0:04

Today we have another one of our

0:06

exclusive Deep Trouble series. Deep

0:09

Trouble is a series that you will hear

0:11

exclusively on Adventure Rider Radio, which is stories

0:13

about riders in peril. But it's more than

0:15

that. Deep

0:17

Trouble is about that underlying framework

0:19

that really fuels adventure. The framework

0:21

that is essentially the possibility that

0:24

something could go wrong. Because

0:26

if there was no risk, there would be

0:28

no edge, no thrill, no excitement. And

0:31

although we don't really want to experience something going

0:33

wrong for ourselves, the fact that

0:35

it's possible, even remotely, is what fuels

0:37

adventure. And for some more than others,

0:40

a rider could be thrilled by making

0:42

it through a muddy section, up

0:44

a rocky hill, through a river, knowing

0:46

that the result could be getting stuck, breaking

0:49

the bike or sucking water into the engine.

0:51

No one wants that. But

0:53

nothing beats the satisfaction you get for

0:55

making it through a tough section. For

0:58

another rider, it's crossing foreign borders,

1:00

riding far from home, dealing with

1:02

languages and customs they don't yet

1:04

understand, and exploring new and

1:06

far off places. We

1:08

riders are a modern type of

1:10

adventure, out there, exposed to the

1:12

elements, rider and machine. Of

1:15

course, we don't want to drop our bike in the river

1:17

or get stuck in some remote place in another country or

1:19

held up at a border. But it's

1:21

kind of like walking out on a high

1:23

cliff overlooking a vast valley. The

1:27

thrill that you get just by approaching

1:29

it, the sensation that the edge is

1:32

near, not just the thrill of danger,

1:34

but it's only when you get close

1:36

to that edge that you're able to

1:38

see the vista beyond. It's

1:40

adventure, like riding a motorcycle. And

1:44

with Deep Trouble, we'll explore captivating

1:46

stories of riders who found themselves

1:49

in deep trouble. We'll dissect these

1:51

situations, shedding light on the challenges

1:53

they faced, the strategies they used,

1:55

the valuable lessons they learned. Most

1:58

critically, we'll discuss... how the

2:00

situation could have turned out differently if

2:03

some of the controlled aspects were changed.

2:05

We'll talk about the possibilities and potential

2:07

outcomes so that perhaps

2:09

other riders can learn from their

2:11

experiences and avoid making mistakes themselves

2:14

and getting into deep trouble. I'm

2:19

Jim Martin, this is Adventure Rider Radio. Stay with us,

2:21

we got a good one for you. I'm

3:00

Lisa Chauvin, Grant Johnson, Jimmy Lewis, Chris Bich, Gwen

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So, do

3:56

you ever notice that when things go wrong

3:58

they tend to get worse after that,

4:00

especially if you let it get to you. Now

4:03

this can happen with your day. So here, I'll

4:05

give you an example. You're in your car, you

4:07

drive into work, everything's fine. And then suddenly you

4:09

hit a bump that was never there before. You

4:11

drive throughout every day. And because the people the

4:13

drive-through didn't put the lid properly on your coffee,

4:16

the lid pops off and coffee splashes out onto

4:18

your shirt and onto your pants. And you get

4:20

frustrated and you pull over quickly and you go

4:22

to jump out and your shirt catches the door

4:24

latch and tears. It's those types

4:26

of things that it just seems to go from

4:29

bad to worse. And then of course you get

4:31

frustrated and it really gets here. The

4:33

catalyst is often so benign. It's

4:36

impossible to nail down just what

4:38

started the landslide. Was it the

4:41

drive-through that didn't put your lid on properly? Was it

4:43

the bump in the road? Who knows what it was.

4:46

And that may be the case with

4:48

the story that you're about to hear

4:50

about getting lost in the desert when

4:52

there's only two roads, which sounds kind

4:54

of difficult, right? This

4:56

first story is from Chad Horton

4:59

and Rose Padilla. Chad

5:01

and Rose ride two up, Rose at

5:03

the Pillion. They call themselves two wheels,

5:05

three sheets. And this story

5:08

takes place in Bolivia. Rose Padilla

5:23

Okay. My name is Rose

5:25

Padilla of Two Wheels, Three Sheets. I'm

5:27

from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and

5:30

I'm a professional moto hobo and

5:32

super pillion. My

5:35

name is Chad Horton. I am from

5:37

Los Angeles, California, also of Two Wheels,

5:39

Three Sheets. And I

5:41

guess I am the chief moto hobo.

5:45

Rose and Chad, welcome back to Adventure Rider Radio.

5:48

Thank you, Jim. Mr. Martin, thank you for having

5:50

us back. Rose, I

5:52

absolutely love that title. Super pillion. So do

5:54

you have a cape with that or a

5:56

costume or something? I, you know, could you

5:58

send me one? That

6:01

would be something, wouldn't it? I like it. The

6:03

super-pillion. No kidding. You're not

6:06

supposed to have a cape. That's true. That's

6:08

probably a change. That'd be one of those things that,

6:10

you know, goes down the learning process in superheroes on

6:12

motorcycles. But yeah, I think we can right now eliminate

6:14

the cape and think of something else for that. Yeah,

6:16

that's all I need is your cape getting stuck in

6:18

the chain. Exactly.

6:21

Well, we're talking about deep trouble here.

6:24

You have a story about getting lost

6:26

in Bolivia. Now, who wants to set

6:28

that up? Sorry, I'll set the

6:30

scene and then Rose can jump in

6:33

and call me a liar. So

6:39

this is actually, Jim, this is the first

6:41

time we're telling this story because this is

6:43

fairly recent. This just took place

6:45

in May of this year. So what about,

6:47

I guess, six or seven months ago or

6:50

so? So

6:53

we started in Iuni,

6:55

Bolivia, and

6:57

a lot of people probably know

7:00

Iuni because of the salt flats.

7:02

Sure. The Salena de Iuni.

7:04

It's one of the most famous overlanding destinations

7:06

in all of South America. Yeah, it's the

7:09

one where everybody gets the photos of the

7:11

reflective lake, you know, if there's

7:13

water and the riding along in the salt water

7:15

and the pictures of somebody holding a person in

7:17

their hand, all those sorts of things. Absolutely.

7:20

And if you've never been there,

7:23

it really is hard to comprehend

7:25

how large an area this is.

7:28

It's 10,000 square kilometers. Yeah, it's amazing. 4,000 square

7:30

miles. It's

7:33

just absolutely enormous.

7:37

So I mean, most people know Iuni

7:39

because of the salt flats. Maybe

7:43

also the train cemetery. That's probably what they're

7:45

also known for. People

7:48

love to go to the train cemetery. It's just like a train

7:51

yard with a bunch of old locomotives and old

7:53

train cars that are all beaded up and everyone

7:55

likes to go there and get their photographs

7:57

for Instagram and everything. Um,

8:00

but there is another, there is another,

8:03

um, draw specifically for

8:05

overlanders down there that

8:07

people aren't as familiar with. And

8:11

it's called Eduardo, Avarola,

8:14

Andean Fauna national

8:16

reserve. Doesn't

8:18

exactly roll off the tongue. No, no,

8:24

but the reserve is home to

8:26

something called rooters. The logos lagoon us

8:28

or the lagoon us route. And

8:32

this is kind of a storied

8:34

destination in a lot of overland

8:37

circles. Um, and

8:40

a lot of people that run it will

8:42

either describe it as the highlight of their

8:44

South American trip or the low

8:46

light of their South American trip. It's

8:50

one of those. So

8:52

what exactly is it? It's

8:55

a giant. So it's essentially

8:57

all it is, is an extremely

9:00

remote, high altitude

9:03

desert. Um, it

9:05

sits in the, in the very

9:08

Southern section of Bolivia sandwiched

9:11

between Argentina and Chile.

9:15

And it is a, it's

9:18

a absolutely beautiful,

9:21

but stark remote, high altitude desert that sits

9:23

between like 13,800 feet and 18,000 feet, 4,200

9:26

meters to 5,400 meters. Um,

9:35

you can go online, you can try to

9:37

do research to, um, plan a

9:40

route and planning a route is, you

9:42

know, there's really only a couple

9:44

of roads in this entire reserve

9:46

and it's, it's a large area

9:48

of land. It's like 7,200 square kilometers. So

9:50

it's almost like 3000 square miles and

9:53

there's only two or three

9:55

roads that cross the land. And

9:57

a lot of people that do end up running the. Laguna

10:00

Surratt will run it

10:02

between O'Uni, Bolivia and

10:05

San Pedro de Atacama in Chile.

10:09

And one of the

10:11

reasons that people consider a highlight is because

10:14

it is one of the most remote places

10:16

that you can get in South America. When

10:19

you get out there, there's really nothing there. There's

10:22

no gas. There

10:25

are very few stops in the

10:27

way of supplies or lodging. It

10:29

is very remote and it is

10:31

very, very beautiful. And

10:33

the roads are extremely rough.

10:36

And a lot of people that describe it as the low light, just,

10:39

you know, for the exact

10:41

same reasons. The roads are very

10:43

rough. It's very remote. So depending

10:45

on what happens. But this

10:48

is a traverse. This isn't an

10:50

in and out. This is a traverse that it would be then.

10:53

For most people, it is a traverse,

10:55

yes. You may

10:57

recall from our last conversation, Jim, that

10:59

we are for Sana Nongrada in Chile.

11:03

We cannot cross the border into Chile

11:05

with the motorcycle. And

11:07

so for us, the best

11:09

we could hope was to pack as much

11:12

gas as possible. If you are running it

11:14

straight from O'Uni to San Pedro de Atacama,

11:17

it's 460 kilometers. Okay. So

11:20

let's just add. So

11:22

for those who don't know, why can't you

11:24

get your bike across the border? Like very

11:26

quickly, just because. We had

11:28

to smuggle our motorcycle out of

11:31

Chile due to some legal issues.

11:33

Right. So if you go back in, what

11:35

they're going to do is they're going to run your VIN and they're going

11:37

to say, hey, there's a problem with this bike. It's not so much you

11:39

guys. It's not. Yeah,

11:42

we can cross freely, but it is the

11:44

motorcycle. And yeah, chances are that if we

11:46

tried to cross the border to Chile, they

11:48

would confiscate the motorcycle. Right. Okay.

11:51

So that's something we don't want to risk. Sure.

11:54

So in our case, the best we could hope

11:56

for was to pack as much gas as possible.

11:59

Get his horse. south as we could and

12:02

then just turn around and run back up to a uni.

12:05

So that was the plan. And

12:09

is this where everything changes? That

12:12

was the plan. Well,

12:15

I mean, eventually that's what we ended up doing.

12:17

We just did a few speed bumps along the

12:20

way. I mean, for anybody

12:22

that hasn't been to the city of a

12:25

uni and

12:27

all due deference to the wonderful

12:29

people of a uni, it's

12:31

a bit of an apocalyptic

12:33

hellhole. Did

12:36

you ever see the Mad Max with Charlize Theron

12:38

and that other guy? No, no, I didn't. Oh,

12:40

okay. Well, I'm pretty sure that's where they filmed

12:43

it. Uni

12:46

is a very unique city.

12:50

And oddly enough, I mean, outside

12:52

of, I think, maybe Baraloche in

12:54

Argentina and maybe Cuzco and Peru,

12:57

I saw

12:59

the most tourists in a uni, which

13:01

is just very unlikely. I mean,

13:03

everything from moto travelers to

13:05

backpackers to people, you know, fresh off

13:07

the bus with like their rolling suitcase.

13:09

I mean, just a uni was crawling

13:12

with tourists. And

13:14

as a result, there are a lot of tour

13:16

companies that primarily serve to take people out to

13:19

the salt flats. It's

13:21

turned into just like a huge global destination, like

13:23

a bucket list item for a lot of people.

13:26

I see. And

13:28

second on the list outside of the salt flats

13:30

will be the Laguna's route. And

13:34

one of the major criticisms that people have

13:36

online, you know, when they're describing this as

13:38

one of the lowlights of their trip is,

13:41

despite the fact that there's only a

13:43

couple of roads that traverse this

13:45

reserve, it's extremely easy to get

13:48

lost, which

13:51

doesn't make a whole lot of sense. How can you

13:53

get lost when there's only two roads? Yeah, it's counterintuitive,

13:55

isn't it? I mean, you would actually be easy. Yeah,

13:58

absolutely. It's like you go this way. go that way

14:00

in and out, you're done. Bob's your uncle.

14:03

But nonetheless, we tried to

14:05

do our due diligence as best we could. We

14:09

tried to look for maps of the reserve

14:11

in town, which you think with all the

14:13

tour companies and everything, you'd be able to

14:16

find a map easy. There were no

14:18

maps. There were no maps.

14:21

There was very little information

14:23

available to anybody outside of the

14:25

people that were running these tour

14:27

companies. We

14:30

had gone online, we had read some

14:32

trip reports. I had even downloaded a

14:35

few rudimentary maps that people had

14:37

put together for their trip report,

14:40

which is essentially like the modern

14:42

version of a map drawn on

14:44

the back of a napkin. Aside

14:47

from that, it's like we had

14:49

maps.me, we had Google Maps, we

14:51

just had the standard online maps.

14:53

We set off and

14:56

we go to, I

14:58

think it's San Cristobal, which is about

15:01

90 kilometers south of the Uni. This

15:03

is the last gas stop. This

15:05

is the last hope for

15:07

gas. Very small town and unfortunately, the

15:09

gas station is closed for lunch. We

15:12

get stuck there waiting for them to

15:14

open up so we can fuel up. We

15:16

get back on the road and south

15:19

of San Cristobal, this is where the

15:21

road starts to disintegrate. It goes from

15:23

pavement to dirt.

15:27

Most of South America, you'll find this

15:30

no matter where you go in South

15:32

America, the entire continent is plagued by

15:34

constant road construction, constant

15:37

delays, constant detours. This was

15:39

no exception. There were detours,

15:43

there were signs, there were road

15:45

closures. What was just

15:48

one road turned into

15:50

this maze of roads that

15:52

kept crisscrossing each other and

15:55

we're on what appeared to be the

15:57

main road, the only road for that

15:59

matter. And we're

16:01

watching our little blue dot on our

16:03

maps.me. I use a Samsung phone for

16:06

navigation. And we watch

16:08

this little blue dot float further and further away

16:10

from the route. Until

16:14

eventually it's just a blue dot in the middle

16:16

of a blank screen. We're nowhere near anything that

16:18

appears to be a road. You

16:21

mentioned you've got lots of fuel. We've

16:23

got about a 500 kilometer range. Okay,

16:26

so you've got a 500 kilometer range. You load

16:28

up and you're like, there's two of you. You're

16:30

two up. You and Rose. With

16:33

all your gear, your camping gear, etc. All

16:36

of our camping gear, we've got a

16:39

bit of food, not a whole lot,

16:41

because we should be able to find

16:43

the armored fugios that have food supposedly

16:45

inside the reserve. But yeah,

16:48

we're completely loaded. Now Rose, when you're in the

16:50

back, can you see the GPS? Occasionally

16:54

I do look over and I

16:56

see what Chad

16:58

is describing, which is basically we are the blue

17:00

dot in the middle of a sea of nothing.

17:03

No, you guys are running comms, right? No. Oh,

17:06

you're not running comms. Okay, so you... We've

17:09

chosen not to. Okay, so do you have any

17:11

indication how far you're getting away? Or do you

17:13

just all of a sudden glimpse over every now

17:15

and then and then start to think, hmm, what's

17:17

going on? Yeah,

17:19

I mean, you know, normally Chad's very

17:21

good at just sort of... He

17:25

has a very good sense of direction. And

17:28

so I have zero sense of

17:30

direction. So I've basically learned to rely on

17:32

him to get us

17:34

in and out of everywhere. And

17:37

even when he has no map, because he's a map

17:39

guy, he's a paper map guy. It's

17:43

never really been an issue until it

17:45

is. Right.

17:48

It's ironic that you're saying that he's got

17:50

a great sense of direction and the story

17:52

is about getting lost. But okay, Chad, take

17:54

it away. Not my

17:56

fault, Jim. Not my fault. Of course. So,

18:01

but I mean, that's really the amazing

18:03

thing is because we're on the only

18:05

road. We didn't miss a fork in

18:07

the road. You know, there wasn't an

18:09

intersection. This is, you know, we're

18:11

on the only road heading south, but

18:13

our little blue dot continues to float

18:15

further and further away. So

18:18

we finally make it to the,

18:20

like the, not

18:22

the park headquarters, but it's like the visitor center.

18:26

And I'm using that term very loosely here.

18:28

The visitor center quote unquote. Yeah. The

18:31

ranger station. It's the entry. It's the

18:33

entrance to the reserve. So

18:35

we finally make it there. We get

18:38

inside and they've got like a giant

18:40

laminated wall or a laminated map, excuse

18:42

me, on the wall of the reserve.

18:45

You know, we register, we pay our entrance

18:47

fee and everything. So I go

18:49

in there and I'm, I'm looking at the map. I'm trying

18:51

to figure I'm looking for that. You are here, you know,

18:54

red dot on this

18:56

giant map they have on the wall and

18:59

I can't find it. So I

19:01

asked the woman working there that the ranger, I was like,

19:03

you know, excuse me. So where are we on the map?

19:06

And she tells us, Oh, this road isn't on the

19:08

map. And

19:10

I'm thinking there's only two roads.

19:14

How is this road? Is this maybe like three

19:16

ranger stations in the entire reserves? Like how is

19:18

this road, which is like the main road into

19:21

the reserve and this ranger station not on a

19:23

map that's only got two roads? I don't understand.

19:25

And what, how often do you ever get to

19:27

a visitor center that has a map on the

19:30

wall that doesn't cover the area that you're standing

19:32

in? That's just bizarre. Well, and

19:34

I asked her too, I said, so where are

19:36

we? She is kind of like vaguely pointed like,

19:38

you know, her fingers. She's like, you

19:40

know, right here somewhere. All

19:42

right. That doesn't give

19:45

me a whole lot of information. She's like,

19:47

so, but where are you trying to go? And

19:49

we had, before we set off, we had

19:52

identified like a graffiti, like

19:54

a shelter where they've got beds and they have

19:56

food and everything. And that was our destination for

19:58

the day. Um, you

20:00

know, and we, I, I did this refugio and, and

20:03

she tells us, no, no, don't go there. That's

20:05

dangerous. And I

20:07

didn't know what she meant. Like, what do you mean?

20:10

Like a dangerous neighborhood. There's no neighborhoods out here. I

20:12

was like, what do you mean? It's dangerous, you know,

20:14

dangerous roads. I wasn't, I wasn't necessarily sure what she

20:16

meant. But she said, don't worry.

20:18

Cause just up the road, 30 kilometers, there's

20:21

another refugio stay there. It's a better

20:23

place to stay. So, you

20:25

know, at this point, you know, we had

20:27

to wait on the gas. Uh, we probably

20:30

got a late start leaving town. We'd

20:32

stopped a few times to figure out where we

20:34

were and, you know, take pictures and chase flamingos

20:36

as you do. So at this point, it was

20:38

already getting kind of, kind of late in the

20:41

day. Um, but I

20:43

figured, okay, another 30 kilometers, no big deal. Cause

20:45

the roads up into this point had been in

20:47

decent shape. So

20:49

30 kilometers, no problem. As

20:53

soon as we get back on the bike and

20:55

cross the barricade into the reserve, the

20:57

roads instantly turned to crap.

21:01

Um, you know, what was a

21:03

nice wide graded hard pack road

21:05

turns into like deep rutted sand

21:08

washboard. And so now, you

21:10

know, all of a sudden we're not making great progress,

21:13

but you know, we push

21:15

on, we push on and next

21:18

thing, you know, it's been 30 kilometers.

21:22

It's been 40 kilometers. Still

21:25

nothing. No refugio. And it's

21:27

getting darker. And Rose. So at this

21:29

point, what are you thinking? Um,

21:32

I'm not quite desperate yet,

21:36

but, but you're concerned, right? So because this

21:38

isn't, well, it just wasn't making

21:40

sense for what we expected to come across

21:43

is, is what it was. So

21:48

we get, so eventually, you

21:50

know, 30, 40 kilometers down, we

21:53

finally get to this, this intersection intersection

21:56

of two major roads, the roads that were on.

22:00

which is kind of trending Southwest and

22:02

another road coming in from the

22:04

Northeast. And there's

22:06

a sign at the intersection, but

22:09

the names on the

22:11

sign have no relevance to anything on

22:13

any map. They mean nothing. You

22:16

know, it's, you know, this is that way and that's

22:18

that way. And it's just like I'm looking at the

22:20

maps and these, these names mean absolutely nothing to us.

22:23

But are these, are there some sort of town or something? I

22:26

don't, no idea, no idea. They're just

22:29

words on a sign that have no

22:31

relevance whatsoever. I mean, it might

22:33

as well have been Greek. So, you know, and I'm looking

22:35

at the map, trying to figure out, and like I said,

22:37

the maps that we have are very lacking and

22:39

the online maps, you know, we're so far off

22:41

whatever the route is supposed to be. The online

22:44

maps at this point are just worthless. So

22:46

I do know that we

22:48

need to continue in a Southwest direction.

22:50

We're trying to get to something called

22:53

Laguna, Colorado, and

22:55

it's to the Southwest. So, you know, naturally

22:57

we take the road to the Southwest. So

23:00

we're continuing on and it continues to

23:02

get darker and darker. And

23:05

we finally end up

23:08

stumbling across a structure. I

23:10

don't know what it was. I don't know if it was, it

23:13

was a house or if it was, you

23:15

know, maybe an old refugio, but

23:17

it was completely abandoned, totally boarded up.

23:19

There was nothing there. And

23:23

you know, I could see a light because

23:25

it was getting to the point now where it was dark enough

23:27

where people were turning lights and I could see a light in

23:29

the distance. Now we're at

23:33

altitude in

23:35

the middle of this barren desert

23:37

like landscape and there are

23:39

no points of reference. So

23:42

we see a light in the

23:44

distance, but we don't know if that's 10

23:46

kilometers away or 50 kilometers away. You just

23:48

can't tell. You know, there's

23:50

a light out there somewhere, but it seems to be

23:52

in the general direction that we're heading. So.

23:55

This could be a city far off or it could be a

23:57

house close by. Yeah. It's

24:00

almost impossible. It's a light. That's all we

24:02

know. There's a light out there somewhere So

24:06

at this point it's it's

24:08

pretty much Dark, it's pretty

24:10

much blackout and I'm kind

24:12

of in I guess I could say a

24:14

foul mood Necessarily

24:18

going according to plan at this point. Yeah,

24:21

so So

24:24

we're continuing down this road that has pretty

24:26

much disintegrated into like just this rough track

24:28

and We're

24:30

descending down the side of an abatement

24:33

like a hill Towards

24:35

what I assume is going to

24:37

be the shores of Laguna, Colorado

24:41

No, let me let me just ask here. Let me just interrupt

24:43

here now What were you saying

24:45

it's rough riding how or what sort

24:47

of percentage of your skill level

24:49

you're riding at at this point? Oh Oh

24:55

20% okay, so you can handle it because I know

24:57

you're experienced rider you can handle this no problem

24:59

at all the biggest issue I'm having

25:02

at this point Jim honestly is I At

25:05

this point I was running stoplights on my

25:07

motorcycle Mm-hmm, and

25:09

I never really saw any reason

25:11

to put you know Aftermarket lights

25:14

on the bike because as you know, we don't

25:16

ride at night, of course never

25:18

have not usually Until

25:21

you find yourself lost in the middle

25:23

of you know, Bolivia riding at night

25:26

riding it That

25:28

was the biggest problem at this point I was having was

25:31

I was having a hard time seeing You

25:34

know and it's you know, because it's a stoplight on

25:36

an Africa twin, which isn't a great light to begin

25:38

with You know and you know,

25:41

we weren't riding fast. We were riding a

25:43

decent clip probably like, you know 50

25:46

kilometers an hour or so, you know,

25:48

that's what the train would all the terrain

25:50

would allow Yeah, and so that was

25:52

really my biggest problem. I just couldn't see all that great And

25:55

I didn't know where I was going so

25:59

We're coming down this kind of this rough track, probably

26:02

like I said, doing about 50 kilometers an hour

26:04

or so. And the track

26:06

bottoms out. And the

26:09

next thing you know, as soon as we bottom out,

26:11

we are now in knee deep sand. And

26:14

there was a left hand corner with a large berm

26:16

on the other side. And that's kind of what as

26:19

I was coming down, that's what I was aiming for,

26:21

I was just going to turn and kind of bank

26:23

off the berm as you do. But

26:25

the next thing you know, now we're in this deep

26:27

sand. And now my options are

26:30

limited because you obviously can't crank the

26:32

bike without auguring in the front. You

26:35

can't grab the front brake without pitching

26:37

over. So now it's

26:39

like I've got to contend with the fact

26:41

that I've lost a lot of my traction

26:43

and my steering ability. But you're pretty comfortable

26:45

in sand though. The

26:48

biggest, the two

26:51

problems I had with this, I mean, A, a

26:54

fully loaded Africa twin two up

26:56

is never a picnic

26:58

in sand. I mean, because

27:00

generally speaking, right when we're in sand, what

27:02

do we do? We lean back, we throttle

27:04

up, we float the front wheel. That's a

27:07

lot harder when you're loaded like this. So

27:10

it's a lot of bike to try to

27:12

handle, especially in super deep sand. So

27:15

you hit the sand and the

27:17

stress level somewhat increases. Well,

27:20

I didn't even really have a chance to be stressed to

27:22

be honest with you because as soon as we hit the

27:24

sand, I was

27:26

turning to the left and as soon as we hit

27:28

the sand, I tried to lean

27:30

it as hard as I could, but

27:33

we started railing up on the berm and

27:35

then essentially we just plowed into the berm.

27:39

Rose ends up flying up and over

27:41

the berm and I

27:43

am now pinned under the bike. So

27:46

how fast did you hit this? We

27:49

were probably doing about 50 when we hit

27:51

the track. I'm assuming that once we hit

27:53

the sand,

27:57

obviously we scrubbed some speed there. So

28:00

I'd say by the time that we

28:03

actually contacted the ground, we were maybe doing 35

28:05

kilometers now, not all that

28:07

fast. Yeah, fast enough to come to a

28:09

stop like that. Yeah, fast

28:12

enough to get my

28:14

foot and my leg pinned into the bike. And

28:17

I realized immediately I had broken my

28:19

foot. Well, let

28:21

me get Rose in here. Rose, so this happens.

28:24

Do you have any indication this is going to

28:26

happen just as you're coming up to this? No,

28:29

I mean, you know, these things happen

28:31

quite suddenly. You know, that's just the

28:33

way it goes. If

28:36

it wasn't sudden, it wouldn't have happened

28:38

this way. You know, the fact

28:40

that I got flung so far, maybe

28:43

that's where I get my superpillion

28:45

nickname. The flying bird, right? The

28:47

flying part. Yeah,

28:50

the fact that I did get flung that

28:52

way, I know we did come to a

28:54

sudden stop. Yeah,

28:57

he was under the bike and I was

28:59

over the bike. Now, were you OK when you landed?

29:02

I was. I actually was. It wasn't anything worse than

29:04

we had done before. We've

29:10

fallen many times. So, no, physically,

29:13

I was fine. I could tell

29:15

that Chad was getting quite frustrated

29:17

at that point. And he was,

29:19

you know, we

29:22

weren't where we expected we would be

29:24

at that time. And then

29:26

things in terms of the condition

29:28

of the road was deteriorating. So these

29:31

were, you

29:33

know, it wasn't a good situation.

29:36

So when you pick yourself up and turn and look

29:38

back at the bike and Chad, are you expecting that

29:40

Chad's just going to jump up, get the bike out

29:42

and curse at it and you guys are going to

29:44

be off again? Yeah,

29:46

I mean, he really

29:49

was. I don't want

29:51

to make him feel bad about this, but no,

29:53

he really was screaming. I

29:55

don't want to make him feel bad about

29:57

this. take

30:00

a short break while I tell you about two things

30:02

here's more to the story stay with us. Renadian

30:13

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he says and the trips are pillion

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as always in Africa he has a

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The Atlas throttle lock is the most finely

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32:25

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32:27

a slim sort of easy to install metal

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and basically it holds your throttle in whatever

32:36

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32:38

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32:40

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32:43

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33:00

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33:02

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they they feel right they just when you

33:10

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33:16

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33:18

That's really important. I really believe that the

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33:40

He really was, I

33:42

don't want to make him feel like bad about

33:45

this, but no he really was screaming. So

33:48

what I expected really just wasn't the

33:50

case. He doesn't really scream like that for

33:52

no reason. I knew he was hurt. Oh in

33:54

pain, he was screaming in pain. Yeah

33:57

he was actually he was in pain and

33:59

he was. under. So it

34:01

wasn't something like, hey, let's just, you know,

34:03

do what we normally do. Let's just muscle

34:06

this back up. And no, it wasn't like

34:08

that. So you run back? Yeah,

34:11

I run back. And basically, as

34:13

Chad said, it's very, very dark. There's you

34:15

don't have the benefit of the city lights

34:18

to sort of like, you know, get get

34:20

some light in the situation. So what

34:23

I saw was basically

34:25

the dust was in the air.

34:27

And the only illumination was that

34:29

of the stock lights. And so

34:31

it's kind of a scene. Sort

34:34

of one of those where time

34:37

stands still, I don't know if you can relate to

34:39

that. Yeah, definitely. And then just

34:41

when you get in a very stressful

34:43

situation, everything just seems to slow down

34:45

and focus heavily on what it is

34:47

that you're dealing with. Yeah, it's

34:49

like I got tunnel vision. Yeah. Yeah,

34:53

I was I was screaming like

34:56

a beaten child. Because I mean, immediately, it

34:58

was like I felt my foot snap. So

35:01

not only is it broken, but you've got the

35:03

weight of the bike on it. Like, I mean,

35:05

that's the most disgusting thing to think about is

35:07

a broken bone then being wrenched by the weight

35:09

of a motorcycle on it. Oh, and

35:11

then trying to, you know, you know, your

35:13

initial reaction is trying to yank your leg

35:16

out from under it. Obviously, you know, that

35:18

didn't help the situation because I was quite

35:20

pinned. And yeah,

35:22

that just that, you know, I had the pain

35:24

shooting up my leg. And yeah, it's

35:26

a it kind of sucks. It

35:29

certainly wasn't ideal. But

35:31

in and I mean, the ironic thing is,

35:33

Jim, like, less

35:35

than 10 minutes before I crashed,

35:38

I turned around a rose, I was like I said,

35:40

I was in a bit of a foul mood. I

35:42

turned around a rose and I said, you know, I'm

35:44

just going to pull over and pitch the tent right

35:46

here. You know, which, which

35:49

wouldn't have been ideal because, you

35:51

know, it gets really it's, you know,

35:53

some freezing at night. And,

35:56

you know, we've got the gear for that we certainly would

35:58

have survived, but it wouldn't have been comfortable. But,

36:00

you know, that's probably in retrospect what I

36:02

should have done. I should have just pulled over and pitched

36:04

the tent because I was having a hard time seeing. I

36:07

didn't know where we were. But unfortunately, I decided to

36:09

push on and yeah, I ended up pinned under

36:11

the bike with a busted foot. So

36:14

what happens next? So

36:18

after a bit of screaming and cursing on

36:20

my part, we finally got the bike back

36:22

up. And Rose

36:24

was saying to me at that point, she's like,

36:26

let's just pitch the tent here. Well, the

36:28

thing is, I know I can at

36:30

least set up camp and I don't

36:32

need him to help me with that. So

36:35

I thought, well, how is it that we can

36:38

just get him off of his feet? And

36:41

he was not having it. No,

36:43

I mean, I realized, you

36:46

know, after a crash like this, you've got the

36:48

adrenaline flowing and everything. I did not

36:50

want to take my boot off because I didn't know if

36:52

I'd be able to get my boot back on. And

36:55

I honestly didn't even know if I'd be able

36:57

to ride the next day. I

36:59

really didn't know what shape my foot was

37:01

in at this point. So I

37:04

wanted to, as I said, it's

37:06

a very cold, very remote, very desolate

37:08

location. The last thing I wanted to

37:10

do was risk setting up camp right there and

37:13

not being able to get Rose out of there.

37:16

Yeah. But you did suspect it was

37:18

broken though. Oh, yeah, I

37:20

knew it was broken. I knew it was broken. Yeah,

37:22

yeah. I just didn't know, you know, I didn't take it

37:24

off. I was a medic for 10

37:26

years and I used to work

37:29

in search and rescue. And so

37:31

I've got a background in emergency

37:33

medicine. But

37:35

I realized that, you know, at this point now, the

37:38

boot is acting like a walking cast, you

37:40

know, and once you take that off, it could swell.

37:44

You know, I might not be able to get it

37:46

back on. I, you know, what's the adrenaline wears off.

37:48

I might not be able to ride. And so I

37:50

was bound and determined to make it to

37:52

that light no matter where it was. So

37:57

anybody that has done the Laguna's route.

38:00

is aware that the area around Laguna,

38:02

Colorado, and that's where we were at

38:04

this moment, is the

38:07

worst part of the entire route. It

38:10

is just nothing but thick,

38:13

deep sand and there isn't even a

38:16

road that crosses it. What it just

38:18

ends up degrading into all of these

38:22

crisscrossing tracks as people, as

38:24

people try to make their way across the shore of the

38:26

lake. There's

38:29

no longer a road, it's just

38:31

this gnarly deep sand. Now

38:33

I'm hurt and I'm riding tentative, which

38:35

is the worst thing you can do,

38:38

especially in sand is to ride tentative, because

38:40

you know how that goes. You've

38:43

got the bike up, you've gotten back on the bike, you've

38:45

got Rose on the back, and you're

38:47

going to go again. Yeah,

38:49

we are riding. I

38:52

don't really have a

38:54

recollection of Rose, because she recalls that we

38:57

actually ended up going down a few times

38:59

after that. Yeah, we did.

39:04

Chad's riding changed completely after

39:07

we crashed. He

39:09

was riding really messy. He

39:13

was making mistakes that he doesn't normally make.

39:16

He was stressed, he was hurt. It's

39:19

almost like his muscles had filled

39:21

with lactic acid. It

39:24

was like we were riding in molasses. I mean, it

39:26

was sand, so it might as well have been. He

39:32

wasn't himself. And I think

39:35

that's why I was pressing

39:37

for, look, let's just stop.

39:40

It's not going to get any better.

39:42

This was bad enough, but it could

39:44

have been, and it might be worse

39:46

as we keep going. Are

39:49

you discussing this with him, or are you sort of

39:51

hollering to him, hey, we should stop, and you're sort

39:53

of having this conversation as you're riding? No,

39:56

no, no. I

39:58

wouldn't have been able to hear over my own screen. Yeah.

40:02

I was pretty much screaming the entire next

40:05

hour. Yeah, yeah.

40:07

One of the times that we had gone

40:10

down, and this was after he broke

40:12

his foot, I'm

40:15

trying to hold the bike up so that he can

40:17

put his leg over the bike. And

40:20

in doing so, he caught his foot

40:22

in our sheepskin seat

40:25

cover. It

40:30

was like the straw that broke the

40:32

camel's back. He just lost it. And

40:35

he tries to rip this seat cover off

40:37

while I'm trying to hold the bike up.

40:40

And he's just yanking at this thing. It's

40:42

buckled underneath the seat. It's got these very

40:44

secure attachment points. It's not budging. But

40:47

he keeps yanking at this thing. And

40:50

I finally yell at him and

40:52

say, this is not the

40:54

time. I can't hold the bike up

40:56

anymore. Stop. But needless

40:58

to say, that sheepskin cover

41:01

lives in Bolivia now. So

41:05

he didn't listen. No.

41:08

It's organic waste. It's not really rendering.

41:13

It's all natural. Yeah. I

41:16

know what had happened was when

41:18

we had crashed originally, one

41:21

of the attachment points on our seat

41:23

cover had torn. And

41:25

so now the seat cover was kind of

41:27

like flopping around. And I

41:30

think what happened was we had gone

41:32

off in the sand. You know what it's like in sand?

41:34

Often you just drop the bike. It's a tip over. And

41:37

I think we tipped over and I tried

41:39

to throw my bad foot over the bike

41:41

and I ended up getting it caught in

41:43

the sheepskin cover. And

41:46

yeah, I decided that that was going to be

41:48

the final resting place of the sheepskin cover. So

41:52

this is your right foot. Yeah,

41:54

my right foot. So you can still shift

41:56

OK, but rear brake is probably out of

41:58

the question. Yeah, yeah.

42:00

But well, no, actually, you know, like I

42:02

said, the boot acts like a walking cast.

42:04

And so it was just aside

42:07

from being in a lot of pain, I

42:09

mean, I, you know, it was

42:11

difficult standing on the pegs, you

42:13

know, putting weight on the foot. But

42:16

breaking wasn't a problem or anything like that. So

42:18

I see. But I

42:21

think, yeah, we struggled and I still

42:23

don't, you know, remember how

42:25

far it was to

42:27

finally get to the refugio. But it

42:30

took us well over an hour after

42:32

the accident to

42:34

fight through the sand to make

42:36

it to the refugio. And

42:38

I mean, we were

42:41

we were actually very lucky because

42:43

there are no utilities out here. Everybody

42:45

runs off of generators. And

42:48

they didn't have anyone staying there. And

42:51

so generally speaking, these places will run their generators

42:53

for a couple hours at night, and then they'll

42:55

turn them off to save the fuel. But

42:58

they apparently saw us out there and realize

43:00

that something's wrong. They actually at one point

43:03

had come out with like a spotlight and

43:05

they were like flashing their spotlight at us.

43:08

Because they realized that nobody should be out here.

43:10

And they probably saw like, the

43:12

light constantly going skyward, you know,

43:16

they probably saw my silhouette like ripping up my

43:18

seat cover out there. So

43:21

they were nice enough to leave the light on for

43:23

us. Because if they hadn't, you know, if that light

43:26

had gone on, you know, it's like now our beacon's

43:28

gone. You know, now I've got no idea

43:30

where we're going. But they left the light on for

43:32

us. And, and we pulled up

43:34

and they they clearly realized that I was

43:36

hurt. They were

43:38

nice enough to make us food. And yeah,

43:41

I mean, we were just really lucky

43:43

that that they were there. But it

43:45

was yeah, it was a very

43:49

unfortunate situation. They probably just heard your

43:51

screams, Chad. I

43:54

wonder what is that out there? Injured

43:58

Monocco. So,

44:00

but so is that your salvation? I mean,

44:03

what do you do with your broken foot

44:05

in a remote place? And you're

44:07

saying you just that was the refugio that you were

44:09

going to, that you were supposed to be

44:11

going to? Honestly, I don't even know.

44:13

I don't know if that was the same place or

44:15

not. It was a place. It was a place with

44:17

the light on. Yeah, it doesn't matter at

44:19

that point. How lucky like that's just amazing

44:22

that that they're there. You know, he happened

44:24

to be pointing that direction that they had

44:26

the light on that they recognize that you

44:28

were in distress and kept the light on

44:30

just incredible. Yeah, yeah, no, very

44:32

lucky, very fortunate. And then they were very

44:34

nice. Like I said, it was quite

44:37

late by the time we got in, but they still

44:39

made food for us, everything and made tea for me.

44:41

And they were quite old too. I felt

44:43

really bad for them. Yeah. And they started the

44:45

fire in the pot belly stove so we could warm

44:47

up next to the fire because it was already very,

44:50

very cold out by the time we got there.

44:53

But yeah, I had no idea how

44:56

long we were going to be there, like whether or

44:58

not I'd be able to ride the next day. But

45:00

luckily, I was able to get

45:02

the boot back on. And I mean, it was, you

45:04

know, I was in considerable

45:06

pain, but I was

45:08

still able to ride. Yeah. And

45:10

once he took the boot off,

45:13

it was, yeah, it was kind

45:15

of ugly. It was different

45:17

colors and it was really swollen.

45:19

And yeah, it didn't look good. So

45:22

you managed to ride to the hospital? Hospital?

45:26

No. We

45:28

went to the hospital. We took him to the

45:30

vet. So

45:34

what did you do? I

45:36

put him down. Yes, you put me down. She

45:40

put me euthanized. No, I didn't do anything. I

45:42

mean, all they're going to do for a broken

45:44

foot is put me in a walking cast and

45:46

I can't ride like that. So

45:48

no, I mean, I just like I didn't

45:50

do anything. It was my it was my

45:52

fourth and fifth metatarsal. You know, you

45:55

could you could literally feel the

45:57

fractures and I still have a

45:59

bit of deformity. where the fractures

46:01

healed. But no, I didn't do anything.

46:06

Honestly Jim, I haven't gone to the doctor for a

46:08

broken bone since I think I was in junior high

46:10

school. Okay, so

46:12

if it was a compound fracture or

46:14

anything, of course you'd have to go

46:16

correct. Yeah, sure, certainly. If it had

46:19

been a femur or a tibia or

46:21

something like that, yeah, obviously. Sure. Yeah,

46:24

but this is just ribs, hands, feet.

46:27

There's only so much you could do for it anyway. So

46:30

this is good that you have the medical background because

46:34

in your mind there's no question that's what

46:36

you're going to do, unless there's complications. Correct,

46:39

correct. And oddly enough, down

46:42

the road, my

46:44

right foot ended up becoming partially

46:46

paralyzed quite a few months later.

46:49

I don't think that was a

46:51

result of the accident, but I've

46:54

got no idea what caused

46:56

that. So, yeah, luckily

46:59

that came and went. But I was

47:01

having an issue with my perineal nerve and I

47:03

could not lift up my right foot for about

47:05

two months. Wow, so that could be

47:08

something to do. I mean, you'd figure not that far

47:10

afterwards, but that could be like a pinched nerve when

47:13

you have a break. Yeah, generally

47:15

it is associated with trauma,

47:17

although I hadn't had any recent trauma.

47:19

This was like maybe three

47:22

or four months after the accident. And

47:25

it happened to coincide with the stomach bug I

47:27

got. So the doctors thought I actually did go

47:29

to the hospital for that one because I needed

47:31

for the stomach bug. I needed they

47:33

prescribed me Cipro for that.

47:36

And I went and saw another doctor in

47:38

Ecuador about the foot drop, about the nerve

47:41

damage. And he thought it might have been

47:43

an autoimmune issue that had to do

47:45

with the parasite, the stomach

47:47

bug. But luckily, a couple months

47:49

later, it went away and I got full use of

47:51

my right foot again. So, but again, I don't know.

47:53

I can't imagine that had anything to

47:55

do with the accident, but I don't know for sure.

47:58

So, well, Well, and

48:00

of course, there's deep trouble. So we want to

48:02

go back and look at this and Chad and Rose.

48:04

I mean, it's great that both of you are

48:06

being so open about this and telling the story because

48:08

I mean, these things are, you know, you're

48:11

being very frank with what happened. And I

48:13

think it's always easy to sit back and

48:15

judge these things from an armchair perspective and

48:18

make assumptions on what should have

48:21

been done, et cetera. But let's look at that. Let's go

48:23

back and sort of analyze that. The one question I had

48:25

about when you were saying about the no maps, Chad, and

48:27

you said, or the maps that are around are very poor,

48:30

is that a tourist thing? Like, do they do that

48:32

on purpose or something like that to make it so

48:34

that they only have the, you know,

48:36

the sort of the inside information, or is it

48:38

just for lack of interest in map making? That's

48:42

a really good question that I pondered

48:44

myself, Jim. And I think it

48:46

might be the prior reason

48:48

being that

48:53

while we were touring, so we

48:55

didn't see any other, I guess you

48:57

would call us independent travelers on

49:00

the Laguna's Route, everybody else that

49:02

was down there was in one of these organized

49:04

tour groups. And they basically,

49:06

they all load up in a van or some

49:08

four wheel drives or whatever they have. Generally,

49:11

it's a caravan with like three or four

49:13

vehicles, and they go to these different refugios.

49:16

You know, they spend a night here, they spend a night there. And

49:19

what ends up happening is like these

49:21

tour groups are the lifeblood of these

49:23

refugios that are out there. They're

49:26

the only things that keep them in business. But

49:30

these locations are so remote that these

49:32

refugios, they don't have supplies. And

49:34

so the tour groups bring the food

49:36

with them. And then they have

49:38

the people that work at the refugios prepare the food

49:41

for the groups. So

49:43

we soon discovered that being independent

49:45

travelers, we were the redheaded stepchildren.

49:48

And there were times where the

49:50

only way we could eat was we had

49:52

to wait for a tour group to finish

49:55

eating, and then we would get their leftovers.

49:57

Yeah, we got the scraps. We'd get their

49:59

scraps. We were happy to have them. So

50:03

I imagine the advertising for the tour group is probably

50:05

just a like skull and bones

50:07

in the desert with sand blowing over them saying

50:09

take one of our tours or end up like

50:11

Bob. Yeah, or die. And

50:14

the play Chatter Rose. Chatter

50:16

Rose, exactly. The play Chatter Rose.

50:20

So I think it will... It's

50:25

either the fact that the tour groups, yeah they

50:27

don't want the information out there because they want

50:29

you to be reliant upon their tours. But

50:32

that wouldn't explain why the park themselves

50:35

didn't even have the road on the

50:37

park map. And I think

50:39

that has a lot to do with the fact

50:41

that you know the

50:44

roads or highways down in these parts

50:46

of the world aren't permanent fixtures. You

50:50

know, I think that they're temporary

50:53

and they're constantly rerouting, reconstructing,

50:56

rebuilding. And I

50:58

think in the case of like why our little

51:00

blue dot ended up wandering off in the middle

51:02

of nowhere and why people complain

51:04

about getting lost all the time is that

51:07

there are no updated maps of

51:09

the area. Like even Map Stop Me,

51:11

Google Maps that apparently use satellite things

51:13

like that. They weren't even up to

51:15

date. So I think it's

51:17

just a matter in this part of the world

51:20

and we've come across it before where you're following

51:22

a route you know on Google

51:24

Maps and then all of a sudden it's like

51:26

you're off the route and you're someplace where a

51:28

road shouldn't exist yet you're on a road. So

51:31

I just think it's a matter of the

51:33

fact that the map makers or these companies,

51:35

the GPS, they don't they can't keep up

51:38

with the ever-changing location of

51:41

the road. Now

51:44

you we did say that we were talking about

51:46

when you left there. So when you left the

51:48

map, the person you talked to that said that

51:50

your place to stay was going to be I

51:52

think said 30 kilometers away. You had

51:54

lots of fuel. You said it was

51:57

getting starting to get dark. That all seems

51:59

sensible even in hindsight. doesn't it, to head off? In

52:03

hindsight, absolutely, because again, 30 kilometers, we

52:05

would have, we hit that 30 kilometer

52:08

destination before it was dark. Right.

52:11

I mean, you know, so, I mean, it was just,

52:13

it was just a matter of going on the

52:15

information that was available at the time. I

52:18

mean, in retrospect, what I probably should have

52:20

done was, you know, at the moment that

52:23

I realized, okay, it is now dark, I

52:25

am having a hard time seeing. You

52:27

know, when I turn around and told Rose, I've got half a

52:29

mind to pull over and pitch the tent

52:31

right here, that's exactly what I should have done.

52:34

And also, I think I'm more conservative

52:37

than Chad is. And when we passed

52:39

that abandoned building, whatever it was, I

52:42

wanted to actually take shelter there. So

52:45

that would have been, you know, long

52:48

before we ran into trouble, but

52:50

it's like, that would have been, you know,

52:53

a somewhat proper base. We

52:55

could have gotten some sleep and then

52:57

started out fresh. And

53:00

I wanted to ask about this because I

53:02

think this is really, you know, that's the

53:04

turning point, isn't it, where you could have

53:06

avoided all of this. But what I'm curious

53:08

about is that at this point, what's the

53:10

perceived risk of carrying on? Does

53:12

it really seem that the perceived

53:15

risk is that high to carry

53:17

on or is that the problem?

53:20

I think Chad downplayed,

53:22

and maybe he just doesn't

53:24

remember because he was injured. He

53:28

downplayed the point of

53:30

the accident all the way to

53:33

the point of where

53:35

we actually reached the light. It's

53:41

difficult to picture unless you're

53:43

there. There

53:46

was no easy way to get there. So

53:49

when you're hurt and you're, as

53:51

I said, writing

53:54

a bit messy, it's like we are

53:56

just, We

54:00

were falling again

54:02

and again, and it

54:04

was like the light was getting no closer. It

54:07

wasn't that there was a very short

54:10

promise of some sort of like, oh,

54:12

as long as we just keep going,

54:15

I was telling Chad as we were

54:17

going, you got this, we're

54:20

almost there, we're almost there, because we had already

54:22

committed to getting there. So he

54:25

didn't want to set up camp. That

54:27

was a foregone conclusion. So

54:31

we just had to get there. But he really,

54:33

yeah, I

54:35

think he does have some memory loss there.

54:37

It was not easy to get there. And

54:39

it wasn't just around a couple

54:42

more hills or a couple more stretches that

54:44

were difficult to get through. But

54:46

back at that abandoned building that you found that

54:48

was boarded up and the time, Chad, when you

54:50

turned around and said to Rose, maybe

54:52

we should just set up or I feel like just setting

54:54

up the tent or whatever it was exactly you said, at

54:57

that time, the perceived risk, did

55:00

it seem like it could be as serious

55:03

as it was? No,

55:05

because at that time we were still on, even

55:08

though the road had degraded and it was a

55:10

bit rough going, it was still a hard pack. Had

55:14

I realized what lie ahead in terms of the

55:16

sand, there's no way I would have tried to

55:18

tackle that at night, especially

55:21

without being able to see. And

55:23

I think ultimately that's probably the

55:25

reason that we crashed in the first place is

55:28

because I couldn't really look far enough ahead with

55:30

the light, especially at the angle that we were

55:32

coming in at to really read the terrain in

55:34

front of me. And

55:37

we got pitched into this deep sand. It just

55:39

took me off guard. You

55:41

know, and I was going too fast

55:43

for the conditions. And

55:46

yeah, I wasn't able to make the turn. We just ended

55:48

up plowing right into the berm. So

55:50

had you had proper lighting, that may have been a

55:52

different outcome. You could have either stopped or changed your

55:54

approach or whatever it would have taken to get you

55:56

through that. I have GB lights

55:58

on the bike now and they are working. wonderful.

56:02

And they look cool. So

56:04

okay so now in hindsight

56:06

do you have new rules or anything

56:08

you guys have developed for this sort

56:10

of situation? Yeah Jim don't write at night. Don't

56:15

do it. You know we did that episode

56:17

on Ra where we talked about writing at

56:19

night and I remember being kind of blindsided

56:21

because everybody everybody admitted that they've

56:24

written at night because it just these type of

56:26

situations like it's like you have this hard fast

56:28

rule we never write at night but inevitably you're

56:30

going to end up writing at night at some

56:32

point so if you prepare as

56:34

you did not having not having light for writing

56:36

at night because you don't do it that's

56:39

when you're really stuck isn't it? Yeah

56:41

yeah and it's unavoidable. I mean you're

56:43

going to get stuck out. Everybody

56:46

has you know nobody plans on it but

56:48

it always ends up happening you know at

56:50

one point or another and yeah it really

56:52

does help to be prepared when

56:55

that happens and yeah I should have had

56:58

the lights on there and actually now that I have the

57:00

lights I mean the lights are great not

57:03

just for seeing but for being seen

57:05

during the day. I

57:08

keep them on during the day when I'm writing

57:10

just so you know oncoming traffic has a better

57:12

chance of seeing me. Had

57:14

we had lights Jim we probably would

57:16

not have run into the situation in

57:19

the first place because I was unable

57:21

to read the terrain and

57:23

we came into that sandy section way

57:25

too fast and I just essentially lost

57:27

control of the bike. So

57:30

if we had had lights for the eventuality

57:33

because everyone gets stuck out

57:35

after dark you never intend

57:37

but it always happens so

57:40

we should have been prepared for that eventuality

57:42

and I wasn't. So now with

57:44

your new light setup that you have that

57:46

illuminates everything for you know many many miles

57:48

in front of you an incredible vision. Will

57:50

this push you more the next time if

57:52

you run into the situation you say well

57:54

I've got lights so I will ride

57:57

at night. Ah you

57:59

know it's situational you never know because when

58:01

you get caught out sometimes it's just you know

58:03

that lights just over the next hill You

58:06

know and sometimes you just never really know how

58:08

far away that light really is so I mean

58:11

You know there are no hard and fast rules as

58:13

you know It's always

58:15

situational so Rose now

58:17

for you Do you

58:19

think that you would do anything different if

58:21

this happened something similar happened again as far

58:23

as the way you're communicating what

58:26

you think and How would

58:28

that affect things? Yeah,

58:31

you know so this was a real true

58:33

field test for me You

58:36

think you know how you're gonna handle

58:39

every situation should it come up? You

58:42

know do I have an effective

58:44

approach you know at managing a

58:47

crisis situation? I'm

58:50

limited as to you know

58:52

what I really bring to the table It's

58:55

not like I can ride Chad out of

58:57

the situation so basically I

58:59

want to be Yeah

59:03

an asset and not become

59:05

another liability because

59:08

it's just You know panicking

59:10

or doing anything else in that situation.

59:12

It's really not gonna help It's not

59:14

gonna get us any closer to you

59:17

know warmth or shelter

59:21

No, I really wouldn't do

59:23

anything differently you know I tried

59:25

to have somewhat of

59:27

an internal backtracking

59:30

map as we were kind of going along and

59:33

I would try to Pick up

59:35

on any little thing that I could look

59:37

back at as a formation to

59:39

sort of like get my bearings if I had

59:41

to walk back And

59:43

really everything was so convoluted at that

59:46

time There would be no way

59:48

that I could have done that and I certainly knew

59:50

no one would be coming By

59:53

no one would be driving by at any

59:55

time so I Really

59:59

you know I

1:00:01

really just had to be sort of the cheerleader to

1:00:04

get us, you know, from

1:00:06

where we were, hopefully, to get to

1:00:08

that light that, like I said, was so

1:00:10

far off. Chad,

1:00:13

you know, thinking back to your

1:00:15

decision to get onto the bike

1:00:18

and ride it, and then having gone down,

1:00:20

I know you're remembering everything,

1:00:22

obviously you're in pain, you're

1:00:25

stressed beyond belief. Would

1:00:27

you change that? No,

1:00:29

no, I'd probably still do the same thing just

1:00:31

because, you know, all's well that ends well. I

1:00:34

mean, at that point, I was already injured. It

1:00:37

certainly didn't aggravate the injury. And

1:00:40

like I said, I didn't know what condition I was going to

1:00:42

be in the next morning, whether or not I'd be able to

1:00:44

walk, whether or not I'd be able to ride the bike. And

1:00:47

it is very, you know, remotely that

1:00:49

the conditions are very harsh. And I

1:00:51

did not want to leave rows stranded

1:00:53

in a tent on the side of the road, you know,

1:00:56

where we might not, you know, there might not

1:00:58

be rescue. We've got a beacon. We've

1:01:01

got one of the in-reach minis. But

1:01:04

it really has to be a life or

1:01:06

death situation for me to push that SOS

1:01:08

button. Okay, and I was going to ask

1:01:10

you about that. But what happened? What would

1:01:12

have happened if they'd shut the light off,

1:01:14

though? That

1:01:17

would have been, that would have made things a lot

1:01:19

more difficult. Because basically, there was no

1:01:22

road. We were just, we're

1:01:24

heading across the sand. So

1:01:26

there wasn't a road that we could follow and be like, oh, it

1:01:28

must be at the end of this road. It

1:01:30

was just like, we're in the middle of nowhere, heading

1:01:32

towards this beacon. So had they shut the

1:01:34

light off, yeah, that would have changed things

1:01:36

dramatically. Things would have gotten desperate. And

1:01:39

I can't help but think of, you know, how

1:01:41

things happen in an emergency like this, if you

1:01:43

get sloppy, if you don't do the typical stop,

1:01:45

regroup, you know, see what you've got for

1:01:48

resources and make a plan rather than

1:01:50

sort of thrashing out, which in this

1:01:52

obviously worked out perfectly for you exactly

1:01:54

as you described. But that

1:01:56

time to stop in an emergency like that and sort

1:01:58

of gather yourself and give yourself time to sort

1:02:00

of collect yourself and get some clear thinking going

1:02:03

on because I can't help but think you could

1:02:05

have went off and got even more loss. I

1:02:07

don't know. Is there a more loss? Can you

1:02:09

get lost and then more loss? I don't think

1:02:12

so. But you could have stayed locked and gotten

1:02:14

to a more remote spot. Yeah, Annie had another

1:02:16

foot to break as well. There's

1:02:19

more to break. Rose could have been injured. The bike could

1:02:22

have been damaged or something like that. That's what I was

1:02:24

thinking along those lines. Yeah, I

1:02:26

mean, I think my line of thinking at that point

1:02:28

was just I was worried about the adrenaline dump. I

1:02:30

was just trying to ride the adrenaline high

1:02:33

as long as I could because my fear

1:02:35

was if I do stop to assess

1:02:37

my injuries, if I do stop to

1:02:40

tend to my wounds, I might not be able to

1:02:42

get up and get going again. I didn't

1:02:44

want to take the boot off because I was afraid I wasn't

1:02:46

going to be able to get it back on. And

1:02:50

this is interesting, this part of the

1:02:52

conversation because this is where things are

1:02:54

seen differently depending on what your worldly

1:02:56

experience is, your life experience. You

1:02:59

have such a background, Chad. You're saying you've

1:03:01

worked as a medic for 10 years. That's

1:03:03

a lot of background. You've got the riding

1:03:05

experience. You've got two people. You've got Rose

1:03:07

there who's uninjured and able to help out

1:03:09

with things. And she's working it through. It's

1:03:12

impossible to see it from your perspective completely.

1:03:14

You can only look in with your own

1:03:17

life experience and say, well, that doesn't feel

1:03:19

right. Or maybe I would have done something

1:03:21

differently. Or I would have done the exact

1:03:23

same thing. Really, a lot of what we

1:03:25

do, I guess, what I'm saying here, it

1:03:28

has to do with your personal resources and

1:03:30

what you think you can do. Yeah,

1:03:33

absolutely. I mean, having been involved with

1:03:35

search and rescue for a long time,

1:03:37

I mean, there is a huge reliance

1:03:39

on, you know, I was scuba

1:03:42

diver, caver, and we used to say only

1:03:44

cavers can rescue cavers. And

1:03:46

in these communities, there is

1:03:49

a huge emphasis on self-rescue.

1:03:53

Like I said, I'm only going to push that

1:03:55

SOS button if it is a true life

1:03:57

and death situation. But

1:04:00

if I can crawl, claw

1:04:02

my way out under my own power, I'm going

1:04:04

to do it. And

1:04:07

again, yeah, that has a lot to do, I think,

1:04:09

with just my background in search and rescue and my

1:04:12

medical training and everything. And it's

1:04:14

also notable that, you know, with your

1:04:16

resourcefulness that you have that you still are

1:04:18

carrying around the inReach, which I'm

1:04:20

so pleased every time I hear somebody say that,

1:04:22

you know, that it is a last resort emergency

1:04:24

thing, not something you press when you get a

1:04:26

flat tire or you've run out of food or

1:04:28

something like that. And, you know, you're

1:04:30

not going to try anything yourself as far as to

1:04:32

get out. It is a last resort, but you're carrying

1:04:35

one, even though you are very resourceful. And there's two

1:04:37

of you. Absolutely. I mean, it's,

1:04:39

it's, it's, you know, the worst case scenario,

1:04:41

you know, and we've got a, we've

1:04:44

got a insurance plan for

1:04:47

evacuation, you know, should such

1:04:49

a scenario arise, but yeah, it's absolutely, it's

1:04:51

just, it is the, it is

1:04:54

the last choice. But anything

1:04:56

I can do, like I said, if I'm still conscious,

1:04:58

if I'm still mobile, I think

1:05:00

that has a lot to do with my mindset too, because

1:05:02

Rose knows how stubborn I am. I mean, it's just, I

1:05:04

don't go to the hospital unless like I'm unconscious and someone

1:05:06

takes me there. You know, I

1:05:09

think we all know how stubborn you are, Chad, just from this

1:05:11

conversation. But

1:05:14

I mean, no, you kind of, you, you, you

1:05:16

touch on an important point and I don't really

1:05:18

think it's emphasized enough these days in

1:05:20

our community, like in our sub genre.

1:05:23

And that is, you know, uh,

1:05:25

self-reliance. And, you

1:05:28

know, I often will, you know, I run

1:05:30

into people. I've been writing with

1:05:32

people who have gotten flat tires and

1:05:35

have no idea how to change it. Uh,

1:05:38

and, you know, don't have the tools and wouldn't

1:05:40

carry the tools because they wouldn't know how to

1:05:42

use them if they had them anyway. And it's,

1:05:44

it's really astonishing to me

1:05:46

to run into people that

1:05:48

have zero mechanical knowledge, no

1:05:51

tools, no, even like

1:05:53

basic first aid training. Um,

1:05:56

and I just kind of wondered, like, what are you, what

1:05:58

are you doing here? But you know, what? What

1:06:00

are you going to do if things do go pear shaped?

1:06:03

It's like are you just going to be completely reliant on,

1:06:05

or are you going to push the SOS button if you

1:06:07

get a flat tire? So

1:06:09

yeah, I don't know. I don't think there's enough

1:06:11

emphasis on that in our, I

1:06:14

started to call this a sport, in

1:06:16

our pastime. We

1:06:19

seem to have kind of been, give

1:06:21

people a free pass on that, and I think that's a mistake.

1:06:24

Some people may find it too difficult to, or

1:06:27

for whatever reason, to gain the knowledge

1:06:29

of mechanical knowledge, repair knowledge, those

1:06:31

sorts of things. But basic first aid, anyone

1:06:33

can take, and those courses are all over

1:06:36

the place, to not do basic first aid.

1:06:38

Really, I think you're doing yourself a disservice,

1:06:40

in my opinion, but there is something to

1:06:42

be said, and I think what you're pointing

1:06:44

to there as well is about taking responsibility

1:06:46

for yourself. So in other words, if

1:06:49

you're not going to learn how to

1:06:51

do a flat tire, how to fix a flat tire, do

1:06:53

mechanical repairs of any sort, should

1:06:55

you be out crossing a desert,

1:06:59

should you be doing those type of things, should

1:07:01

you be pushing yourself just with the knowledge that

1:07:03

you have your beacon on you, where you can

1:07:05

press the button. And I think many of us

1:07:07

would argue that, no, you shouldn't be doing that,

1:07:10

because you haven't taken responsibility for yourself, at least

1:07:12

not enough. And I know this can be argued

1:07:14

to the nth degree, and there's certainly a huge

1:07:17

gray area, I guess, in this, as

1:07:19

far as how you argue the whole

1:07:21

thing of risk, and acceptable risk, et

1:07:23

cetera. But there is something to be

1:07:26

said about doing your due diligence, taking responsibility for

1:07:28

the areas that you're going to ride in. Yeah,

1:07:31

or at least if you're gonna put yourself in a

1:07:33

situation like we found ourselves in, because we kind of

1:07:35

went off a bit half-cocked, we didn't have the

1:07:38

best maps, we didn't have the best information, at

1:07:41

least be ready to at least mitigate

1:07:43

the damages, should you get yourself into

1:07:45

a situation like that. Have

1:07:50

the tools that you're gonna need, have

1:07:52

the medical knowledge, and the medical equipment

1:07:54

that you're gonna need, in order to

1:07:56

save yourself or extract yourself from a

1:07:59

situation like that. And increasingly,

1:08:01

I see more and more people

1:08:04

in these hard-flung places that have none

1:08:06

of the above. And

1:08:09

yeah, it's interesting

1:08:11

to me. I think we

1:08:13

as a community need to start kind of like keeping

1:08:16

each other a little more honest in that regard.

1:08:19

Because you're not always gonna be able to rely on somebody

1:08:21

else to get you out of the jam. There

1:08:24

isn't always like a go-mania around the corner where they're

1:08:26

gonna be able to fix your flat tire for you.

1:08:30

So in that case, what do you do? You're gonna

1:08:32

rely on somebody to come buy you a truck and

1:08:34

hopefully throw your motorcycle in the back of a truck.

1:08:36

And I mean, worst case scenario, you can find yourself

1:08:38

in that situation. But again, you wanna

1:08:41

be as prepared as possible to prevent

1:08:43

that from happening. Chad,

1:08:45

Rose, thank you very much. It's a great story

1:08:47

and there's lots to learn there for us. Thank

1:08:51

you, Jim. Thank you so much. Appreciate you having us back

1:08:53

on the show. And yeah, don't do what

1:08:55

we do. I think that's the

1:08:57

lesson here. Thank

1:09:00

you. That

1:09:16

was Chad Horton and Rose Padilla from

1:09:18

Two Wheels, Three Sheets. Their social is

1:09:20

all two wheels, three sheets. It'd be

1:09:22

well worth your while to follow their

1:09:24

adventures. We've got some photos from this

1:09:26

deep trouble experience they're talking about in

1:09:29

the show notes for this episode on

1:09:31

our website, adventureriderradio.com. Now

1:09:33

I've got two things I wanna tell you

1:09:35

about just as our break here. And then

1:09:37

after that, we have another story from a

1:09:39

couple who also find themselves lost in Bolivia.

1:09:42

Stay with us. hexinnovate.com

1:09:53

is the inventor of the

1:09:55

GS911. Now

1:09:57

in case you're not aware, that's the diagnostic tool.

1:10:00

that has changed the lives of

1:10:02

many BMW riders. The GS911 allows

1:10:04

you to see inside

1:10:06

the computer system that runs BMW motorcycles.

1:10:08

It can check fault codes and help

1:10:10

diagnose problems in the system in a

1:10:12

way that only a dealership could before.

1:10:14

It's truly revolutionary. It can save you

1:10:16

the expense not only of a dealership

1:10:18

visit but also the GS911 gives you

1:10:20

some peace of mind while you're riding

1:10:22

your bike, well anywhere, because if something

1:10:24

goes wrong with your BMW instead of

1:10:27

it being left as a dead bike

1:10:29

at the side of the road or

1:10:31

the trail, you pull out your GS911

1:10:33

out of your pocket and begin

1:10:35

checking systems. It's a game-changer

1:10:37

for BMW riders and probably

1:10:39

should be a staple for

1:10:41

every BMW rider toolkit. So

1:10:44

that's the GS911. Now, Hex

1:10:46

Innovate also invented the

1:10:48

EasyCan accessory manager. Now the EasyCan

1:10:50

is a device that plugs into

1:10:53

all kinds of modern motorcycles into

1:10:56

their CAN bus system.

1:10:59

Not just BMWs, Harleys,

1:11:01

Ducatis, KTMs, Husqvarnas, Triumph,

1:11:03

Yamaha, Honda. The

1:11:05

EasyCan allows you to add accessories

1:11:07

without cutting a bunch of wires

1:11:10

and potentially voiding your warranty and

1:11:12

or messing up the system. It

1:11:14

allows you to use your existing controls

1:11:17

to turn accessories on or off. It's

1:11:19

like an amazingly powerful unit. If you

1:11:21

add an accessory to your bike and

1:11:24

you have a CAN bus system, then you should look

1:11:26

at the EasyCan. Even the

1:11:28

OEMs like the EasyCan, the

1:11:30

manufacturers do, because it's a way

1:11:32

for riders to add electrical accessories

1:11:34

without creating issues in the motorcycle's

1:11:36

electrical system. Now the person

1:11:39

behind Hex Innovate who makes the GS911

1:11:41

and the EasyCan is an avid motorcyclist

1:11:43

just like you and I. And I

1:11:45

think that's a huge part of what

1:11:47

makes companies like Hex Innovate so great

1:11:49

is that that passion behind the company

1:11:52

itself. The website is hexinnovate.com. Anytime

1:11:54

you're dealing with them, throw them in as

1:11:56

you heard them here on Adventure Rider Radio.

1:11:58

Hex Innovate. IMS

1:12:03

Products is owned by Scott Wright. Now, Scott

1:12:05

is not only a serious adventure rider, he

1:12:07

is a former Baja 1000 winner. So

1:12:10

that gives you an idea of where the

1:12:12

passion behind IMS and their full line of

1:12:14

adventure motorcycle foot pegs comes from. I

1:12:17

want to walk you through some of these series,

1:12:19

three series of pegs right now. The

1:12:21

ADV series, they're the largest ones. The

1:12:23

ADV series foot peg is designed specifically

1:12:26

for adventure riding, a larger platform both

1:12:28

wider and longer. It gives

1:12:30

you the benefits of that wider

1:12:33

contact patch on your boot that reduces stress

1:12:35

on your feet, your legs and your hips. And

1:12:37

it gives you a lot of control over the

1:12:39

bike. The bike really responds to your inputs. Great

1:12:43

for a heavy bike in particular. The

1:12:45

next one is the Rally pegs. The

1:12:47

IMS Products Rally pegs are a more

1:12:50

aggressive tall tooth design, a wider platform

1:12:52

than your stock foot peg would be.

1:12:55

It better distributes the rider's weight. It

1:12:58

helps with lean angle and it greatly

1:13:00

improves the overall handling and control of

1:13:02

the motorcycle. So whether you're a casual

1:13:05

racer, a desert racer or an aggressive

1:13:07

adventure motorcycle rider, the IMS

1:13:09

Rally foot peg will give you maximum

1:13:11

performance and grip. Cori

1:13:14

Enduro. Now the Cori Enduro foot

1:13:16

peg, this is the peg that I have

1:13:18

on my bike. I love this peg. It

1:13:20

takes your adventure to the next level. You

1:13:22

go longer, harder and faster with this wider

1:13:24

base and aggressive tooth design on it. They're

1:13:27

smaller foot pegs in the ADV series, but

1:13:29

they're very aggressive and they really plant your

1:13:31

feet no matter what's around the next corner.

1:13:34

So if you're an aggressive

1:13:36

rider and you ride tight technical things,

1:13:38

this may be the peg for you. So

1:13:41

there you have it. The ADV series

1:13:43

for fire roads, highways, long distance, wide

1:13:45

platforms. The Rally series and aggressive wide

1:13:47

foot pegs that'll take your ride to

1:13:49

the next level and then the Cori

1:13:51

Enduro pegs for the more technical aggressive

1:13:54

rider right through the racing, I guess.

1:13:56

IMS products, they're made in the USA.

1:14:00

for life. You can't go wrong. Adventure

1:14:06

Rider Radio. imsproducts.com While

1:14:20

Spencer Conway and Kathy Nell are no strangers

1:14:22

to adversity, in fact I sometimes think Spencer

1:14:24

enjoys it in a sort of a sick

1:14:26

way, but enjoy it or not it's what

1:14:28

they do it and they don't complain about

1:14:30

it afterwards either. They just chalk it up

1:14:32

to part of their story. Spencer

1:14:34

and Kathy are attempting to circumnavigate every

1:14:37

continent on earth and while doing so

1:14:39

they film the adventure for television. Spencer,

1:14:42

set this up, where is this and and

1:14:44

what are we looking at? Hi

1:14:47

Jim, yes we're talking about the Salar de

1:14:49

Uyuni in Bolivia and it's

1:14:51

an incredible place and I think I've

1:14:53

talked about it with you before and

1:14:55

I'm sure other bikers have because it's

1:14:57

an extremely iconic location to get to

1:14:59

on a motorcycle. Just talk about that,

1:15:02

explain exactly what it is. Yeah

1:15:04

for sure, well basically it's a

1:15:06

prehistoric lake about 60,000 years

1:15:08

old which has

1:15:10

dried up and has become

1:15:13

a salt pan. So I mean everyone's

1:15:15

totally aware about Bonneville where they do

1:15:17

all the speed racing and the Bonneville

1:15:19

Salt Flats. Just to give you some idea

1:15:21

it is 100 times bigger

1:15:23

than Bonneville. It is 12,000 square

1:15:27

kilometers so I mean it's

1:15:29

it is absolutely huge. So

1:15:31

this prehistoric lake has turned

1:15:33

into this salt pan and

1:15:35

it's about a meter thick but it

1:15:37

is one of the flattest places in the

1:15:40

whole world. It doesn't change in

1:15:42

altitude by more than a meter so

1:15:44

it's one of the most incredible places to ride.

1:15:47

Unfortunately underneath the

1:15:49

salt of course there's still a lake there

1:15:52

which is incredibly beautiful but the

1:15:54

problem with it is that it's very very

1:15:56

rich in lithium which

1:15:58

they need obviously for batteries. I

1:16:01

think i discuss this with you before jam you

1:16:03

know they've got these electric cars now. So

1:16:06

the need for lithium has increased multiple

1:16:09

times so on a negative side

1:16:11

there are the other digging up

1:16:13

this incredibly beautiful salt and i

1:16:15

just mentioned the reason that it

1:16:17

will be so flat, is because

1:16:19

it was liquid liquid

1:16:21

lays flat and that becomes more

1:16:23

saline and eventually solidifies that's why

1:16:25

it's so flat that's why it's

1:16:27

a flat place, nothing

1:16:29

else i can find something like that

1:16:32

that's exactly the science behind that's right

1:16:34

you described it perfectly and the only

1:16:36

thing that changes that is that they've

1:16:38

got to volcanoes that popped up through

1:16:40

the lake, show now we've

1:16:42

got this strange situation where we've got

1:16:44

this totally flat twelve thousand square kilometer

1:16:47

salt with these two little what they

1:16:49

call islands sticking out of them which

1:16:51

are actually the peak of these volcanoes,

1:16:54

and this is where you find you'll

1:16:57

find people but apart from that there's

1:16:59

nobody and this is so vast you

1:17:01

can easily get lost, oh hundred

1:17:03

percent hundred percent there's there's any two routes

1:17:05

that people take i mean if you imagine

1:17:07

looking at it from the air and it's

1:17:09

the shape of a cake, you

1:17:12

cut in four sections those are basically

1:17:14

the two roads from east to west

1:17:16

and north to south and then not

1:17:18

roads jam there just you can see

1:17:20

where cars if you can see the tire

1:17:23

prints on on the on the salt. But

1:17:26

yeah ninety percent

1:17:28

of it there's absolutely nobody

1:17:30

around and that was

1:17:33

part of what caused our problem. So

1:17:35

why are you there and talk about what you're writing

1:17:37

and how you're right. Yeah we're

1:17:39

on a we were on a yamaha x t

1:17:41

six six cz ten array and we're two up

1:17:44

obviously because cathy's on the back filming. I'm

1:17:46

sorry yeah we decided to go there

1:17:49

i've discussed this many times is too

1:17:51

very very stupid things that people do

1:17:53

traditions that they do on the salt

1:17:55

flats one is to try and

1:17:58

ride for one minute with your eyes closed. which

1:18:01

is ludicrous and the other one

1:18:03

is to ride naked which is

1:18:05

ludicrous too. I mean

1:18:08

I'm not going to be all school

1:18:10

teachery about it but if you come

1:18:12

off on sand on salt when you're

1:18:14

naked it's exactly like hitting very very

1:18:16

coarse concrete. It is totally unforgiving and

1:18:18

totally solid and also naked

1:18:22

not a good idea either because it's

1:18:25

extremely reflective. Okay it's 3600 meters but it's white

1:18:30

so it's totally reflected. So if

1:18:32

you're naked your nether regions will get very

1:18:34

burnt. You're gonna get tanned very quickly well

1:18:36

burnt very quickly. Yeah in the wrong places.

1:18:38

Yeah I have a hot dog. So

1:18:41

what are you doing here as far as

1:18:44

before the crash what are you doing? Sure

1:18:46

well we wanted to head up to the island

1:18:48

because we knew that the island being the top

1:18:50

of the volcano, the tip of the volcano, we

1:18:52

knew that there was a cave there that we

1:18:54

could camp in. So that was going to be

1:18:56

and we were filming of course for

1:18:58

our TV programs but we knew that there were

1:19:01

rock rabbits there. We knew that

1:19:03

there are cocoonas in that area.

1:19:05

There are flamingos, three different types

1:19:07

of beautiful flamingos. So

1:19:09

you know an absolutely stunning otherworldly

1:19:11

place to stay. So yeah

1:19:14

we found this cave and we camped

1:19:16

in it for the night built a psalms of fire,

1:19:18

had some dinner and looked out on this view. It

1:19:20

sounds amazing. It is it's just

1:19:22

one of the best locations that you can

1:19:24

go to in the world as a biker

1:19:27

and I would go back there a hundred

1:19:29

times. The

1:19:31

problem is that you do get a lot of

1:19:33

drunk people there unfortunately

1:19:35

Jim yes and they have a lot

1:19:38

of accidents. Oh

1:19:40

they're just driving across the flats. Yeah well

1:19:42

there's two things there's the tourists and they

1:19:44

get so excited you know they're on holiday

1:19:46

and I understand it but the

1:19:48

other side to it is actually the tour guides. There

1:19:51

are quite a lot of dodgy tour guides

1:19:53

who load their trucks full, drink

1:19:56

too much and roll the trucks and in fact

1:19:58

when Kathy and I were there. There

1:20:00

was an accident wasn't there Cassie? Yeah, with um,

1:20:03

I think three people were killed. It was

1:20:05

something you have to watch out for as a rider. Absolutely.

1:20:08

If you're on that north. Which is

1:20:10

crazy thinking it's so wide open and

1:20:12

everything. Absolutely, but people do stick to

1:20:15

those two main roads, east, west, north,

1:20:17

south. So that's where there's

1:20:19

traffic. But as soon as you go two

1:20:21

minutes off of there, there's nothing. Nobody. And

1:20:23

that was our plan. What happened to you

1:20:26

guys? Um, well,

1:20:29

I said to Cassie, we need to get away

1:20:31

from humans so that we can film it. You

1:20:34

know, just with no nothing there.

1:20:36

Just so it just looks absolutely stunning.

1:20:39

So she was like, okay. So

1:20:41

then we did. We went off

1:20:43

and headed out where there was

1:20:45

absolutely nobody. And then stupidly, I

1:20:47

said to Cassie, look, I want to do sort of

1:20:50

kind of like a high speed ride past. So

1:20:53

if you, if you jump off, fill me

1:20:55

from a great distance and I'll ride past

1:20:57

as quick as I can. And then we'll

1:20:59

do it the other direction, going away. And

1:21:01

then we should have a nice little montage

1:21:03

shot. So she was like,

1:21:05

no, Spencer, it's stupid. Don't drive fast. Because,

1:21:07

you know, she's sensible and I'm stupid, which

1:21:10

is correct. And she

1:21:12

said it won't even notice it on camera so

1:21:14

much. I quit you going. So obviously I listened

1:21:16

and I ended up going 160 kilometers an hour,

1:21:20

like a total lunatic, but it looked great

1:21:22

on camera. So, Cassie,

1:21:25

can you talk about this? Yes.

1:21:29

Well, Spencer's very good with

1:21:31

all the rules and regulations, but he's

1:21:34

very good at breaking them himself. One

1:21:36

of the main rules when you go

1:21:38

to the cellar is not to leave

1:21:40

the main drag, the main road going

1:21:43

through. Because, you know, even

1:21:45

though it's very flat and you can

1:21:47

see things from a great distance, the heat

1:21:49

waves actually alter everything. So you can't actually

1:21:51

see someone a

1:21:54

few kilometers away from you. So

1:21:57

people do get lost out there. And

1:22:00

it's quite tragic, actually. It's quite a

1:22:02

common thing. So

1:22:04

of course, we went off track. And

1:22:09

another thing that you shouldn't do on

1:22:11

the salar is speed, because the salt

1:22:13

crystals are so sharp that

1:22:15

they will go into your tires. Some of

1:22:17

them don't break when you ride over them.

1:22:20

And I actually think this may have

1:22:22

been what had happened when

1:22:24

Spencer was speeding around. Because straight

1:22:27

after that, well, actually,

1:22:30

before that, I just want to mention, we

1:22:32

had a tire, a new tire, put

1:22:35

onto our motorbike from a car

1:22:37

that was sitting on the side of the road. And

1:22:40

both of us were not quite sure whether he

1:22:42

had done a good job or not. But we

1:22:44

didn't bother to check that. And that was another thing,

1:22:46

in retrospect,

1:22:49

that we spoke about. But it's the back

1:22:51

tire. So

1:22:55

as soon as Spencer finished

1:22:57

speeding around the place and doing

1:23:01

the things that he did, we jumped on the bike

1:23:03

to ride off. And

1:23:05

the tire just burst. Absolutely.

1:23:08

It just burst, came right off the

1:23:10

rim. So

1:23:13

part of this could be the heat build up

1:23:15

from him screaming along so fast as well. I

1:23:18

think there were so many different reasons

1:23:20

for it happening. But it's just one of those

1:23:22

things. It could have happened anyway. The

1:23:26

inner tube was actually twisted, which

1:23:29

we found afterwards. And

1:23:32

there was a very, very long tear

1:23:34

in it. I mean, we were going

1:23:36

about 70 kilometers an hour when

1:23:38

the tire burst. Oh, wow.

1:23:42

But Spencer managed to keep it up until

1:23:46

we came to stop. I'm sure he wanted

1:23:48

to tell you about this one. Yeah, it

1:23:50

was just so funny, because this is another

1:23:52

example of Kathy. I was so proud of

1:23:54

myself, because it was like 70, 80 k's

1:23:56

an hour. And like Kathy said, it came off.

1:23:58

And it's up to me. I've never heard of

1:24:01

it before. Normally, Kathy

1:24:03

and I changed the tires ourselves. I'm just

1:24:05

going to say that it was another error

1:24:07

by us not checking the work

1:24:09

that someone else has done and kind of

1:24:11

deserve it in a way. But as we

1:24:14

were sliding around and me thinking, okay, this

1:24:16

is it, broken legs, broken arms, broken hearts

1:24:18

were done for here. And

1:24:21

I was breaking away thinking, I'm doing quite well. I'm

1:24:23

slowing down. I'm slowing down. I got a slap on

1:24:25

the back of my helmet. And it

1:24:27

was Kathy going, are we going to stop? She

1:24:31

brought me down to earth. I

1:24:35

just laughed. Because she's thinking you're just not getting

1:24:37

on the front brake enough? No, she

1:24:39

just thought, why are you taking so long

1:24:41

to stop? There was just no control because

1:24:43

the back tire was wobbling all over the

1:24:46

place. Right. While you're congratulating yourself on how

1:24:48

well you're doing and controlling it and slowing

1:24:50

it down, she's thinking you're just not doing

1:24:52

it fast enough. Exactly. And going

1:24:54

to earth. But

1:24:57

after that, I mean, it was

1:24:59

just fantastic because obviously the

1:25:01

tire had burst and we

1:25:03

were stuck where there was nobody,

1:25:06

absolutely nobody. So that's when

1:25:08

I love about the fact that we travel together.

1:25:11

We just spring into action together as a

1:25:13

team and it works really well. Because although

1:25:15

it's not that hot in there, as I

1:25:17

said to you earlier, the reflectiveness is intense

1:25:19

and you get sunburn. Much

1:25:21

as you do when you go skiing, even if

1:25:23

it's minus five degrees, you end up with that

1:25:25

burnt face. So here you

1:25:28

guys are in sort of the middle of

1:25:30

nowhere, really. You're off the beaten track. No

1:25:32

one is expected to come and drive or

1:25:34

ride by you for any reason. As

1:25:36

Kathy said, the heat waves coming off of

1:25:39

the reflective surface makes it difficult to see

1:25:41

somebody in the distance. It changes your

1:25:43

perspective. You're kind of on your

1:25:45

own here and you've got a blown

1:25:48

back tire. So what

1:25:51

do you guys do? What happens? What do

1:25:53

you feel? Talk about what you feel at this point

1:25:55

when the bike is finally stopped. You

1:25:57

didn't go down. You're not injured. Okay,

1:26:02

one of the worst things was that one of our water

1:26:04

bottles flew off and burst. So that

1:26:06

was a big, big, big nuisance. So

1:26:08

we didn't have a lot of water, which was

1:26:10

a real, real nuisance. The second thing was that

1:26:13

the tear on the tire

1:26:15

was about eight inches long. So we

1:26:18

had to repair that. Kathy sewed it up

1:26:21

and like, you know, like you sew clothes up.

1:26:23

She sewed it up and then put a patch

1:26:25

over the top of it and it worked. And

1:26:27

I know it's something you've done before. Yeah, we've

1:26:29

done it a few times. Oh, you've done a

1:26:32

few times. So as soon as you look at

1:26:34

this problem, you kind of know or Kathy knows

1:26:36

what needs to be done. She's thinking, okay, I'm

1:26:38

going to stitch this together. Yeah,

1:26:40

absolutely. We've been through it before. We've actually

1:26:42

repaired tires like that before and it works.

1:26:44

It works very well. You just stitch it

1:26:46

up like a torn shirt. You put a

1:26:49

little patch over that and then you put

1:26:51

a major patch over the second one and

1:26:53

it works perfectly. Kathy, can

1:26:55

you just talk about doing this repair? What it takes and how

1:26:57

are you making the holes and what are you stitching it with?

1:27:01

And I've got, I've got,

1:27:03

I use, sorry, fishing

1:27:06

line. Fishing

1:27:08

line is to me the best thing that

1:27:10

I use. I

1:27:12

carry that around because it's very hard to break. What

1:27:15

sort of weight of fishing line? I

1:27:18

don't really know the weight. I don't know.

1:27:20

I mean, I'll go in and I'll buy

1:27:22

a reel and that's it. That's what I'll

1:27:24

keep on me. But it's got

1:27:26

to be a fairly heavy fishing line.

1:27:28

Yes, it's very strong. You can't snap

1:27:30

it. Yeah, but the monofilament line, not

1:27:32

metal line. No, I'm not very big

1:27:34

on fishing. I

1:27:37

don't actually know the different,

1:27:39

the gauges or the names

1:27:41

or I just, you know, I use

1:27:44

that and I use it for tents

1:27:46

or anything. Our body bags

1:27:49

and whatever we use, body bags. That's not

1:27:51

the right way. That's

1:27:57

a story for another time. I'll

1:28:01

just tell you quickly, we were talking about

1:28:03

it before when we were in Brazil. We

1:28:06

had our sausage bag, our army sausage

1:28:08

bag, and every time we walked into

1:28:10

one of the hotels in Brazil, we

1:28:13

used to ask the receptionist if they

1:28:15

would mind keeping it downstairs in their

1:28:18

extra room because our mother was in

1:28:20

it. We

1:28:22

had a body of our mother in, and you

1:28:24

know, not one of them blinked, not one of

1:28:26

them argued or even asked a question, they just

1:28:29

said yes. So we started doing

1:28:31

that on purpose, just to see. That's

1:28:35

brilliant, isn't it? That is great. Yeah,

1:28:38

we started off as a joke because the guy said,

1:28:40

yeah, we'll keep it for you, what's in there? And

1:28:43

I just went, my mother.

1:28:45

And then Kathy loved it so much, we did it

1:28:47

at every hotel, and everyone just goes, okay, no problem.

1:28:50

But yeah, no Kathy, I mean, she repairs with

1:28:52

nylon, she's just got this heavy duty needle, and

1:28:55

yeah, it helps and it works. But the problem was

1:28:57

that once that repair had been done, we got

1:29:00

the compressor going and the compressor decided

1:29:02

to pack up. So

1:29:04

we ended up with, we didn't have a

1:29:06

tire. Wow,

1:29:09

that is quite a dilemma. Again,

1:29:12

the remote, and what do you

1:29:14

do? Well, you know, as

1:29:16

soon as we broke

1:29:18

down, I put up the tent for

1:29:20

shelter because that's the first thing you need to

1:29:22

do with the sun. And

1:29:25

then I sat there and watched Spencer do

1:29:27

all the hard work trying to fix the

1:29:29

tire because I thought, well, you know, the

1:29:31

only time, the only thing you can do

1:29:33

in the desert if you are really stuck

1:29:35

is you wait for the evening and then

1:29:37

you walk because the sun is way too

1:29:39

hot and you'll dehydrate. So

1:29:41

that was my line of thinking. He

1:29:45

sweated away and tried to fix the tire, but

1:29:47

it didn't work. So

1:29:49

we rode out of there on the rim. On

1:29:52

the rim. Yes, we went at

1:29:54

about 30 kilometres or 20 kilometres

1:29:56

an hour swaying all over

1:29:59

the place on the rim. rim until eventually

1:30:01

we came to the next island. So

1:30:04

is this the rim like with the tire on there or

1:30:06

is this just a bare rim? Well,

1:30:09

it's got the tire. We

1:30:11

tried to put the tire back on, so

1:30:13

the tire was loose and you know, that's

1:30:15

basically the bare rim really. It's just flopped,

1:30:17

but the tires flopping around there. And yeah,

1:30:21

yeah. Cause if it gets caught,

1:30:23

I think, you know, between the, the

1:30:25

swing arm and the rim, you

1:30:28

know, I mean, we were, we were really, really worried

1:30:30

because if we, if we were, if

1:30:33

we didn't manage to do that, we had no water

1:30:35

left. We had absolutely nothing. We

1:30:37

were way off the track, which we were

1:30:39

supposed to be. And you know,

1:30:41

we did see a bus in the distance,

1:30:44

but they would never have seen us. Um,

1:30:46

yeah, we were in a really bad situation. And

1:30:49

what was that like riding out on the, on the rim? I,

1:30:52

it was, it was quite freaky, but it got

1:30:54

us there. Um, but it was, you're talking about

1:30:56

five, six hours and Kathy said we were going

1:30:58

10, 20 Ks. Now we

1:31:01

weren't, we were going five. We were

1:31:03

basically walking the bike. Do you know what

1:31:05

I mean? Um, yeah, but just kept it

1:31:07

going. You were that far, you were five

1:31:09

or six hours away. Like, yeah,

1:31:12

yeah, yeah. We were right on the very, very,

1:31:14

very outskirts and the island is banging the center

1:31:16

and the town is directly on the other side.

1:31:18

And you know where you're going. Like you've, you've

1:31:20

got a direction or you're following your track. No,

1:31:23

we're just following the track. Well, we followed directly

1:31:25

south until we came to the track where we

1:31:28

could see where other cars and then we just

1:31:30

turned. Um, but I mean, you're talking 120 kilometers

1:31:32

across in either direction.

1:31:37

So, uh, going at that

1:31:39

speed, yeah. Hours and hours and hours. But,

1:31:42

uh, we did eventually get there and, um, we

1:31:45

garnered some help from, from the

1:31:47

Bolivians and they were unbelievable because

1:31:50

we left everything in absolutely everything

1:31:52

in the, in the cellar. We

1:31:54

took everything off. We took the panniers off the

1:31:56

cameras off the sleeve and bag off the tent

1:31:58

off everything. owned and

1:32:01

we left it right in the middle of the cellar. All

1:32:03

your worldly possessions left where it happened so

1:32:05

that you guys can get out on a

1:32:08

lighter bag but now you

1:32:10

got to get back and get your stuff.

1:32:12

Absolutely and this is where it's once

1:32:14

again hats off to Cassie. She said okay

1:32:16

look I'll wait here you guys go off

1:32:18

and look for the stuff and I went

1:32:20

off in a truck with three Bolivian tourist

1:32:22

guides and between them they'd worked there for

1:32:24

40 years Jim, 40 years. So they knew

1:32:28

it like the back of their hand. Two

1:32:31

days we went out we didn't find anything at

1:32:33

all. When

1:32:37

you ride on the salt flat are you

1:32:39

not leaving tracks? Could you not just go

1:32:41

right down to where you had your tracks?

1:32:43

We couldn't find our tracks. It's so vast

1:32:45

that as soon as you turn slightly yeah

1:32:47

no your tracks will disappear. The

1:32:52

actual tracks do not disappear

1:32:54

themselves because it's

1:32:56

such a stable environment. But

1:33:00

to find it the exact

1:33:03

one that's yours is

1:33:05

almost impossible. So yeah it was really tough

1:33:07

and it was a place where no one

1:33:09

went. So if you don't

1:33:12

initially find your first track you're never going

1:33:14

to find the route. So I just went

1:33:16

kind of by ear the way I thought

1:33:18

it was and Cassie kept very very quiet.

1:33:20

By way that you thought that's like holding

1:33:23

your hands up and say it feels like

1:33:25

it's this way. Yeah exactly

1:33:27

that's exactly what I did. I think it's this way

1:33:29

I think it's this way but

1:33:32

the guys were wonderful. But

1:33:34

then on the third

1:33:36

day Cassie you say what happened

1:33:38

then? Well

1:33:40

actually it wasn't the third day Jim it was

1:33:42

from the first day but they didn't listen to

1:33:44

me. So

1:33:49

after they went out and explored some and realized

1:33:51

they don't have a clue. Yeah. Then

1:33:55

you say what? I

1:33:57

said it's there by that mountain over there in the

1:33:59

distance. I told

1:34:02

them to drive towards... There

1:34:05

was one particular mountain that was standing out

1:34:07

and I had noticed it when we had

1:34:09

broken down. So

1:34:12

we were sort of directly in front

1:34:14

of the mountain. I said, if you

1:34:16

drive towards that mountain, you

1:34:18

will find the stuff. And

1:34:20

they did, yes. And they found

1:34:23

it. Yes, of course. So

1:34:26

in hindsight, if you were, say,

1:34:28

reading this story in a book

1:34:31

and now you have your questionnaire

1:34:33

afterwards, what would you have done

1:34:35

to find it or to mark your

1:34:37

spot or to make sure that you're able to find

1:34:39

your gear? The

1:34:42

same way, I think. Because

1:34:44

that's the first thing I've ever been

1:34:46

told is that if there's no

1:34:49

roads or anything, you have to

1:34:51

look at landmarks around you to

1:34:53

know where you are. But normal people

1:34:55

use GPS's and they mark the point

1:34:57

and then they go back to it

1:35:00

an hour later. But

1:35:02

we're idiots in the sense that

1:35:04

we make life more

1:35:06

difficult. As you know, we don't carry a GPS.

1:35:09

We only have a paper map from 1985. I

1:35:13

have to say, Spencer, this is when a GPS

1:35:15

would have been very, very handy, obviously, for you.

1:35:18

It could have saved you a lot of grief.

1:35:20

Not only that, you could have tracked where your

1:35:22

route to get out. You know, without any sort

1:35:24

of zigzag, without going and finding the road and

1:35:26

going, I understand it adds to the adventure of

1:35:28

things. Absolutely. But you have a cell phone. I

1:35:30

mean, even your cell phone will have a GPS

1:35:33

in it. No, we didn't have a cell

1:35:35

phone. We didn't have a cell phone either. No,

1:35:37

we didn't. Listen, Jim, you

1:35:40

can look at it as a mistake, but

1:35:42

I can look at it as we

1:35:44

met three wonderful Bolivian guys and Kathy

1:35:47

was able to prove herself right again.

1:35:49

So you know, it's two bonuses, isn't it? It

1:35:51

makes my day. Sure. But you were

1:35:53

out of water. So you had what? Maybe

1:35:55

say three days with no water and then they would

1:35:58

just found you guys laying on the flats

1:36:01

your bones from years down the road.

1:36:03

If we'd come off and we'd injured

1:36:05

ourselves we would definitely be brown bread

1:36:07

by now in England. So

1:36:10

did that change anything? I

1:36:13

know you don't have a GPS but do you have

1:36:15

a spot or a Zoleo or an

1:36:17

inReach? I recognize that name. Someone gave us

1:36:20

a spot tracker. I think it's that orange

1:36:22

and black thing isn't it? Yeah we left

1:36:24

it in England. Yeah

1:36:27

so it could have been a mistake.

1:36:29

It could have died from it. We

1:36:32

do have now a mobile

1:36:34

phone with something called MapsMe. Have you

1:36:36

heard of that one? Yeah. Yeah

1:36:38

that's okay. It's good enough for us and

1:36:41

what it does is it helps us. You

1:36:43

know sometimes you can't find camping. Sometimes

1:36:45

you have to go into a

1:36:47

town and get a run-down motel

1:36:49

or something and that is

1:36:51

when I got to admit it helps. You

1:36:54

can just quickly look up you know world's

1:36:56

worst hotel and you'll

1:36:59

find it. So MapsMe works for

1:37:01

us. Happy with that.

1:37:03

So we've upgraded. Right

1:37:05

but in hindsight like looking back from talking

1:37:07

about what you would have learned from something

1:37:09

like this most people I think would say

1:37:11

they learned they should have a spot or

1:37:13

a GPS or something like that because

1:37:17

it's the last resort. That's what I pictured

1:37:19

as. I know some people will press it.

1:37:21

They get a flat tire which is ridiculous

1:37:24

and certainly I think an abuse of it but it's

1:37:26

a last resort. It's like like because if

1:37:28

you did get injured you know

1:37:30

and you're stuck there the both of you you

1:37:33

could press this button and chances are

1:37:36

you would be found and very likely

1:37:38

rescued. Does that not seem like

1:37:40

something you should have? Yes

1:37:44

it would be it is something

1:37:46

that we did think of in

1:37:48

certain places but not really

1:37:51

in most places. I always

1:37:53

found that there was somebody around or

1:37:56

something around close by. Even

1:38:01

if you waited two hours, the

1:38:03

cello was a little bit different. I

1:38:07

do think that, but then I have to just

1:38:09

say that none of the

1:38:11

great adventurers had GPS and

1:38:13

I didn't and when in my youth, I'm

1:38:16

50 now, we never had GPS

1:38:18

in those days. Yeah,

1:38:21

I totally agree with that. I know because we

1:38:24

talk about this all the time, Elizabeth and I,

1:38:26

about how when we were younger and if you

1:38:28

went out somewhere, you were just out. It wasn't

1:38:30

like somebody could text you and say they

1:38:32

haven't answered for 10 minutes, what happened to them? But,

1:38:34

I mean, this is sort of insurance. You guys are

1:38:36

pushing the envelopes. Early explorers

1:38:39

didn't have motorcycles either and they couldn't go the

1:38:41

distances in such short periods of time that you

1:38:43

can. Let me just head off in a direction like

1:38:45

that. If you were

1:38:47

walking the cellar, you might

1:38:50

even prepare yourself differently as

1:38:52

you headed out. Let

1:38:55

me interject and be totally adult about

1:38:57

this. It is the correct thing

1:38:59

to do. We were stupid

1:39:02

and I would recommend anyone that's listening

1:39:04

to this program, yes, have a

1:39:07

spot tracker, have

1:39:09

your Google Maps, have your GPS for

1:39:12

safety reasons because, yeah, we could be dead in

1:39:14

the cellar. Yeah, that's the teacher in

1:39:16

you talking right now. But

1:39:18

it's also the same guy who will turn

1:39:21

around, walk away and then get on his

1:39:23

motorcycle ride as fast as he can across

1:39:25

the cellar even knowing the consequences because he

1:39:27

just talked about riding naked and going blind.

1:39:30

I know, I know. It's ridiculous, isn't it?

1:39:32

So I don't practice what I

1:39:34

preach. Right. At

1:39:36

least you know what to do. Yeah,

1:39:38

no, I know what to do. Just don't do it. Right.

1:39:41

But being deadly serious, I mean, of course, you've

1:39:44

got to be well-prepared. You've got to have your

1:39:46

tool kits. You know, as I said, I had

1:39:48

my compressor but it failed. Sometimes

1:39:51

there's a string of things that can go

1:39:53

wrong that you don't know about. So

1:39:56

as long as you try your best to be

1:39:58

as best prepared as you can. I

1:40:01

as you said I think Kathy and I sometimes

1:40:03

do push the envelope out a little bit we

1:40:05

do Make some silly decisions,

1:40:07

but way way less decisions now that

1:40:09

she travels with me way

1:40:12

less bad Portis way less bad decisions. Yeah,

1:40:14

right So so the thing is you're

1:40:16

probably the type that if you did get stuck

1:40:19

out there You were injured and you died you

1:40:21

wouldn't complain about it afterwards. No,

1:40:23

I wouldn't complain And

1:40:27

Kathy would be Kathy would be like stop

1:40:29

complaining while you're dying please We

1:40:33

work well together Jim I don't want people

1:40:35

to think we're childish listening to this we're

1:40:37

not we're fairly sensible I mean, we're talking

1:40:39

about very extraneous and and

1:40:42

and very difficult situations

1:40:44

Which happened very very

1:40:46

very infrequently and? And

1:40:48

90% of people who go to the cellar

1:40:51

will be following along the main two routes

1:40:53

And they will be found within a couple of

1:40:55

hours So there's no chance of death

1:40:58

so it was just our choice to go out and

1:41:00

you know just get some beautiful filming out of it and

1:41:03

and many times dangers almost

1:41:06

all times dangers of perspective because a

1:41:08

tightrope Walker will Walk along a beam

1:41:10

that's 50 feet off the

1:41:12

ground or whatever and it's really no

1:41:14

problem It's well within their range, and

1:41:16

I think that's what we're talking about

1:41:18

here You guys are very experienced travelers

1:41:20

you have a very wide latitude of

1:41:22

of comfort and skills that Take

1:41:25

you through these areas to navigate places that

1:41:27

maybe the rest of us would be well

1:41:29

served to just take the safety Equipment and

1:41:31

do it that way now sure now. That's

1:41:33

very kind of you say that Jim, and yeah I

1:41:35

mean it's just experience isn't it I mean Kathy and

1:41:38

I have ridden the entire length of the Amazon Directly

1:41:41

east to west and with

1:41:43

confidence because I mean Kathy's very

1:41:45

very good with bushcraft and setting

1:41:47

up camps and Keeping

1:41:49

things calm and and she's good with mechanics

1:41:51

now because we've worked together I mean

1:41:54

changing steering columns all sorts of stuff, so

1:41:56

it's not just the tires and the brakes

1:41:58

and the you know the the general

1:42:00

things, the coolant, et cetera. We can do

1:42:02

a lot more than that. So I don't

1:42:04

want people to think that we're just going

1:42:06

out there gung ho and being stupid. We're

1:42:08

absolutely not. And no one should

1:42:10

really, you know, um, if you're

1:42:13

not prepared, things can go wrong. And as

1:42:15

I said, right at the start of the

1:42:17

interview, and I readily admit it, two or

1:42:19

three of the things, difficult situations we've got

1:42:21

into have been because of bad decisions by

1:42:24

me, you know, and sometimes these

1:42:26

things can backfire on you, but

1:42:28

the experience is incredible. Yes.

1:42:31

And Kathy, it's really strange because when

1:42:33

I talk to you and Spencer, you

1:42:35

both sound so sane. Well,

1:42:42

I've, I've taught Spencer. Well, you know,

1:42:48

no, I think Spencer

1:42:51

and I, we, we both, we

1:42:53

just really enjoy, you know,

1:42:55

nature and traveling and

1:42:58

meeting people. And it

1:43:00

is a frame of mind and that

1:43:02

does change as you travel. You know,

1:43:04

the longer you travel, um, the more

1:43:06

your way of thinking changes and you

1:43:09

adapt to lots of you adapt much easier

1:43:11

to a lot of situations, whether you get

1:43:13

yourself into a pickle or not. Um,

1:43:16