over like an Endura bike. An endurabike, maybe
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: you got one hundred and sixty miles if you're lucky,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: you know, whereas you know, like on a GS adventure,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: you know, I can go three hundred miles, which is
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: sometimes you need all of that.
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I still I just we could probably talk
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: about it. Just came back from another South America trip
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: justly less than a week ago.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: And yeah, tell us about that trip. Where'd you what'd
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: you do in South America?
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: Well, I had some time, so I decided this is it.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: I'm running Alaska to Patagonia. So I was working in
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: North Dakota and I finished that job, and I had
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: a gus adventure and rode basically up to Alaska turn around.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: I came down to Arizona through Canada and then yeah, Alluai, Mexico, Panama, and.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Then how did you get around the gap freight? Okay,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: chose not to do the sailboat option, like a lot
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: of guys do.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: I've done it the first time I've done it. When
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: I did the World trip, I took a sailboat and
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: it was a good experience. But now I just realized,
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: you know what, there's not a lot of them out there.
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: I think there was a few sailboats that kind of
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: cater for that, and I don't think I don't know if.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: They're still around.
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: So yeah, sure, now you know air freight, it's kind
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: of well set up. I'm sure you guys, you know
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: all these guys. You just kind of give them an
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: email and yeah, very easy, so air freight. And then
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: rode down, follow the andes, follow the mountains basically all
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: the way down and going back to that in dual
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: heavy bike debate, and I'm sure you hear a lot.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm still happy about the choice of a
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: heavier bike, but that is more comfortable, more reliable, carry
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: more fuel, carry more gear. I traveled. You know, you
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: team up, you meet and team up with other people.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: So plenty of younger guys on six fifties and I
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: kind of you know, so yeah, sure, on that one
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: week on the dirt, they were more comfortable than me.
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: But guess what, I made it through, didn't break the bike. Yeah,
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: so I'm still happy with that.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I noticed as well is
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: when you're in when you're in a developing country, you know,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: a twelve fifty gs it's so different from any other
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: motorcycle on the road that the drivers actually give you
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: a little more space. They know that there's something different
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: about you. Yeah, like you're probably a foreigner, you know.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: They realize it's not just another one of those one
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: twenty five's or one fifties that are clogging up the streets.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: They know, like, hey, this is a different kind of bike.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: And I just found that I was always safe. I
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: felt safer on the bigger bike too.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: Me too.
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you definitely, you're right. People kind of look at
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: you differently. I think you look like, I don't know,
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: you immediately recognize as a traveler, as a long distance traveler,
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: and I'm sure, yeah, I mean there's a trend up here.
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: You see a lot of people on smaller bikes. That's
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: totally fine. And of course whatever kind of whatever bike
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: or vehicles some likes that's totally cool. But yeah, personally, yeah,
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: you just like that, I would say, at least yeah, yeah,
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: open road, Yeah, a nice big engine.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Well let's let's talk about your world trip, because this
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: is fascinating to me. So, you know, you've done some
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: trip traveling now in Africa, you've worked in Africa, You're
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: starting to see the world. What made you decide that
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: you wanted to go around the world on a motorcycle.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: I've done it, kind of, I've evolved into it. I've
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: never as a growing up, as a kid, I've never
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: come out imagined myself as a world traveler. I did
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: the first trip, you know, the XR six hundred, and
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: then I did some work, and then one work led
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: to another, and I think I stayed maybe nine or
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: ten years in Africa, traveling and working, you know, did
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: some courses, did some more training. You know, I kind
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: of stepped up the ladder, got better jobs in machinery,
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: heavy machinery maintenance I do. And I've done another trip
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: and then I decided I'm going back to work.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: That BMW was stolen. Oh yeah, I did you know?
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: I did the southern African states on it.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: But after a year I parked.
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: Some friends and anyway, the bike was gone uninsured, so
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: you know, I had to move on.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: So I went back to work.
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: And then I realized, you know what, I was trying
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: to a crossed Africa, and of course parts of Africa
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: two three times now I would.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: Try to do.
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: And I've met some overland travelers when I was in Africa.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: I've met some guys on motorcycles and I was asking, Hey,
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: where are you guys from and they said, no, we're
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: from Switzerland. I was like, yeah, but how did you
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: get down to Africa?
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: Did you ship? They're like no, we rode all the
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: way down.
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: And I was like, what do you mean you rolled
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: all the way down with Sahara And I was like, yeah,
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: we rode all the way from Europe and one of
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: them was a girl from Switzerland. And we couldn't believe it,
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: like we didn't realize it.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: Was a thing that it was possible. Yeah, but what
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: do you mean?
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: You know? But and that kind of I think ignited
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: that sparking me. So after a while I kind of
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: I thought, I mean I was laying in a tent
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: and I just realized I was like, man to right
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: from Africa, let's say, just to Europe Ortna. How incredible
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: that can be, just you know, in the in a
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: continuous trip, you know, riding through overland.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: So I was just my I was blown away. I
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: didn't even Yeah. So I decided that my next trip,
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: I did some research. I did some reading about it
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: in areas you know what it is indeed possible, and
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: I set up a goal to ride from South Africa
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: from Cape Town in South Africa all the way to
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: Nord cap in Europe and Norway, so across Africa and
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: across Europe in the same trip, same motorcycle. So went
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: back to work, you know. And while I was working,
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: I was working in Nigeria with Massive Ferguson Tractors. I
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: was their technical guy, which was an adventure on its own.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Crazy country, Yeah.
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: Crazy country, you can see that.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, crazy country.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: I mean there there's two hundred million people in Nigeria
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: and they're all hustling to try to get ahead. I
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: mean they're just doing what they can do. Yeah, And
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: it is a massive people. It is a mass of people.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: It is exactly super populated, fast going. There's two hundred
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: official languages only in Nigeria, a tower of Babylon and
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: a funky English accent. You know, they have their own English.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: So it took me.
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: I don't know about you guys, but it took me
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: a long while to even just speak English.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure to the Nigerians. So that was a learning curve.
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: So while I was you know, doing that, a good
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: paid you know, well paid and you know, kind of
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: living in the bush, living in the truck, living in
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: the truck with the assembledsome team and that was an
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: adventure on its own. But while I was doing that,
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: I was starting to plan that Cape Town to Nord
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: Cup trip. I bought a motorcycle in South Africa. Again
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: there was still well priced and there had some really
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: good friends in a farm there next to Joburg and
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: uh XR seven fifty so Africa tween.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Perfect, Like what a great bike?
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah second hand it was a second hand, I think
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: four or five years old, so you got a good
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: price and you know, I wasn't concerned about bashing it around.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: And uh yeah, after a bad.
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: What was that a year and a half, I've done
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: the job in Nigeria and jump on that Africa twin
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: flown to South Africa and just did that right, Yeah, incredible.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: So you went up West Africa.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: So I went, well, yes, I went from South Africa
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: to Namibia, which you know, I love and the beautiful there.
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: Try to get into Angola. They visa is maybe it's
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: still trick.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Now it's easy. Now it's visa on arrival, at least
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: for Americans. Oh cool, So easy to get in there now, Oh.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Good on them.
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: Back then it was still the end of the civil war.
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: So I think they just for travelers safety.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: I think it was genuine.
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: They just didn't want travelers around anyway. Couldn't get a visa.
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: So I ended up going to Zambia and I rode
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: across the Congo, which was yeah. I don't think I
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: realized what I'm getting myself into.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: But so then you came into Kenchasa, and then you
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: came into Brazzaville across the river and then up through
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: the Congo.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: Through the Congo.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: It took me a month to go through the Congo
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: in first gear man that from Lubumbashi next to Kolwezi.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: You know, there's a huge older uranium mine there in
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: copper mines, so from the copper belt in the Zambia
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: Congo border d R C Congo. You basically it's about
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: two thousand kilometers of It's.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: Like Highway number three I think on the map.
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: But yeah, there's this like the locals told me where
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: are you going? You know, I was like, no, I'm
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: going to write to It was like there's no road.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: There's just that road never existed. It was some ruler,
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: some politician threw it on a map, thought.
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: It'll be cheaper to draw it on a map than
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: actually building it, you.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: Know, yeah exactly.
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: But eventually I stayed some in Lubumbashi. After like a week,
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: I found someone who said, you know what, I think
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: you can do it. You know, I was like good enough,
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: and that was yeah, that was was. It was just
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: you know, hard sand in the middle of nowhere.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It was just tough.
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: No no particular danger, you know, just a lot of hassle,
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: no communication. I don't speak I didn't speak almost any French.
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: They speak mainly.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: I think Lingala down there. Severe heat. You know, you've
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: been to the super humid totally humid.
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: It's just oppressive heat. It was an off road all
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: day long. Yeah, wild camping. The locals were fine, but they're.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: Just not used to seeing any foreigners.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: So really it was you stop in the village and
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: everyone's around.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: You just from curiousity.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: Yu never never heard, never attacked. But you gotta you
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: keep your wits about, you know, because things don't get missing.
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: And you were just twenty four hours. It was exhausting,
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: but anyway, eventually kind of crawl out on the other
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: end and made it to Conchassa.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: You go through the.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: Diamond areas in Boujimai and there's some permits apparently you need.
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you guys, if you still need
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: to worry about that today.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it wasn't an issue.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but everybody knows you don't have the permits, so
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of police checks.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: They you know, they want they would they search you anyway.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: So it was a good one.
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: So all the way to Kinshassa and then crossed the
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: river on a ferry, which was as I was running
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: through Kinshasa, some dude on a morside like an old
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: endure was kind of flagged me down, and you can
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: tell he looked like a like a pretty important guy,
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: and he was just.
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: Just follow me. Where are you going? You go into
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: the ferry.
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, I want a ferry. He said, listen,
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: give me a hug. I'm also Congolese, I'm a biker,
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: you know, just follow me, don't worry. And he was
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: like a half official, and he had like a police
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: idea on him. So he was just riding like crazy
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: through and I'm following.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: This dude and this random guy.
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: And he took me to the port and he pulled,
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: uh this uh permit you know, to the guy at
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: the gate, and the guy just gave him a salute
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: and I was like, yeah, I'm in good. And he
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: goes straight through the ferry and it's like a BEAUTI
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: off a barge floating around. There's no no ramp, no
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: nothing right, and so they're just chucking those bags. So
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: he grab one of the guys that you come here,
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: and he was like yes, sir. He was like, this
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: guy's going on this ferry and you loading him up
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: and he's paying three dollars and I want to hear
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: anything more like yes, sir, so I.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Was that was a win there. That was the wind.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: And I was as I was sitting on the bike
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: and I was just he was, you know, giving orders,
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: and the.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: Fairy was like, you know, five eight feet you know
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: above the ground. I was like, how am I going
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: to get the back up there?
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: And as I was sitting on the bank, was running
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: on the Africa Twin and like a thousand, one thousand hens.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: Just just lift me. And as I was just lift
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: us and just dropped us on the barge.
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: You know, it's like, yeah, like a hundred guys, you know,
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: just without even and just you know, and then we
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: reached you know, across the sailed across the Congo River.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: You know that mythical you know, you grew incredible.
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you grew up reading books about it, you know,
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: Heart of Darkness, Poison Wood, Bible, you know, just to
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: name a few. So I couldn't I was pinching myself.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: I couldn't believe here I'm crossing the Congo River.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: It is an impressive body of water. I mean the
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: fact that they'll run container ships all the way up there,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: it's just incredible.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: I think by volume of water second after the Amazon
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: second biggest.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: In the world. Wow. Yeah, go all the way up.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's another trip I would love to do one day,
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: kind of maybe kayak down the Congo.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be incredible. Yeah.
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: But anyways, yeah, going going, We cross them across the
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: Congo River and into kinshasa sorry from Conchasta to Lubumbashi,
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: which is the other congo, Brazililah, exactly, Brazavil, which was
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: that we call the French congo, you know, and the
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: other one was the Belgian congo. And then the year
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: and now dr se so to the other congo. It's
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: a much smaller one, I think, more mellow.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: I felt that the same with us. Yeah, super nice
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: people exactly really so.
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and hundred one thousand hands again. You know, I'm
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: on the bike. I'm going to get out.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: Of this barge. You know. Yeah, that's that's Afrikaans.
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: You know, they just figured out and and everyone's cheering.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: It was just it was that moment alone was I.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Think worth the entire trip.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: And anyway, so continued and then into Gabon, Cameroon, Nigeria,
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: and we talked about that super rough road and the
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: Mombilla Plateau.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Up on the Plateau in Nigeria. Yeah incredible, Yeah,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: really really rough. Yeah, we really wanted to do that,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: it just we weren't allowed to go that direction. We
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: had to go through Ecox.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: So yeah.
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, even then it was a hidden miss. You know,
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: that border has been been pretty hot for a while.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: But now, remember I'm riding through Nigeria, which I knew
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: from work quite well, so and I had some old
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: friends that still worked there and I had some contacts,
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: so I went through Nigeria, had some tires where for
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: me there did the service. I think we spent Christmas
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: together and then from there.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: I Yeah, people don't realize Lagos. I mean Lagos in
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: areas is very wealthy. There's parts of that city that
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: are like you wouldn't You would have no idea you
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: were in Africa.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: When when a Nigerian person is wealthy, he can cover
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: you with doll Yeah, I mean they do, some of them.
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: The richest African is from Nigeria. Yeah, good businessman.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: So yeah.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: And also education, when you meet an educated Nigeria and
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: he knows this stuff is yeah, this is the doctor
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: PhD uh.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: And then to the Sahel and to the edge of
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: the Sahara. I went all the way in nigera as
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: far nor.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: I couldn't get.
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: The Algerian visa. So when as far as north as
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: I can.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: In Niger, and then you went into Mauritania and then.
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: I really liked Senegal and Senegalese are just they are
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: like a happy, healthy group of people totally. You just
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: don't get you get no bad vibes in that place,
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: like it is.
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: It's a cool spot. It is.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: I heard someone told me it's the Brazil of Africa.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that make totally makes you no.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: I think it's a good description. Yeah, if you look
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: on the State Department website, it's a one.
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: It had.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: It has a lower I mean, it has a better
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: safety rating than Germany. Like it's a very safe, chill,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: fun place to go.
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, totally and nice cool existence too. You know, I
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: think Muslims and Christians, Yeah, they.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: Just they're just yeah, they're not beating each other up. Yeah,
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: and good for them.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: And food wasn't that bad, you know, like you can
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: actually eat it.
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I love Segal. Then Marthana I did a
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: lot of the deserts iron tracks in Marthana and it
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: was a bit a bit too hard for the Africa tween.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: You know. But did you go to Chinguetti? I did. Yeah, Man,
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: that's a spot Jinguity from Atar. You know.
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: That was that was a pretty tough sandy track. I
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: would spend days they're just digging the Africa between yeah,
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: sure and Mariythania. And the Maritana's got some pretty soft sand.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: I don't know what it is it but it's like
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: a powdery.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: Very salty, and it's so hot that of course, you know,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: the sand just isn't compacted at all, it's so hot there.
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I had a great adventure there and then
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: kind of wound my way into Europe and uh yeah road.
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: Uh before that, there was Morocco and I was trying
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: to get the Moroccan visa. Now in Israeli as Israeli
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: as you can get a Moroccan visa, but it was
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: a bit sensitive, you know. I knew it's possible, but
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: so like three or four countries before, when I was
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: in Nigeria, I went to the Moroccan embassy. I was like, hey, guys,
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: in about a month or two, I'm going to be
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: in more ethnic and I get a visa and I
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: was like, well, you know, so sorry, trying to you know,
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: try it in Marethenia and then I will go to
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: Toumali and go to the Moroccan embassy and say, hey, guys,
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: you know, I would like to apply for a tourist visa.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: I'm traveling. I'm doing this trip on a motorcycle. And
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: again you were like no. They were very polite.
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: They was like no, sir, you know, or try to
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: fly back to Tel Aviv and apply there. I think
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: we're supposed to come in a group. And eventually I
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: was in Marithania, I owned the Moroccan border, and there
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: was like, no, we can't give you a visa. And
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: I was like, guys, come on, man, I'm doing this
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: big trip and I crossed and you know Israelis do
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: go there and visit.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: So I'll just kind of keep quiet, how about that?
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: And they were like and again very polite.
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: I've gotta say, very nice, very polite, but they say, uh,
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: you know, can I look at the shoes and say no,
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: we can't. And I stayed another week and at the campsite,
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: I met this guy and the owner of the campsite
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: city his name, and he's a Mauritanian and he told
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: me what's the problem. And it was like, no, the
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: Moroccan guy, you know, he refused my visa. And then
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: I sat there on the in protest with a bottle
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: of water and on his embassy gate every morning and
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: eventually told me, listen, I can only give visits to
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: citizens and residents of Mauritania.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: How about that?
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: So the guy tell me, you know, give me your passport,
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: photo and a hundred bucks. And by that afternoon I
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: was a Marithanian evident.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: And uh. I went to Morocco and embassy the next day.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: I was like, sir, look at that. I'm a raising
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: and I would like to apply for visa and he just,
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: you know, he just laughed and.
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: He told me, man, you're dangerous and you know, and
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: so anyways, so that was that was a cool. Yeah,
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: solution kind of popped there. I honestly I thought that
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: you can't ship around. You know, there's there's great Hondy lines.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: But that was cool, and you didn't give up. You
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: kept pushing, kept pushing, and yeah, I mean, you know whatever.
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I was like, hey, I'm getting to Europe
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: and yeah, I'm doing the script, you know. So how
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: did they say in the Bible cleared the stones off
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: the road? And uh, yeah, across Europe and uh, you
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: made it to Nord cap then absolutely. We got some
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: family in Sweden, some relatives.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: My mom is Swedish.
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: So mom flew over from Israel and met me there
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: in the family house where she grew up in the
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: North and kind of already I was on the leg
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: back from North Camp.
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: And they kind of, you know, we all had, you know,
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: to spend a week there and had a really good time.
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: And yeah, the Swedes, you know, in the Norwegians, uh,
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: don't you know, there's there's this rivalry between them, apparently, so.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: They conclude who's who's more perfect than the other? Yeah exactly,
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: you know, yeah exactly. I mean they're both pretty squared
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: away countries. Those are both pretty amazing countries, for sure.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: They are, you know, and speating hairs at that point.
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: I don't even get into exactly the I don't want
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: to get into that, but I was like, no, honestly,
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: I met some you know, really cool people. And then
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: they concluded the only good thing about nor as far
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: as those Swedes were concerned.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: Was the scenery. It is beautiful there for sure, but
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: no for all the Norwegians. Yeah, I had a great
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: time to.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: And where did you head after that? So you make
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: it the Nordcap, you achieve your goal, where did you
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: decide to go next?
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: So that was a turning point.
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: So by then, just like you said, I've achieved my goal,
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: and I wanted to do Africa and I've done it before,
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: and here, you know, I want to write from Cape
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: Town to nord Cap, you know, And honestly thought that
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: my life was basically over. I've done my service. I've
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: done those trips. I've done a bit of work, a
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: bit a bit of study, and that's it, you know,
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: I've I've never planned further than that. Yeah, So, as
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: Lack would have it, there was a very old famous
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: motorcycle travel guru called burn Tesh in Germany and I
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: think he passed away a month ago.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, yeah, rest in peace, Man.
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: And he was in the German speaking world, especially in
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: the sixties, seventies and eighties. He was the most famous
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: known motorcycle travel I think in the German speaking world.
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: He wrote a ton of magazines, he was. I believe
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: I may be wrong here, but I think he was
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: the prototype of the first r ATGS was developed with.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: Him and he has I think his wife still has.
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: They have one of the prototypes of the DGS. Yeah, well,
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: aluminum handmade tank. He had a shop for outdoor gear.
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: He used to fabricate those aluminium boxes that you know
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: companies I think like tour Tech and then kind of
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: maybe was inspired by his designs. So he was very
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: well known and he was a collector of any kind
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: of book and story about motorcycle travels.
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: He was a bit of a historian.
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: He basically had a website when the Internet came about,
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: and he listed every long distance motorcycle travel from around
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: the world that he ever heard about or people he
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: knew heard about. So that was very comprehensive. And I
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: bought his boxes the Africa between I was writing, actually
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: I bought those aluminium boxes.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: So that's kind of how we met.
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: And over emails, you know, he asked me where you're from,
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: and I told him I'm Israeli. So I think he
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: was as a German and you know, someone was born
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: I believe just partably after the Second World War, you know,
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: we have a lot of history there, so I think
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: he was very curious about that. So he kind of
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: told me, Yeah, if you're ever in Europe, you know,
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: come and say hello. It would be nice to meet you.
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: You know, he said, I've never met the long distance
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: he's really traveler before. So from Sweden, I knew I'm
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: going to ship the bike back to South Africa and
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: kind of move on with life. So I went back
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: to Germany. That's a big shipping hab to Frankfurt. And
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: then I re as, you know what, I'll better visit all.
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: Burned and go and pay him visit, you know, honor
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: the invitation. So I went.
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: We went, I wrote down to his place and I
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: stayed like a week with him. He lives in the
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: in the forest, beautiful home, and we really became good friends.
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: And I discovered the most amazing old man, you know,
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: just just kind of out of the blue, just an
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: incredible traveler, a philosopher, really a very accomplished person. And
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: we had a very long talks about Germany and about
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: living in Israel and about traveling and about bikes, and
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: one evening kind of we were sitting and he loved
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: his campfires and stuff and we were sitting outside, you know,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: log fire around around the campfire, I think, and he
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: asked me, so, what's up. What are you going to
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: do next? And I thought, you know, that's it, you know,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: I kind of you know, go back, get some kind
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: of a job, open a business, and uh, just live
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: a horrible life. In my eyes, Yeah, now of course
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: you can of Yeah. So I was a bit down,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: you know, like it was a peak. You know, it's
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: it's you you accomplish your goal, your life goal, or
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: you plan ten years for this goal, and once there's
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: actually a huge down, once you kind of achieve it,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: suddenly you feel empty.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: You know, what am I going to do next?
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: So he kind of looked at me and say, hey,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: why don't you write around around the world? And I
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: kind of was like, excuse me. He as, why don't
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: you do a trip around the.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: World on a motorcycle?
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: And I didn't think I'm around the world. I knew
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: I heard about people doing it, but I didn't think
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: I'm around the world material you know, you gotta be.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: I don't know, and he and I was like, no,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: bern obviously, well, first I broke Secondly, I'm from Israel
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: and nobody in Israel ever done it as far as
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: I know, and I kind of know. It's a small
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: adv community, you know, I know nobody.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: It's not on the on the plan, and you know.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: And so and I said, besides, if I, you know,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: put in my resume that I took another break, the
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: third big break in my life, to to ride a motorcycle.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: For this will take years, so nobody will ever hire
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: me again. And he looked at me and in two
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: sentences kind of solved the whole reason. He said, listen here,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: I believe that if you go back to your work,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: let's say in Africa or back in Israel, you will
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: be quite well paid.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: And I was like, well, actually, yeah, I can go
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: back to Africa or you know, as an expat and
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: live hard, live off work hard. But yeah, I can
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: save some money. So he said, well that that that
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: answers your no money problem. And then he said, uh,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: you obviously reading across Africa and across Europe, so obviously
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: you know how to ride and travel right borders logistics,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: so that's nothing new to you, right, and you love it?
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: So I said, yeah, actually right, and he said about
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: the war the resume party said take it from an
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: old man. If you ride around the world, and when
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: you're done, you put that in your resume, the next
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: job interview that will have you will be hired immediately
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: without even They won't even care about what can you
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: do for work? You hired And I thought, you know, whatever,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: man sounds nice, but you know, I kind of smile
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: and I you know, I didn't argue with the guy.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: But and to my amazement years later, he was right
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: on all three, you know. So yeah, I several times
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: I got employed. Nobody even cared if I can you know,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: I know that machine or they you know, there was
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: like you ruled around the world, dandel And I think,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: It's because people realize, Yeah.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: You're determined, your focus, you work hard, you solve your
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: problem solver.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you honor your commitments, you finish what you started
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: all those things. Yeah.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you flexible, you work with different cultures, You do
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: logistics really well. So yeah, that's the thing. He sparked
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: the around the world idea that was burntish.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: So let's uh, we're gonna unfortunate, we're gonna run out
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: of time, so we don't need to have you back
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: on the podcast. But let's let's leave everybody with a cliffhanger.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: So talk about what was your route on the around
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: the world trip?
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: Starting in Africa, so down the West African coast to
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: South Africa and then up the East coast to Ethiopia.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: Then shipping air freight to India and going around Asia,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: so India, Nepole, Thailand, Laos, Camboda, Burma, ship to Japan
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: to Japan, take a ferry to Sahalin Island and Russian
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: Far East. Yeah, ride Russian Far East, Siberia and then Mongolia.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: So you did the Road of Bones or did you
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: go south from Vladivostok.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: I did well, I went neither. I went from Sahalin.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: The old cargo boat will take you to the port
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: called Vanino, which was the end of the Baikalamore railroad. Yeah, okay,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: so it's about about halfway between Vladivostok and Magada, middle
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: of nowhere man. And you ride along the tracks literally
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: on the decent dirt. But you rode along the tracks
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: for days until the first I think outposts you met
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: is Rabarovsk. And then I wrote on that I did
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: go a few days up the Road of Bones, just
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: to kind of check it out and then I and
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: I backtracked. I was just I didn't have enough summertime, you.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: Know, because it's very short.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: Exactly, it's like going to Alaska. You can only do
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: it in there's about four or five months realistically, So
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: turn around. I just want to you know, I knew
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: that the Magadan Road, that's a trip on its own.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: Turn around, and then went to Lake Baikal, Mongolia, Kazakhstan,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: and then the Stans, all of the Stans, so.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: You do the Silk Road as well.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: Silk Road, yeah, and then exactly then you kind of
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: joined the Silk Road into Turkey, East Europe, West Europe,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: ship to South America, all of the Latin countries, Central America,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: all of the countries North America, and then ship to
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: New Zealand and Australia.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: Man, this is an incredible conversation. And I always there
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: are some podcasts where I feel like, yeah, we covered everything.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: I feel like we have barely scratched the surface. And
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: I love the fact. It's very inspiring to be that
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: you exist in the world, that there's a person that
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: has traveled so extensively and you never raised a flag
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: of hey, look at me. And I think it's a
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: lesson for all of us to like to pursue your
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: dreams for yourself, pursue your dreams, for your family, for
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: the people that are close to you. And I got
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: to have you back on the pod now. Now you're
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: getting ready to leave though, for Australia, aren't.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: You, Yes, sir? Yeah, in I think five six days unbelievable. Yeah,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: well you can save up for the next adventure.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: Do you remember that conversation like I had with Burn
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: in Germany? Yeah, I've just finished a treat I gotta
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: go back.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: To certainly west the western part of Australia is incredible.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: Perth is such a cool city. I was so impressed
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: by the place, and there is there's endless places to
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: go riding motorcycles. So maybe you can get a good
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: lap of Australia in and then we can talk about
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: that next time. A couple questions for you. I know
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: you're really well read. You enjoy reading. It's something that
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: Randy mentioned to me. What are a couple of your
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: favorite books, some of the things that have inspired you
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: in your travels or maybe in life in general. What
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: are some of some recommendations that you'd have on the
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: book front.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: Good read well, Ted Simon's Jupiter's Travels.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's always a good one.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: In Patagonia, Bruce Chatwin okay these days orwell, Poison with Bible,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: forgot the author about the Congo in the Footsteps of
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: mister Kurtz, Heart of Darkness Conrad another good one, the
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: African Quartet, those books, four books about Alexandria.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's gonna those.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: Are some good ones. Two Wheels to Adventure Okay, Yeah,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: that's a great one. Yeah, that's a he's a super
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: nice guy to him and his partner.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're both greature. Yeah that's good. Awesome.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: Well, Adam, thank you so much for taking the time
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: to spend with us on the podcast. And Randy's here
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: in the room with me. Randy's been on the podcast
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: before and and did an incredible job. So it's nice
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: to have you both here and Prescott and we get
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: to go have a nice meal together talk some more adventure.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: But Adam, I really appreciate your time, and we thank
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: you all for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah,