[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to the Psycho Vertical Podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's me and the Cat Patrick.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be the bit of a gap.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like two months ago, a last podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been on the, I've been traveling around, been to, I was in the spin.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have this, because I, because I can sort of work anywhere, as long as I've got a computer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, uh,
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got to this thing where we got to Spain.
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds very, yeah, it sounds very fancy.
[SPEAKER_00]: We got to Spain in our, we drive to Spain, gone the ferry across from Ireland to Spain.
[SPEAKER_00]: And originally the idea was was I could go and I could just work that my wife Vanessa, complaining all the time about the weather and the rain and everything else and just I could just get on with this gone with, with working and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because I always feel like I'm on suicide watch, like if I'm a, if I'm, you know, I feel like I can leave the house because anyway, that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so we, um, the last three years, we've just gone away, he's actually cheaper.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I, island is,
[SPEAKER_00]: Ireland's probably got one of the more expensive countries to live in in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: I always joke like I moved Ireland for tax reasons, you know, because I wanted to pay more tax.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's almost like Ireland's got Scandinavian level taxes, but with like Somalia level services.
[SPEAKER_00]: for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so it's just filling your oil in Ireland, it's like a hundred euros, like where we live, like you have to have oil.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got our own oil, we've got our own oil well, but it's like oil as in, as in, I think it's paraphrane anyway, all the heating works on the on your oil.
[SPEAKER_00]: You need about God, and anyone who lives in the countryside might know I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it's actually cheap, I don't know, and not use your oil, it's for... Yeah, they use like 1,000 pounds, 1,000 euros worth of oil, or you can just go away instead.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, went away instead.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so it wasn't actually that successful in terms of successful as in terms of my wife was happy and the kids were happy but it wasn't very successful in terms of working because we went to the cost-to-blanker, customer packet, customer-blanker, is it cost-to-blanker anyway?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're CalPay it, I'm stating some Airbnb in CalPay somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: And
[SPEAKER_00]: I've, I've not actually been, because I am, since I bust my bicep when was that was like a year and a half ago was it and it seems a quite a long time ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't, I haven't done any, well, I did some, I did some slab climbing in Lashia in Padreza, but I haven't really done any like vertical climbing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, how can you still, like, it could probably, I can probably like, like, six air or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she's like, how can you climb six air when you've not, when you've not climbed for like, year and a half.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you seem work at, well, because like once you, like I've been climbing, I probably could have climbed six air when I was like 10.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, now I'm 54.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still climbing the same grade.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you just keep climbing that same grade forever, like you can always climb,
[SPEAKER_00]: way you put your feet and all that kind of stuff you don't ever you don't really forget that it's like how can you ride a bike you've not been on a bike for like you enough it's just kind of easy.
[SPEAKER_00]: but it's all good until you've got anything steep.
[SPEAKER_00]: And suddenly your arms are like, what the fuck are you doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, you just get like pumped like immediately and I had like one like terribly humiliating experience where it was like a sick, I think it was like six saples or like it was only six saples, I couldn't get up it, so does it matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's some six A plus where someone said, oh, it's really steep, it's full of jokes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, when you're like, when you're, when you've got like zero stamina and the strength in your arms, it doesn't matter if you could like sit on the jokes, you know, if you could just like climb inside them.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just can't, you just can't do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, oh, it was terrible.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even, and even, like, I got lower off because I was just,
[SPEAKER_00]: flopping around and then then Vanessa was like, why don't you just do it on a top row when I was she did it?
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like I was like, oh, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't I came to do it on a top row.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's too steep now go on your ninja.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, anyway, I didn't enjoy it and her and it was just It was just like awful You know like I don't know if you you probably had that we were like experience where you just flailing around on something and then when you let go
[SPEAKER_00]: the road with the ropes stretch, you end up going about 5-10 feet back down again.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to start again, like at the same bit, you've just like crawled, you're sorry, I saw up, it was like, it was awful, it was like being, it was like pure humiliation, like climbing this thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone was to have had me on the crack and you always make all these excuses, like, like,
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't climb this because the kids are making too much noise or I can't climb this because it's too sunny or I don't have enough chalk or you know I'm a whole little hole in my boot so you come up with every excuse apart from just shit should it climbing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually I just decided saying like the holes are too small I'm too big I can't do it and then that will be it and that was good duck because at least after that experience there was no like oh why don't you ever go you know it's just like oh you don't want to do it okay that's fine
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was good so, but we ended up going climbing too much and it was like, you know, because I'm like a, you know, an x, what's it going on it, x, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: not an A celebrity.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like an X, X celebrity, X, X.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like a few people were like, are you only kept patrick?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, I used to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, like, it was just like, sometimes, like you'd tell an open, there was this one guy, I think it was from Paul and then he was like, oh my, like,
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god, you're handicapped Patrick.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god, I cannot believe it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are here at the crag and I read and his wife was like, he reads your book every day on the toilet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I think it probably down or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, hi, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're climbing here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yes, there is a good like seven be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is very easy and there is a
[SPEAKER_00]: Eight air there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like is anything like about like a four or something and they're like, oh, yes This is called the shit crack shit shit sector for shit people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you want to do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you do you have a disabled child or something?
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, no, I'm just going to have got the kids with me You know, a lot kind of stuff and I was I thought to me, but I said, but oh, you know This bicep got used quite a lot of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's an excuse of being shit anyway, and then unfortunately he was he could see me and then I started flailing around and
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the description for this bit, but the crag was tired, you know, and I look fucking tired, by the time I flailed myself up this thing, was like, you know, get to the first bolt, take me there, take me there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're practicing to what it's like to be shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, no, I'm not practicing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, I are going to solve free solo with.
[SPEAKER_00]: It does only seven, seven C, I'm like, you know, I'm not a shit, I'm just not actually going over that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going up this,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, this bit up here, that is the way down.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is your free climb down there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was a pretty, pretty humiliation, who humiliating.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Vanessa's always like, why don't you tell people what you do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because people are like, what do you do for living?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like people often say, are you Andy?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'd be like, used to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: And,
[SPEAKER_00]: and some people are like, what do you, what do you do for a living?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, uh, a right books and they're like, what kind of books are like, boring books?
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, what kind of boring books are like, boring climbing books?
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're like, are you around the?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, it's a bit depressing really.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so it was, but anyway, but when we went climbing quite a lot and my grade increased after two months of climbing, uh, by, by my, by my, but
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, we didn't increase it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we just got to the crag with the kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was good really.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was good for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like Vanessa's drink on true.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like me and her going climbing again with the kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: And though you have been climbing with children, it was a little bit, you
[SPEAKER_00]: Some bits were like there's a bit where I was like bealing Vanessa and suddenly like nowhere for a lot of a tree And he was all crying and you know like had a broken hour or something and all the and everyone's like looking at me Those people at the Craig like your chances for that were tree and I'm like I have to do anything I'm bealing my wife like no, I'll be there in a minute
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just like, I'm just at the hard bit that comes at, you know, that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Watch me here and I'm going for the onsite and know that and then always like Spanish women who are also at the crackle, sort of like, went around them and they were like, ah, they're all like, oh my god, they're all like, oh my god, all these like women like prodding him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've died, I've wanted to hell with something Spanish hell.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, it was good, because Vanessa was happy about all that kind of stuff, so yeah, anything else, anyway, it was, it was, yeah, Spain's kind of interesting, interesting culture, very, it's probably very similar to the not like, how do you think that English people, if you're English, you might know what I'm talking about, maybe you don't, unless you're like, not English, if you leave England, then you go back,
[SPEAKER_00]: like English people are very like wound very tightly.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think, um, at least from Yorkshire.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so it was um, it was funny like it was some of the cracks you get some of the old school old time as the old time was with 10 up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And uh,
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there were 10 up and from Yorkshire something.
[SPEAKER_00]: All these people who you've read used to read about in Yorkshire, limestone, guidebooks and things like Jerry Peel and all these part.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're quite funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're like, it's about, there's something about this, a certain type of climber.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like a lot of climbers you meet.
[SPEAKER_00]: They kind of ex-teaches, if you know what I mean, you know, when you're talking to them, they always go, they're not actually listening to what you say, and Chris, you know, you look like some kind of naughty skill kid or something, but like it's quite, it's quite good, you know, it's quite good when you only meet some of the old British type of old school climbers.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so um, so yes, so we anyway came back on the we came back on the ferry,
[SPEAKER_00]: And it must be something exciting happened when we were here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't remember now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew it was to came back on the ferry.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was quite interesting because there's a massive revolution going on in Ireland at the moment to do with the farmers and the truck drivers and everything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, so when we got back, like a festival, there was just like this massive storm, massive bad weather, like storm.
[SPEAKER_00]: barrier something and it was so the weather was so bad that the book and get into the harbour had to like funny around for a bit and then eventually once it did get it like it was so windy that you couldn't open the door to get out onto the deck that the wind was like blowing it closed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then we got into the harbour, and then the whole harbour was blockaded by farmers and truck drivers.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there was only one road.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like a two-lane road to go out of the harbour, but one-half it was completely blockaded.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we had to have like a police escort, all the cars, got escorted off by multiple police motorbikes through all these like farmers and
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you were Spanish, you could go out, it was like midnight, by the time we got off the ferry, like midnight, and it was just like, woooooooooh, all these guys, and so yeah, it was like quite a rude return, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, so, so,
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, what am I talking about?
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone asked me to talk a little bit about climbing in Africa, Africa, Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Africa is a big country.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's not a big country.
[SPEAKER_00]: Africa is a big continent.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and so there's no such things like climbing Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess you say like climbing in Europe But you could then, you know, it's like there's a big difference between climbing in like Siberia.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's your it's Siberia classes Europe you're at your Asia anyway, so it's you know like climbing in like Barcelona and climbing in Mongolia or climbing in Finland or climbing in
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, some of the players like that, either one.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, it's a big player, Southfrika, and I don't have a bean to, I've been to South Africa once, but not been climbing, and I've been to Morocco, but not been climbing, and I've been to Egypt and not been climbing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I've never actually been climbing in Africa, and the reason I didn't, I've never been, it was like, I'm a deeply racist person.
[SPEAKER_00]: to like black people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the reason I'm not being is I always kind of, it's like the probably the same reason I've never been to like Pakistan or or any of these like shit all countries.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, I know you're doing these countries because I just can't deal with bloody.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm not a big fan of people and there's a lot of people in these places and they're all at you all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I kind of experienced that you know just going to like,
[SPEAKER_00]: Egypt and, you know, Egypt and, like, Morocco, like, everyone's at, yeah, everyone's like, everyone's like trying, you feel like everyone's trying to rip you off or swindle you wouldn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure there's like some nice people there as well, but it was just, um, like, you know, if you got it, you know, that was a good, well, it's not like that anymore, you know, in a good old days, you know, it was that you got, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like it, you always felt like it was a bit, I've never been to Hungary, we got to Budapest.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how everywhere it used to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a bit boring, but there's like, no one is very high social trust and no one's at you are trying to, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: do anything dodgy or get you in the taxi and then charge you like loads of money or media or something or get your kidneys out when you're sleeping in there but Airbnb or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not that but so I always put me off going to to any kind of African country because I just had this like vision that it was just going to be a shit ton of like
[SPEAKER_00]: Just loads of hassle like I just want to go climbing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've not really got.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not a very adventurous person like I'll go to Antarctica, Karen Greenland and Alaska and place like that, but there's nobody there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of to deal with any people like the as soon as you can get there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm not interested in sightseeing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'd rather go, if I'm to Paris I'm just going to sit somewhere and I'm going to compute with something.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got no interest in sight seeing or seeing the culture, whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but Vanessa, she's like really into Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's got like elephant statues and all that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: and so she really wanted to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I kind of gave in like I would have just gone to your cemetery.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would have just got to America for three months and just got climbing all the time and I think that's often the mistake.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like if you want to go climbing and I want to say Africa's the place to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also want to say, the Himalayas is the place to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say, if you want to go climbing, go to like the sea areas or your cemetery or squat, I'm not even squarming because it rains too much.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you just want to go climbing, go somewhere, where you can do loads of climbing, like the Costa Blanca or somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, just, but if you want to do stuff that's not climbing and is adventurous and is exciting, then that's where you go to, these are the places in Nepal and
[SPEAKER_00]: you know all these kind of places.
[SPEAKER_00]: So so I would say like there are there are some places where you could be going in Africa, but I wouldn't I just want to say it like I always think like America is a bit like if for the UK I'd better weather like the UK for me like the premium
[SPEAKER_00]: climb on a premium climbing place in the world, because there's so much climbing really.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's already close together and it's also varied.
[SPEAKER_00]: And America's the same, like you just got so much such a variety of climbing and different styles and different rock types, something else and often that I could really massive scale.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't feel like Africa is, well, the place went in Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: The climbing always seemed like, I don't know if it's like a geological
[SPEAKER_00]: issue but a lot of the climbing was very spread out and a lot of climbing isn't like really, really, really massively developed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now there are some amazing places in like Moz and B, you can all sort of all over the place and we did go to some amazing places which could be like the African version of Squarmish but it just there's various reasons why it's not like that and it might not be like that for quite a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now can be sure that I'm sure the country's
[SPEAKER_00]: we visited will be replacing like the average like average got there's a Thomas soul wrote really good book about the effect of geology um geography, geography, geography, like has in like Africa's got I think Africa's got any like navigatable rivers bit like not like the Rhine or the Anxie or the you know all these all these European countries they often had like very good
[SPEAKER_00]: lot of deep ports.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Africa has got, I don't think it's got any, any rivers that you can actually go that far up them because they've got rapids and everything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also they don't have very many like deep, you know, the coastline is very shallow all around Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, so there's only like geographical, geological reasons why Africa is
[SPEAKER_00]: Not, not your, but I think that I think eventually like Africa will just like replace your because it's uh, Europe's basically dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't really, it's a bit like a zombie, zombie continent like, you know, it's kind of like staggering on in everyone's kind of to winging about everything, but it really, really allows that it's basically dead, really.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, it's just just like the death, the death rattle, you know, all these kind of things that go around the moment, they're like the death rattle of Europe.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so maybe one day there'll be loads of African climbers like coming to, you know, coming to climate Malam or somewhere, you know, and there'll be like, oh god.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went to England, it was terrible, like, how to, like, an armored escort to get to Malam and stuff and there was all these, all the barbarians everywhere and that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I probably just get drawn, drawn, I'll just fly in there, fly in shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot from the locals, make an example of them, keep them back and then climb.
[SPEAKER_00]: I probably people just like, laser cut, the whole of these cracks, all the good stuff and just take them and put them somewhere else like in the desert wet, it's safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, that's him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, so I agreed to, agreed to Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the place is we decided to go, we decided to go to Namibia.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I would just go to Namibia.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think when I was, when I was a kid, there was a program,
[SPEAKER_00]: and it was called like the adventure, the great adventure or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was BBC program.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in it this guy walked across some bit of desert in the media and it always stuck in my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it looked like it looked like really cool kind of place.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's where the skeleton coast is, where you see like red me is going down the skeleton course at living in the asshole of a whale or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, that's that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wanted to go to the mid beer, but probably now I'm talking about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Didn't the reason why I was going to go to the mid beer was it looked like there wasn't many people there?
[SPEAKER_00]: And if that was actually true, it wasn't many people less, that was perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was my perfect introduction to Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would say like in the media, it's like the number one country to go to in Africa, if you don't like people, anyone to go to Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you want all the adventure like, I am way, all that kind of shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you know, all that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so yeah, I think the reason in the media is such a functional country
[SPEAKER_00]: It was used to belong to the Germans until the First World War and then it went to the Brits and then it went to the South Africans and then eventually they got independence.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but there's often, there is quite a dramatic thing like, I think the President, the President, President of Nebibia, is called Adolf Hitler.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see, you can't make this stuff up.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, any of it, there'll be like, book shops without Nazi memorabilia and etc.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a bit like Argentina's a bit like that, because in the second world world, in the second world world, like loads of Jewish people ran away to Argentina to escape the Nazis, and then all those of Nazis went to escape to Argentina to escape to escape the anti-Nazis.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're going like a bookshop in Buenos Aires and be like a whole bookshelf about the Nazis, but not like I, oh, they were told bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, oh, they were so cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at their clothes, look at their fashion sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the next, next,
[SPEAKER_00]: the juke, the holocaust or something, you know, like in a separate section.
[SPEAKER_00]: So interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so we decided to go to Namibia fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went to Namibia, do we go for a month?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we went for quite a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went to Namibia and we hired a, we hired a gutter, is that for it, that that not noises the water, water system going.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we hired a, like, a 4x4 which is kind of you, you need, you kind of need that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't like a 4x4, like a land cruise.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just like a 4x4 or 4x4 thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Air with 4 wheels on.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went to Vindhok, is Vindhok, the capital of Namibia.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's very like, it's very, it's like going to the Canary Islands or something, it's not like big tower blocks, it's actually quite a small place, you know, it's kind of a small, like a large town, really.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you don't feel like there's a threat, like everyone seems to have enough money, like they don't seem to be that.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no people like looking, walking around in rags and all that kind of stuff or any any any sense of like I couldn't get mad at here so which is like certain some places in Africa you do feel a bit like that And for a good reason because you will and so and then we we hung around there for a bit and then went to this place called spitscopy Which is an amazing amazing place and I never had a head about it
[SPEAKER_00]: which is kind of weird because it is like an amazing place to go and it's a little bit like a little bit like an African version of 12mm medals with these huge giant domes which are probably 300 meters high or maybe you'd have like 10 pictures on them so these massive domes and there's like there's a line of them want to get in bigger and bigger and bigger and then
[SPEAKER_00]: That I think wasn't climbed for quite a long time, and like a big massive rock, like a big proper, just all rocky mountain.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no, it's just in the desert.
[SPEAKER_00]: So to get there, you have to drive down this like, you have to get quite good at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It probably would be worth doing like some sort of four by four driving costs before you went to place like this, because I don't know how to drive a car.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the roads are really corrugated, it doesn't go like, but the roads are really corrugated.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have to drive really quickly and then you kind of like glide of the top of all the bumps in the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: but then you're like silly, fairly self, like drifting off, because your car's not actually touching the road, like probably 75% of the time it's not actually touching anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like in between, it's in the flying across all the bumps.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can very easy to crush your car, I think, if you didn't know what you're doing, and I think I was doing, but I kind of a quick learner.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was your venture driver, but you can see these amazing, this road going into the desert, and then in the distance, you can see these mountains,
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so you head there and you get there and it's actually there's a there's a some kind of tribe is like village and this needs mountains belong to the village and I think the there's a so you pay like a feet to climb there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in your camping, it's very well organized.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all these camping spots out in the desert around that area.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you've got like a little sort of pit toilet and somewhere to put your tent and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were like, oh, beware, just be careful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, they're all like wild animals here.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're all like mountain, is it lepids?
[SPEAKER_00]: There's lepids and stuff, all that kind of shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're like, oh, god lepids.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we, so we,
[SPEAKER_00]: So I won't climb in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think with F2 weeks I think and the climbing was like really good.
[SPEAKER_00]: The rock was not like the Samity quality.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a little bit more like the rock I'd experienced in Queen Mordland in Antarctica and I wouldn't be surprised if the two of them were once like somehow.
[SPEAKER_00]: connected in somewhere because it's very, very similar, very kind of scabby rocks.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're climbing anything, like you're all, if you're climbing a root of the people are done, but you always have to be a little bit wary of the rock quality.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I quite a lot of the roots are bolted like the slabs are bolted and then there's that cracks some crack systems and stuff and it's just really good, it's really adventurous, there was only two other climbers there like from Israel, who was at two or two, you know, no, I'm out to the sea, there's only two of the climbers there and just just like just amazing, just amazing and then we eventually went to do Spitz Copy, I think actually the first route we did, it would be like,
[SPEAKER_00]: We're like, don't be out in the dark because that's when the lepids come out.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went and climbed this one mountain, of course, like we went up out in the dark.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you just kind of underestimate how big it is these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we up-silled down in this amazing landscape of like,
[SPEAKER_00]: Alien Mars landscape with the more weirdest bushes and weirdest trees and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: It really is like an otherworldly place and we kind of coming down down this trying to find our way back down to where it gets into the sandy desert part and suddenly we just see these like two eyes on top of this boulder just like looking down it's like two big yellow eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I'm like, yeah, that's what I think it is and I don't look at it, I'll just anyway, so there was a jump on your neck, so maybe you should look at it, and it's so Vanessa was behind me, it was fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we got down, and we climbed, we climbed all, eventually climbed all these, each of the mountains, and then we went into spit's copy, and spit's copy, the route itself is actually not very difficult, but it's very
[SPEAKER_00]: you're going up this mountain, this climbing scrambling up through rocks, something else, then you have to go to this cave and you have to kind of squeeze through a very, very, I literally could almost, I only just got through it.
[SPEAKER_00]: like a squeeze, then you pop out, it's like a keyhole, you pop out onto the other side of the mountain and then you climb up and then eventually you get to the top and it's really, really cool, amazing landscape, just fantastic.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it went down to another, what's it not, I mean, that's Windhook.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the capital anyway, we did a bit of traveling around and driving around
[SPEAKER_00]: I expect there's like tons of exploration in Namibia.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I've read since then, I've read a few books about the Bush war.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like whenever I read books about African wars and stuff, I was like, but if you read them to find out where there was like rocky bits, so they were quite fighting and there was like in the rocky bits.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so there's quite a lot of rocky bits in other parts of Namibia.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just like some really remote areas.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's like a modern country, there's airports and all that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, so I mean, so eventually, so then we went from the maybe a, and went of to South Africa, and now went to South Africa because that was, over-ness of being South Africa before and truly like South Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: And South Africa is, in terms of climbing, it's very, it's very developed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the first place we went to, so we went to Johannesburg, which is kind of the medic,
[SPEAKER_00]: murder capital of the world and we stayed in Johannesburg for a few days and there was like quite a lot of power cuts and now I think the power cuts have got worse and worse and my overall impression of South Africa was it is on its way to be like a failed a failed state really like a basket case kind of country and like like Zimbabwe somewhere and and an
[SPEAKER_00]: a blog post.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was called a dot drive at night and it was a had a bit about South Africa in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a few South Africans emailed me like, oh, that's not true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, you're just looking at the worst part of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think since this was like 2019, I think, or 2018, we went there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And since then it's only got like a lot worse in terms of like power cuts and all sorts of
[SPEAKER_00]: also for corruption really.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think in a way like you get the impression like I had this I had a friend who's he was black and his dad it was South African and his dad was South African and his dad used to have arguments with his dad because his dad was like like a part part I wasn't that bad and he's like how can you say that dad it was like terrible is this racist blah blah blah and his dad was like no no it was like his dad was a chemist and he's
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, you know, people were better off and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: How can you say that?
[SPEAKER_00]: So the, so the, it's funny because the dad had actually lived through apartheid and the sun hadn't, but the sun, the dad didn't know he's talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it seems like you've replaced like one, one load of people with a, with a, some people even worse than they were.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so anyway, so you, you know, you get like a, there's like, we in Johannesburg, like all the houses are all like covered in,
[SPEAKER_00]: Bob Wyer and they've got an alarms and they're like private security driving around we're like machine guns and and it's a bit like district 19 or something like it is like there's part of me Vanessa like oh you always see the where's and everything and like no I just see the where things are how they probably are and you don't see them you need to see the where's and things and for one example one day it's heading at a taxi and drive it and going over to see I don't know where we're going somewhere another part of Johannesburg
[SPEAKER_00]: and she decided to get the boss or something and we got this boss and then for some reason we couldn't get back and it started getting dark and she was like oh we'll just walk back I'm like Vanessa this is like Johannesburg like it's the murder capital of the world he's like oh you know he's the always think that's completely fine
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so we start walking, we start walking back.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really like, do not thrill out Michael Jackson's thrill out.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like, you know, as he got dark and dark, I see like, manhole covers were moving and people were coming out of them and stuff and was like, this is like, there's a people coming out of the woods there who were living in those woods and like, it'd be okay, it'd be like, hi there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But let's go with his height, everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi there, hi there, hi, hi.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, I was like, oh god, ah, so I'm really like stressed, stressed out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could only get robbed or medded or raped or something on my, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: So eventually we get to this street, which is all lit and it's not far from where we're staying and there's loads of restaurants.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going this restaurant and it's like, it's like, it's like, it's sold on pre-sync of that team.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lock the door, there's people out there, they're coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we sit in this restaurant and we're eating and I'm like, the waiters there and like, can you just tell me something like, is it safe to be walking around here at night?
[SPEAKER_00]: He was like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it's totally safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like really like, you know, like down there and he's like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'll be like this street.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're safe to be on this street but don't go anywhere else, like get a taxi.
[SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, so we stayed there for a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, I'm not key, and I don't like cities.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like, went to the apartheid museum, which is worth seeing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, like, if you drove through the township, and I don't really, I find it, I find it all a bit distasteful, I kind of, you know, look at all these poor people, and you know, double deck of books looking down at them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, then we went to Waterville Waterville Bourbon, which is a,
[SPEAKER_00]: sport climbing area, which is like on top of a hill and along the edges of the hill is all this is it granite?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it limestone?
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's limestone?
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's some kind of weird it's not limestone, it's not granite.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's something else.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like some kind of volcanic heat-type rock.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's all bolted and most of it's bolted I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it bolted?
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, I think it's bolted.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just really a great player.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of you're staying in this camp site and you've got like a fire pit and all that kind of stuff and then there's a village down the bottom
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can go to get your climbing shop there, there's a hostel there.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's like, I think the best climb in South Africa, he's like his dad runs a hostel there and he's like to help develop all these health develop this crag.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a really great, really great place.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not too far to drive, I've seen to remember, from there, and it's really amazing climbing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You go there, like, you probably go there for a couple of weeks, just go climbing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And after that, I think went to this area called Mount Everest, which is disappointingly, it wasn't my Everest.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like a piston crack, and it was just these crags.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was very windy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we're there in the winter time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we're in the winter time.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was actually very, very windy there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there was some good routes there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that was the first, that was the first,
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like a wire across the road and I was like, no, that's not good, that's not a good side.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we drove around with drove away.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you were just that hearing a few stories that you went down to the town.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like, this looks like something like, of like, you know, in a back to the future, where you go into the future and everything's like,
[SPEAKER_00]: looks the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all like crazy and dilapidated and scary.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a bit of a lie that on this is for me a really nice place now which is like a little strewn shithole basically.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we yeah they went to and what was the place?
[SPEAKER_00]: Went to another another place that had like some big like a big tower thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was that called?
[SPEAKER_00]: something for something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was good.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we went into the mountains into the the dracansberg mountains.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we went and climbed like the highest mountain in the highest mountain in South Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: just like a walk.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like a two, it took like two days, two days to walk up there, and it was winter time, but it's very dry, the climate, so there was some ice, ice and stuff, and the probably the funniest thing that happened there was, I don't know how altitude it is,
[SPEAKER_00]: As we're going up, you end up in this like really steep grassy slope, as in like it's dropping down hundreds of feet and you sort of slowly going up and traversing up the grassy slope on a very narrow path getting higher and higher like the path like a foot wide.
[SPEAKER_00]: and you're going up heading up towards, it's like a plateau at the top where the summit is and we're going up there and as we're going up there this is the noise of an animal like a baboon or something I'm going crazy and we were like just ignore it, just keep going so we kept on going and as we were
[SPEAKER_00]: there, whatever this animal was, there's baboonus or whatever it was, it was traversing along the top of the cliff above us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't like going, it wasn't going away, it was like scenes as a threat, and then suddenly like rocks started coming down, bounding down the slope towards us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like if the rock had hit you, it would killed you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we just kept on going, dodging, dodging the rocks.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I was, as the path was getting close and closer to the top,
[SPEAKER_00]: the cliff.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, oh my god, I'm going to have to like, I'm going to have to face a baboon, like, what am I going to do?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'd read that if you bang metallic things together, like animals not like it, like elephants and things, but I only had like, um, carbon fiber ski poles, so I didn't really do anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
[SPEAKER_00]: So then I was like, I'm really, I'm going to, I have to fight something to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We could have just turned around and gone back down again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't really care to me at the time, but, and I was like, the only thing I had was a knife, like a climbing knife.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I got my little, I got my little knife out, and then I was just like shouting like, go away, go away, monkey, or it is, ah, I got a monkey in my boon, you were
[SPEAKER_00]: literally we got to the top, the baboon just like ran away.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he wasn't, he wasn't afraid, wasn't for a fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he ran away.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we kept on going, walking on the Scarp and heading towards the top.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then as we're walking along, it's certainly so in the distance, this guy just standing there, literally standing in rags with all these sheep, like some kind of African guy, like, you know, a shepherd, shepherd, like, why is on top of the highest mountain in
[SPEAKER_00]: in South Africa, I've no idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, they were there with his sheep.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what the waiting's just all rock up there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, but I said, look up, there's a guy over there.
[SPEAKER_00]: He looks really creepy, doesn't he?
[SPEAKER_00]: And literally there's a 10 round of like standing right next to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was like, he was like a ghost, like he just went from being like, trying to meet his with, like, right next to me, like, about two seconds there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we were like, hi, so I just put my hand up, like, hi, the symbol of like friendliness and then he just put his hand up and then he just just watched us walking away.
[SPEAKER_00]: So so yeah, so then we that was we did if we did a few things we went we looked at we did all the all the touristy stuff went to the
[SPEAKER_00]: boring, safari, shite, where you just drive around in a car all day, don't see anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, is that a crocodile that was a stick?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: So a bit boring.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're into animals, then I'm sure you'd love it, but I'm not an orient.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, a lot is a lion.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just doesn't excite me that much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, oh, look, there's some grass or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could just, it's not my thing, really.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, when we were in the media that was the only funny thing is that when we when we came down from Spitzcopy the mountain we it was dark and we're like walking along it's be like American wealth in London We're like walking along like
[SPEAKER_00]: What if we're going to get what if we're getting something we're all a bit like a bit afraid then I was like I would just been stupid like there isn't anything around here that's going to eat it's like we're completely safe And as I said it like shard shard my head touch up and there was like a whole like a cow Just like hanging in the tree where the leopard or just like dragged it dragged it up there
[SPEAKER_00]: so like a calf like hanging in the tree.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have to kind of take these things serious like people do get like mold and killed by wild animals.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's you know it's good not like I think Vanessa is like just way too like the people are what people are what's going to kill you but um oh you're driving us something and but but I think it's good to have a little bit of like
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, oh, you know, my, you know, a fellowship of man kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But also like, you know, you're going to fucking, you know, kill me and not kind of.
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to have like a bit of a balance to approach to your own sort of safety.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't want to be like too paranoid, but you don't want to be too not paranoid.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, um, so, you know, I was thinking about that woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're the woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was like, just I had to hitchhike around the world in a wedding dress.
[SPEAKER_00]: In order to, she was like a performance artist and I'll just demonstrate how the world is such a good place.
[SPEAKER_00]: and she didn't make it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I often think about her in these sort of situations.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd rather I'd rather like not go around the world because I gave up, because I realised it was like where to dangerous rather than not go anywhere because I was dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: So after South Africa we went to Kenya and we luckily met up with the Kenyan mountaineering club.
[SPEAKER_00]: can you can you can you can you can you might know your in club which is a mixture of like like it can you is like can you's got a completely different vibe to South Africa like a South Africa's kind of I want like I want like to say what South Africa is but it's kind of weird it's kind of weird like all the taxi drivers have guns we do things a bit weird and like all the
[SPEAKER_00]: when he goes to petrol station like this like guys with the AK47s like protecting the petrol station and he's like that's a bit weird like that's not that's not really normal like they have if you look at the number of trucks carrying money which you're like you know
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, everyone's killed in all the money stolen.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, it's like one a day in South Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like there's, there's a lot of like, there's a lot of shit going on in South Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, um, and also there's a, I don't know if you to do with apartheid, there's a bit of a weird thing of,
[SPEAKER_00]: I know people are waiting for the government to sort all the shit out, but they're just like, they're just like, they're just like ransacking the country and stealing all the money.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't realize that they're not going to sort anything out, where when you've got a Kenya, I think because people, they're like island really, like people have like,
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the government doesn't care, like an island, the government doesn't care about you and you don't care about the government, you just go on with your own.
[SPEAKER_00]: You ever like an adversarial relationship with them, which is the best way to be with any government at a record.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in Kenya it's a bill like that, like none of the Kenya and the government is going to do anything for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they do it through it themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: So everyone, everyone seems to be working, everyone's got like hustling, got three jobs and there's a lot more.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kenny is like quite a dynamic country where I didn't feel South Africa was was like that Like South Africa is a bit like probably like the UK is and where it's like an a bit But do loop so the like what's the point?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what's the point?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I can't use not like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you got to Kenny and we hired a car
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I don't think many Westerners hire cars in Kenya because Kenya's got the highest death threat on fraud at road traffic accidents in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's something like 4,000 people die every year and I reckon they're just a Westerners because they report it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I think people have got run over.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like a lot of people said, if you run someone over, I don't stop.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, uh...
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and that is actually the advice you are given by Canadians is not like some some like made up advice.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and Dr. Ivan Knight, that's the bit of advice.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, that applies probably applies everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, actually, onto the subject of not driving at night, one thing you realise is actually Africa, I would say, I'd not be in every own Africa, but where I've been, maybe not South Africa, but in Kenya at least.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're actually very, very safe in the daytime because, in a way, the job of the police, a bit like the job of the police, these days in the West, is not to protect citizens.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of to protect the criminals from the citizens.
[SPEAKER_00]: because if you're a criminal, like if you rob someone, or you're doing bad shit, the people will just met, will med you, they'll string you up and med you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the criminals keep a low profile until the night time, when everyone goes in their houses and lots of the door, and that's what that's when they come out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's like, this is how it's been for forever in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's probably the same in every country in the world, apart from in the West, probably.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like if you read about ancient Rome, that's when all the criminals came out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like when everyone shut the doors and locked up, you know, that's when they all started coming out.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when they had troubles and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a similar, similar there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you're in like a crowd of people in a market or whatever, you're actually very, very safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like people are,
[SPEAKER_00]: people have a very, very intolerant of any kind of crime.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're actually very safe in a lot of places and they'll just, and I think that's probably, that's probably how we're coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Coming in the west, the thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we're just been waiting for the police to do their job.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the police, they're really not there to just to stop, they're just like, look, you don't need to kill these people who are like shoplifting, you know, they're only shoplifting, you don't need to kill them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like, you know, you know, shopmakers have gone, go around the back and like kill them because they're shoplifting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not not because they didn't like them, it's just like an example of some people's shoplifting.
[SPEAKER_00]: and makes a society like functional, but where the police and we'll take them away and lock them up or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you'd have to kill them and then we'll just like, you know, we'll lower the lower the, you know, we'll keep every, we'll stop all criminals and you know, so you have to kill them and then you know, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll,
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's how it works, but it doesn't really, it's kind of seems to be breaking down that in the West.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're in Africa, it's still very much in force.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we met somebody and he was telling us that there was not to drive around where we were,
[SPEAKER_00]: in the night time because it was a gang, a motorbikes with AK 47's and they were like stopping cars and robbing them and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we were like, what are the police doing about it?
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was like, the police were like, we go out at night with our AK 47's and we like hunt them down.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and they had a few stores like that where people, where things would happen to people and the police would come.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they would literally just pay the place to kill the person.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if something had happened, it's like, like his, you know, his loads of money, just kill the person, find the person, just kill them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't bother, you know, all that kind of stuff, like going to court, you know, just, so yeah, it's a great service, really crazy system.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, so anyway, so climbing wise, we went to a place called Lou Kenya,
[SPEAKER_00]: which is just outside of Nairobi and it's actually owned by the climbing, the Kenyan climbing mountaineering club and it's a really great area.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a few like you kind of camp on top of it you drive up to top of this mountain and you camping up there.
[SPEAKER_00]: you have to bring on food and everything else and there is some wildlife there's baboons, they have to kind of really watch out for baboons, they are quite that, they're quite, they're kind of dangerous if there's a lot of them also they're kind of ripping to your tent and shit everywhere which is probably what probably worse so we just we did find a few people's tents in other places where the baboons have been in the shit everywhere inside the tents and and that's like is it granite?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it might be granite but really
[SPEAKER_00]: and some climbing put up by some of the grey African African as in probably European people in Africa roots, there some all I think it was all triad maybe there was one or two bolts but very adventurous kind of climbing and you're there in Africa so it's not very far from the Chinese are building a big road
[SPEAKER_00]: that to the costs.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have stood there for, I think most of it, again, for like for two weeks, and then we went over to Hell's Gate, which is, it's said to have like the most famous route in Africa, which is, what's it called?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it Dark Star Safari or something?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's called, anyway, so it's like the most
[SPEAKER_00]: but it's like really adventurous, like really, really, really adventurous.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just up this basalt, it's called the Hell's Gate, it's like all this, it's like a basalt cliff and there's loads of baboons around the hassle here.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the zebras at the bottom, so you're like, it really is like, oh, oh, I really an Africa here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're climbing up and it's just the old tread, just kind of run out, there's bits where there's like, vultures, just guano, like, you're setting off and there's like, if you beat it, like, up to your ankles and guano and stuff,
[SPEAKER_00]: And then at the top there's like a huge part of the cliff we're just like falling away and you have to climb Burro up behind these big flicks that's falling off and you climb up and you appear on top of the crag and all that I'm way all that kind of stuff and it was really really really interesting place and there's like a
[SPEAKER_00]: you can go down to the hot springs and all this.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's all the kind of touristy kind of stuff you can do there as well, like high-rebuy and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we went to Mount Kenya, so this is like towards the, it was towards the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Mount Kenya, we carried all our, actually we carried all
[SPEAKER_00]: We just kind of drove, because we had our own car.
[SPEAKER_00]: This car was like, sorry for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like a Toyota car.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we literally give this guy like 5,000 shillings, which was like a pile of money about a foot high in shillings in the Starbucks at the airport.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it just gave us this piece of tati paper.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had to sign.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we're like, is the any kind of,
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there any kind of break down insurance, and he was like, it's just a Toyota, so we had this Toyota car and we and everything on it was like attached to the car like the bumper had wires attaching it to the car.
[SPEAKER_00]: the wind mirrors had wires attached to the body of the car, like everything was like swaged onto it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the reason was with people would often just like rip off here a wing mirror and try and sell it back to you like when you were stopped in traffic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Always have your doors locked, that's another good advice.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so
[SPEAKER_00]: So we drove up there, like most people tourists would get picked up in a hotel, picked up the airport, driven around by taxi, you know, like a bus type, lorry, truck thing, and then there we take to the mountain and meet their guides and all that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we didn't do that because we had our own transport.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we just had drove all the way up to as high as we could on Mount Kenya and then just took our filter pile, rucksacks, and set off.
[SPEAKER_00]: We ended up giving some, we ended up giving a load of, do we get some food or go, we basically we met someone and we just had to wait too much where we are probably had.
[SPEAKER_00]: getting on you know like 40 kilos of stuff and we just do we just have too much stuff to walk up to what to go to where we're going because we wanted to go to the other side of Mount Kenya because we wanted to try to do the traverse of Mount Kenya which we had not not been done for decades apparently and we
[SPEAKER_00]: We couldn't get to the other side, the road was closed, so we had to start on the wrong side and traverse around the mountain, and on this track that goes all around Machania, and then leave our stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so we paid this guy just to carry, he was actually walking up with all the other people, he was like portering up to the base camp.
[SPEAKER_00]: on this side of the mountain.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he just said, like, I'll give me like, you know, 50 shillings or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And 40 quid or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he would run back down again when he dropped his load off and get our to get this rook sack.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he would bring it round to us, which is what he did.
[SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, so we went up and all the men were like, oh, you are two weeks woman, Irish woman, you know, Vanessa had this massive rook sack on.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are two weeks to carry such a big load and like, I'm hungry.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we got, we stayed at the base camp wherever it really else was, and I don't think I'm very good with altitude, because I really kind of was feeling at the next stair.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we stayed there one night at the base camp for climbing, is it Nellian?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is Nellian?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that the back Kenya?
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, there's a bit that everyone seems to go up this mountain.
[SPEAKER_00]: It isn't Mount Kenya.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's, there are some rock routes on this side of Mount Kenya that people do,
[SPEAKER_00]: this the harder classic route is on this side of Maccania.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then the next day we walked around and my god I was like saw the altitude really, really got me like carrying this massive rucksack going around.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I was really really really really I was really really I've really really suffered going around.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know about it, it does seem very good altitude.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we drop down and we end up staying in the the hut that belonged to the Mac to the canyon mountaineering club.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we stayed there a few days until we tried to like a climatize a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we went up to try and do this traverse about Kenya and it was put up by Rusty Bailey and someone else and Rusty Bailey actually died.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did I last year or recently a very interesting character.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went up and it was we ended up spending
[SPEAKER_00]: We had one night, two night with three nights, Bivida on it, and it's quite long, but it's also very, very loose.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I think it was probably a bit easier back in the day because it was probably not as loose.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's probably more frozen together.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now, you know, but the weird thing, because it's on the, it's literally on the equator.
[SPEAKER_00]: So on one side, it's winter, and on the other side, it's summer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Literally on one side, it won't legs in winter, one legs in summer, as you're going along this ridge.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the ridge guy's kind of goes up and down, up and down.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not cheers.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a bit of ice on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a bit of abceiling, a bit of climbing up, just massively, a loose, massively loose.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think if I went back then again to try it, I would probably just take like a pro choose and have some crampons that could put on them.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had our like mountaineering boots and our rock boots and we just put me a little bit too much stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: but it was just really good and then we got to the last section to get on to the easier climbing and then it just started snowing and it was like bad weather and I think we should have really I think we were running out of food and really we should just like set it out and tried.
[SPEAKER_00]: but we didn't, so yeah, so we wrapped down some, just wrapped down this face and luckily I'm quite good at upselling, so we managed to get back down to the bottom and then traverse all the way around, back down, back to the hut.
[SPEAKER_00]: and then the next day we decided we'd walk all about around tickle all our stuff back to where we'd started in the the other camp the first camp we got to and then trying to the classic the classic route which we which we tried and what what happened we didn't we went up there and we I think it was
[SPEAKER_00]: That was some reason why we've, I think we were too, we got a bit of got, we just got confused and we were just too slow and then I think we just decided We went, we went, we were too slow or something, we just made some, we made some like metmistakes so we ended up bailing down, we just like bailed way too, we're too
[SPEAKER_00]: easily.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we build down and impact all our stuff up and we walked out and then we went back down to the back down to the local town.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's quite expensive, Mount Kenya.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to pay like every day you're there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to pay probably like a few hundred dollars.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we tried to sneak out but we got caught so we had to pay the money.
[SPEAKER_00]: you pay when you're leaving or you know how long you've been there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have to pay all this money and then the when we're like when I say I have to we have to climb out can you have a corner to can we have to climb it well let's go back and this time we'll do it we'll just go lighter and we'll just take you know we'll just do it a lot quicker so we went back up and walked back walked back to walked in like a different direction so we got another to see another way in it's very very beautiful and then we went up
[SPEAKER_00]: went up, got up with the problem was like the so much shit there, the so much human shit everywhere, that like everything is, everything is so contaminated, like all the water sources, it's just so contaminated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I got, I did get ill and I think there's a matter of how much, like, you had to get really good at boiling everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, just boil everything, but even if you boil everything, like, stuff still gets, you know, pans get contaminated by whatever, like, it's just, uh, really probably the worst place of the being, like, human shit contamination everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: The water, the rivers, you like, you know, you think this river looks really,
[SPEAKER_00]: suddenly there's like a camp there with a toilet and stuff and they all got and it's just not not great so we spent the night at this place and by now we should have been pretty climatized and we got up super early like three in the morning and we got on the route it was a long approach to the route got to the route started climbing up and we got
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, I think it's 5-8 climbing and some of it is a really good rock and some of it is like just a field of loose talus just hanging there very again like root finding.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you've done it once
[SPEAKER_00]: What can easy, but if you haven't done it once, it's very easy to go the wrong way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the top is not that maybe it's useful, but maybe it's not up to date anymore, maybe things are falling down.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we either this anchors everywhere, bits of tat everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we got really high, I think we've probably got like,
[SPEAKER_00]: probably got like two thirds of the way up it and then it just started like hailing and snowing and big storm came.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we just sort of stood there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we'd land now not to bail so soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we stood there and I tried to like go up it like sort of mixed climbing in my rock boots with the snow and everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I came back down again and then we just like stood there a bit longer and eventually the weather kind of cleared a bit and I managed to climb, climb up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we got up to, and it's that getting dark like you get it's dark like instantly because on the equator, like it just goes from there to night instantly.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we got up onto this to the final bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're actually on on the ridge.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now we'd reach the top of the ridge of Mount Kenya.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now we just had to go up to the first summit, then you go down up to the final summit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we were almost there, but it was dark.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we didn't know the
[SPEAKER_00]: one complete show, wanted to be light to do the last bit and we just put the, we had one sleeping bag, once down sleeping bags.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just laid the ropes on the, on a, there was like a little ledgy thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just laid the ropes on the ground, put our clothes on,
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know, we have a baby back though that we did, maybe I'll have a baby back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I was thinking we should have had a bossy bag or something, because that would have been good when we were standing in the storm.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just had the sleeping bag.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just put the sleep bag over us and we just sat there.
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't really have much food either.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were going pretty light.
[SPEAKER_00]: So anywhere the morning come and I just felt like really, really ill.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the time I thought it was altitude, but I don't think it was, I was actually picked up something from the water because it was actually ill continually for about a month, like even when we came back, went to Croatia and I was still being sick and stuff in Croatia.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we started going and Vanessa started lead and it was like, I feel really ill, you'll have to lead.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she started leading, did like one pitch and when I came up to was like, no, I'm not going to be a cart even.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not, we have to go down like I'm too ill to carry on like it's just and so it's like really disappointing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were all we were so, so close to the top and four
[SPEAKER_00]: Got back down now the camp next day like walked out and was that probably that was probably like the yet that was probably towards the end of our trip in Kenya And we did we didn't went to northern Kenya.
[SPEAKER_00]: It went to northern Kenya then and we went to It's where the the what they called the tribe the
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, I can't remember.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this friend of ours fish, he had this idea of, this is amazing, like big rocking, big walls up in Northern Kenya.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he had this idea that the local tribes people like the young people were always like leaving because it's nothing to do to go to live in Nairobi or you know they've got a university never come back in Nairobi and his idea was to help develop the mountains and develop roots and sport climbs and stuff and get western climbers to start going there.
[SPEAKER_00]: and then the locals would guide them and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was really good, really good idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went up there to try and help help, you know, bloody white saviors, went up there to try and help at the noir resource to help.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we went up there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we, it was me and me and fish and these are the guys weren't climbing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's been even less to went up with is one of the, no, with a car car, with a car, with a car, some blue, some blue, some blue,
[SPEAKER_00]: This tribesmen guy on top of this big mountain, big rocky mountain, so the classic tourist thing to do and there's like wild elephants like mountain elephants that are really dangerous and they're all that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then she was walking up there and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're trying like if you get like a hot chocolate and she's like this is got real milk in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like No, which means yes, and she'd like at that drinking it But then the samburu guy was like, um, do you want to drink and she's like oh, yes, please And you just like literally like grab this cow out of a bush and just like started milking it into a little cup And then just give her a drink of like hot milk into like, oh, lovely So um, so those guys have like blood to tea which is like the blood from the cow and the milk from the cow
[SPEAKER_00]: and me, and they're like the fittest, fittest health, these people you've ever seen in your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so while she was climbing this mountain, and she's actually said there was a bit where this mountain elephant just appeared out of the bush, you know, and the guy was like, on gawa, on gawa, and he was like talking to the elephant, the elephant all calmed down and fucked off.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I said he was so we were climbing, I'm not probably told this story before, I just I wrote something on my stub stack about this, I think it's called
[SPEAKER_00]: So me and Fish were climbing with the other guy, and Fish was trying to find the way down off this cliff and he's still in this big rock.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's gonna be bold and it tickled over the edge of the cliff with him as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was like this blood-spedling scream, and I thought he was gonna be dead, but I looked over the edge, and I just thought it was still alive, he was sitting on it, he was laying on a ledge, and I thought his leg had got chopped off, but his leg was just bent underneath him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as we think of people of accidents, the often saying that people have a head injury, they're often like really confused and really aggressive and everything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: But often people often people just really embarrassed and like fish tried to jump up and was like, I'm okay, I'm okay,
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he like fainted, but with his eyes open, which was kind of disturbing like when someone's because he's looking exactly like their dead, it's kind of in Kani.
[SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, so it's like climb down to him, there's another guy, some Bouderu guy with us, and he came round and I'm like, and he said, oh, I think I've, I think I've had my leg, I was like, thank you very have, and if you're looking, I actually have a leg.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had to like some sort of, um,
[SPEAKER_00]: and you were there to get us down off this cliff.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wrote this thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was about it was about like self-rescue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you do all, you know, like in Africa there's and that you could, you could, no one's going to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no amount of rescue.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just have to do it all yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was saying about like how often give the riser rescue, people don't do anything because it's like not my responsibility.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have to do anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm not a professional.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got to wave someone else, I've got permission to do anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: So someone could be dying there and you'd be like,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a low with this guy down through the guy fast because he can upsell, load him down, and then me and fished it like a double tandem upsell down from there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And anyway, so the other guy ran off to get some of these some guru guys to come up to help and one of them that literally the smallest one told fish to get on his back and And we're on this like big, it was like a big steep slope going down.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he got fish on his back and did like one or two steps and he's fell down.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's fell all the way down.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the bottom.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was a very effective way of getting down.
[SPEAKER_00]: So
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, after this is being Africa, TIA, TIA, this is Ireland, because this being Africa fishy actually broken his leg, but he didn't do anything about it because it was because he would have been dark, it would have to drive, get going the dark to go to the hospital.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you just like propped his leg upon a on a chair with some beer and in the next
[SPEAKER_00]: So I guess after this we had loads of other ventures, loads of stuff I can't remember all and
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the end, I think a lot of people are not keen on lots of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of people in, there's no way you can do any kind of wild camping in Kenya or South Africa, because every bush has got someone living inside it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You couldn't in the media, but there aren't many bushes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was just a started to embrace the chaos of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: personality is kind of chaotic in my thoughts and life and everything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I started kind of embracing the madness of it and kind of appreciating the chaos creates like opportunity and
[SPEAKER_00]: you know like what's the opposite to chaos like order you know order has a lot as it doesn't have a lot of opportunity like order's kind of boring and rigid everything else so like i think i was just before i came before i went to Kenya and all these places are probably
[SPEAKER_00]: I was kind of boring and rigid and afraid of things and there was a lot of things to be afraid of in Africa and there was like a gun battle at one point outside out where we were staying like the so much the police were firing and there's people firing back and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there was like there was actually quite a lot of danger and there was like road accidents
[SPEAKER_00]: It was after a while, you just kind of get used to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a bit like we had about 20 flat tires, because nobody ever got a new tire, just roll your old tire and you cost $1.00 and just repair it, and then you put it back in the back of your car and carry on driving.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you got a really good at changing your tire, like a change of tire, like a formula one,
[SPEAKER_00]: it was just kind of after we embraced that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what we did come back, you know, compared to being in your cemetery or, you know, any other place, it was like back back to island or, or whatever, it seemed kind of a bit
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of a bit boring, but I think just in the same way you have to embrace the chaos.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you have to embrace the boring as well, like the boring normal world and appreciate it for what it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's quite nice when you turn a tap on and what comes out that you can drink.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can flush your toilet without having to put your shitty tissues in the bus basket behind it as something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so yeah, so I would definitely, if someone wanted a taste of Africa, rock climbing, I would highly recommend going to Namibia, like, really trip of a lifetime.
[SPEAKER_00]: As far as you go to like, I probably will go to Morocco.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just waiting for the kids to be
[SPEAKER_00]: is, I'm sure, it'd be really, really good, but it's, you know, there's something about just being a slightly away from off the beaten track, like that was like, you know, climbing in Saudi Arabia and man and places, and that's a similar kind of experience, but it's not quite the same as
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, I'm way, you know, Africa, like I, you saw you literally, saw you like one to die, you're like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey
[SPEAKER_00]: No, let's say where you from, like there was a what yesterday went and went about by a voucher for somebody and from the hotel down the road here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there was like the woman was black who was who was who was who was saving giving me the voucher and I could tell she's not from Ireland.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean like she just didn't have an Irish accent and she was black.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I moved to Ireland, there weren't many black people in Ireland.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like it was kind of rare.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's not so rare.
[SPEAKER_00]: And but I wanted to say to like, where are you from?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where are you from?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I knew, but I knew like you're not allowed to say that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And luckily she was like, then, then, like, most people do, they give the, they give it away, like, that her parents from the Congo.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was from France and all that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could, I could kind of work out.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's kind of interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where would you be nice, it should say like, oh, where are you from?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where are your people from?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, like, all that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had this joke, I was just, I had this joke when I was in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: in Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say like people said, where are you from?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't say, I'm from Africa, you're racist.
[SPEAKER_00]: But no one ever got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, same as like, you know, like, if you have Kelly here, you know, people say like, like, well, not black people in Africa, but black people in like America, like if you, if you mentioned the hair, the hair or touch the hair, that's kind of racist.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's a bit where this little black kid in a little black girl in the,
[SPEAKER_00]: because Vanessa has hair like a bush and I was like that's racist, so she didn't get it either.
[SPEAKER_00]: So any of us, I'm just like, my comedy is lost on the world, it really is.
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes me laugh internally though.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so um, so that's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, um, we, I had all these, I had all these shots like rabies shots that they always tell you to have, I don't think you need to have them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that's, I don't think all that's kind of necessary.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, it's just, you know, it's just, it's just not, don't be afraid, don't be afraid of Africa's not that bad, it's not that bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: just don't run out of petrol in the middle of Nairobi.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't be looking at the engine temperature thinking that is the dial for the petrol, which is not, you know, unless you have the most efficient car in the world, that the petrol for one does go down, you know, when you're driving around in the car, but the engine one doesn't, it will stay the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so that's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so I shall try and do another podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Has anybody got any questions or anything to talk about?
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't actually been thinking today with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: that I think that writing is dead, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that the world of writing, like books, books may be lesser, but I think that the world of writing writing, sub-stack.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a sub-stack going very, actually going very, very, very well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the day was like someone who was like a proper person.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like, oh my God, you've got like 5,000 followers on sub-stack.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it was nothing and there are a lot of quality people, so yes, I was, but I mean, I've been thinking recently that they, it's just kind of a waste of time writing, like nobody ever reads anything, like I've ever read anything either, like if we want to know something, I just got on YouTube or something, I've got to never read anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll just get AI to tell me what to, what to, you know, what to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so yeah, so now,
[SPEAKER_00]: I was thinking about doing this, I'm thinking about making some films.
[SPEAKER_00]: So quite like making film films and making some films.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, by the way, like, um, Psycho Vertical, the film Psycho Vertical, is now up for free on, um, on, um, boom, you know, if you've got to my website and Andy Heifengabacher.com, you'll see, uh, on the blog post about it, just a Psycho Vertical, and you'll take it to the film, which is there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, watch it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a lot of people like it.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of what, well, Bamf, best mountain film in Bamf are kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but yeah, I was thinking of doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been thinking of like, my, like, just as that, just as I make really boring, I do really boring books.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, you know, the more boring, the more people buy them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it might make some really boring videos like YouTube videos.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know I'm a bit late to get into YouTube.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you might be a lot less like hassle and writing so I can do like a whole you know could do like half an hour on on a hammer land yard to something
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I could do like 50 minutes on, you know, what you're putting your, oh, no, it's going to say what you're putting your first decade, oh my God, that's not 50 minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like, that's five hours worth of information I could put into there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I think that's been 10 minutes and 10 minutes is the sweet spot.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, maybe I'll think of doing that, so I might have to, yeah, I was thinking it might be just a lot easier.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think writing is so difficult, it really is.
[SPEAKER_00]: I always think I'm going to run out of things to write, but it always seems to keep coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stuff's deep, I don't know why.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's always something boring more boring to write about any more detail, so yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, well that's it for now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Time to go and make tea.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I'm sorry I was away for a while and sorry if I'm going to be from this podcast, the offensive, racist, or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I do apologize, it's not my fault.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, stay safe.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.