Sam Manicom live from the Ace Cafe, London & ADV Cannonball News

Sam Manicom and Aaron Pufal meet at the iconic Ace Cafe for a chat about Sam's volume of work. We discuss **Into Africa**, **Under Asian Skies**, **Distant Suns**, **Tortillas to Totems**, **The Moment Collectors**, and **The Moment Collectors ASIA**. 

Sam can be heard often on the Adventure Rider Radio Raw show, check it out! 

Sam's Store

Chapters

• 11:56 Sam Manicon Interview
• 1:35:46 ADV Cannonball Rally News

Transcript

Welcome to the ADV cannonball podcast where we discuss all things on two wheels, the adventure bike cannonball, and other motorcycle related nonsense. Season three episode six. Welcome to ADV Cannonball podcast. My name is Taylor Lawson, and I am your host. And today, I am joined by our world traveler, Aaron Pufal, who's probably just getting over his eight hour jet lag.

Aaron, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, bud. I've almost kicked it. I'm still waking up at 5AM and still passing out on the couch at, you know, 09:30PM, unfortunately. But, yeah, I'm almost, readjusted.

It seems a little harder as you get older, doesn't it? Yeah. It does. I mean, did they say it takes an hour a day? So truthfully, it should be an it should be eight full days for you.

I didn't know that. Okay. Well, you listen. If that's what the experts say, I'm gonna go with that. And I am I'm, I'm ahead of schedule by day then.

Yeah, man. So, I know that's, I got a dilemma that I need you to help me out with for starters. Well, hold on. If you're gonna put a dilemma on me, oh, yeah. That is the sound of a of a cold IPA, sir.

Very nice, which is probably a beautiful segue into my dilemma. So I actually went to the Systembolaget, and I'm showing you a beer can now. Can you read it? Oh my god. It says Murka.

That is really It says that. Apostrophe Murka. And it's from Sweden and is from, Gothenburg also in Swedish known as Jop De Bory. It says, Nia Brygari says, and, it's the new, brewery and it's called Merka hoppy pale ale. You're damn right at this.

That's awesome, man. That's awesome. Yeah. Hopefully, it tastes good. You better open that one.

Woah. Woah. Woah. Hold on. Hold on.

And then the other thing I got going on here is Oh, wow. That looks like a serious hoppy IPA. I think I think there's just some attorneys who put this together, and it's called the modus operandi. Hey o. Yo.

India pale. Alright. So that's the modus operandi India pale ale by Ska Brewing Company in Durango, Colorado. Ah, fantastic. Well, listen.

Yeah. You do have a dilemma. I think the solution is you start with murca, and you finish with your modus operandi. Okay. Fair enough.

I mean, thanks for thanks for helping me. Yeah. This this is definitely this is definitely a third world problem to have. Alright. Good.

Well done. Here we go. Here we go. Alright. Now I'm ready.

I'm ready to actually have a podcast now. Shall we shall we podcast? Yeah. We should begin. We should begin.

Yeah. Okay. Good. So, have you been working on the van? I am.

I have it all torn apart. I'm trying to run the, the main battery cables, the the great big battery cables from the auxiliary battery system to the the midships of the van. And I pulled all the panels off, and I've got insulation in. And, I got heaters here that I gotta install, and we are in the thick of it. And I am not feeling motivated, but I'm gonna get it done.

You gotta get it done. I I believe you have until, say, October. I know. It's tough. It's it's it's gonna take months to do it.

People think a van conversion takes, you know, a few weeks or a month. It it doesn't. It takes it takes months and months of work. It is a massive undertaking. Yeah.

And that's that's even when people are like, you're starting with a new van too. A lot of people come into this with an an old van. They get an old, like, an old, you know, DHL van, an old Sprinter and tear it apart, but you're you've got a new one. It's still a lot of work. Yeah.

And I'm doing bare bones. I'm just putting in, you know, some lights, basic electrical system, a tiny little inverter. I'm putting in, a heater. I'm insulating it, and I'm putting a ceiling in in wall panels, and that's it. Because it's it's main purpose is to move motorcycles and make it comfortable instead of camping.

So I can only imagine if people are putting in a water system and a black water and gray water and a shower and a kitchen and all of this stuff. I'm like, it's just it's just overwhelming. But it is looking good, and I'm looking forward to getting on the road, and I'm looking forward to, you know, moving some motorcycles and, you know, you know, ripping across America in in style. That's for sure. Nice.

Well, to, to your credit, the FJ Cruiser that you put together with all that extra kit for us to go and do that ice road rally up in, in Alaska, That was, that was really impressive. So I'm sure this will look great as well. Yeah. And that one and I had all the parts, and I was in I was in, Aspen working. And I spent about eight to ten hours a day on that, and it took a month to do that project.

And I had an intimate knowledge of that vehicle because I owned it for thirteen years. So this one, I'm like, I'm not even sure how to take the dashboard apart, so I have to go on YouTube to watch some 13 year old kid show me how to do it. So the the learning curve is, you know, a bit a bit frustrating. Anyways, nevertheless, van project is underway. Yeah.

No. Indeed. So dilemma solved, van project underway. Any, any any tech talk you wanna roll through? Yeah.

Everyone was asking about my Garmin. I have the infamous, BMW Garmin Navigator six, and they have returned it to me. And, it took two hours to update it. As soon as you get a Garmin device, you have to hook it up to, Garmin Express on your computer. And I did that, and it took two hours to update, the Garmin GPS.

So, anyways, I got it. Another one. I think it's, like, my third one on warranty, and it's updated. And let's see how long this one lasts. I have to say that, you know, Garmin Express, I think that maybe should change the name considering it took two hours.

I think that's to overstate it. Yeah. And I think it's my technology too because I'm using a USB a to a USB micro, and that just data transfer rate is just, you know, slow as slow as hell. Yeah. Fair enough.

Tell me about Skoog. Tell me something fun. Yeah. So, Skog, I mentioned this before, but Skog actually means it's, they've trademarked it. Skog twenty twenty five, and Skog means forest in Swedish.

And, it's a four day rally event. You come back, you you camp you camp in the in your tent under a tarpaul. And, up until the weather looked amazing two weeks ago, but today, it's looking brutal. We look at the 70% rain for a good part of it. But, anyway, it, it's a sandy area, so it won't be a mud fest.

It'll be if it does rain, it'll the water will go through the ground. But, basically, you rock up there on a Thursday, starts at noon, and it ends Sunday on noon. And food is provided. It is like, I like to think of it. I haven't been before, but as I've seen from the videos, it is, it is good eating and drinking and socializing interrupted by safety trainings, people talking about their adventures around the world, live music, and, and just meeting people, and then going out and doing the trail rides, and then having chance to go practice your skill set in the gravel pit.

They've got different courses set up depending on your your skill level, so it should be interesting. There'll also be a lot of, people down there who are who are content captures, content creators, like Robert Baldiger, who just got back from his Texas trip, and I'll have a chance to chat with him. I had a email communication with him earlier. So I'll have a chance to meet. And I probably won't sit down during Skoog and have a full interview with him, but I'll have a chance to chat with him, get his impressions, and then we'll set up a time later where I can actually have a, like, a full one hour interview with him and talk to him about, branching out and going solo from Nomad Sweden.

There'll also be the gentleman who has skis on his The winter, Swedish crazy crazy guy who rides around in the dead of winter in Sweden. Yeah. Exactly. So he'll be there as well. And, he will there's gonna be a bunch of bikes to ride as well.

There's gonna be the, is it AJP, the one that, Robert is now riding, a bunch of other other dual sport, smaller dual sport. Because now people are like people like me, they're like, I can't lift 200 and or 500 pounds anymore. I just it's a t seven super heavy. They lay super flat when they drop. I need a lighter weight bag.

So there's a lot of smaller bikes coming out, and we'll have an opportunity to ride the, which I'm looking forward to is the Himalayan, the Royal Enfield Himalayan four fifty. So they'll they'll be there as well. So we could actually take them out and ride them off road. So that's cool. Yeah.

That'd be fun, man. It's, it's always a lot. You're investing so much time and money into a bike. It's, it's great to have the opportunity to ride them in the environment that they were made to be, you know, used in. That's a fantastic opportunity.

Yeah. So, Aaron, the interview that you did with Sam Monacom is an hour and seventeen minutes. So that means this might be our record setting longest podcast. So why don't you give a little bit of a heads up on what's coming? Yeah.

So in this interview, I know he's been making the rounds on a bunch of podcasts, so I made a point of being prepared with some other topics and stories that don't appear on a lot of other podcasts. So don't don't skip over it. It's worth a listen. And it's in a unique spot. So he set up some space in the Ace Cafe, the legendary Ace Cafe in London.

And, that's where the term cafe racer comes from. And so he actually rode his his bike there, which was which was cool. And, you know, humbled by his, you know, offering so much time. So he rode there, and then he spent the night, and then we did the interview, and then we had a cup of tea, and then he rode all the way home. So he really took a lot of time out of his day to, you know, meet with the the number two podcast.

So, I'm I'm very thankful and humbled by that. Yeah. Talk about taking time. He took all the country windy roads to get there, which is instead of four hours away, he took eight hours to get to you. So he truly he truly loves doing that, and then he, and the way he got to you was a testament to that.

Yeah. For sure. He's a real deal. There's no, there's no there's no smokey mirrors there. That's for sure.

Yeah. It was cool listening to the interview, because it's the same it's it's him, you know, like, in narrating the books. It's like, oh, that's the same voice I recognize. I know. Right?

Such a good voice. That's, Yeah. And he's a good interview because he's, he he speaks he speaks for speaking engagements. He does his own audiobook. So, you know, there's this clear, you know, gap between me bumbling along and him coming in with this with this professional voice.

But, all that aside, if you don't have anything to add, let's go ahead and roll the interview. Registration is now open to the public for the next ADV cannonball rally. All riders on any motorcycle are welcome to join the adventure. Whether you're looking for an exciting and highly organized coast to coast ride with a group of like minded riders or a friendly competition for cannonball glory, it doesn't matter. Everyone can participate.

Head over to ADVvcannonball.com to secure your rally starting position today. Now back to the podcast. Is that Jimmy Spark you're riding? Uh-uh. It's mine.

Sam Monacan, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much for inviting me. Well, thanks very much for making the drive in. I understand you drove four miles and you sorry. Four hours, and you spent the night on a on a narrowboat or a barge.

Well, you're close. The the normal ride for me from where I live in Exeter down in the Southwest Of England is, four hours if I'm staying on main roads. I don't like the freeways and motorways very much. So, main roads, they work nicely. But, yesterday, I spent eight hours on the ride coming up because I stayed just on country lanes and back roads and so on.

And it's beautiful. It was like riding through English history. Yeah. I'm sure this is a wonderful place. I've been taking public transit, unfortunately, I'm a bit of a fraud.

But I have enjoyed going to the countryside and, reminiscing about when I was a kid, I used to come here. My parents used to shit me off, into the Northeast around County Durham. So it was nice. I met Robin Poskitt, Lydon Poskitt's father, and, it was nice to take a trip down memory lane as it were. It's a beautiful country.

Yeah. We are sitting in the Ace Cafe. Ace Cafe, as everyone knows, is really hallowed ground. It's, it's really the epicenter of British motorcycle history. And funnily enough, on this podcasting tour, there's been a common thread.

And just the other day, I was at the clubhouse for the fifty nine club. Has has some of the British motorcycle history influenced you in your decision to become a motorcycle traveler? In the early days, no. Not at all. I spent much of my life traveling in various different ways, sailing and hitchhiking and backpacking and buses and trains and a beat up old, station wagon in Australia, that sort of thing.

And the motorcycling came about because I was looking for a different way to travel. And I knew I had no friends who were motorcyclists. I knew very, very little about motorcycling at all. So as far as I didn't even know the Ace Cafe existed back then. But, of course, after the trip, then I'm beginning to discover all of the things that are going on.

And I didn't even go to a motorcycle rally until seven years into the trip, and that was just because we stumbled across it. It was, a Harley Davidson rally in, California. And we'd seen all of these Harleys rolling to war in in the same direction. We thought, oh, there's a lot of people out for Sunday afternoon rides here. And, of course, it was a Friday.

And, we rolled into this little town, and the streets were lined with these gleaming Harley Davidsons. And there's Birgit and I, and we're both on our BMWs covered in muds and dings and scrapes and so on because we've been, well, we've been on the road a long time by this time. And, we sort of turned an awful lot of heads as we rolled down past all of these gleamings. My head was turned at one stage because there was a girl walking down the street, and she had nothing on below the waist. What and Birgit saw first because she was right in front, and she looked in her rear view mirror to see how I was gonna react to this.

And, of course, I reacted like any bloke would. Then I realized that she was actually wearing chaps, but with nothing underneath them. And so that was a little bit of an eye opener as well because there we were in The United States, which is supposed to be so prim and proper. And this was happening? Okay.

Yeah. It's, it's a wonderful place, and it's diverse in its culture. And the adventure motorcycling sector is the largest growing sector in, in North America. So much so that we've started the, adventure cannonball rally, and we've started this this podcast to support that. And now it's kind of taken its own, its own life.

You mentioned that you weren't influenced when you're young, but you were an experienced traveler. Maybe you can tell us where you grow up and some of the traveling you did before you started going on two wheels. Sure. I'm a bit unusual in that most of my life has been a bit oddball. I was born and bought up initially in The Congo in Central West Africa.

My parents were teachers, and they'd watched the genocide literally, that was happening there. And, my parents decided that they had to do something. So they learned to speak French, and, off they went down to the Belgian Congo. And, the idea was that they were gonna teach people how to speak French, read French, and do maths. Because that way, they would have some value to the colonialists.

And so off they went. These two naive, completely raw people. My father had done two years in the national service in Egypt, and that was the only time he'd ever been outside of The UK. And my mother, not either. So and she was you know, they were sent off.

My mother was told things like, you'll need a fresh corset for every day. I mean, a corset in that heat in Central West Africa, just completely nuts. And if you can imagine the scene, they had the solar topay helmets and all of that sort of stuff. But it was a great place to grow up as a kid. Spent a lot of time running around in shorts and barefoot and playing with the local kids.

And, it was it was just a a big buzz. And I think that was the beginning of my passion for travel because it taught me that you don't have to have the same skin color. You don't have to have the same language. This world of ours is going to be absolutely fascinating. And wherever you go, it is fascinating.

When I was 10 years old, my parents moved back to, The UK. A long story, but they, it was a time of real change in The Congo, and they escaped, by a few hours, from the village that we were, living and my parents were working in. So literally with our lives. But the story behind that is that I suddenly became critically ill, and nobody in the local area could work out what it was. So my parents, borrowed a dugout canoe, and off we went down the River Congo so that they could get to a bigger place to find out, you know, what on earth had hit me.

About, three hours after they'd left, a light aircraft from the mission dropped, a message to my parents at their home saying, get out now. Well, we'd already gone. But, apparently, by the time we got down to somewhere, you know, a decent hospital, I was absolutely fine. Wow. That's, that's a lot to absorb.

That's that's an amazing story. And you mentioned in your book that you lived in a way station or so to speak where you spent some time there but your parents weren't just corset wearing, you know, crusaders. They had a a four by four and you spent time how old were you when they had that four by four and and you were cruising around, Africa with your parents? Oh, well, any anytime between zero and 10 years old. They were they were just, class acts.

I have a lot of respect for them. When it rains in, The Congo, it rains hard. It's it's full on monsoon stuff. And quite often, the local bridges, which were, you know, made out of wood, would have just disappeared with the the flow of water. And And my parents always carried a saw and some axes in the back of their Land Rover.

So if the bridge had gone, then they'd fell trees and drop them across the river. And my mother tells stories about, when that happened, sometimes these trees had fallen underneath the surface of the water. They could see them, but not clearly. So she would walk out along one of the tree trunks so that my father could see at least where to put two of the wheels of the Landy. Wow.

In your book, you say that, you know, you're just ordinary, but I would strongly disagree. That story first story alone of your parents is really extraordinary and, you've obviously been well prepared by your parents which, you know, which is rare, to be sure. And then you started when you, you know, left the the bosom of your parents. And did you come back to The UK for a while? When I was 10, then we moved back to The UK, and I was known as jungle boy in in school for the first few few years.

I must have been one very, very strange little kid. I didn't know about pop music, and I didn't know about sweets, and, you know, all of those sorts of things. And, you know, I played soccer barefoot when I was a kid, and suddenly having to wear play soccer with lumps of of leather on the end, I was rubbish at it, whereas I had been quite good. So it was all, you know, just this, amazing learning curve. My first solo trip was when I was 16 years old.

I'd been doing odd jobs and the paper round and, you know, all of those sorts of things. And eventually, I'd earned enough money to buy my own brand new bicycle. Before that, they were all made out of bits out of rivers and that I cleaned up and and and so on. And, this bicycle and I were looking at each other, and I was so proud of it. Black and blue it was.

It was a rally. Three speeds. None of my bikes had speeds before that. And I think the bike was just looking at me and saying, so what are you gonna do? Ride me to school?

And it was that moment that I started to realize that there's a world out there. Why don't I go and see some of it? School holidays are coming up. So I told my parents that this is what I wanted to do. And my parents, being my parents, instead of saying, well, no.

You're 16 years old. You can't set off and ride through Europe on a bicycle. They said, yeah. Okay. And so off I went.

And what a a formative trip that was, and I suppose I was a lost cause as far as travel was concerned, from that moment onwards. It was just brilliant fun. Well, if you dodge the genocide in a dugout canoe, you know, I'm sure you can dodge, you know, panhandlers in Paris. You know? This is, this is probably easygoing for you.

As a as a 16 year old, it was just all new. I had the sensation some evenings as I was lying in my tent that I was a baby that was popping into the world for the first time because I knew that I was riding with my eyes wide open and wow constantly in my mind. It was great. And I know one of your first jobs, I had a a smile to myself reading one of your books. I don't remember which one.

I'm sorry. But, you were a DJ when you were a kid. Can you I was also a DJ, believe it or not, when I was 18 or 19 years old, but maybe you can tell us about that and, maybe some of your work outside of, the protection of this rock we're on right now. I had, set off on a trip to hitchhike around Europe. I had a couple hundred pounds, and the only way that I was gonna do this trip was to hitchhike and wild camp.

And, that's what I did. And I rent arrived in Greece thinking that I would try and get work set because my my coffers were were pretty slim by that time. I arrived in Greece with 10 US dollars in my pocket, which I promptly lost on the first day. But I got a job the next day. And a couple of weeks later, I had three jobs.

One working during the day selling ice creams and hamburgers on the beach. During the evening, I was waiting on tables. And, at nighttime, I was DJing the disco, and I'd never done anything like this before. I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I knew nothing about music in in real terms, certainly not to DJ terms.

But I had a friend in The UK who was a DJ, and, he sent me out a bunch of cassette tapes. And, so, yeah, it was a lot of fun. I mean, you can imagine most of the people in there in in the disc in the disco at night times were sort of, 18, 19, 20, 20 five, that sort of age. And, it was full on party town. Great fun.

Yeah. I I look back fondly at those times and and we shall not repeat what happened in both of our no. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. You know, where the challenge was speaking with someone like you is that, you know, you traveled well, people in the motorcycle world know you because of your eight years of traveling spanning six continents, riding around the world, and, you know, it's laid out in six books.

I'm not sure where to start, but perhaps we should start with your first Africa book. And, you know, you had a R 80 GS, but you had very little riding experience. How did you know, this this seems to be a conversation I've had more than once on this little podcasting tour is the motorcycle was more of a means of transport as opposed to the culture now is I gotta have this bike, and I must be set up this way, and I now learn how to do this. And I think it was quite the opposite story for you. Oh, very much.

When I got back from a three year trip, my my mother said to me, don't you think it's time to grow up now? And I thought, well, alright. Perhaps I'd better try this career like it'll be a new adventure. And settled into a job. And to my amazement, I was doing really well.

And the promotions were coming. It was hard work. And I put the effort in. But it was it was fun and it was interesting. It was in retail management.

I like helping people. And what a great mindset to have when you're in sales because that's what it's all about, isn't it? It's hard sell. No. Finding out what somebody needs and doing what you can to help them, that's the the the name of the game.

But my feet were itching like mad. And one night after work, I went into the pub, and I was sitting having a few beers and thinking about the life, the world, and everything. And it suddenly dawned on me that, actually, I really didn't like my job anymore. The next beer, well, actually, you don't owe anybody any money. Your family are well.

You've got no kids. You've got no pets. You've got some savings. You've got no responsibilities at all. Do something different now because if you don't do it now, you may never be this free again.

What are you gonna do? Well, BS seven was the dangerous one. I kinda slurred mentally to myself. I'm gonna ride a motorcycle through Africa. And the reason that I chose a motorcycle was because having traveled in all the other ways, I was looking for a different set of challenges, a different way to travel, which was gonna give different opportunities and and so on, and something completely new to learn.

So the motorcycling came about. I've been banned from motorcycling as a teenager. My parents were quite smart. But, so that was that was that night in the pub, I'm gonna ride a motorcycle through Africa. The next morning, went into work, handed my notice in, lunchtime, bought a little one two five trail bike, passed my test six weeks later.

And six weeks after that, I was at the age of the Sahara on the R 80 GS thinking, Sam, what an idiot you are. What have you done this time? So you had no riding experience before that or or a minor amount anyways? No. No.

I didn't. That was part of the challenge, really. Can I do this? I'm a great believer in if you don't try, you never find out if you can. And it's a it's a great philosophy to live life by because it means that you're not looking for reasons why you shouldn't do something, but you're always looking for reasons why you should have a go.

And I fail miserably frequently, but at least I've had a go. And I I I love that side of things. And the motorcycling, when I passed my test on the little one two five and then a couple of weeks later was on to the r 80 GS, This thing was huge. Absolutely huge. I didn't even know what an electric start was.

So my little bike had a a kick start. And I'm at the garage picking the bike up, and all of the staff knew that I was gonna ride this bike down through Africa and what that I was saying I was and had no experience. So everybody came out in the forecourt, all of the staff, the mechanics, the salespeople, the secretary, the boss's wife, everybody. And cars were driving past the road, and people were sort of looking at this crowd of people and this solitary character who's trying to work out how to start this thing. That's so interesting you say that because I just came from the Coventry Transportation Museum, and I had saw Ted Simons, original Tiger.

Cheaper. And it's it's tiny, and it's rudimentary, and there's there's nothing to it. And then next to it is the one which is more akin to the one the bike that you took. I think it's r 100. Is that right?

Completely different thing. And then if you look at a modern day bike, it is it is a little bit smaller, but it is it closely resembles. But you had remarked in your book that this thing is huge and it's way too big and and what am I doing here? But then is that still your opinion or did your tune change and go, you know, I got this? Yeah.

Very much. I got this. It's experience. When I rolled off the ferry from The UK into France, I was completely overloaded because I decided that I was going to plan for the things that I didn't know by trying to cover all of the bases. So I had a ton of spare parts and things like that.

The plan was that if I broke down, then I could sit by the side of the road with my spanners and my manual and just swap things until something made it work. So I had far too much luggage, and I the bike was telling me what to do, really. I was just hanging on the back trying not to fall off, which I did. By the time I got down to Greece, so sort of three weeks later, something like that, I was beginning to feel much more comfortable with it. And, yeah, was I ready for Africa?

No. Not at all. And this is one of the few things that I regret about the trip was that I didn't take the time out to get some some training off road. That would have made a massive difference. But the the weather clock was ticking on me.

When I'd made this decision to go, then all of a sudden I'm faced with, well, it's winter. You don't wanna go across the Sahara in the summer. You need to get a move on. And that was where the three months came about, my notice period, but also I had to get through the Sahara when it was at its coolest. Yeah.

We need to jump into Africa, quickly because we're yammering on about I wanna know so much about before you start on this trip, and I apologize to everyone, but I wanna know who inspired you to do this? Was there any anyone who influenced you into getting a bike and heading towards Africa? And besides the inspiration, was it your plan to circumnavigate? No. There wasn't anybody in particular that inspired.

Back in 1992, of course, no Internet and no YouTube and all of those sorts of things. It was actually quite hard to find out what equipment would be sensible for me to be taking and what bike and and so on and so on. And because I didn't have any friends who were motorcyclists, that made it even harder still. So I think when I was working in Greece on that job, there were a couple of ladies that came to my restaurant every night and sat at my table I mean, at one of my tables. And we got to know each other quite well.

And, I suppose they were probably a week and a half into their holiday. And one of them said, we've got a friend. He's called Ted Simon. Have you heard of Ted? No.

Not at all. He's written a book. We think your kindred spirits, We're gonna send you a copy. And I said, oh, thank you very much. That's really nice of you.

Didn't think any more about it. But then six weeks later, here arrived to Jupiter's Travels. And I read it, and I thought this is fan fantastic. I love it. Really enjoyed the book.

And then put it down and didn't think about motorcycle travel in, again, because I was busy traveling in other ways. So I suppose Ted probably planted a seed of thought in the back of my mind. Do you know? I would love to know how many thousands and thousands of people Ted has influenced to get out and explore? Yeah.

I just spent his 90 birthday with him in the South Of France, and that's was the impetus of this of this trip and talking to all these great people that that are in The UK and in Spain and in France, and it's really inspired me. And, you know, I wish someone had handed me his book or one of your books. And when I was kid, you know, my first motorcycle was a c b seven fifty and, you know, I I rode around Ontario and I went to cottage country and I went to a few other places and I didn't even know you could ride with other people. I didn't know you could point this motorcycle around the the the circumference of the earth and just go and I totally would have gone but no one ever handed me a book. There was no no internet and you know it it was a real shame.

Have you well, you just pulled up in your motorcycle in front of Ace Cafe and you were immediately swarmed with people. But have people come up to you and and told you because of your books that they were inspired by your work to travel on two wheels? When I started, with writing the books and so on, it was very much a new adventure. I got the worst possible grade you can get in English language at school and still pass. And on my last day at school, my English teacher poked me in the chest and told me that I was a bit of a lost cause.

I for at the time, I was a bit upset about it, but I was more interested in doing stuff outdoors than I was in indoors. But I realized much later that actually she was throwing down the gauntlet to me. You can do better than this. When I was traveling, I wrote a few magazine articles. And, when I got back to The UK at the end of the trip, the magazine editor got in touch and said, look.

We're getting loads of people emailing and writing into us saying, we like Sam's articles. When's his book coming out? I hadn't thought about it before then. But I just thought, yeah. If you don't try, you won't find out if you can.

So settle down to write the book. There's a story there too. But within, I suppose, about four months of Into Africa coming out, I had a an email from a guy. And, he said, dear Sam, I bought your book Into Africa. I thought if an idiot like you could do this, so could I.

I'm emailing you from Nairobi. And from that moment onwards, that book was a success. Yeah. It was a fantastic book. So that was your first book, Into Africa, and the second book was Distant Suns.

Under Ancient Skies. Under Ancient Skies. Okay. That's how I read it, and this must drive you crazy. So I read Into Africa then Distant Suns.

I haven't read Under Asian Skies, and I'm excited to do it. But in your first, foray into Africa, you know, it's fraught with adventure. It's, culturally interesting. You did some altruistic work. You know, you were you were you were shot at.

You were arrested. You were thrown in jail. You had near death experiences with malaria. You had broken bones. You know, it's it's really worth a read.

And I and I hate to be the cliche podcaster and mention all the all the, difficulties along the way, but, you know, did you take those difficult times and turn those into interesting parts in your writing? Were you concerned that it would dissuade people from taking a trip into Africa? I've had people write to me and say, I read into Africa. There is no way that I am ever gonna go to Africa. And I accept that because it's horses and courses, isn't it?

There are some some people who like to do some things. It's it's like motorcycling. We all ride different bikes, but we've all got such a big fantastic thing in common, haven't we? I believe when you're writing that you tell the story. You tell everything that happens.

Into Africa was almost double the length when I finished the first manuscript. And then I sat down and I went back through the whole thing thinking, this needs to come out because it's interesting to me, but I don't think it's going to be interesting to anybody else. But I also think it has to be a balance. So, yeah, I'm a disaster magnet. Stuff finds me to go wrong all of the time.

But I'm a great believer in silver linings. When something goes wrong, it's it's not really a disaster mostly. It's just the beginning of an unexpected adventure. And if you've got a positive mindset, then you're looking up for the silver lining that's just about to happen, the unexpected thing that's wonderful. Listen.

When you get arrested and you're thrown into a jail cell and, you know, there's someone coming after you, this is not something you smile about. This this is very serious. Do you think that it's much easier now? I I wanna preface it by saying I loved your books and I loved reading about it. I I have no interest in going to Africa.

I'm just I'm over 50 years old. It's not for me. I think it I think that has gone. However, I am very interested in some other portions. I'm interested in Morocco and Turkey.

I'm interested in in South Korea and Japan. Is that okay to read your books and just enjoy the story and enjoy your writing? Absolutely. I wrote my books for several reasons. First of all, I want to share.

I love the idea of somebody reading my books and thinking, I I could do this, and I should do it. This yeah. It's it's not as difficult as I thought it was gonna be. There's so much magic out there. I wrote them also for, people who just love a darn good read.

And, you know, I get home from work and sit down on in an easy chair with a cup of tea or a beer and and just sit and chill and read. And, so, yeah, that's that's what it's, it's about. A good travel book has to include everything. So absolutely every time something went wrong, something either incredibly ridiculously funny happened, or I met people or that were just amazing, or I went to a part of of the world that I wouldn't have gone by gone to otherwise, and I would have missed out had I not done that. Do you think it's easier now?

It like, it must be. Right? It must be easier. I hate these podcasts, the worry awards, the the, oh, I don't know how you did that. It seems so dangerous.

I think, it's my opinion, that it is safer and and easier to follow these routes. Is that accurate, you think? It depends which continent we're talking about. Africa is a bit like a pressure cooker, But instead of one pressure release valve, there's, let's say, 12, and there's always something popping off. So one of the things that anybody thinking about traveling down through Africa should set in their mind right from the word go is plan b.

If something pops off in front of me, which is the alternative way to get around this? And, yeah, the alternative route sometimes works out to be exactly the best route that I'm to have followed. Africa is mostly not dangerous. Africa is beautiful. It's fascinating.

It's incredibly diverse. The customs and cultures of the local people, if you don't just ride on past and you actually take the time to spend some time, for example, going around the markets and chatting to people and sitting with the locals drinking coffee or beer or, you know, those sorts of things. It opens up a world which is really funny. Africa is full of entrepreneurs, people who don't want aid agency money. They want to make it work for themselves.

Yeah. Of course, there are those pressure cooker, release valve areas, but you can you find out about those. Even, you know, pre Internet, you would be talking to people who are coming towards you. How's how's it? And you'd be swapping stories because they were heading the direction that you've just come from.

And that was great. But now with the Internet, you can find out what's going on in front of you. So in one way, it's a lot easier. In another way, it's harder because we were turning up I'm talking we because, I met a girl in New Zealand, and, she was riding a bicycle there for six months, and, we just clicked. And I persuaded her that a bicycle with an engine was a much better idea, and, so we traveled on.

And, we were traveling and we were arriving at some borders where the the staff didn't know what paperwork had to be filled in. They'd got it, but they'd had no training house to fill it in to get the bikes in. So we were sitting and showing them how to do it. Now you'd you don't get that. It's all computerized and everybody's linked to everybody else and, you know, all of that sort of stuff.

So you can't fudge and get away with stuff anymore. You need to turn up at borders knowing what sort of paper you work you want, unless you enjoy the hassle. And some people do. I'd like border crossings. I think they're brilliant fun.

You never know what's gonna happen, and it's always entertaining. And, so much ice is broken with a handshake and a smile. Respect takes you all over the place. This is a lot of good travel advice, and the point is you did it. And and you went through every border.

Did you ever get turned around from a border? Did you get barred from a country? Was was there ever a time where you simply couldn't proceed? No. Yeah exactly and and that is a great message that it is doable and you know granted you're you're a likable guy and you're right you you you you show up with with a handshake and a smile on your face and and some respect I think that goes a long way.

Not only did you do this trip when you were in Africa, you raised money for some good causes, and you volunteered your time when you're in Africa. Perhaps you can shed some light on that. When I was planning to do the the first trip down through Africa, it bothered me that I was going to be this rich western tourist on a brand new expensive motorcycle. And I was gonna be riding through some very poverty stricken areas, and it bothered me a lot. So I decided that one of the things that I could do was to try and raise some money, for a charity that was working in those areas.

And I chose Mission Aviation Ferrobeat. And I chose them because they were flying light aircraft into some very difficult areas. And, you know, you hear stories about, surgeons, western surgeons who will give up their holiday time, and they'll go and operate on on people's cataracts and things like that. So I thought this would be a fantastic charity, to to to to sponsor. But at the same time, I realized that there was also an awful lot of poverty in The UK.

And so I decided that I would raise some money for children in need here too. I think that that just felt like the honest thing to do. And this opened up a whole new world of of fun for me because it then occurred to me, well, how are you gonna get the people to sponsor you? And I chose schools. And so I was going around the local schools doing little chats at assemblies and things like that.

And the kids were great. Absolutely fantastic questions. My dad's a biker. He wants to know how many liters of oil you think you're gonna go through. You know, questions like that from, you know, a nine year old, that sort of stuff.

So this was this was brilliant fun. And as I was doing the trip, then I was sending back postcards so that these kids could have a a finger touch. And they were all raising money country by country. One kid said, you're never gonna make it past the first three countries, so I'm gonna I'm gonna give all of my pocket money. So he must have been really racked off when I made it all the way down to the bottom of Africa.

And also I remember in the book you volunteered your time when you were there. You did some work. You were I remember something about an island you were on. You were building something. Perhaps you can tell our listeners about not only did you travel through this country, you gave something back in a physical way.

One of the wonderful things about working in the country as you travel along is that you get underneath the skin of a place instead of riding over the surface of it. I've already talked about sitting drinking beer and coffee with the locals, and that's one way to get under. But if you can get some work while you're there, then you're really learning about life in that country. I was offered an opportunity to work, down on Lake Bunyone, right in the bottom of Uganda. There are a set of islands there, and several of them had buildings.

During the days of Idi Amin, these buildings had just been trashed. You know, all of the plumbing and the the sinks and the wiring and everything else had just been ripped out. But an aid agency had decided that they were going to put these back into operation. One of them was a hospital, and, the other buildings were, you know, houses and so on. And the idea was that these could be used, for holidays, for aid agency staff, for conferences, and, you know, all of that sort of stuff.

But what I really liked about this project was that every single person, every single tradesman had come from the local villages. All of our supplies were bought out to the island and dug out canoes because that was employing the locals instead of a, you know, a speedboat or something like that being hauled over land and dumped in the lake. This is what was going on. It was an absolutely wonderful project to be a part of. The guys I was working with, there was only one that we had, some language in common with, and that was John the boatsman.

He'd been a house boy in Kampala, the capital city. And, he'd saved all of his money instead of going out and drinking beer and, chatting up girls and so on. So when he came back to his village, he had savings, which, he could use to build a concrete block house with a tin roof that made him the wealthiest man in the village. But he also spoke really good English. So he was doing a lot of the interpreting for us.

But these guys, they were just great. There was one guy, Meghandy, and he was, a skilled roofer. And he would whistle nonstop every day while he was working. And be this local pop songs or the sound of bird calls and so on. And he just whistle.

Just amazing to hear this guy, whistling. And it's that sort of opportunity that suddenly gets you in underneath the skin of a country. It is about the travel and the scenery and, you know, smelling the the sand as you kick it up with your bike, but it is about those personal relationships. And that is something that I've heard time and time again. The more authors I speak to, keep repeating that, and it's a lesson that we can all learn.

And speaking of those fun relationships, you had some wild experiences with people. I'm just thinking when you made it all the way back to the bottom of, South Africa and you were trying to arrange some shipping for your motorcycle, and, I've never had dinner with a Nazi, but you have. Yeah. That was a a curveball experience. So the story behind that was that, when at the end of the first year, I managed to get myself booked on a container ship to go from Africa to Australia.

The original plan was when I got to South Africa to go home, find a new career. But when I was, heading down through Zimbabwe and so on, I could not find a good reason to go home, but I could find lots of good reasons to keep traveling. And because I'd been, sleeping wild and on the edge of villages and things like that, I had still a good chunk of money left. And by sheer fluke, I managed to get myself booked on this, this container ship. And it was fascinating.

Across the Indian Ocean on a container ship and you could go anywhere on this ship. It's down to the engine rooms were just huge and the smell of the hot oil and the sound of the engines and you know all of those sorts of things. Stuff that schoolboys dream of or read about in books and that sort of stuff and there was me living it. So when Birgit and I, were traveling together, we spent three months in Southern Africa trying to get onto a cargo ship to go across to South America Because I'd had such a board, and I knew Birgit would be fascinated by it. But we had no luck at all.

We spent three months of going from one, port to the next and linking up with shipping agents and all of that sort of stuff. And, yeah, we we bombed out on it. But, we had a a a pure stroke of brilliant luck, and you know what I mean by silver linings, and how when things go wrong, they turn right. And this was a perfect example of that. So we're on a camping site.

There's a telephone box. And I'm phoning all of the agents in Namibia and South Africa and, and so on and just saying, yeah. Thanks, guys. Really appreciate your help. But we've now actually spent so much money trying to get on, a cargo ship.

We can pay for us and the bikes to get across to South America, and we can probably cover the costs to go up through to South America. But if something goes wrong, we don't have the money to deal with that. So we've decided we're gonna turn around and go back up through Africa. It'll be an unplanned new set of experiences. Lots of places we haven't been.

There's the silver lining. The the last one that we phoned said, really sorry to hear this. Have you thought about a cruise liner? Thank you very much again for your help. So, put the phone down and said to Birgit, never guess what this one's just said.

And Birgit said, we got nothing to lose except for a few coins. Try it. So days of telephone directory and, went through and we found two agents that specialized in crew cruise liners. So, we found the first one. No.

Nothing going across South America. And the second one said, well, actually, yes. I do in a few weeks' time. Leave it with me. I'll see if I can get you on.

I said, well, we have actually got two problems that you might find, makes life rather difficult. Two large BMW motorcycles. This agent said, now you've set me a challenge. Excellent. I like challenges.

Ring me back in a couple of days. She'd arranged for us to go on the Marco Polo, which was a a luxury cruise liner, the cheapest possible cabin down in the bottom of of the ship. Still just wonderful, especially in comparison to what we've been, you know, where we've been sleeping. And I said, well, so and and this was cheaper than flying us and shipping the bikes combined. I said, what about the the bikes?

And she said, oh, not a problem. I actually spoke to the captain. He says he'll put them on the manifest as hand luggage. We ate our way across the Southern Atlantic, steaks and lobsters and all of this sort of stuff, cabaret in the evenings. I mean, you you just can't get more mad than that, can you?

This is travel. This is the the sort of reason exactly that I love it because there are so many opportunities. You've just gotta see them, find ways to say yes, have a go. And that, that will never happen again. There's no one getting on a cruise ship with a couple of motorcycles.

I actually worked on cruise ships for for two two years, and it's just it's just never gonna happen again. And it is a wonderful story, and I had mentioned the dinner with a Nazi thing. You're gonna have to Oh, I'm sorry. I need to come back to that ice sidetrack. You know what?

We're gonna it was called a teaser. We're gonna say you have to read the book to get to get that story. Other otherwise, we're gonna give away all of your wonderful stories. I am so sorry about that. I am terrible.

I get sidetracked onto storytelling, and that's it. No. It's important, and I have it in my notes to talk about the cruise ships. And you've really mastered, speaking of eating all you can on the cruise ship, and I understand that you've really mastered the traveling on a shoestring. And I think well, I know for a fact because you had mastered traveling as cheaply sorry, as frugally as possible as the English would say, I think it it opened a lot more opportunities to not just be sitting in a local cafe by yourself.

It actually got you interacting with people in a different way. I agree. And some of the places that I stayed in Africa, for example, I would get sort of mid afternoon. And I'd know there was no town, but I'd find a village. And I'd hunt out the village head man and say, would it be possible for me to put my tent up on the edge of your village?

And after they started stopped looking at you as if to say, what planet have you come from? Then they would say yes. And once you've got the chief's permission, that's it. You're protected. Nothing's gonna get stolen.

Nobody's gonna do you any harm. The price that you pay is that, yeah. Well, I was I was about to say you're better than television. They didn't have televisions, but you get what I mean. The the the curiosity and the fascination from the people in the village, I found fascinating in itself, And I'm always really happy to answer questions.

But the beauty of it was that it because I hadn't minded them being curious about me, they didn't mind me being curious about them. So I learned a lot just from doing that. But from the frugality point of view, yeah, staying with the local people and cheap rock bottom hotels. Sometimes with so many bed bugs, you have to put the your your ground sheet on top of the bed and wrap it up the wall so that you're you're not getting bitten during the night and things like that. But it doesn't matter because the people that you're meeting in those places, they're the beating hearts of this country, and they're always got an interesting story.

Yeah. This is exactly why I'm not doing this trip, and I I admire the story, and it's wonderful to read, but, you know, I am literally the worst traveler. I am quite happy to crush 700 miles in a day, and I'm excited about my motorcycle, and, oh, yeah. That was interesting. Move on.

Picture. Move on. You know? But, if I don't have a clean bed in the shower I am I am a I'm a miserable man but I do admire it and I enjoy I enjoy reading about it and I enjoy having that adventure, vicariously through your work And in your, third book, which one is Distant, Sun? Third one.

Third one. So I'm reading that on on the way over and, you know, I speak to a lot of a lot of authors and there's, an accident with a dog. And I'm like, okay. It's gonna happen. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna have to put this book down because I have a rule.

If the dog dies, I'm out. Mhmm. Are you aware of this this rule? Because there's a website called doesthedoggydie.com. Are you aware of this hard fast publishing rule?

Nope. I wasn't aware of it at all. So it's a true story. The dog did live. I hope so.

I don't know. Now, I mean, I've got to tell the background to this story, haven't I? Otherwise, otherwise, people will be going, what? So when Birgit started riding in Africa with me, she's rolled out of the port with 600 miles experience on a motorcycle. She rode her first dirt road in the dark at nighttime and was absolutely brilliant at it because she couldn't see how bad it was.

The next day when, she had to ride it in sunlight, she fell off within about the first ten meters. So we've made it down through Southern Africa, and we're we're heading through rolling grassland countrysides. It's the sort of countryside that you'll see if you ever watch, a movie about the Zulus and things like that. This is the sort of the countryside that these guys are running across, just rolling beige sandy colored grass. And we were on a gravel road, and we were bimbling along, not fast, really comfortable, enjoying just the big blue sky above us and the fact that we were free and out doing this.

And all of a sudden, a dog, which was exactly the same color as the grass, ran across the road in front of Birgit, literally straight across. There was no way that she could avoid it, so she went over the top of it, I'm afraid. And to my amazement, she stayed upright because it wasn't a small dog. And I went to the dog, and it just looked absolutely stunned. I then went to Birgit because she looked absolutely stunned, horrified that she'd hit this dog.

And she asked, was it still alive? Well, it was. And that was the day that I realized that you should never travel with a blunt Swiss army knife because I was there trying to think, well, I this dog this dog must be an absolute misery. I'm gonna have to put it out of its misery. How am I gonna do that?

And then I realized that my knife was blunt, so I couldn't do it with that. There were no rocks around, so I couldn't knock it over the head. And I went back to Burger and just, you know, said this is the situation. And while I was doing that, this dog got up. It shot us a look which said, you bastards, and then turned around and walked off into the grass.

So I I don't know whether it survived or not, but, I kinda like to think it might have done. Sure it did. Come on. We gotta make sure that the dog the doggy survives. That's smart.

Really tough, those dogs. Of course. Yeah. You know, your books are that. They're fantastic stories.

They're your they're your travel diary. They're a motorcycle travel guide. They're they're practical. They tell you how to, you know, how to deal with motorcycle maintenance along the way. They tell you how to deal with your motorcycle after terrible accidents.

They're a culinary guide. You're fantastic about, talking about the socioeconomic state of each country you're in, the the history. You talk about the geography. They really they really cover a lot. Each, book has all those threads running through them and all the while you're going around the world.

How do you describe your books to when you're handing someone a book and go, this is a book about I don't know. I've never been asked that, and I don't really think about it. When I'm handing somebody a book, because the books all stand alone as individual reads, you know, I've had people say to me, I've got no interest in Africa at all. Hello, Erin. And can I start in Asia?

Well, yes. Of course you can because the book stand alone as an individual read. So there's conversation that that goes with that. But basically, the books are motorcycle travel books. The motorcycle is the way that I move around and gets me in and out of trouble and to these most amazing places that having your own transport makes all of the difference.

I was very conscious that when you travel on a bus or on a train, you can be zipping past things that look absolutely fantastic, but you can't get off and go and have a look. With a motorcycle, you can. Side turnings, absolutely amazing. Let's go and see what's down there. I've got the time.

I'm not under time pressure except for the weather and the length of my visa. So I'd I just would I want people to be able to read the book and get a real feel for what it's like to travel in these places. So, yes, of course, I write about the warts, but I write about the magic and the laughter and the the funny stuff that happens and the quirky things. And I do weave in the politics from time to time because it's relevant at that time in that country. So I'm not sort of I I I don't think I'm over egging the pudding with that side of things.

If it's relevant to talk about it, if it's not particularly relevant, well, then it would just be boring. So a thought came to my mind when I was writing the first book, and I'd I'd finished the first manuscript. And I thought, is somebody going to be able to be when they're reading this, are they going to have the sensation that they're riding along with me? And then I thought, to be able to do that, you've got to bring all the senses alive. So you've gotta talk about how things sound and how they smell and how they feel, those sorts of things.

But you've also gotta be able to create word pictures. So in other words, through your words, somebody is actually standing or sitting on their bike looking at what you're looking at. Absolutely. And speaking about the nuts and bolts of writing those books, did you keep a diary? How did you go about assembling assembling your first book?

I understand that it took a long time, and it must have been a daunting task. Everyone I speak to who's an author says that they they said that it was difficult, but no one really talks about the time. Perhaps you can talk about the time involved in going through your notes, the process of making those notes, and how you assembled your your first book. You mentioned diary. That is the the key as far as I'm concerned to, a good travel book.

It's key because when you're traveling, you're on intake overload, aren't you? Every day is full of stuff and happenings and quirky things and surprises and, you know, all of the other things, the challenges. But because you're continually on the roads, that's happening every day. So it's very easy for the mind to get on intake overload and to start forgetting stuff. So your journal is really important.

But when I write, I sit down and the and and I know the region, for example, that I'm gonna write about, and I just let the first thought pop into my mind. And if that's the first thought, then that's what I write about. And it doesn't matter whether it's in the middle of the story that I want to tell or at the beginning or the end. I'll write it because my mind is saying this was an important story. Once I've downloaded that story from my head onto the the computer, then, I'll wait for the next thought to pop in my mind.

And that's how the books get written. But once I've got that basic draft written down, then I go to my journals. That's where the color is, the smells are, the people's expressions, those quirky details, those sorts of things. And those are then woven in in amongst the stories that are the most powerful in my memory. And how long did it take you to write that first book, and how many drafts did you go through?

Drafts? 22. I when when Birgit and I got back to The UK at the end of the trip, I still had a thousand pounds left because I traveled too many times before with and ended up with no money at all or in debt on my credit card. And I promised myself I would never do that again. Ending a big trip, broke and in debt is horrible.

You've got no money to put down a deposit on somewhere to stay. You've got no money to to ride and go and see your mate. You've got no money to buy your share of the beers and all that sort of stuff, and I didn't wanna be in that situation again. But we had a stroke of luck, and we were offered a job renovating semi derelict houses. And this was perfect for us because we could live in the houses while we were working on them, so no rent, no commuting costs.

And, alright, quite often, there was no shower because we hadn't put that in yet. I've never forgotten that showering in in the back garden underneath the hose pipe and realizing that one of the neighbors, who was an older lady, was sitting watching me with, her binoculars. So I gave her a little wave and a cheeky smile, but she was back there the next day. It's important that people know that it's a great story, and it was difficult, and there's a lot of silver linings, everywhere. But you weren't underprepared.

You had you had insurance, for for health insurance and travel insurance. You know, you had some accidents along the way and, you know, I've had some back issues, throughout my life and people don't understand what a back issue is until you've had it. And I think I'm I could be speaking at school here because of, some of the drama that happened in Africa and elsewhere. When you were in South South America, your back said, I've had enough, but you were prepared for that. Maybe you can tell us what happened and how your preparation with insurance, was able to ex value out of that situation.

I think that anybody who travels without medical travel insurance I'm not bothered about covering the kit and all that sort of stuff because my gear isn't expensive anyway. So if somebody steals it, then I'll go down the local market and I'll buy something that'll do an okay job. But medical insurance, absolutely. I hear stories all of the time from people who, haven't got medical insurance and haven't got, evacuation insurance and those sorts of things. And their parents are bankrupted.

They've had to sell their houses to pay the costs of doing this. And I just think that that's yeah. I think when you travel, you need to be able to be independent and be in as little debt to anybody else as you possibly can. So medical insurance is important. The backstory started actually in Australia in Darwin.

I was working for a film crew. And the last day on the job, I was picking up some heavy, boxes of, film equipment, and somebody came in through the door behind me and hit my backside and sent me sprawling. And I hit the ground so hard and so awkward awkwardly, I actually slipped two discs. The doctors told me I'd never ride a motorcycle again. And I said, well, what's the alternative?

Is there any chance? And they said, well, you know, three months of physiotherapy exercise, a couple of dimes today, lots of walking and swimming, etcetera, etcetera. And maybe well, three months later, I'm back on the bike and being sensitive and careful and and so on, but got back into it. So, we made it to South South America. And when we got off the cruise liner, we knew that we had to get down to Eshuaia fairly quickly because Christmas was coming.

And the few travelers there were on the road were, heading to Eshuaia for Christmas and New Year's. Birgit's bike had a fault. Starter relay gone. So we ended up having to stay in Buenos Aires for a little bit longer, and that meant that we were then pushed for time. We missed Christmas.

We spent Christmas in Buenos Aires. That was fun. So then down to Oshawa in time for New Year's. Yeah. Well, we didn't make it.

When you're riding through Patagonia, the winds are horrendous. It's the sailors know about the roaring forties. That's what roars across the sea and, yachties fear fear them. You know exactly what I'm talking about. But those roaring forties roar across the land first before they get out into the ocean.

And when you're riding a motorcycle, the worst thing is that a lot of, the Pampers, you're the only thing that's taller than grass height. So when those winds roar across, they hit you. And they hit you hard, but it's not a pure single gust. It's short, sharp, solid gusts and really, really powerful. So you're having to lean the bike right over into it.

Otherwise, you're just gonna get blown over. But then the the wind drops. So you heaving the bike back upright again, and then seconds later, you're doing exactly the same thing. And you hours and hours and hours of this. And my already weakened back said, enough.

It said enough in part because I was stupid. I was macho. And I didn't wanna take painkillers because although I could feel it hurting, I knew there was trouble on the way. I thought, if I can feel the pain, then I know what's going on. And the doctors told me later on, no.

If you're taking painkillers, you the rest of your body wouldn't have been compensating and tensing up, and you wouldn't have, slipped a disc. Ho Anyway, so I slipped a third disc. We we did make it to Ushuaia in a way that we hadn't expected, and we were too late for for New Year's, but we'd made it. And, yeah, it's a magical spot. Heading back up into the center of Argentina, back on the bikes, and I'm able to ride just.

As in Burg, it has to hold the bike steady for me to be able to get on and off and all of that sort of stuff. We made it to an alpine town called Bariloche. In the winter, there's a ski resort. In in the summer, it's hiking, and it's very popular. You could you could be riding into a little bit of Switzerland because it's chalets and things like that.

But we headed for there because we thought with all of those outdoor activities, there's going to be a sports physiotherapist who will understand, a, what I'm trying to do, and b, how to deal with an injury like this, and we struck it lucky. So, he gave me some extra some more exercises to do because I was still doing exercises every day. He gave me some more exercises to deal with this particular, problem and gave us a prescription for some anti inflammatory injections. Now in South America, you don't go to a hospital to have those injections. You go to the pharmacy, and they have a nurse, and they have a a room to the one side, and you hand the prescription over.

You get given the vaccinations, and, off you get taken into this side room. So I'm in there, and I'm in a lot of pain. And I'm wondering whether this trip is going to continue or whether this is actually it, the last straw. The door bangs open, and in walks a woman who is probably about five foot two tall, and she's got biceps that are bigger than my thighs, flat face, and she said, you, drop trousers. Yeah.

Okay. I called her Olga, the shop putter, by the way, because that was her build. You, drop trousers. Yeah. Okay.

You, bend over. Okay. I wasn't gonna say no. So I bent over, and the next thing I know is this stab in my backside. And then the next thing I know is this flood of anti inflammatory.

Oh, instant. But it didn't solve the problem, did it? And we got down into the Carratera Austral in, Southern Chile, and the gravel roads there, the corrugations, and, yeah, that did my back in again. And we were still on the dirt road and so on, and I just got to a stage one day where I thought, I can't actually feel my legs anymore. I can't change gear.

And the rest of me was just in absolute agony. Fortunately for us, Silver Lining, we were right next door to one of the few camping sites. So we managed to get in there, and Birgit managed to get me off the bike. And, then we were told that the ambulance crews from the nearest city, which was sort of 50 miles away, were taking drawing lots for who actually got to drive their ambulance down this dirt road to come and pick me up. So they did come down.

They picked me up and took me to a hospital. We have a stroke of luck there. The surgeon, who was the back specialist, was actually of Welsh extraction and spoke English really well with a Welsh accent and a Spanish accent, which was really quite quirky fun mix. Anyway, he, he cutting in a long story short, he said, right. Okay.

We need to take your discs out. I can do that, and you'll be back on the bike in six weeks. And I'm flying so high on medications and so on that I'm, yeah. Okay. That's fine.

Get on with it. Bergitz, no. You're not. And this was where the medical insurance came in because when she spoke to the insurance company in The UK, the insurance company said no. Under no way are you to be operated.

You've gotta come back here. So they sent a private air, air ambulance, to the airport near where we were, with a doctor and nurse on board. And then they flew me or flew Birgit and I to Buenos Aires. In the meantime, Birgit had to sell her motorcycle because she couldn't leave the country with the motorcycle still in her passport. I think she sold it for $10 or something like that to the surgeon's son.

When we got to Buenos Aires, into a really big swank hospital, and, there we were joined by an English doctor and nurse who had flown out from The UK to come and get me because the insurance company considered that the injury was so bad. I'm not able to walk. I'm flying on painkillers. Got taken out to the airport. And where we should have been taken out to the airport early before passengers got onto the flight yeah.

Well, we're on Spanish time, aren't we? So there's a little bit of manana going on. We arrive when the plane is full of passengers, and the plane is late taking off because of me. You know those, containers get lifted up to the, to the side of the airplane full of the food and so on for passengers. So I was loaded into one of these and cranked up.

Inside the plane, there were nine seats flattened down, six, two by two by two for me, and my stretcher was put on top of that. And then the doctor and the nurse and Birgit were in the others. And, yeah, of course, I had a total audience as this is all being maneuvered into place and heads turned around and questions and so on. But you know the silver lining of this was the cabin crew. She was absolutely awesome.

She could see all of this was going on. And when we all settled and we'd taken off, she came over to me and she said, would Sarah care for a bottle of champagne? Again, another one of these relationships along the way, and all your books are full of these amazing stories. And I didn't know that you got hurt working. And I had just assumed it was because of those accidents and when you fractured all those bones and and and all of those things.

Isn't that just the way life is? My body has been pretty much abused. I played a lot played a lot of physical sports, in the various traveling trips. I've done very physical, jobs to to earn money and so on. And, yeah, the fall offs of the motorcycle, that hasn't helped.

So, yeah, it's it was just a collection of things and not just that one door opening at the wrong moment. If it had been thirty seconds later, I'd have been standing upright. Life. One of the things you say in your book is that two people can have dramatically different experiences in the exact same city or travel destination. I'm I've already admitted in this podcast that I'm a terrible tourist, and even tonight, I will be a very bad tourist.

Can you give people like me some advice to have these experiences that you write about in your books? There are two ways to travel in my mind, and one way is to go out completely unprepared and wing it. And accept that you're going to be riding 10 miles past something that's absolutely phenomenal without even knowing that it's there. You can arrive in a city and not know which of the dodgy parts of the city you can arrive in a city and not know where the most amazing sites are to see other than the the key tourist things. So the first thing is get yourself maps.

Don't rely on GPS. Get yourself maps of the best maps you can of any country. And in 1992 country time, some of the maps that that were the best I could get to get hold of were absolutely appalling, but they could still roughly point you in the right direction, and that was what mattered. But get the best maps you can so that you're learning about the places alongside of what what route you're thinking you want to travel in. Learn about the customs and the cultures of that country.

It's too easy to tread our motorcycle boots over customs and culture, which just closes doors for us. It's like a Thailand. You never show the bottom of your foot because that's considered to be one of the most insulting things that you can do. In Vietnam, you never touch somebody on a shoulder because Vietnamese mostly believe that they have a genie that lives on their shoulder. And if you touch their shoulder, then you knock their genie off.

And that means for the rest of their lives, they will have bad luck, and they believe it. So you learn about these little things before you go, and that level of respect starts opening up doors for you. So not only find out the things that you're supposed to see, the major sights, because some of them are absolutely just magnificent, like the Taj Mahal in India. What an awesome place this is. But find out about the other things that people don't tend to go to.

So there are forts and so on in that area of India, which everybody goes to. The the coach parties go there. But 50 miles down the road, there's something by the same architect built in the same stone in the same style, but hardly anybody ever visits. So you can wander around these sites all on your own or with a a local person who's really happy to be proudly showing around what's on their doorstep. And those sorts of things, find out about those because not only is it a lot cheaper, but it's also really interesting to see those places.

So find out those places. Walk. Get off your bike and walk. Walk around places, because you see so much more when you're not having to concentrate on what the traffic's doing. Gosh.

What else can I say? Allow plenty of time. Don't plan your trip so that it is so day by day by day by day planned. Allow allow yourself wriggle room. One of the the beauties of motorcycle travel for me is that I can arrive somewhere and know why I'm going there because it's gonna be interesting.

But when I get there, I'm just blown away by it. And I stay for an extra few days or an extra week or something so that I can really soak this up. That's that's the freedom that a motorcycle gives us. I've heard three times in this trip the sentence traveling slowly is a, a fantastic experience because you're embedded in that culture, have those personal experiences, and it's cheap. If if you're traveling like me right now, you're in next place, next place, next place.

It is wildly expensive and you're just skipping along the the the top of the pond, and it really doesn't, you know, get you anywhere. But, unfortunately, sometimes, climate, we touched on, before you have to be somewhere at a certain time. It brings my mind to tortillas and totems when you were trying to get up to, the Arctic Ocean, and you couldn't because, mother nature just couldn't allow you to proceed. I'm wondering, have you ever made it? Have you finished that journey?

No. It's still on the to do the to do list. And the story behind that was that Birgit and I arrived at a vineyard in Southern California, and, the the owners of the vineyard were in trouble. And, they were short staffed, and Caroline had had a a heart attack. And so Berg and I said, well, instead of staying a couple of nights, can we help?

And they said, oh, yes, please. So six weeks later, we've been paid in the most excellent wine. We decided that, actually, if we're gonna get up into Alaska, we should get a move on. But by the time we got up to Watson Lake, it was snowing on the road in front of us. And we thought, right.

Okay. This is snow early, but, yeah, we're only weeks away from proper snow. So this is no fun. So we turned around and headed south and went to Banff and Jasper and down into the Okanagan and and onto Vancouver Island. And, that was just yeah.

That was the right decision. At the end of, your last book, you answered the hypothetical question, if you only had a a certain amount of time to live and you had to travel, you know, you gave an answer then. What would your answer be today to that same question? Given a short amount of time, you only have a little bit of time to live, where would you go travel right now? Now?

Can I have six months? Sure. Okay. I would ride down the West Coast Of Africa because that was the original plan. I that was I wanted to go back to The Congo and and places like that.

And, of course, yeah, that didn't manage to happen. So I then ended up going down the East Side, which was fine. Plan b again. I would love to to ride down the West Coast Of Africa. But I would also like to see the, the Northeastern area of South America.

I haven't been into, Uruguay and Paraguay and Brazil and so on. I would like to be able to do that loop up in into Venezuela. You know, we keep on coming back to this where I seem to be not interested and everyone keeps on telling me that I supposed to be interested. Perhaps I I I need to reconsider. Your current work is the Moment Collector series, and I think this is a great concept.

How did you what was the genesis of that, of that series of books? I was sitting writing my own first book because everybody kept on saying, we like the first four. When's the next one? But the words weren't flowing. It was work instead of sharing the road and fun and passion and all of the rest of it.

And I started to feel quite uncomfortable about it. And then I started to think about all of the the motorcycle travelers that I knew and others that I've been watching on social media with their travels and and so on. And I thought, wouldn't it be fun to produce a book? I mean, it's partially called an anthology, but I think of it more as being a collection of stories. A collection of stories where each chapter is by a different author.

Some of them, I wanted to be very experienced motorcycle travelers, and I wanted some to be new to the road. So this is their first ever trip. I wanted some of the writers to be people who, are experienced authors right the way through to people who have never written before other than on social media, Facebook posts, and things like that. And I was watching, and I was thinking, you've got a great story. And you can write, but I don't think you know how well you write.

I also wanted to have, solo riders, male or female. I wanted to have couples riding together. I wanted to have two guys. So and a total mix of motorcycles, everything from really big ones, new ones, right the way through to smaller bikes, old and new. So in other words, the mix of people that you will find on the road when you're traveling, and get them to tell a story about one of those moments when you're on the road and you're thinking to yourself, yes.

Skin's tingling. This is why I'm out here. And the moment so it was a gamble. I had no idea whether it was gonna work, but a super bunch of people, contributed, chapters to this, and it it just took off. And I'm so pleased that it worked because it's great for the authors as well as being, a fantastic opportunity to tell more stories.

So that was with the moment collectors, and then people were saying, well, this works. Could we have another one? So I started work on not on another, 20 travelers tales from around the world. I thought, why don't we pick an area of the world? And so, twenties travelers tales from Asia, came out.

It's the world's most diverse continent. It's huge. And the storytelling that's come out of this, again, from the same sort of mix of people. And, again, I'm really chuffed that, these guys said yes to being part of this. And some of them were actually out on the road still while they were writing, and they'd gone and holed up in hotels and things like that.

They they caught a halt to their journey so they could write their chapters. And I I'm really proud of it because, yeah, these guys have have shared motorcycle travel in in 20 different ways. It's I I love it. It's like it's I I like the concept. I think it's a great way to read too.

You can you know, no one has any time. So you can knock out a chunk, someone's story. And then because it is some of them are current, you can go find them on social media or you can go find them on YouTube and you can follow them. It's a really interesting way to be introduced, to these folks and also get great little little stories delivered to you in digestible little packets. At the end of, Tortillas and Totems, you have a really interesting message about, organ donation, and you share your story.

Perhaps you can share with our listeners, that story about organ donation and why it's important to you. It it took a lot of conversation as to whether to put this into tortilla stotemas or not. But I decided in the end that actually sharing this might encourage more people to share. So, everybody's worked out already that I'm a complete disaster magnet, but I do have a great guardian angel because something good always happens as a result. My kidney function dropped to 8% really quickly, So I wasn't a well guy at all.

And I was thinking to myself, gosh, you know, life is going to change dramatically here. Now my blood group is b positive, which with a smile suits my personality wonderfully. But it's not very helpful when you need a an an organ, transplant because it's one of the rarer ones. And the doctors were saying to me, well, you know, you're gonna be on dialysis. If you're still alive in ten years' time, we might possibly get a match for you.

And, I just had to accept that. And it really bothered me because for Birgit, all of a sudden, she's going to have not an invalid who's broken some bones or twisted her back again, but this time, it's gonna be somebody who's full on and for my family and everybody else that I knew that I meant something to. It that that bothered me more than me being ill. But you just gotta be philosophical in these situations, haven't you? And you've got to make the best of them when they happen to you and enjoy what you can do and not concentrate on what you can't do.

To my amazement, us having settled this and our we live in a tiny little flat, tiny little apartment. It was full of, kidney dialysis equipment and so on. And, I was due to start the day after my birthday. And, that night, the night of my birthday, phone call, 02:00 in the morning, we've got a match, potentially. It's not a good one, but the person who it's better for, we can't contact them.

Do you want to risk it? Well, yeah. Absolutely. We're on the way and bang down on the phone, and we we broke the speed limits all the way from Exeter up to Bristol where the hospital was. And, we arrived and, the next day the the the kidney was put in.

It was touch and go because it wasn't a good match. Kidneys, when somebody dies, then they'll give one kidney to one person and another kidney to another person. And the guy who had the other half of the kidney, he was up and walking around the next morning. It took weeks before mine kicked in. So but everybody accepted.

You know, it was a gamble. If you don't try, you never find out. It's that thing again, isn't it? But then all of a sudden, it kicked in. So I live my life on gifted time, and I am always grateful to this person for not only being on the organ donor register, but making his family aware of his wishes.

In The UK now, you're automatically on the organ donation, list unless you opt out. But the problem with the way the law is written here is that if your family don't know what your wishes are, they can still pull the plug on your organs being donated. My organ donor, chap, wonderful guy, seven lives he made better. Seven lives. And here's me, what, eleven years on, living still on gifted time.

And it's one of the reasons I do what I do. I want to use the time that he's gifted me with sharing. Yeah. That's a powerful story. And I encourage everyone, no matter what country you're listening to this in, there's a program in your country.

I'm sure of it, but having the documentation in order and not secret, I think, is the, is the message you're trying to cross. Without doubt. You're fantastic for being thumbs up for being on the organ donor register because you can make that life difference. I know somebody who, died as a friend, and he donated his organs. Nine lives he made better.

Nine lives. And, oh, gosh. I'm getting a bit passionate here, aren't I? Sorry. No.

It's important, and, you know, people need to know. And, you know, as motorcyclists, we are always helping each other. We we can't drive past someone on the side of the road that is you know, has their helmet on their road, and clearly they're tinkering with someone. So when we're gone why not help even more people? You know there's no there's there's no harm in it at all literally it's a definition of of no harm and I think that there's obviously here so many stories in your books there's and I understand that you do speaking engagements.

Where can people get more of these great stories? Where can people get information, order your books, find out where you're speaking? Where can we get, that info? My website, which is sam-manicom.com, tends to be up to date with all of the speaking engagements. And there are excerpts from the books.

There are media reviews, reader's feedback too. It's really nice when people write to me and say, I enjoyed this or I enjoyed that. And they go up on the website, and I change those fairly regularly so there's a, you know, constant flow because you can't have pages and pages of things. Oh, that sounded pompous, but you know what I mean. So the all that information is there on the website.

And the excerpts, I think the reason I put those there is it because it gives people a chance without buying the book, without spending their money, of finding out something more about the different types of stories and so on that are in the book so they can see whether they like my writing style or not. Not everybody's going to, but some people will resonate with those stories and they'll think, yeah, I want a copy of that. So the links there are to buying direct from me, and, of course, that's signed copies that come out. The links are also to, an organization called bookshop.org, which you can use all over the world. Mhmm.

Yep. Well, in inverted commas, where you can use this website to order from your local bookshop. So you don't even have to go into your local bookshop to say, have you got this book? You can order it. The link goes to the bookshop.

They order the book for you, and you go and pick it up from them. So they get the money from the book sale. And, of course, there's Amazon. And the first four books, Into Africa, Under Asian Skies, Distant Suns, and Tortius, Totems, They're, all out as audiobooks as well. So that's Audible, Spotify, and iTunes.

I always finish a conversation with an author, and I ask a silly question, and I have to know, what is your opinion on the Oxford comma? Okay. Well, technically, the Oxford comma is not supposed to be used. It's it's not proper grammar. For anybody who doesn't know what an Oxford comma is, it's, where, for example, you might be using a, a fairly long sentence, and you'll put in a comma before an and, for example.

Commas there are almost like, a chapter is a story within a, with within a book. A paragraph is a point that is wanting to be made within that chapter. So it's almost like a mini story. A sentence is a key point or a couple of key points that helps you tell the story in that paragraph. Long sentences in books don't work particularly well because you can end up putting too many points that make a difference in there.

So shorter sentences work a little bit better. But if you've got a longer sentence, just because it works better that way, then putting a comma in before the and means that people tend to take a bit of a mental pause before then reading on to the next. So in other words, you've inserted a sentence, a full stop without insert inserting a full stop. So I do do it from time to time. And we have a important thing we do here only for people that are badasses is we're gonna give you your official certified badass sticker.

There are only 100 in the world and I think that's number two or three for here on this island and people who are listeners of the podcast know that I don't give them to anyone. But listen, there is no doubt that you are a a an accidental badass, but a badass nonetheless. Well, I am absolutely chuffed by this. Thank you very much. Or do I need to explain what chuffed means?

No. I love it. You know, I was worried that you were going to correct all of your British isms, and I thought, what a shame. I just finished talking to Austin Vince, and I could tell that he was editing in real time into, you know, Canadian, North American, American English. And I was a little bit disappointed, and I understand why.

But, you know, we're not dumb. We'll figure it out. We love it. And being chuffed about so I'm chuffed that that you're chuffed. Chuffed is a is a good word.

I I've had comments in the past where somebody said, well, is that painful, or is or is you've got crotch rot or something? Well, no. It's nothing like that. It's just, chuffed means you're really happy. You're really pleased.

And yeah. Yeah. You're chuffed. So thank you. I'm I'm I'm honored by that.

Thank you. Thank you. And thanks for taking time that day. You wrote all the way here, and, and that's rare. I when there's someone important like you, I always want to I always want to not just get you on a Zoom call.

I think that's sometimes disrespectful, and, we want a good audio for our listeners. Everyone knows that. And, you know, these things live forever. So thank you very much for taking the time and coming to our small little podcast. Oh, well, I'm absolutely honored that you invited me.

I've totally enjoyed chatting with you, and, you're a darn good excuse for a ride. I've been called worse. Ladies and gentlemen, could I please have your attention? I've just been handed an urgent and horrifying news story, and I need all of you to stop what you're doing and listen. Cannonball.

Hey, Cannonballers. Thanks for subscribing to our podcast. We appreciate it. If you're not a cheap Canadian and want to buy us a coffee, head on over to buymeacoffee.com, or better yet, buy us a case of sweet ass craft IPA. We'll visit on patreon.com.

Links are in the show notes. Now back to the riveting podcast in progress. And we're back. Yes, sir. We're back.

That was a good one. Right? What a great energy, man. You're you're, you know, I told you this before, and I need you to make sure that there's you'd go when you leave, you should probably leave through the garage door. You should have to open this up, make sure because you probably won't get through the side door like normal.

But your your your interview style has gotten really, really good, and your follow-up questions and your timing on them. And, it's hard when interviewing. If anybody's ever done an interview, it's hard to be able to listen to the the question the answer to the question that you asked, but at the same time, you're preparing for the next question when the when it's over. Or if you don't get the information they're looking for, the follow-up question within that to to keep them moving. And but also when you get to people like Sam, he's just professionals, man.

They just they just, like, roll. They crush it. Right? These these last people there. But your anyway, your style's getting great.

Just wanna say it. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. And it's hard especially with someone like Sam.

We have such a huge body of work, and, like, you just wanna hang out for the afternoon to hear stories. Right? And I always tell someone like Sam that if I'm talking, you know, 5% of this interview, something's gone terribly wrong because no one wants to hear me. They wanna just hear hear Sam. Right?

So just nudging someone like Sam along is really the only role that we have. But, unfortunately, as you're preparing, you have 10 pages of notes, like someone like Sam or or Austin Vince, like someone of people of that caliber. I'm like, I have all these questions because I just wanna know. And I'm like, I got to three of them. I'm like, why did you know, I prepared for forty hours.

I have 1,800 questions. I'm like, wow. No. There's all time taken up. Right.

So you yeah. You asked three questions, and then you guys you got a hundred and you got an hour and seventeen minutes of content. Anyway, well done to you and well done to Sam. So a couple of things I wanted to comment about the the interview I thought was really nice. One is that his ability to, to recall the tiniest minutiae of detail was super impressive.

In in any anywhere you dropped him into any book anywhere, he was able to go right. And that experience was right there at the top of mind, which is cool to hear a story that you've already read once and then hear it again with a slightly bit, a little bit more detail or a different angle on it, but same story. You go, oh, right. Yeah. I I know this.

Anyway, it's really nice to see it and hear it from that perspective. You know, that's what writers do. They don't just say I rode down the road. They say I rode down the road and it was gravelly and it was washboardy and I could smell this in the air and I was feeling anxious because I need to get there before dark. So that's you know, those details are what make the story and that someone like Sam who is an author is simply doing his job, and it's really cool to hang out with someone who's really proficient.

Yeah. I was I was just thinking about, you're like, I rode down the road, and I was picturing the anxiety just eating two grand muffins and a large cup of coffee. Well, we all have we all have, dilemmas we need to deal with. So today's dilemma was which which beer to start with and how to properly fuel yourself to avoid avoid having that dilemma. Sorry.

So much for being a highbrow author podcast, But anyways, this is what happens when you drink beer and record things. He has an amazing ability to capture details such as that. Indeed. Indeed. And then a final comment is that I love his perspective, that he's doing what he's doing, and he lives life to the fullest because he's living on a gifted time when he talks about his kidney transplant.

And that's really you know, then that ties into, you know, everyone should sign up and be an organ donor, again, in The UK, you're automatically an organ donor, but your family can sort of say, Nah, I wasn't aware of that, we're not gonna do that, they can stop that from happening. But I remember when I was in The States and I had a US license, it was the same. And here in Sweden as well, I'm an organ donor. So Yeah. For sure.

And and if you also back that up with what's in your, final wishes documents, that everyone's very clear about it, and it's not something that sprung on people. I think he was trying to, trying to hit that point home. Yeah. Because, obviously, there have been families who've said, no. No.

No. We're not gonna, you know, cut my son up or right? We're not recognizing the value in that because it's an emotional time when someone passes in their family. So For sure. He covers some really amazing things, some amazingly, an amazingly, authentic perspective.

He's been out in the world and experienced it, and now he wants to give back, and he wants to make sure that other people are prepared to do so. So overall, amazing interview. I really I really enjoyed listening to it, and, it makes me super proud to be a part of the podcast. Yeah. Yeah.

We do good stuff once in a while. Imagine that. Imagine. It's not just, beer and, and babes and and prepping. So I wanted to mention some Cannonball news quickly, if I may, is that we posted the 2026 route.

I'm quite proud of it. It's a little bit harder than a 2025 route, and hopefully people understand that it is a friendly competition, and it is not, it is not a walk in the park. It is not so difficult that it's impossible, but I have ratcheted up just a little bit to maybe attract, some more some more badasses. So the 2026 route is posted, and we changed the billing model a little bit in, in trying to reduce my workload. Also, we had a lot of people asking to, change the model a bit, so it's changed.

And, yeah, that's the way it's gonna stay. So 2026 is up. Take a look. Fantastic. Well done on that on that planning.

Yeah. For sure. I don't have anything else. Do you wanna wrap this up? We we have gone over and over and over our our sixty minutes, but I think it was worth it.

Yeah. Well done. And, I have nothing else to add to this amazing podcast, so thank you. Alright. Well, enjoy, your ride after Skoog, and we're looking forward to field notes, and we're all jealous about you going, going into Skoog.

So thanks very much, and let's roll the outro. Thanks for listening to the ADV Cannonball podcast. Please give us a five star review on your preferred podcast platform. That really helps us with the algorithm gods. All hail the algorithm gods.

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