S1E76 · James Longhurst: Time to stop and reflect

Hey superstars, you beautiful people, I hope you're all having a spectacular day. Welcome to another episode of the Virtus Performance Podcast. Today's episode is with one of my very good friends James Longhurst. James is someone who's been on the podcast a couple of times, featured very early on, potentially episode 3. We also had a chat pre-7 week escape to South America. We had a little bit of a conversation, would have been in Feb now, about what that trip meant to us, why we decided to do it, and what we were kind of expecting from it. This conversation today is kind of a little follow up to that.

It's been a big couple of years for both of us. We've both kind of hit a few milestones in business and in life, so yeah today's conversation was a little dive into that, a little dive into achievement, kind of what we're still trying to achieve but also a look back and a bit of an appreciation of what we have achieved and what actually has happened and all the cool people we've met and all the cool things that have happened along the way. We also dove into our 7 weeks in South America and kind of what

we experienced and if any of you guys are looking to head to that part of the world, there's probably a few little gems for you in this next episode. If you do enjoy it, if you have been enjoying the podcast, please hit us up with a review, ideally a 5 star. One of those things that would be spectacular, the more people that we could have listening to these conversations, the more impact we could make, the better place the world becomes, hopefully, ideally. If you can subscribe as well, even shoot this or a previous episode to someone you love, someone you think might get a little bit out of it, that would be incredible.

Here it is. My personal and business goal is to be just a little bit better every day. I believe everyone, especially normal people, have a story to tell. The Virtus podcast exists to help us all find small ways of consistent improvement by discussing the journey and experiences of each of our guests. Voyager. Yo. We're back. We're back. At my place. At your place. The fresh digs down at... In the new side. Down in Cannanook. Yeah. It's been a big year. When was the last time you were on? Before we went overseas, mate. Before we went

to the other side of the world, checked out how life was, leaving our shop in the hands of our trusting staff and team and spoiled ourselves. We wanted ourselves rotten. Properly spoiled ourselves. When was it? It was March. Started March. End of April. Yeah. Yeah. Wild trip. Yeah. That one was a good one. Yeah. Basically, mate, big year. Your third, my fourth. Yeah. Birthdays. Yeah. Birthdays. How good is little milestones like that? Just being able to stop for a second and go, and it's pretty cool. It's insane what you can actually accomplish in three or four years.

Yeah. I needed it. The trip? Yeah. I do. You've been going pretty hard. Yeah. I had definitely been committed 100% to growing Voyager, and probably for a solid three years. I guess I took the risk. I was fortunate. I had two weddings, right? One in South America at the start of the year, one in Ireland at the second half of the year. Yeah. I was like, "I know that I'll be able to get out of there and leave it in the hands of the team and let it keep rolling on, organically get those orders through, and stay alive."

Yeah. So, blessed to have been able to leave for 12 weeks this year. Yeah. That's pretty huge. Yeah. I'll tell you what, if I hadn't of, I wouldn't have been charged up to come and knock a hole in that wall over there to build a second print shop. This is my third print shop, there was the garage, there was the print shop next door, and now this beautiful shop, which is nice and light, nice and clean, and everything's working out sick. The team's killing it, and I just feel so stoked because I've had my dreams to build this shop in here and take over this whole property for Voyager and for myself, and it's just stoked.

I'm so stoked. Ever since I've knocked that hole down, life's changed. You said it early on when I first met you, you're like, "That shop there?" You pointed to it, you're like, "That shop there, I'm going to turn that into my second print shop." Yeah. What was it like? Take yourself back three, four years. What mindset did you have, and what did you create in your mind, and how'd you fucking pull it off? Oh, just love it. I guess it's like climbing a mountain, mate, one step at a time. I don't know, I'm a bit of a maniac when I want to take on goals.

Yeah. Just sort of a bit of all or nothing, a bit of go big or go home, I don't know. I think, yeah, through my 20s, you know that I didn't have much direction, I was just meandering through and whatever, and I guess when you see an opportunity like that, you go, "Let's push everything towards it just in case it opens up." So I don't know, man, I just put my foot to the floor and made sacrifices, and even when the transition came, I was trying to stay pretty composed and not tread on anybody's feet

too much like the guys who were here before, and the real estate, whoever's in charge of the joint, just try to make the right moves because obviously you can have desires in life, but they're not going to come, man. They may not. It doesn't just happen. It doesn't just happen, man. You got to- And it might never work out. So I just tried and listened to the omens, listened to whatever guidance I needed, and yeah, I guess when you say look back a few years ago when I first checked out this property, I just saw potential, man.

I just saw it. You got to have a vision. Yeah. I saw it and I was like, "Let's do this. It's going to be hard. It's going to be a monster, but let's do it." And so it's been sick, man. It's been built now for probably a month or two and I'm enjoying it thoroughly, man. Me and Cam are printing together weapons and just getting to know our new routines and where tools are. I love the trade so much and so doing it here in this shop and just getting to know it, I still feel like I haven't peaked production-wise and print quality-wise, or not quality, but just print efficiency, print shop efficiency.

I just don't feel like I've peaked. It's super exciting to get to know how to work in here and just can't wait for Josh Brown to come and paint some shit on this white bare walls, hey? I didn't bring the shout out bell, but shout out to Brownie. You got a bell now? Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. Haven't you seen the bell? No, boy. It must be ... yeah. Shout out, bell. March was a long time ago. It just goes ding. Nice. Sick. When you say the word sacrifice, it's really easy for people that haven't necessarily achieved

something to look at someone who's successful and kind of go, "Oh, they must have had it easy," or, "They just rolled through it," or, "They just rocked up and it happened for them." They get offended sometimes, too. They think you're arrogant or whatever. It's like, "Well, don't give a fuck what you think. I worked hard. If you can't see that and appreciate it, I ain't got time for that." It's hard for anyone to know the story and really know the sacrifices and stuff. Can you paint a little picture? You want me to? A little sacrifice picture?

You want me to paint a picture? Yeah. Oh, Jesus. Just my life has been somewhat empty for the first couple of years, you know? Very little social life, reasonably unhealthy home lifestyle, no holidays and stuff. But inside, in my heart and soul, I've just felt really fruitful. Yeah? Because you're working on something. You weren't building something. My brain thinks about this task or this build, and I'll go, "Once it's done, I'm on my way. I'm heading down a road." I keep gathering things up as I go, so voyager. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. That's the picture, bro.

Yeah. You're just walking down the path, keep picking up things as you go, and I was just so focused on myself. I had to realize that. Like I said, if there was a bit of a sacrifice in social life and in lifestyle, it was all for the greater good, man. It took a while, but in the scheme of things, it was short-term. Yeah, short-term, yeah. I was so self-involved, so self-obsessed. I think that's fine, as long as you're not being rude to anyone else. I fucking loved just shutting the door to the world at 27, 28 years old and just going, "I'm just going to do this for me, for my future, and just work on myself now."

Yeah. You know? You fucking hate yourself sometimes, and then you love yourself sometimes, so you're at a real strong battle. It's really, really deep. It's really spiritual. You said you listen to omens, like that spirituality. Is that just like listening to the things that come up, the universe brings up, and just following them? Yeah, signs. It's the signs, yeah. I love that. I respect that so much. Intuition as well, knowing when not to do something. You know, I've got that mad mural out the front there, but no signs on the roof. You don't say ... It doesn't say, "T-shirts in here."

It should, but- It will soon. Yeah. At some point. I'm a perfectionist. One thing at a time. I'm a perfectionist, and I haven't finalized the designs, but it's been fine, because most people who come past and walk in, they're only after something small, and we can't really accommodate small things like that, and we've had major customers like yourself and whoever else you might know who's watering big, you want to accommodate that and look after them. Yeah. You just try to keep a low profile somewhat, but I don't know how to explain the whole listen to omens, listen to your intuition thing.

I've just been doing that for decades. You just got to open your ears, open your mind instead of, I don't know, just being so forceful out there in life, have a listen and just go with it. Learn to fly with what you think is right, follow your heart and stuff. That's pretty much it. I've got a pretty good practice at that, so- Well, it probably took some practice, and it's like, I think it's, for a lot of people, it's hard to, like the path that, if you follow your heart, that path you have to take is fucking hard.

The sacrifice is, but it pays you back immensely, being able to go away for three months a year effectively. It's been hard for people who are in a group where their group of friends don't really get it. They're like, "Oh shit, now I want to listen to my heart, now I want to do something against the brain. I've got to turn away from this group of people that keep me sort of feeling like family or whatever." I don't know, but when you do it, you go inward, man, you go solitary, right, so you're on your

own level, on your own channel, and that can be fun and all, but as long as you're willing to accept yourself and be happy with yourself, go do that, then you'll succeed. The pot of gold won't be right there at your fingertips, but you'll always be heading towards it, and that's a good enough feeling. So as long as you're doing what you enjoy. - Yeah, I can see you still love printing t-shirts. - Fuck yeah. - Which is the cool part. And you still love- - Yeah, can see that, huh? - Yeah. - Yeah? - Well, you've got pride in your place, right?

Pride in your environment, your space, and- - Had to clean it. - Yeah, a lot. - Yeah. - A lot. - Had to clean it up a bit. - What are you most proud of? - My staff. - That's cool. - Yeah. When I watch them do the work, and I'm like, "Fuck yeah, I taught you how to do that, that's great." And I look at the, "Hey, we've done that job," or, "Hey, this turned out." I'm just like, "Great." I'll hear myself say it lately, just, "Great, that's done great." It's a huge thing to bring amateurs or students in and teach them, "I'll show you how to do this task."

- Apprentices. - Yeah, and then off they go, and you're watching them send back, and you're watching them go, and you're like, "Oh, I built that. I made this up in my head, and I started doing it, and then I gave it to you, and you figured it out, and now it's in your head, and now you're doing it." - Yeah. - When it's fun, that's the best. That's probably what I'm most proud of, man. - Yeah. - I like it. - Because those boys have got good jobs. - Yeah. - They're happy, and they've got good life skills, responsibility, and good qualities in that.

They've got to take responsibility for their actions. They're part of the process. There's a team of four. - Yeah. - And they'll be like, "Okay, I'll handball onto him. He'll handball onto him, and we'll handball it through." And it won't be me as the boss going, "You fuck that up. That's no good." It might be someone else in the team going, "Hey, you've done that wrong. This isn't like..." We all just work together. - Yeah, so you're creating that team of leaders. - Yeah, dude. Yeah. - That's awesome. - It's not just like, "Hey, rock up.

Do what you're told," and there's a paycheck at the end. - Yeah. - This shop's here for a long while, man, and those guys might have little grommet apprentices of their own in a couple of years. We might be busy enough that we'll have to... - That'd be cool. - Yeah. I'd like efficiencies to be up around nine or 10 before I do. - But it's always that constant looking at how it works, fixing little chinks, and just ironing out over and over and over again. - We've been having some pretty good meetings with the

guys lately, having little discussions, just running through, "Right, remember how we've learnt all this, and remember how you've been coming in, and there are your tasks. All right, let's just go through it one by one from start to finish, revise, and just go, "Okay, well, this is a problem that's happening. What are the solutions?" As a boss and a leader, you've really got to be willing to come off as a jerk, as long as you're compassionate. It's like, "Don't feel like I'm hounding you. This is a problem, and then how do we solve it?" Give them the tools to go ahead and...

- Well, it's that direct communication, right? It gives feedback straight away, for one. It gives them a problem that they've got to solve, and there's nothing more frustrating than having people not give it to you straight, and just kind of beat around the bush and kind of say, "Oh." - You've got no time for that. - Yeah, well, that's exactly it. - We're busy people. - Yeah. We look at elite teams. They have those conversations day in, day out, over and over again. That's why they're elite. - Oh, yeah. I'm a footy coach. - Good. Good.

- So, Verdis, I remember when we were overseas, you were on the laptop a lot, having a lot of cool meetings. I remember you snuck off to the hostels and jumped on your laptop with the bunk bed up above you, having little chats with coops. - Yeah. - That was pretty cool. You were pretty enthusiastic about running your shop from overseas. - Yeah. And it was cool. I guess, you know, you guys deal with people, you deal with T-shirts, well, he deals directly with people. It was really interesting to have, to kind of be taken another step away from that and have to basically go through our other coaches and the rest of our team.

And we're still very much like that efficiency thing and that figuring out what we're actually trying to do. Or not so much what we're trying to do, but how we're actually trying to do it and working on that model. And that time away, that's six weeks of, you know, not being in there. It was really cool because I can't look at it as like a helicopter view, right? Like you just fucking fly up there and you just hover above. - Absolutely. - You hover above your life. - Well, we were at some pretty high altitudes, weren't we?

- And it just gives you like perspective that you don't get like being in, being on the peninsula or, you know, being in your regular world. - Love you. - Yeah. And that, it kind of, it shifted a lot of things for me and it shifted a lot of like what's important and where we're actually headed and how I want it to run. And to be honest, like when we got back, I had to make a few decisions that were difficult decisions and hard decisions. Things that maybe I wouldn't have made if I didn't have that same views and distance.

And like, to be honest, we almost had to go backwards a little bit afterwards to go forward. I had to kind of go in chiller a little bit and tweak a few things and change a few things around how the business was structured and how the business was run. And it opened up, you know, the best part of that is that the hard stuff is figuring out what holes you've got to fill and what holes you've got to fix and who's going to be the right people to fill that. Cause like, you know, we look at it, we've used the ship analogy as you have, you know.

- So you should. - Yeah. A hundred percent. Like we're on a voyage just like you are and you know, is the ship, yeah, we want a bigger boat potentially down the track or, you know, now I don't know if I want that and I just want a better boat, a boat that goes faster rather than a bigger boat, but you know, is everyone in the right, you know, in the right roles on the boat? And if they're not, you know, should they be on the boat or should they not, or do they actually want to be on the boat?

Like these are the things that you got to start asking yourself and, and it's hard cause you're like, I think, you know, you're always a direct reflection of your team. So when there's, when you're struggling with something and you know, everyone knows that everyone sees it, everyone feels it. And then you've, you're dealing with people who are dealing with people. So it's, you know, if there's one, if there's one, yeah, delicate is a good word for it. If there's one thing that we as humans don't understand well enough, it's people, it's ourselves. And then you

add relationships and everything on top of that, um, it, yeah, it's, it's a really cool, I've loved it this year cause I've felt more out of my comfort zone and more out of, more out of like, you know, probably I've doubted myself in the last six months more than I ever have. And I love that cause I understand how important it is. It's almost like start learning about a topic and you're like, okay, I'm pretty fucking nailed down this topic and then you realize, oh, there's more to learn, there's more to learn. And then you get deeper, I look at it like an upside down funnel, right?

So you got an upside down funnel, you got that little tubey bit. That's when you start learning about a topic, you're like, oh yeah, this is fucking easy. Like I know it, I know it. And then you open up to that expanse of the funnel and you're like, holy shit, there is so much more to learn. And I feel like my self awareness and ability to manage and lead and all those kind of kind of words, I'm getting better and I'm learning more, but you start to realize how expansive that is. Well, you've got to do it, man.

You have to do it. You built the business. There's no turning back now. You're responsible for human beings health and you're responsible for the health of the human beings who are coaching the human beings. So you've got your team and they've got to be, they've got to have it together. Trying to make people's lives better, health better and yeah, it's always really interested in me. Like I guess coming from a football background, how everyone's got their own individual kind of hopes and desires and, and dreams and, and for those listening at home, you're going to hear a train every couple of minutes, but deal with it.

Yeah. City loop. It's going to be a nice, a nice little background noise I'm sure. It is. It's good. It's good. It makes you know that there's something going on out there. Yeah. There's other people doing different things and that knowing that there's individual desires and goals and ambitions in amongst the team goals and desires and ambitions like you'd be the same with all, all your boys, they'd all have their own things they want to accomplish and achieve and to help people, I guess, become more aware of what they want. That's that's and you figuring

out what you want and then the needs and the wants of the business shift a little bit as well to kind of try and meet that. It's an interesting, it's an interesting accumulation of, uh, of wants and needs because not everyone can win. No, not everyone can kind of get what they want all the time. Tell you what I gained about my business when I was away. What's that? I just thought, fuck it. Probably, probably perspective, right? Yeah. I was like, I just was so far away from the shop and everything. I was like, everything's fine.

Just relax, man. Like, yeah, I mean, I've been so absorbed by it that, you know, come, well, when we first got there, we were both ringing the shop all the time. I was trying to hang onto the shop and after a week I was like, nah, this is all good. Yeah. Let's go travel. And like towards even after I was like, man, just, just let, let it do its thing. I've got my job and I've got my responsibilities and I've got expectations to work hard. Yeah. But you know, I was like, this is how it's fine.

The business is alive. Now I've got to get out there and live. Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely, and I felt, I'm sure you felt the same thing. Like once you kind of do let go and do detach, it runs small, smoothly than if you kind of tried to hang on what was, you know, what was that process like of, you know, week one kind of going, Oh shit, I got to, this has happened. This has happened. I don't know, man. I just, as the longer we were over there, you know, every day I was sort of detached myself because I was like, the thing's not going to fall apart.

Worst case scenario. Everyone goes home. Look, it's not working out. I'm here for the next five weeks. Just everyone goes home. There's no work. Sorry, we shut down. That's like that. But that never was going to happen. But I realized that and I thought, don't worry, just my time here experiencing this is more important. Hmm. Yeah. And, um, it was, it was like at the start it was odd, hey, that's a weird feeling. We got there, we, uh, we rocked up in Santiago and we sort of stayed in the ghetto a bit, eh? Yeah. And,

um, you know, like at the end when Sasha was showing me his photos of Santiago, he's like, I love that place, man, dude, I didn't see anything good there. Yeah. We just like hiked through the city and then we would just keep looking at things. We weren't, we were so out of our comfort zones here, we weren't sure, sure what to do. It was cool. It was, it was really interesting cause we had loves with the wedding, like a weekend or a couple of days in. Yeah. So we just sort of killed time for a couple of days.

We got down to where the wedding was and then we saw all my friends and stuff and that's when it started to get a bit more fun, but I remember those first couple of days we were both just like, here we are, let's just go for a walk. We just basically went. We didn't do any research, we were so busy, remember, I booked that, I booked that hostel like a week before we got there and then Airbnb at Pichalemu where the wedding was. Yeah. It was like, we're booked, dude, we're safe, like we are set for the first week.

And we were running so hard to try and make sure that by the time we left, we're actually ready to go and like that probably helped alleviate some of those stresses that we'd done so much work in the, in the lead up. Remember when we got to Pichalemu and I got the wrong bus? Yeah. So, so we're going to go, we're going to like, I don't know, relive the trip a little bit for anyone that wants to go to South America. Now is the time to pay attention because it is an incredible place. We got some pretty good tips.

Yeah. Like I remember, remember once like that first Airbnb in Pichalemu when we were trying. It was, oh, I loved it, it was really nice surf hostel. Surf hostel. Yeah. And there was like, well, neither of them, neither of them did, did they? Yeah. And they, yeah, that was really interesting. That was like, holy shit. Should have spent a little bit more time on Duolingo and like you'd spend a bit more than me. So I was kind of relying on you. Forgot it all. I came back and I'm going to do Spanish lessons. I'd love to learn that language.

A week later you're like, nah, I forgot it all. Going to Europe next mate, they all speak English over there. Yeah, well that helps, that helps, but yeah, that, Pichalemu and then we, well, that was nice. That was beautiful place. That was llamas on the beach and the beach was black. Yeah. Yeah. Black sand. But it was volcanic. Like there was signs everywhere for evacuation point here because there's tsunamis hitting that joint. Well, yeah. It was a west coast of South America and a beautiful wedding time with Gaffi, Gaz, Loose was Loose. It was a very, very fun few days.

We had a fire out the front of one of the houses and we just got loose. Yeah. Good wedding, Gaff and Barb's celebrated that. Gaff is my mate from high school, so seeing him get married, just so proud. On the other side of the world was pretty cool. Yeah. And it was a bit of a dismal day for weather, but they just explained to the audience this was a beautiful wedding. It was at a restaurant that had a, you know, the courtyard out the back and then it went down onto the beach and there was a big fire hit down there.

At night we sat by and had some drinks and they got married right at the fence back there where the beach was. So there was this massive sunrise or sunset, sunset. As soon as I got married, as soon as the priest started doing his thing and oh wow, there was this epic orange sunset and just it was awesome. It was beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. That sun set was just immense. It was like, cause the weather had been sheer and we were a bit worried like then we'd sat inside, played cards for a couple of hours. Yeah. That day.

Cause we were like waiting for the sun to go out and it just didn't. And then it just exploded. So that was a, oh yeah, we drank Pisco Sour. Damn. Was that in? Yeah. That was at the wedding. They had Pisco Sour, Chilean Pisco Sour. And then when we got to Peru, they were like, no, no, our Pisco Sour is better. So it was our football team and our women. We love it all the same. Yeah. But Pisco Sour, man, that's a delicious drink, but whoa, you do not know how much you're drinking. It's basically

like drinking, you know, delicious apple juice and then four later you're upside down and pantsless, shirtless, shirtless, it was outrageous drink, but, and then we went to leave Picholima and old mate, old mate booked the wrong bus, which was pretty funny. Yeah. But I booked the right bus. I booked the right bus. Wrong day. Yeah. The Peru hot. Oh mate. That was. Glad I found that. Yeah. Cause we were sitting at that Airbnb. Yeah. And we're like, okay, where are we going next? And you're like, I want to go to ICA. So like, okay, cool. And we had our flight to Lima.

Yeah. So right. So I'm like, okay, let's get on here. Let's do the work. What are we going to do? Search on the phone. Getting from Lima to ICA. And it was Peru hot. Yeah. It was like, anyone listening? You're going over there. Peru hop is sick. You got a wristband, you book online where you're going to pick you up and you just get on the bus full of backpackers. They'll take you to one joint, you can get off, they'll recommend you where to stay. And then you'll meet up and that, you know, you'll go out and party with them.

You can stay for as long as you want, or you can get back on the bus. It's yeah. Pretty cool. Bloody system. It was sick. So I was like, Oh, check this out. Like we can do this for a certain amount of like days or like, here's the prices. And we ended up just like, cool. Let's just get our ticket then. You were like, it sounds good. So boom, we booked those tickets and then, um, had the wedding a couple of days later off. We went, got on the wrong bus. I was pretty concerned. That was pretty funny.

We were cozied up right in the front. We had comfortable seats. We were going to watch through the double, double windows running from, we're just going to watch this whole thing. I started doing a time-lapse. The worst thing was they, we realized, or they realized, cause the guy kicked us out of our seats. Three or four stops down the road. Yeah. So we were like at the other end of town and we had to go back to the bus stop. But two hour bus ride, we could have ended up sitting in the aisle. Yeah. We asked.

Or kicked off. We wouldn't have been kicked off. Yeah. Excuse me. This is my seat. Check this out. Is it seats? It says it's for tomorrow. Yeah, that was, that was pretty funny. But yeah, we ended up getting back to Santiago and then jumped on a plane. Lima was beautiful. It's an incredible place. Yeah. The edge of the, it feels like the edge of the world a little bit. Pretty modern city too. A lot of people out there doing fitness and you know, being healthy, working corporate jobs. So many people running. Useful city. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was a pretty cool place.

All right, Lima was all right, we started eating some good food. That was where. Peru. Peru's food. I haven't been everywhere in the world, but Peru is probably the best food I've eaten. Yeah. Just the whole thing. Yeah. It was incredible. Yeah. We'll break the ice here. I'm just going no more veganism. You're done. Yeah. That trip was like, you have to eat. Yeah. You are hiking. Yeah. You had a crack for a week. It was like a day, you're at the hospital and they handed this platter and you're like, it's free. You're on a budget.

You got to go do it. There was heaps of vegan places, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's true. I just was like, look, there's reasons why I was going vegan and there's reasons why I'm doing what I'm doing now. But here it is. There's eggs there. There's a bang, fruits, salad, whatever the fuck we've seen. So I came back, got a bit of added protein in the night, but I'll get into that later. Yeah. Ethically sourced, truly. Yeah. I started archery. Good. I started getting out there, going off grid, hunting for food. That'll happen. I've always wanted to live sustainably, man.

Yeah. But I had my reasons. Go vegan, eat clean, don't go to the factory farmed crap, don't do it. It's good that a trip like that can kind of like, not change your beliefs, but just tweak them slightly. Well, here we are, right? Talking food. Yeah. So just because the reason I'm bringing it up, that oysters, that's oysters. The first thing we ate, basically the first thing we ate in Peru, was these... Clams. They were clams. Yeah. They were clams with cheese and this sauce and mashed potato. Mashed potato. So much fucking hell. Yeah. I woke up some night sweating, just thinking about it.

It was good. Yeah. All the food was good. And we just picked a random place. We did, yeah. I don't think we could have basically eaten anywhere. So listen, man. When I was there, I did a lot of soul searching and just mental researching about food and my diet. Yeah. So I don't close any doors. I just wanted to go down my path and whatever. And you're just looking at the food these people eat and you're just like, "That's not going to change." They've been doing this for centuries. Yeah. They've been doing barbecues on the corners, cooking chickens, and whatever else.

I might think it's gross, but it's not all going to change. Yeah. And I think my perspective of veganism changed. That's interesting. And I still love eating vegan food. I still eat a lot of it. Yeah. But then... But it's definitely black or white. I just considered eating meat again, right? And it so happened that there was a great Rogan podcast, because you and I had our headphones in quite a lot during the trip. I like that. Yeah. It was a heap of downtime. So a lot of Rogan got consumed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he had that podcast with that guy from Canada.

I think it was Toronto. The guy who runs the- That was an amazing podcast, man. Yeah. It was. And a good story. He has a restaurant where they served wild game, and that's ethically sourced meat. It's not going buying off a truck, factory farm stuff off a truck. Anyway, he puts a little sign out the front, makes a joke, venison his name. Here's the new kale. Some vegan cyclists don't like it, and he starts throwing rocks at his shop. Yeah. And they start abusing him on social media, and it's terrible. And picket line for a bit.

Yeah. And I was like, "Well, I know which side of the fence I'm on for this." Yeah. You know? I've got my choices for my diet. I've got my choices about the world, and I'm still going with these guys. Just settle the fuck down, all right? Death threats? Serious? It's outrageous. It's outrageous. Yeah, it's outrageous. And these people are going into the restaurant to have a date, and there's people yelling at them, "You murderer!" I'm like, "Settle down!" It's taken things a little too far. It was a big conversation on that podcast, which really confirmed things for me.

And I was already in agreeance with them. That's cool. So I'm not saying I'm a big meathead now, but it was really good to have Joe Ragganerle look up to him, inspired by him, and then you're listening to this while you're sort of looking at things going. I'm in South America. There's heaps of food, heaps of meat, and I didn't even eat meat over there. We had chicken barbecue. Wasn't even that good. Yeah, alpaca was pretty delicious. Oh, yeah. You ate alpaca. It was so amazing. I didn't eat guinea pig though. You didn't eat guinea pig?

No. Remember that time we ate? This guy next to us, he had guinea pig. He had a whole guinea pig, and he was taking photos of it, and then they took it back and they chopped it up. A dead guinea pig, about the size of a foot, about four or five foot, on his plate with chips. It was just brown and just like flat, pretty much flat and just scaly. I was looking at it over there like, "No way, man. What?" It was pretty hectic. And then they took a photo of it. They took it away, chopped it up.

Someone took a photo of him. He wasn't the healthiest guy on the world either, was he? No, he wasn't. He wasn't. Overweight, rich man. Guinea pig special. Yeah. So the food was epic. The food was incredible. We ate mad food. Then we jumped on the bus. Jumped on the bus and made some mad friends. That was the cool part, I think, being on it from the start, because there were people who came and gone and we were lucky enough to already have our crew of people from all around the world. Some of them got off and we caught up with them later, and some of them we caught up with further down the track.

They were from America. They were from Switzerland to England to Estonia. Estonia. Yeah, Germany. Yeah, it was a good crew. And I remember, man, I was saying to you while I was over there, I was like, "Man, I feel so good about myself. I'm just being so social and outgoing, having consumed myself in this business and being a little outcast. I was just completely fine with it all. I'd do that at home, but here, I just felt like a champion. I felt like I was expressing myself to a couple talking to people on my own head.

No, it was good, because you just came straight out of the show. I did. It was a perfect combination of events with jumping on the bus and meeting all those cool people. We had activities, man. We rocked up in one place. We went quad biking. We went quad biking in the sand. Mate, that was cool. That was what kicked it off for our group, I think. We had lunch, and then someone goes, "You want to go quad biking?" A bunch of us went quad biking, and a bunch of us broke down. It was just... That

was the cool thing about Peru Hop, because they were just like, the guy would get on the microphone and huff it out before we get to the joint. He's like, "Okay, guys, if you're here, I strongly recommend you do this. It was Waikachina." If you come to Waikachina and you don't go sandboarding or dune-bugging, you may as well not come here at all. That was excellent. So he planned. He's like, "Tonight, we're going quad biking in." Where was that place? Paracast, yeah? Yeah, far ahead. And we went off to Waikachina, and that was sick. An

oasis in the desert, and you're just jumping on a buggy with your snowboard sandboard glitzing through this place, man, holding on for dear life to the cadence of a dune buggy. All those buggies were going hectic. It was sick. That was insane. Yeah. And that was like, the faster they go, the more fun it is. That was it. Yeah, that was so much fun. It was sick. And then go to the top and chuck some old Ricky snowboards on and roll down the slide down. You didn't? No, I dogged it. Yeah? Yeah. I gave mine to Levi, because I was like, "Oh, Jesus, I'm not really this good.

I'm not dropping in on that." Because a snowboard, you can carve a bit, you know, and surfing you can carve, but these are nuts. Go back down, hold on, and then ... Because of the sand, you couldn't carve. Like it was just, you catch an edge and you're gone. So it's basically just pointed down the hill, like down the hill, and these were steep. Like these were basically vertical sand dunes, and you got like 100, 150 metres just straight down. And you just got to hold on and try not to lean back too much, trying to lean forward too much.

It was cool, because like a month before we went, I was in Japan snowboarding through. So I was like, "Okay, I've got this, I've got this." And I was just like, "Oh, I can go from the top to the bottom without falling off. I'm doing okay." And then you just look behind you and there's people just rolling down the hills. It was a ... Yeah. That's a different world, man. We're in the desert, hey? Yeah. We're in the fucking desert. South America. A massive desert. And you think deserts, and you're like, "Oh, you know, deserts, there's always going to be stuff there."

But this desert was just nothing. And we didn't even end up going to the big desert between Peru and Chile, the Atacama. We blitzed it, hey? We blitzed the tree. Yeah. We blitzed the tree. I don't know what else you did. It was my trip in Europe as well, but we blitzed. We moved fast. There's so much to see. We went ... Yeah. I think it's the kind of trip ... I like doing those kind of trips, like the go, go, go kind of- Squeeze it all in. You have your rest time on the bus or- Yeah.

Or over an hour, you're sleeping somewhere and- I tried to keep up with you, halfway through, you were, "I'm going south, I want to stay here." So I stayed. Yeah. Well, that was kind of cool because we kind of got two ends or two different views of the trip. We got the trip together with the big, cruel people. Well, I was just really keen to nurture that friendship I made with Tom and Micah. Yeah, that led us- I was getting along with them heaps well, and when we were on death road, they said they were going.

I'm like, "I'm coming with you." Yeah. That was awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Well, because what was after La Cucina? La Cucina. We went to- I went to- Arequipa. Arequipa. We did that hike, and I was like ... You're saying to me later, "Hey, you want to go on a hike?" I'm like, "Oh, shit. La Cucina." Yeah, yeah. I'm like, "Dude, we're doing the hike." He's like, "Oh, do you reckon I can do it?" And I smashed it. I loved it. I fucking loved it. I went to bed that night when we got down, and I was like, "Tomorrow, I've got this three-hour walk straight up."

And we're up at like 4 a.m. Crack of dawn. I was like, "I am not going to pussy out on this. I am just going to one foot after the other, not look down." Left foot, right foot. Yeah. That was a fun hike. Colca Canyon. Beautiful, man. Just two days of just straight down the bottle. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Just two days of just straight down the bottom, across the bottom to where we're staying, and then back up the side. There's so much beautiful colors in that canyon. Yeah. The greenery. The stone cliffs. Oh, the birds?

The condors? Yeah. Big condors. Like a four-meter wingspan. Saw a couple of them. They're big birds. Dinosaurs. I was seeing out to you. You might be 20 meters or whatever in front of me. I'd be like, "Look at that, man. Look at that cliff face." Yeah. Or, "Yo, look out there." We were just so small in this giant canyon in this giant world. Yeah. It was like the second or third deepest canyon in the world. I think it's twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. Yeah. And you look at the Grand Canyon, you're like, "Wow, that's incredible."

This one was ... You couldn't take a photo because of its depth. Oh, man. Too many photos. Yeah. I haven't even actually ... I haven't looked through my photos yet. That camera, I haven't touched it. I've printed a bunch, yeah. That's awesome. I just got to do office works and just tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, burn them. I don't even know which ones I got. The best ones I've got. Colca Canyon was awesome, man. I got to the top of that thing before everyone else. I wasn't racing, but I was just like, "I am just going to stomp, stomp, stomp all the way up this thing."

Yeah. And it was a challenge, and I achieved it, and I was like, "Wow." It was very cool. I'm fucking fit. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the cool thing. That's what a lot of people were like, because I've done a few hikes around here, and people say, "I could never do that." I'm like, "Well, you just ... All you have to do is walk out." What do you know? Go traveling with lucky. You'll be forced to do it. It's just ... But all it is, is just going for a walk with usually a pack on your back.

Yeah. Mental strength, though. Yeah. You look down, you're like, "Oh, you look up, in fact." Yeah. Don't do that. You don't worry about how far you've got, because we started that trek back up in the dark. In the dark. You can see the headlights, and that's about it. And it was just- Well, the guide was awesome, wasn't he? He was a legend. He was knowledgeable, friendly, and that difficult walk back up, he was, "Guides, every 20 minutes, guys, we're going to stop here." Yeah. Have a quick chat. Eat. Taking off half of our clothes. Yeah. Because we're geared up in thermals and everything.

Because it was so cold when we started. Yeah. It's cold when you're standing still. I loved it, though. After two steps, you're hot. You sit there for five minutes, then, "Okay. Vamanos." Yeah. Straight off. Vamanos. Yeah. The dog was following us. How about all the dogs in South America? All of them just stray dogs through the streets and whatever. Friendly, safe. It's awesome. It might have been ... So after Arequipa, where did we go? We went to Cusco. Cusco. Far out. That's a beautiful little town, man. Whoa. Cusco was ... It's like another world. Well, it was autumn there still.

It was fresh. I just remember feeling good vibes there. Well, that's the town that you go to if you're going to go to Machu Picchu. So from there, we booked our little trip up to Machu Picchu. We only did the overnight stay. Yeah. Well, because I think there's so many different hikes you can do to Machu Picchu from any ... We did Rainbow Mountain, right? Yeah, we did Rainbow Mountain. That was an insane hike. That epic lagoon. After Machu Picchu, did we think it could get better? No. We'll go to this other one. What's that place called?

The lagoon. Oh, mate, I couldn't tell you. I'd have to have a look at the photos. Hold on. I've actually ... Rainbow Mountain. Then we went to Cusco. I can't remember what that lagoon was now, but it was epic because you couldn't see the lagoon. You're hiking up. You're hiking up. And after like two hours, you're going to see the lagoon. And then you're going to see the lagoon. And then you're going to see the lagoon. And after like two hours, you're going to see the lagoon. You're hiking up. You're hiking up. And after like two hours or 90 minutes or something like that.

Salcante. Yeah. Yeah, that was insane. Then you get up and you just go ... Got a couple of rocks and maybe five more meters to just hike and you're zigzagging a bit. And then you can see a giant mountain with snow on it in front of you. Yeah. We're never going to make it. It's like 300 meters in front of this little ledge that you've got to come up to. And then you get there and you're popping up and your head starts bobbing over the rocks. And then there's this huge blue reflective lagoon and brown mountains, black mountains going up and white snow.

Snow, yeah. And you're just like, I'm breathing, hiking, just like, what the fuck? That was like heaven, like arriving in heaven. It was amazing. That was incredible. But like that trip to Machu Picchu was something else. That was cool. Like it was kind of a bit Australian mystery, like you're like, oh, how do we do it? Do we have to book a tour or whatever? We ended up getting a bus. Like everything, we just sort of winged it. And it worked. Yeah. We had a bus to the station and then you had 10K walk along the railway.

But the bus to Machu Picchu, looking out the window, it's like, what's it, a six hour bus ride now? It was a long bus ride. It was a long fucking bus ride. I had my head looking out the window that whole time like, what? We're going through canyons, long mountainsides. I felt rather unsafe. Right on the edge of, and you look down and it's just 200 meter vertical drive. But beautiful. Yeah. So beautiful. It was incredible. And I think that was the cool thing about, cause some of those bus rides you sleep, some of them you're kind of like.

Some of them you hold for your dear life. On the way back from Rainbow Mountain, I was like, if I die, and that was the last thing I did. Play on. I didn't think it was that great. Rainbow Mountain. No, but I was like, dude, you're just like, the only reason why you want to overtake this guy is because you don't want to drive behind you. Just sit behind him. Yeah. The driver was reckless, man. The drivers were hectic. I remember you just like, dude, he's so calm so fast. I'm like, there's nothing we can do.

Just take it as a cover. Oh yeah, except your fate. Yeah, basically. And then Machu Picchu. That was, that town down the bottom. Do you remember what that was called? Yes. Agua Calientes. Agua Calientes. Warm water or cold water? I think it's warm. Warm water. Yeah. That place was like. Pretty, pretty awesome. It looked like. It was vibrant. Yeah. A lot of energy resonating in the little town already, didn't it? Yeah. Just a train station, a bunch of little, bunch of little shops and a river, that river running through it was going hectic. Oh, actually it was a giant river.

Yeah. It was, it was big. It was thick. It was thick. It was, um, I don't know, it kind of reminds me of, um, what's that little town, Rivendell? In uh, in uh, Lord of the Rings. Where the elves live. It kind of reminds me of like a modern, modern, slightly, slightly less magical version of that. It was just this cool place and you're full of anticipation, right, because you're looking forward to the next day. There's a buzz there. And then that next, we had a little bit of a hiccup on getting up there. Oh, walking down the wrong way.

No, no. I followed the tracks, I'm like, guys, it's up here, look, there's a sign. And you're like, no, no, no, it's this way. Rightio. Get to a dead end. No, we gotta go. Yeah, yeah, you're right. Come on, I was there. Oh, yeah. We weren't sure if we were going to get our guide and stuff. Our guide. That's the thing. Be careful. Like how are you going to do that? I don't know what happened. It was a shit fight. Yeah, well, we booked the morning and then didn't get the morning and had to get back to the bus.

And, and basically they have this loophole where if you've got transport, you can go in at 9am instead of 6am. Well, we rushed it, like we were only there for a few hours, like not even 24 hours. We arrived. Yeah. At dusk. Oh, the walk to Machu Picchu as well. Walking from the bus, it was like a three hour walk. That was epic. 10k's along the railway. And then you get there and it's dark and then basically, well, we organised our thing. Had dinner. And then we hiked up there the next day. And that was, yeah, climbing up a mountain pretty much like very steep walk, climbing stone steps.

Just vertical. Just zagging vertically up, slow streams coming past, last green plant life all over. Yeah. And then you get there and it's busy as fuck. So many people. Oh man. I don't know. Like I am no one to say that, you know, people shouldn't be able to experience things like that, but I don't know. It's just the kind of thing that you're like, this is the kind of place you should have to walk to or you should like, you should have to go through some pain and suffering to see. It would be worth it if you went during the hard time.

I went to Rome and I was, it was so busy. Yeah. This is better if you're here during the quiet times. No shit. Yeah. I could not believe how many people were at all these places I've been to. Just buses and buses and buses lining up. I don't know. It seems like it's getting so busy that it's going to be like unaccessible soon. So I'm imagining what are people going to go and do? I don't know. But like when we actually got to Machu Picchu and started going in and looking around, it was so crowded.

There was that little ledge where you take your photo and it was like people lining up so they can get their photo and you're almost like, well, quick, take my picture so I can move because I'm crowded by people and I want to experience this landscape. I want to experience this place. This is an epic place. Look at it. Well that, that was kind of one of those moments where you're like, whoa, like it was a proper take your breath away. Like this is incredible being at the top there and having our guide talk us through it all.

Yeah, man. What were they doing there? Why? What the fuck did they build that place up there for, miles away from anything. So hard to access and it was a, like a fully sustainable society and um, amazing man, just really amazing. I remember sometimes I just, when I'm home now, I think about being back there and I'm like, wow, I went there. That was like so blessed to have seen it. Yeah. That feeling of like just being full of energy afterwards. I remember walking down and like, I think we ran down and we had a

beer at the bottom and then we like just ticked the legs over back to the, back to the bus, but I remember being like so excited, so happy. It was just, yeah. And like that, that didn't go away for a couple of days. Yeah. That just like euphoria. You gain something from it right? Yeah. You gain something from going to that place. Yeah. It's just, it's a nice little perspective thing and it's cool, cool to be in a place that's so old and isolated from everything. I remember he said how they would get messages from there to like other cities like Cusco or Lima or wherever they needed to talk, they would just get these guys to run.

Yeah. Just run it. Just here's a message for them. Run. He'd run for hours through the jungle and then he'd tell another guy and he'd run it again. It's pretty cool. And you're like, that's great. I just felt like you guys had it better. What we're doing is so cooked. Yeah. Somewhat. Yeah. They're different. Yeah. Yeah. They were pretty, I don't know, they were doing something right. Yeah. Were they? Yeah. And then the Mexicans came in and killed them all. Yeah. But they made them have. Potentially. So you're standing on Machu Picchu, one area that you're standing there and you're looking like 360 on horizon is just giant mountain ranges.

Yeah. So you're like that. I mean, if it was me, I'd just be running in there. I remember when we walked past the gate to go to the next one. Oh, you saw a Mayan? No, no, no. What was that? That, that top one. It's like, oh, you want a picture? Yeah. Want a picture. Yeah. And it's just like, we had a chance to go up there. Oh yeah. We had a little sneaky opportunity. And we didn't. And that's. We did go back. I can go back there, wasn't I? Yeah. I'd love to take KP to Machu Picchu and have her experience that.

I think it's, now that we've done it that way, it'd be cool to do it on either a longer hike or you could basically just fly into Cusco and go and do it. Yeah, correct. Yeah. Yeah. It was very cool. And then like that, we had a couple of days of, I've lost my voice, pardon me, had a couple of days of just being on a, like feeling like we're on a mountain. Can't even explain it. I mean, it was just epic. Machu Picchu was the best place on the trip. It was the best. I got a top three.

What was your top three? Number one was Machu Picchu. Number two, um, can't remember now, but, uh, the football match in Argentina in the top three. That was sick. That's cool. What's number three? What's the last one? This might've been the lagoon. Yeah. That was cool. It was pretty sick. Um, death rod was rad. Yeah. Cause we went, we just got the bus across the border, Puno, Lake Titicaca. Puno has nothing. Yeah. Don't go to Puno. Don't spend any time in Puno. It was rubbish. And then, uh, what was it? We went to Lake Titicaca. Strange place.

It was cool. Giant lake. Like heaps high up. Yeah. It's like the highest lake in the world. And we went and stayed in Copacabana. I thought it was going to be different. It wasn't as luxurious as I thought. It was beautiful. It was a resting point. Yeah. Um, but you know, with time that we had, we probably could have kept moving. Yeah. I did very much gain something though, from going to the Island of the Sun. That was incredible. And then you had the Island of the Moon opposite and, uh, that was like, no, no, no.

I felt like I had personally gained something because we were sort of at this sort of quiet time where we had some wine with our friends. Yeah. Well, we met a couple of girls from. Yeah. Yeah. And we were out there on the deck and we looked at the stars and we had good chats. Yeah. I forgot about that. Yeah. We had real gnarly group chat. Yeah. That was, that was very fun. Yeah. And we were basically. We went under the light globe so that we could have darkness. Yes we did. Yep. Yeah. With, uh, the language of love to the owner because he didn't speak English and gestures as well.

What the fuck are you doing? Basically dark stars. He's like, oh stars. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was nice. It was like. That was a good moment. It wasn't expected. Yeah. It was cool. Um, and you, where were we? We were basically almost in the middle of the continent, like super high in the mountain ranges. Staring at the stars. On a mountain. Yeah. On a lake. On a lake. On a lake. This giant lake. Yeah. And it was the, you know, the people who were the Mayans or the Incas in fact, wasn't it? Yeah. They called that the island of the sun and opposite was the island of the moon.

And I found that really special because the people who were there, I just felt like they had ownership of the land and they were, um, they respected and understood the land really well and they were getting ready for major tourism and economy. Yeah. That was like big old ladies just carrying huge bags of coke and supplies up the hill, like they're just donkeys taking their supplies up the hill to their shack where people would go and stay. And it's like so poor, but just like, so we're going to do this for our future. Yeah. And they were carrying heavy bottles.

They made their boats out of bottles, didn't they? Plastic bottles. Like those boats on Lake Titicaca. Yeah. That was in Puno. Yeah. They use, they use a lot of, um, a little waste to like, yeah, plastic bottles to make their, make their little rafts like where they live on, it was like the floating, floating town, um, but yeah, seeing the boats rock out with all their supplies and then have them carrying, like have the, you know, the guys and girls Chuck them on their backs and just carry them up the hill. And that hill was steep.

Dude. I remember getting three cars up going, what is happening? We picked the highest one that might've been my fault. Whatever. Worth a walk. More stars. We got closer to the stars slightly. That was pretty wonderful. That was a bit, um, yeah, that was a bit inconvenient actually, wasn't it? We rocked up there and you see all these places, but it was booked out, wasn't it? It wasn't quite popular. Right? Yeah. Well I think, I don't even know why we picked that one. Who knows? But it was, we didn't realise it was right up top and we marched all the way up top.

I think we looked, I think we looked and we're like, oh, it's only K and a half from the thing, but that K and a half was vertical. It was hectic. And we had our backpacks. We didn't like just have an overnight bag. We took everything. Yeah. Yeah. We took a lot. Gain some fitness. Come back with some glutes. They're gone now. But yeah, gain some leg strength. So what was after that? We uh, blitzed over to La Paz, man. La Paz. You love that city? I hated it. Why'd you hate it? It was so dirty, man.

Yeah. There's so much going on. It was so hectic. Yeah. I don't think I've, you see cities like most of the Western world and you just like, especially us in Australia, it's just flat. Right. And then La Paz is just like, it's amongst these rolling hills. There's buildings everywhere. Isn't it a gully? Yeah. It's just like, it just surrounding it and then it's there. It's just, it's almost like a canyon of, and then if there was a flood, that place would be gone. It's so high up. Probably going to be okay. Maybe the Incas would pull out their plugs and we had to work the aqueducts.

Yeah. Maybe. Like their mates with La Paz clearly because La Paz is still there. Yeah. That place was pretty cool. I love that place. You went for a nice walk with Sasha that day. I slept in. Cause they put you in these bunk beds. Close the shutters and it's dark all day. These bunk beds were like big coffins. I didn't hate it. I liked it. And then yeah, I went out. We had a good day that day. Spent the day with Sasha. I was probably wasted the night before. We went up all of the gondolas and explored the city.

I liked that. I liked the gondolas. I loved seeing different infrastructure in cities. So you see this city where, you know, to get from one end to the other end. The streets are so small and windy. It's so hard to like get any, like to get the cars to do it. I loved it. I loved the cars. It was just sick. And they had like three different ones. One going that way, another one that way, and then another one that went to the top. Yeah. It was pretty scary though. While I was in the gondolas up high, I was pretty much like, I don't know, because it was poor.

Yeah. Well, you see some, well, the gondolas like brand new from made in, made in Switzerland or something. And then you've got, you know, underneath kind of like people are doing it tough there. And just, you can see man, they're so poor. Yeah. That was something around like the whole of South America, just that the gap between poverty and affluence is like a street away sometimes. Like I think Lima was the one where, where we went through that little shanty town. Do you remember? Just like before, like start a brew hop. Yeah. And then there's like shanty town.

And then, yeah, because what the trick was, you can buy the property, build the house, but if you leave, like, if you say, I'm going to build a second story and you like leave it unbuilt, you don't have to pay no tax. Yeah. Yeah. That's what it was. There you go. So that was, that was really cool. And, um, I love that, like in La Paz seeing all the gondolas and just exploring the city, like it was so big. We went through all the markets and got some real coffee. That was cool. It was so cheap.

Yeah. There was a guy from, uh, a guy from Windsor runs a coffee shop over there. Yeah. So I went there a few times. Had, uh, Australian like coffee. We actually had real coffee. We had a cappuccino and we had, we had a proper breakfast, you know, with mushrooms and avocado and eggs. You probably had some bacon, I'm sure. Definitely. But otherwise we were like, what is this coffee? Yeah. What is this breakfast? I didn't have a coffee, except for that place, I didn't have coffee for six weeks and that was different. That was, uh, that was cool.

Yeah. Did you go to the cemetery? No. I remember seeing the cemetery in La Paz was just like something out of a movie, like a movie. It was, um, yeah, it was, it was very cool. Um, all the mausoleums and it was, it's almost, it was hauntingly beautiful. How about that? It was just, it was a little, little eerie, but like the paintings and the drawings and I like, obviously they have a fairly intense relationship with death, like the way they view it and very close family connections. And that was one of the memories I

have of seeing all those photos, of seeing all those paintings and stuff in amongst all of the art, all the coffins and little mausoleums and stuff. It was very cool. Did we go? Oh, Death Road. So sick. Yeah. For those that haven't seen video's Death Road, watch the Top Gear special. We rode bikes down that. Oh man. It was, uh, yeah. That was fun. That was fun. That was sick. That was all the fun. That was so sick. It's, uh, it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. It was just fun. Yeah, I agree.

You did crash into the wall though. I fucking stacked it. Yeah. I went over the falls. Lucky you went left, not right. I know. I kind of stacked it in front of me, a bit of a commotion down there, about 10, 15 metres ahead and I just lit straight down, but you get confident, don't you? Yeah. I'm doing all right. And everyone, three quarters of the way through the day, that's where we were. And, um, I was telling myself, you are hammering, you're all right, you're hammering, you're good. And I remember, oh fuck, I was

coming around a corner, I'm like, oh, someone stacked it and then all just, yeah, it all just gave away something twisted, I braked and I went over into a ditch and I laid down and I remember being in the ditch with my helmet on just going, am I dead? Like, oh, is something fucked up? Is my spine broken? No, I'm all good. Because we were, like I was with the guy like just in front of you and I was like, oh, and like he turns around, he's like, shit, and we rode back up and there's just carnage.

That big guy like concussed, probably concussed. The guy was pissed off at me, he was like, we shouldn't go as fast, and I'm like, well. He was in front, so he was going faster, so. He let the pace. Yeah. It's his fault. He did. Can't help grabbing you, mate. It was a fun bike ride. Yeah. It was awesome. It was pretty tough. Recommend it to everyone. Recommend it, if you're scared of heights or that, don't worry. Nah. It's all safe. Yeah. You'll be looking, just yeah, look down. Oh, when we took the photos, oh man, I was queasy.

Yeah. Because they get you to sit on that ledge and I'm literally laying it back home, I'm like, whoa, man. I'll make sure I share my little summary of the trip in the show notes just so people can look through the photos and stuff. Yeah, send a couple of pics out there. That was good. Death Rover was sick because we had crew. Yeah. We went with like four guys that we met. Yeah. Sasha, Tom and Mika. Was it just those three? I think so. Sorry if we've missed anyone yet. Nah, it's all right. It was crew.

That's cool. Yeah. And then back to La Paz and then we. Oh, man. We went straight back to Wild Rover, mate. Yeah. Started hitting it hard. We won the beer pong tournament. Yeah, we did. We did. That was in. Ah, yeah. That was that night. We were still up and about from Death Road so we were like, I think we were having dinner and then they're like, beer pong tournament. And I knew one of the bartenders just happened to be one of the guy's brother on you. Oh, yeah. That was pretty funny. Yeah, you met someone that you know.

Twice. Twice. That was weird. In Santiago, he's like, I know you. Was it in Santiago, was it? Well, that was the first one. It was a guy done exchange from Brazil. He'd done exchange at Frankston High in year 10 in that first one, like we were about to leave. Santiago. Yeah. First one what? First hostel. First hostel. Yeah. And we're about to leave to go to Picholima. Oh, yeah. Well, we were in the courtyard just there. Oh, nice shit. Yeah, that was pretty funny. Yeah, you went to Frankston, didn't you? He's like, I know you. Oh, that wasn't in the first two or three days.

That was weird. Yeah. That was weird. And then in Wild Rover in La Paz, one of the boy's brothers was there and he's like, I know you. That was weird. But then we won the beer pong tournament. Yeah. And took home some. Oh, man, that's some really big nights over there. God damn. Yeah. Everything's so cheap. Well, what they do there, they give you the wristband and they say, you'll pay when you go. Dangerous. And then you're just like, oh, man, just charge my wristband. You've got like four long necks for you and your mates and ugh.

It adds up pretty quick. Yeah. But it was, um, I came back having a bit of a detox from that. Yeah. After that bit, I think a few days off. What happened after that? So, yeah, you blitzed across because we're getting actually from there over to the other side of the continent. It's so hard. It's so shit. Yeah. Because we obviously wanted to go to, well, Iguazu Falls was the stop I made. Oh, that's right. That's number two on my list. Argentina. Dude. Yeah. So I went down south after that and said, see you later. And I went down to the salt flats.

Uh, yeah. Yeah. So salt flats. I didn't really enjoy. Yeah, no shit. Yeah. We're an incredible guys. Like I saw cactus Island. That was rad. It was just this random Rocky Island cactus on it and everywhere else is just salt. Um, yeah. And it was a bit of a, I was, I was on a little bit of a downer cause Tom actually got real sick. Yeah. Yeah. He was on the bus down there just like just dying. Cause he got a bit ill. I think I got ill prior. We all got a little bit of the Bolivia belly.

Yeah. Um, you went up to the rain forest. We went up into the jar, man. Yeah. That was sick. Sleeping in shacks on the river. Caymans underneath there. And giant Cayman crocodiles underneath this. That's cool. And you're looking at them. They're longer than this table, man. They're almost as long as this route. And huge. And you're just, they're just waiting for humans to fall in so they can have a snack. They were giant. It's insane. There were monkeys, we had monkeys come jump on the boat, jump on our heads, take bananas off us. That was so fun.

And you're just in this boat that's like two people wide and you just put your hand out and there's the water and you're just blitzing along the river and you're in the South American jungle. It's pretty cool. So amazing, man. So many different birds or so many different wildlife, four or five different monkeys. We had these capuchin monkeys that just looked just like humans. Even the yellow monkeys, I forgot what they were called, but they're just so much like humans, they've got these tiny, tiny little human heads and faces with just like beards up to their eyes.

So cool. And like hairy ears. And they're just like so excited. They just look like tiny, tiny old people. And they were just coming, just jumping out of the boat and climb all over us and it was so fun. It was so cute. They're so beautiful. I love that. And we had fun. It was, that was awesome. That was going into the wild. That was it. And I was like leaving here. I'm like going. That was proper wild. I'm going on a boat, going into the jungle and that's something that I did, I wanted to do that.

And that was sick. Made heaps of good mates with Tom and Mika and even seen him in Europe or wherever. Legends. But yeah, getting from where we were, like even whichever way you went. Because how did you do it? Because we did it two different ways, right? Oh man, it's so hard. So how did you get? It was really expensive. How did you get from there to Buenos Aires? I caught the boat down to, sorry, the bus down to Salt Flats, uni and like you get there at the early morning, you don't even know who you're going with.

In uni is a shithole. It's concrete. Concrete desert. Fucking concrete desert. What? What man? Scary. Yeah. I was a little freaked out. I'm in, this is. You're with the guys, yeah? No. They were cool. I don't know. Yeah. Like Tommy and Tommy were so sick and Micah was sick so they had to go like just check in somewhere and they weren't going to do it with me on the day. Yeah. And I was worried. Like this guy said, "Here, you're coming with me. You've got this ticket. Sweet. Unlocks the door. Just sit in here. Close the door."

And I'm like, "When are you coming back?" And went, "Where? What the fuck?" So I sat there waiting for like two hours. Yeah. Our guide was shit. The Salt Flats, yeah, good. Take a photo. Good. Yeah. That was overrated. Well, yeah, because I had a completely different experience. I met... Good guide. Had fun. Yeah. I met a couple of guys. A couple of Americans, a couple of, I think a couple of guys from the UK and then one guy from Nariwaran. No, no shit. So I hadn't seen... He's not here? No. No. I recruited an Australian.

Laz, he was a legend. I hadn't seen an Australian for like, obviously apart from us, for probably almost a month at that stage. Like we... I just avoided them. Yeah. I hate those guys. But yeah, he was a legend. So we hung out for the day and our guide was elite. He was so funny. Cool. And he was all about it. Set us all up for the photos. And we did a heap of cool stuff. Right. That's great. And then... I like that picture of you actually. You got the legs there. Everyone's like me. It runs on me laces.

Yeah. And then I jumped on the... I went back. I asked him to drop me at the airport and he dropped me at the airport and I just made my flight. No shit. Back to La Paz. So a uni, Salt Flats, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. But I think I got a... You went south, yeah. No, no. I went over to Santa Cruz. Yeah. I think I flew from the uni to Santa Cruz. Yeah. And then I spent a night in Santa Cruz and that's interesting. It's a bit of a dive. Yeah. But actually I thought it was a little bit cooler than La Paz.

I don't know. It didn't stay that very long. But it was hot. Yeah. Because you guys, you go down to like just above sea level, right? So it's like super... It's a lot less cozy there. Yeah. It's super humid. Yeah. Yeah. And then that was in Salta, I met up with Ava and Sasha. Yeah. We spent the day and me and Sasha had a beer and a chat. What about me? And wow, that was cool. Salta's cute. That was a cute little town. Nice. Then I think I got a flight over to Buenos Aires. From Santa Cruz?

Yeah. Yeah. From Salta. Oh, from Salta. Yeah. So yeah. But then I eventually did get my Brazilian visa. They just... And Brazil's took ages, didn't they? They did not like my photos. Yeah. It may have just been like, "We don't want to leave here. It's too scary." But you got in there. Got in there... Yeah, because I did mine online and got in like two days and they said it would take two weeks. Yeah. That was something that we didn't plan. We were like, "Oh, we probably won't go to Brazil, but if we do, we'll just do it online."

Yeah. Well, you have to go to Brazil to see both sides of... Iguazu. Iguazu Falls. And you had a mate who'd been there and it was just like, "You've got to go to Brazil." And I had a mate on Facebook telling me that, "You've got to go to Brazil." And I'm glad I did because, holy shit, that was something else, man. That was insane. I've got photos in my bathroom here. Yeah. If I'm going to even work, I like looking at that shit. That'd just make me a little pissed. The sheer volume of water going over those floors.

Dude, what the fuck? You're just like, "Where's the water coming from?" Yeah. And it's constantly going. It's not like, "Hey, you visited for the day. Good night. We're going to turn the water off." No, that's constantly rushing. All day, every day. All day, every day. Slowly coming along the cliffs and then just crashing down the walls. I couldn't believe how different it felt on both sides. Yeah. Like, because I... Well, from Santa Cruz, because I flew to Santa Cruz from La Paz, I just got a bus to Puerto Quezada or whatever the hell it was called, like on the border.

Parabola. No, border of Brazil. Brazil. So it's like a western, southwestern corner, like almost of Brazil. And then I got there like 1130 at night. No one at their bus stop. So I'm like, "Oh, I'm going to have to sleep outside tonight." This dude... Well, yeah. I thought... You wanted to rough it. Yeah, 100%. I was just like, "Ah, I'll just wing it. It'll be fine." And then this dude, taxi driver rocks up. Like, there's like three people there. Like three taxi drivers rock up and I'm the only person there. And I go, he goes, grabs my bag and chucks it in.

I'm like, "Border." Like I didn't know it. My Google Translate wasn't working and he's like, "Border. Yes. Si. Si. Border." So he drives me and he pulls into like this backyard and I was like, "What the fuck is going on?" And he like walks inside. It must be in his house. He walks inside, grabs something, comes back, pulls out, keeps driving. I'm like, "Well, it's been great, but I'm done." And then he ended up just taking me to like... He points, he goes, "Border, 9 AM." And I'm like, "Oh, cool. It opens at 9 AM." So I went in and found a place and I got...

- What time was this? - What time? - Yeah. - Well, I got in there at like 1 AM and I went and had something to eat because there was still this little shack open and I got so sick that night. Like I was in, like it was almost like an actual hotel. Like it was a nice-ish one. It was right on the border. It didn't cost me that much, but I got so sick I didn't get any sleep. I ended up getting out and it was like when I was empty at about 11 AM and the line at the border was hectic.

So I eventually got over by like early arvo and then taxi into the next town on the Brazilian side and just like went around to a bunch of like little shops and kept saying, "Eguacu, eguacu, eguacu." And one guy goes and obviously asked me if they speak English, but they didn't even speak Spanish because it's Portuguese. So that was an interesting few days. I didn't speak to anyone for probably three days of just buses down to Eguacu. I got to Eguacu and obviously it's very touristy. So everyone spoke English. I was like, okay, I'm back speaking to people now, but it was a cool, like little chance to just think and stop and figure out, work it out.

It was cool. I loved it. But then it, yeah. And then getting to Eguacu was just, wow. Well, the walk from, was it the Brazilian side? Yeah, the walk. You're walking along like, oh, there they are. And you take a picture. No, no, no. And then every time you get closer, it gets better and better. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. And the butterflies. So many butterflies. They were huge. So colourful. And then you get right up close. You're like, whoa, this is something else. Oh dude, what the hell is going on up there? That's like a, what do you reckon, four storey high, four storeys high building?

Oh, look at this fucking roof. This is two, almost two storeys. Yeah. It'll probably be three times this. Wow, man. Yeah. It's like mass water and you'd look up top and you'd follow drops just like this down to the bottom. And you just like getting mesmerized, just watching in front of you. And there's so much spray. You get so wet. And there's lovely, lovely little vegetation in the, on the ground in front of you. It's like it's landed and it's streaming through because you got that bridge walk and you can go take the shot and take photos and have a look.

And you're looking down. It turns a corner, like the canyon sort of turns a corner and the rivers running below you or whatever. And you're just like, what's around there? And you couldn't see it, but the next day you go to the Argentinian side and it's called the Devil's Throat. Yes. Cause you go to the top of it and you see this massively, it was a big river. It wasn't stupid big, but it was this like maybe five to 800 meters across at its widest point. And you just see it all going and dumping over the edge.

And like, I lost myself for probably 15, 20 minutes just like staring at it, just like what is happening? Devil's Throat? Yeah. I sat there staring out afraid. There's a butterfly landed on my hand. I was just like, why is so much water moving through there? Where's it coming from? Yeah. It was, made you feel so insignificant, so small. Like if you just slipped over here, it wouldn't matter, man, it would never be seen again. I kind of, it kind of reminded me of skydiving a little bit. Have you done it? No. Like, cause when

you jump out, you're like, okay, I'm too high and I'm going too fast for me to really, for my brain to really understand what's happening. Like intuitive, like intellectually understand what's happening. I'm jumping out of a plane, but you're going so fast, you're like, there's too much going on. My brain can't process it. I felt like that I was staring at it. My brain can't process what's happening. Your heart's beating because it's so beautiful and you're just like this, I don't comprehend this. That's why you feel so insignificant. And it was hot, it was a nice walk.

Like it was just, it was something else. Oh yeah. That's your photo is it? Yeah. I've got a few photos of it. Man. Yeah, man. That's, it was something else. It was. Wow. It's amazing. And it's always happening. Yeah. It's still going. All night, all day. It hasn't stopped. Yeah. It's not slowing down or anything. It's, and I recommend that to anyone. Go to South America, do the things we've said, do a magic picture, do a glass of your thoughts. Exactly as we've told you. Do a different trip though, cause make it your own. Yeah. I spent the amount of time.

I was happy with what I saw. Well you did more K's than me. I basically traveled across the continent because after that I went to Buenos Aires, stayed there for a week, loved it, made some friends, got to know the city and then flew home. Yeah. But you. I spent a couple of days in Buenos Aires and then went to. Well you were desperate to get a Patagonia man. Yeah. I was like, I reckon I could do Patagonia another time. Yeah. But you got down there. I'll go again. No, I would like to go. I'll definitely go.

So I've got to Buenos Aires and spent a couple of days there and I got a week left. I'm going to Patagonia. Cause I think I was a couple of days ahead of you, like a glass of. And then John's on a plane down there. Bus. Yeah. That's hard going. That's a lot. Got to El Calafate. Is it like 3000 K's away from Buenos Aires? It's a long way. It's like, I don't know how far it is, but it's probably like, it was probably an hour and a half flight. I think someone would be able to fact check me on this, but trying to squeeze it in.

I was like, I don't want to rush it up. It was either like rainforest or Patagonia in the end. Right. And then got down the bottom and went straight to El Chaltan where Mount Fitzroy is and had a week of just hiking or actually, no, I didn't, I had four days of hiking. I think I had four or five days of hiking, maybe five, five days of hiking every day, all day, every day, just listening to podcasts and audio books and like writing. And I was like, okay, I'm not going to, I don't want to make any friends.

Just be on your own. That was the plan. First night. The three Israelis. Well, yeah, there was, there was two Israeli girls in our room and they go, come have dinner with us. And I'm like, Oh no, it's okay. And like, no, no, it's Israeli independence day. We're having a big dinner. Do you want to come? And I was like, Oh yeah, sure. No worries. I don't know. I'm having like all this shakshuka, all this, all this wine beer with all these Israel, I think it was like 25 Israelis in one big table. And I was the only guy that wasn't just random and I was like, okay, so tell me about independence.

And like, they just dove deep and like taught me all about that. And okay. I made a few friends and like the next day I went on a hike with one of them and then they were all moving on. I was like, okay, I got to, now I can chill out. And then those two left and three guys, three British guys came into my room and I came back from hiking that day. I'm like, Oh, lucky. Nice to meet you. And they're like, Oh cool. We just cooked dinner. Come have dinner with us. So I had dinner with them and play cards, cards and drink wine for three days.

And yeah. And that was cool because it was just, it wasn't for, it's like, I was almost like trying to go against it. And then, you know, um, you've got this like iron will, hey, you have a massive night and then you just be like, get up, pack the bag, go on, go for a walk. Yeah. We met. It was good. Kept me on my toes. And then in the, in the airport, um, at Buenos Aires, I think I was, I think I was on the phone with someone at work and a girl came over and she goes, you speak English?

I said, yes, I do. She goes, good. Cause I haven't spoken English anymore for a couple of days, let's have a chat. And like, we got to know each other and had, had a couple of really good chats and she went to one of the hikes with us as well. And she shot off down to the glacier and I was like, I'm a couple of days away from that. The one annoying thing though, there was never, I never got to see Mount Fitzroy, which is like anyone that's seen the Patagonia logo. It was named because the guy was a mountaineer early on, mountaineer, um, it was a climber and he loved that mountain range.

So that's why it was named Patagonia. And that low, the logo is that mountain. It was the weather was cactus man. It was raining, it was snowing, bad luck with the weather, but because it was like coming end of autumn, there was so many colors like orange trees, red trees, it was like a rainbow of trees. So all the hikes, I've seen a couple of photos like that looks nice. Yeah. So I couldn't see anything past like a hundred meters, like a couple hundred meters away, but I remember going to like one of the waterfalls and it just being colors.

It was, it was wonderful. You did see one of those epic glaciers though right? I think crossing the bridge or something and you're just like, here it is, it's just like blue ice. Yeah, that was after. So that was El Calafate. So I got a bus after my five days there and I had two days to get back to Buenos Aires to meet you. So I went straight down El Calafate, booked the trip the next day, way too expensive, but it was epic, walked on the, uh, walked on the ice and did all that and took some photos of it.

And it's like, you see it. And then it was kind of the same as, um, Guadalupe Falls, you see 10% of it and you're like, then they show you the next 10% and you're like, well, this keeps going, this keeps going, this keeps going. This keeps going. Yeah. Um, that, that was a really cool end to the trip because I remember I found a book I'd been looking for, Chanterem and, and, and just spent two days like either on the bus going to the thing or sitting, like looking over it all and just reading for two days.

It was, and then, yeah, straight back up, saw you, we flew home. That was a rubbish trip home, a rubbish flight home. Oh you poor bastard, you didn't get a TV. I know. I was like, it's all right. I, you know, all my stuff's dead. I've just finished my book. I'll just watch movies. The whole flight. TV didn't work. Yeah. And, uh, the two people, I was on the window, two people next to me, nah, I don't think, was there a baby on the floor? Two people next to me were sleeping the whole time and I just couldn't sleep and that was a bit yuck.

But yeah, then we, uh, then we got home. Boy, that football match was pretty sick. That was my last little experience. So it was actually my last experience on the whole trip, other than coming to meet you at the airport. Yeah, really? I was in, I was with my mate Roscoe and I'm like, I want to go to a rugby match or a soccer match because I'm in Argentina, they love their sport, they love their football. I want to go and they're at the hostel, yeah, there's a game, um, there's a game tonight. It's Boca

Juniors and it's like the biggest club in South America, giant club and on my bike ride of the, you know, tour of the city that I'd had the previous day, they were saying they were all about this club and man, I got a ticket and I went and it was like dangerous man. Yeah, like you could hear people in the streets like chanting the songs and stuff and it's legit like man, so it was Boca Juniors versus a Brazilian team and so the stadium was a U shape. They actually chopped it in half cause there's a building permit, wasn't there for whatever.

Anyway, this is how the crowd was, all Boca Juniors and then, um, the top stand of just here on like the southern end and it was all like bulletproof glass and then riot cops and they were just green and yellow and everything else, the whole stadium was yellow and blue and I got in there, I couldn't believe it. There was fires going off, flares and they were just singing Boca, la Boca, just singing that thing and I was like, this is insane, this is so insane, I'm just, I am this random Australian dude, just like

what, I just pop, just put myself there and this huge crowd of Argentinians and they were just singing and you just could not help but get taken away by the passion they had for the club and just singing all their awesome catchy, catchy songs and uh, like you just want them to win. I think they went down by two points or whatever, but they were so passionate, the young guys next to me, they were like skitting out because it was their own goal, they were like fuming the keeper. I don't know man, that was wild,

it was sick, it was a huge celebration because legit I went on the bus, back to my hostel, picked up my bag, got on the taxi and then went to the airport and flew home. It was so cool, it was so cool and I love Buenos Aires, I reckon that city's sick, I'd go back there, heaps of plants, dude, heaps of greenery all through the city, froths on the greenery, froths on the greenery, that's cool, so many plants, so many green walls, so many plants in bars and in shops and apparently well there was this

architecture, a city designer who went through 30 years ago and said well all these plants are gonna, you know, flourish at this time and they're gonna be companions and whatever and boom, just planted all these trees and like so many other streets, boom, littered with trees and garden beds and stuff and everyone's on their balconies, got plants, so yep, that was it, Buenos Aires was the last one, we flew home and we just, I know I had a list of like 10 things that I had to do and I went and got them all done,

son, came home just fucking pumped and ready, I was ready to go back to work, tick off all these boxes, man, and I had my list and I got them done, you know, by the fifth week I was ready to come home, I was like, I said to you, do you want to go home, like how cooked are we, we want to go back to work. I think, yeah, I think like it was cool because I kind of got, I think that six weeks was good because I was looking forward to getting home, but also

I was in Patagonia, so I was like, holy shit, I'm not gonna like waste this, double awesome feeling, so it was good feeling because I was like, I'm really ready to get home, but at the same time, like, okay, I've just got to be patient and enjoy this and, and that like big hike that last day and then, you know, jumped on the plane and flew back up and I remember we got delayed, so it meant I only had a couple of hours to wait before we jumped on Santiago to Melbourne flight, which is, you

know, 15 hours of, oh wait, where was it, Argentina, back to Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, back to Santiago, sorry, so we had two flights, didn't we? It was a really special moment for me when we got home because, well, I wasn't living in my flat and so I had my van, I've got a camper van here and I just dumped me bag and I went to bed outside the warehouse here in my van, you've done that, how good is it, bed on wheels? I love it and I just was lying in bed and it was

normal time, it was like midnight on Sunday and Friday and I remember just cracking up laughing to myself, like, what you psycho did, you just went hard for three years building a business and you left it alone for six weeks, you went to the other side of the world, did that trip and then home safe, all those amazing experiences, they're done and now here you are, safe and sound, everything fell apart and I was just laughing, I love those moments where you just, I did it the other day when I was looking at the floors

and looking at the double shop I've got built and I'm just, you just feel a little crazy because you've made this thing in your head and out it comes, out it is and you're just laughing at yourself because it's so special to you, you're in your own dream, I guess we both run our own business. No one's ever going to appreciate all the work and all the hard stuff but then no one gets to appreciate that feeling that you get when you just burst out laughing, this is incredible. It's joy. It's pure joy, yeah. We do it because we want to do it and it's nice to have those feelings every couple of months or every round again.

It was a win dude, it was a win. It's the simplest way to put it, it was just a win. It was a big win dude, yeah and it fuelled the travel bug, I was fortunate enough to come back for two or three months I think. And then you had a big trip to Europe. Went over again, yeah, that was sick, met my friends from the gong, my friends from back home and we jumped in a wagon, four of us and just blitzed around the UK and just kept popping into amazing little towns in Britain,

ducking our heads under the entrances to pubs because they were so low and went to some amazing cities, went to so much amazing places, went to Scotland, to this loch and we just, the wilderness there, the countryside was so beautiful and Ireland, man, like I would go back there, that's another place that I would go, that's for sure, I'd go back to Ireland. We didn't go to Dublin but it was nearby Dublin and friendliest people, lush countryside, beautiful countryside and Guinness, it's the best drink man, it's not, you don't drink Guinness here, there's no point, it doesn't taste good.

But there it's different. It's all a drink, just love the Guinness. Drank too much of it at the wedding, no problem though, it was good, it was good as fuck. And met up with a couple of the crew we met over in South America, that was awesome, really cool to just be like, yeah, this is just like how we left off, you know, Tom and Micah in England, in Bristol, met up with them and then Sasha. Dude, that was sick. I love that man. I was so glad that he was there because he wasn't going to be, I was like, Switzerland, I've always wanted to go to Switzerland.

When I'm there, I'll go to Switzerland and he was there and so he jumped in the car and I, being the only one with a licence, had to do all the driving, which was fine, but it was all on the right-hand side of the road. That was fun, dangerous for the first two hours, but fun. Yeah, once you figure it out, you're right. Yeah, have you done it? Yeah, in Hawaii. That was going through the streets, but like, highways are fine. But going through the streets and like one lane, yeah, I was just like, KP, you're going to have to like, just make sure I know I'm going to the right one.

Because you just start, like, when you get to that autonomous level of driving, you start like, okay, back to normal. Oh wait, shit. Oh dude, that was just like screaming in German. What? Oh fuck, I'm on the left-hand side. But dude, Switzerland, I just recommend that in time for anyone travelling, for yourself, you get over to Europe. It's just the most amazing nature. It's so clean, man, with all of the countryside, all lush green fields, cute cabins with Swiss flags and baskets of flowers on the balcony. And then you've just got mountains that are so clean, like the rock faces of all the mountains and stuff you're driving past.

So clean, because it's in this, you're basically in the Swiss Alps all the time. Amazing, man. It's pretty cool. And then we caught this, it was cool, really cool hanging out with Sacha. He wanted me to go to Bali last month and hang out with him, I just didn't have time or money. But yeah, like, pretty sick making friends on one side of the world and then going and seeing him again over there. That's pretty cool. I'm hanging out to catch up with all those guys next time I go away. Yeah. We need to get them all to come here.

Yeah. It's hard for him because Switzerland's not in the EU. He was like, when I come to Bali, man, I'm going to come to Australia too. But yeah, no, they can't get their visa, it's not so easy. Yeah. Not in the EU. Yeah, that's fun. That was good, it was awesome. Yeah, that's it. Now we're back in business. Back in business, I've got another trip next year, bud. Yeah, where are you going? Well, I went to Finland last trip in Europe and Finland, rekindled some friendships there. It was awesome. We talked about that on what? Number three, we talked about your first?

Yeah. Podcast number three. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just my friend Marty, he's doing so well. When I was there, like half a decade ago or whatever, he was studying so hard, working so hard to get his job. Now he works for the government. He's actually got a really good job. He's basically making decisions for what's getting taught in the schools. Yeah. So he was doing geography and whatever else, psychology and stuff. He's got himself a good job, owns a nice house, got two kids, two young boys. So really happy for him. He's getting married in June.

Awesome. So I figured why not? Let's work hard until then. Good. Go over there, pay some friends another visit and then see what other kind of major trek I could do because you could go from Finland's up in the top North East, go across to St Petersburg, take a trans-Siberian rail all the way through Mongolia. Listen to Dan Carlin's hardcore history with Wrath of the Khans, you heard that? No, I haven't listened. I've listened to bits of it. I haven't listened to the whole thing, but I dove into that towards the end of the South America trip.

I suppose when I end up on the other side, I might pop into Japan and come home, but big trip. I mean, that's my philosophy. You go that far, spend as much time as possible, but I've got to prep for that for sure. If anyone needs a nudge to travel, I hope they've got it. Yeah. It's something else. It's just perspective change, man. It's so different and we are so insulated here, especially Peninsula, but just in Australia. Yeah, man. There was times when I was in Europe and some of the cities, some of the places I was out, I was like, what are we even doing back there?

These guys have more substance, so to speak. A lot more history. We've only been here for a couple of hundred years. No, I know. I was like, I kind of shat on all the history that was here. So yeah, we've got good nature and we've got good weather. So embrace that, enjoy that. But yeah, going away for me, it was like, it's easy. Like just get on the plane, go over there, experience it and come back. A little bit of planning and then a bit of planning on your bike. Yeah. So, so yeah, that'll be sick.

That'd be a cool trip. I've got, maybe if it happens, I'll head back to my OCO in Japan for two weeks in Jan. Spend a couple of days in Tokyo either side. But apart from that, I don't know, I think maybe end of next year. You got all your goals lined up. I saw your big vision board. Yeah. I got a few things I want to tick off. There's a little bit of a ambiguity there. So I want to make that a little bit, a little bit more nailed down what I actually want, but I think like KP and I will probably look to move to Morenton sometime next year or two.

Maybe tick that box and then go on a big holiday with her. Take her out of school for a bit. Body teachers and their two week holidays at a time. She needs to run a business. We can just take, go away for two months at a time together. Yeah, that's it. It's definitely, yeah, there's definitely perks to it and that's one of the freedom. I work hard to set it up, you know? Yeah. Obviously when I'm here, things run a bit faster. So, um, but yeah, no, that's better for wages and running the place. When you get a good team though, it's such a difference.

I'll set it up. That'll all be, yeah. Keen as mustard to see the boss go on again, I reckon. Word on the street is they get a little more done without you. No, that's incorrect. So, um, yeah, business is pumping. I've got to take these little trips to get him. It just puts a fire in your belly, right? It does. It was awesome trip, man. Awesome. Couple of trips this year. Awesome year. I'm just ticking over four years now, 29th of November, my birthday and voyages fourth. So, um, it's pretty much finished. It's been a long haul.

Congrats. Yeah, thanks man. We're at the point where like now it's like, okay, now the real work starts. Yeah. Well, I've trained my team, got me equipment, got all the space, plenty of time for expansion, you know, like next door, it's studio space. Wait till we're so busy, we needed a couple more machines and all that studio space has to move somewhere else or like, um, you know, maybe, well hopefully not. I love this joint, so hopefully I don't have to move. Um, but I just feel like I can, I can slow down a bit and organically the whole business or just, it'll, it'll keep me up to speed.

But, um, I just, I feel so stoked, man. I've taped amazing things. I'm proud of myself. And, um, yeah, this year doing those couple of trips, I just felt like an absolute champion as a short, a lot of good self-esteem come out of this year. Good. And, um, learned a lot, just like where I'm at. Good. Stoked. Love your work. It's been an absolute pleasure. Good chat. Yeah. Fucking nice chat. Yeah, boy.