Ep 605 - Arctic Cannibalism (feat. Buddy Levy)

Wow, wow, Wes. All right, we're live. We're live. Buddy, Levy, thank you for coming. It's Levy or Levy? It's Levy. Levy. Hell yeah, I got it right. Thank you for coming. Hey, my pleasure. I've been I've been using your books to fuel the Patreon and well, thank you for that. I appreciate it, man. Dude, it's been I mean, I guess we do have a symbiosis going here, but it's really dude, they're they're first of all, I thought like, you know, I've read the books and I'm like, man, this historian really is a good writer. I would like read and I'm like, this guy can really kind of really turn a good sentence and then I learned you studied as a creative writer. Yeah, that's true. I actually published my first story when I was 14 years old. And it was it was a bird hunting story about me, you know, killing a chucker, partridge, which no one knows about. But, you know, once I saw my byline for the first time, I was, you know, because I grew up in this in the shadow of Ernest Hemingway and Ketchum, Idaho. And I was like, I just like telling stories, you know. And it was so I I wasn't ever good at anything else. Ended up being an English major. So I just followed that path, you know, from the time I was that's well, that's why I really like the books. And I was talking to you before we came in here. I was like, how did I? I don't know how I heard about the book. I was like, maybe it was from someone I follow. It might have just been like a random search. I genuinely don't remember. I do think it's from the Josh Reid's books thing. But I forget that it was Conquistador. But that was the thing I was reading it. And I'm like, man, this this history book is like it's just focused on the narrative itself rather than just like, it's just I get drowned in facts, reading history where I'm like, dude, just tell me the story. Tell me the story. And then and then what you do is which nice is you give the occasional historical zinger where it's like, actually, this thing was that. And it's like, OK, it's kind of cool to know. Yeah, I got to say it was I got to I got to tip the hat first and foremost. It was the books are great. Well, and I've really enjoyed listening to you guys make things like human ritual sacrifice and smallpox funny, you know, that's, you know, because when I'm writing it, I'm thinking, you know, this isn't really comedy, but you guys crush it. There is something very funny about, you know, we're talking obviously about the the Aztec, the Conquistador thing. But there is something just that thought was funny about never meeting a certain type of people before, because the way they like brought them into their temples like, yo, this is cool. Check this out. And it would just be like a dead dog with his skull crushed in and like a dead kid they're eating. And you'd be like, what the fuck? What is this? And they're like, well, you don't think this is cool? Like, we think this is cool. And they're like, no, no, no, no, that's the worst thing you can do. Like, no, this is like the coolest thing you can do. And then the civilizations clashed. Right. So it is funny to be like, yeah, I want to show you something very important to me. We were eating teenagers and you're like, no. Yeah. Yeah. When I write these books, too, it's always like people are like, you know, why do you focus so much on this this darkness, all this stuff? You know, and I'm like, well, I just I like to see, as you say, you know, different cultures coming together and also what happens to people when they're on the edge of survival. Like, how are they going to contend with this new world or this new place? And it really intrigues me to see what, you know, to what degree people, especially back then, you know, like we're able to figure it out and just move on, you know. Yeah. It's pretty it is pretty wild because it's like, especially the food thing and all that like in Conquistador and all those books, like these guys are going on these missions and like, yeah, you only have so much food and they run out and now it's like, we got to drum up food in a place we've never been to. Right. So that I kind of, yeah, just like you have to every time you want to eat, you have to raid basically a village or just be like, try to be cool. Right. Yeah. That's the thing or have slaves. It's, you know, very helpful. That also blew my mind in terms of the Conquistador, hey, Nate, don't fucking laugh. We're talking about a different time period and they were handy. You can't deny having 2000 slaves would be handy to get food. Nate, we're talking history. All right. I don't agree with it personally, but well, I needed food and I had either zero or 2000. I look like I can get food. But anyway, and by the way, I used to sugar coat it, you know, when I was writing it, I would be like, they had 2000 porters and porters and women who were making tortillas. And my friend, this writer friend, she goes, yeah, those are called sex slaves. And I'm like, well, no, they were like bearers and porters. She's like, those were slaves. They took them. She's right. That was the sheer volume. This is what shocked me because it would be like, you know, I think Cortez landed with like 600 guys and like 2000 slaves. What was that? True. Well, he didn't come with very many slaves. He did bring one that had smallpox, which was useful for that guy. Yeah. Yeah. But I thought Cortez had a start out with a lot. Maybe I'm thinking of someone else. Do you have what he ended up doing? Cortez ended up like recruiting these ancillary villages, like the Totonics and the Tulasks, and he then did deals and said, can I use your guys to go get this major leader who you call Maktishoma, right? Maktishoma. Well, I could have sworn Cortez rolled up. They had they had their porters. Yeah. But they got those from the villages that they subsoom. Yeah. Yeah. First arrived. So he didn't roll. It was then I'm thinking of the Pizarros and. Yeah. Yeah. That guy set out with a party with like 2000 slaves. Yeah. But, you know, at any rate, like they couldn't have done it alone. And even then, they were often outnumbered significantly, you know. Yeah. But they just figured out ways to manipulate, terrorize. Yeah. Well, there was that story from the end. I'm going to actually talk about this later today, but there was a story from the Gonzalo's last stand or when he's like fighting that Spanish Civil War, he's fighting another Spaniard and it was actually Gonzalo's slave who ran out and chopped the guy's head off. And just carried it around town like, you know, we got it. And he had to be like, bro, why don't do that to a fellow Spaniard? The hell you doing? He was dancing in the end zone on the guy. He was. But yeah, it's just very. Yeah, it was like the war was to stop slavery in South America. And the dude's slave cut the guy's head off, who was trying to stop slavery. Yeah, it's pretty famous. Like, now fuck that dude from Gonzalo's anyway. But yeah, it was definitely a complicated time for sure. Complicated time. But that is it is so brutal. Because you're trying you are trying to get the story, but you like at every turn, it is completely like you were saying, you're rolling around with, you know, quote unquote, three women who make tortillas for 600 guys. They're obviously sex slaves. The guys, some of the fucking guys were probably sex slaves. You know what I mean? It's got to be somewhat prison rules. Well, it gets lonely out of the trail. But but yeah, I just got to say the the books are they're nice because it is just it's the story. It's like the thing that happened based on all the historical record, which how is how like is that boring researching that? Like how how do you get through that? Because I feel like I would kind of go crazy. That's a great question. No, you know, when I love the research part of it and it's like two components to it for me. There's the actual sitting there and reading everything that's ever been written or to the extent that I can, everything that's ever been written about the particular subject so that then I know the story and then I start writing. But then I also, you know, I always go to the place that I'm going to write about and do an expedition of my own so I can make it as real and seem like even though I'm casting myself back maybe 500 years to try to be on the ground and in the environment that I'm writing about so that I can feel the sense of the place and the sea, the floor and fauna. And we can maybe talk about some of those expeditions that I've done. But, you know, it's for me, it's fun to immerse in that it's kind of like doing like a mini a master's degree or a PhD for every book, you know, and it actually leaves a fricking mark. You know, I mean, I'm on my tenth book and every time it's a huge divot out of my brain, you know, because I log in for you know, maybe six or eight months of just reading and then I'll go on my expedition where I'm going to go and then I sit my ass down and spend maybe six months to a year depending just writing the book. And so the but I always find the reading part, the research part really inspiring because, you know, I'm going back to these original texts and they've got, you know, journals and diaries and in the case of the Spaniards, you know, they had these scribes that were there just to record the events. And then so you get these first and letters that they're writing back home. And so you really get transported to these places and to the minds of the people who were there. And then, of course, you have to balance out to what extent like they're lying or patting the story for different political reasons. And so you're doing a bunch of sifting and deciding on which you believe. And, you know, history to me is pretty dynamic and malleable. It's not like this set thing. It depends on, you know, they say history was written by the victors. Yeah. But I love it. I love that part. This episode is brought to you by Prize Picks. How have I been feeling about sports lately? Oh, boy, college basketball. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Check check on how Duke and Michigan are doing in the tournaments. And if they're going to win it all, I don't know. I'm like in Duke. I'll be honest. I'm like in Duke. I've been caught up in March Madness fever. I keep watching people watching on the plane. I kind of watch it while they watch it. And I, uh, I like March Madness, if I'm being honest. So I don't know, Duke, Michigan. Hmm. Let's see. I don't know. I'm excited. 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But like, is that also just to kind of get your own adventure thing going where you're like, you know, because that's kind of because you've done now, you've done the Amazon. Yeah. Did you climb the hills and everything? Well, I hiked over the Andes. So I started in key. I try to for for the first time, I've been playing the first five times in a row. I've been playing the first five times in a row. Yeah, I started in key. I try to for for a river of darkness and conquistador, I try to follow the root of the conquistadors as precisely as possible, you know, using maps. Now, in modern day context, it's a little different because, you know, there's more people there now. But, you know, for the Amazon, yeah, I started in Keto, did some went on partly on horseback, partly on a bus. And then I trekked down to the headwaters of the Koka River and then went for like three weeks in a dugout canoe with two guides and just me and two other people and floated down the river in a dugout canoe, sleeping in the rainforest in hammocks. It was it was one of the coolest adventures. I wanted to ask you about that. What was it? I do want to go there one time. But what was it like being there and, you know, oh, my God, it's quite remarkable. I mean, to put it in context, I spent like, I think two to three weeks, including the Andes part. And by the time I finished, which was in a Keto's Peru, that's just where the Maranon meets the Amazon. And so there's 20. I went 400 miles and there's 2,300 miles more to go to the Atlantic, you know. And that, you know, to give context, I had to look this up. That is like driving from New York City all the way to basically, I think like I do. Hey, it's so far so far. And, you know, but it's cool because once you get out there, it's still, I mean, I floated through this Yasuni National Park and there's so that, you know, it's like one of the most biodiverse places in the world. And then you're just like you get into this river rhythm where, you know, you float for hours and everything starts to look the same because, you know, you're shrouded on each side by these giant seabed trees. And, you know, you have to wear like knee high rubber boots because there's ant colonies. I mean, there are so many critters that can, you know, mess you up. Vampire bats and that. Did you see any vampire bats? I did. And I saw, you know, the thing is, I don't know if you remember in River of Darkness, the vampire bats are pretty intense. They come onto you at night and they have these like canine and size their teeth and they so they pierce the skin and then they have this anti-coagulant enzyme in their saliva. So it is lick at the wound all night. And it's just blood. Yeah. You just keep bleeding. But I was, I was cheating a little because I had a, I had a hammock that had mosquito netting. So, you know, the other, my guides were just like sleeping in hammocks just out there. But, you know, there's so many, there's like spiders the size of your fist. And what were some of the craziest things you saw in terms of animals? Oh my God. Well, so I did. This is kind of bizarre. You know, I wanted to, when you're in the, when in Rome, I guess, when in the Amazon, I decided to go on an ayahuasca trip. You know, so I didn't decide to do it. How did you do it? Classically, did you have it? Boothed? Remember, remember they say they're like siphoned it up their butts back in the day. I did not go for the animal style. But that's kind of sick. They did that though. I know. Well, I mean, it gets there. It's it's main lining ayahuasca. Yeah. I know this guy, my guide, Jose Shingongwu, cool dude, man. He was like, I'm going to go get the bark and you want to try ayahuasca. And I was like, sure. Oh, he was just your river. He was my guide. He knew all the birds. And he was like, you know, when you're here, you know, if you guys, whoever wants to try it, you know, and there were only these three people and the two guys. And so I said, yeah, I'll give it a shot. I mean, I grew up dabbling a little in some of these hallucinogens. And and so. So I had read about and I thought like I was hoping for this amazing spiritual journey into supposedly if it really takes right, you're going to have this vision quest and meet your spirit animal. Yeah. So as we had been going through the Yosunee National Park, I had seen a pink dolphin, which is a freshwater dolphin. They're like a little four foot long, really cute. So I'm the ayahuasca is coming on and I'm having these hallucinations that I keep seeing this pink dolphin. And I'm like, wait a minute. So my wife's spirit animal is a dolphin. And I'm like, I was expecting like a sea wolf, you know, these giant wolves with like web paws or a fricking kraken or something. And I get a pink dolphin from my spirit. Oh, yeah. I'm like four foot. It's like, you know, I mean, it was not. It wasn't what I had hoped for. Frankly, you didn't drink enough. You should have drank like, give me four more cups. Come on. So so. Yeah. How was that? Was it like, did you have a super strong dose? Or did you feel like it was like a mild dose? I wished I had wished for I was wishing for more. Yeah, actually, just to transform that dolphin into something useful, you know, like that can kill. Yeah. I mean, but I have also read. I'm glad actually that it didn't take fully because I've seen some stuff and heard that, you know, people come out of that changed. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, from what I've heard, I've never done it, but I've heard like the full dose is like you're a puke in. Yeah. I felt I just hurled a little. OK, that's really on. So the dolphin. Yeah. But, you know, the other thing we did, which was kind of insane. I mean, really, because, you know, I was like, they took us out. We were on this one big lake that was like off. I mean, the whole thing is so massive that it was actually part of the river, but it was slow moving. It seemed like a lake. And he's like, you want to go catch my guy? I said, you want to go catch piranhas? And I'm like, sure, I'm an angler. Yeah. You know, fishing. And I go, what do you use? And he's like hot dogs. And so we go out there and we got a little stick and we're dangling for piranha. Right. And then he said afterwards, he's like, you want to go swimming? And I'm like, well, they're carnivores, man. Like, are we going to? So we swam with in the same vicinity of these piranhas, you know, and it was like, you're just sketched a bit because, like, alone, they're not. They're like, I mean, their jaws are serious. But they're not big, but you get a couple of hundred piranhas and you're bleeding. And then, you know, you're it's just like the movies. Yeah. They're thinking they can munch you pretty quick. But they jumped in first and showed me and I was like, OK, I'm not going to win a powder here. You know, I'm going to go. Yeah. I'd be so. When I keep every time I hear about people swimming in the Amazon, I'm like, it's terrifying because there's there's like manatees in there. Yeah. Well, the manatee, you know, they're chill. They're true. I mean, I could have seen the manatee as my spirit animal, too. Yeah, something. Yeah. Just the sea cow is what they're called. They're just like going on the bottom and graze grass. They're just like sluggish. So anyway, that's awesome. Yeah, it was it was really informative. And you know, what I'm usually trying to do when I'm going on these journeys is I bring all the primary texts that I can carry. And so I'm reading about the expedition that I'm writing about. And then I'm kind of living my own one and sort of putting it together like what this place would have been like. And the set, you know, there are all sorts of things like in the Amazon, for instance, the sounds, you know, in the evening, there's like thousands of different insects and weird like night insects where the freaking, you know, their head pops up and it goes around like with iridescent blinking lights and it's just wild, you know. And there's, you know, there's there's panthers. And the thing that's got me a little nervy is I'm not scared of snakes, but, you know, the Amazon has the largest the anaconda, right? So, you know, even if you're in a four feet up in a tree in a hammock, you're thinking for a 30 foot anaconda is not a really big reach for them to, you know. Yeah, they can slow down the tree. Come constrict you to death. Oh, so like what do you do? I guess you got to yell and they cut it off or whatever. Yeah. I mean, you know, you don't really want to be running into an anaconda, but there's a guy named Paul Rosoli who lives in the rainforest and that dude is badass. And so he like intentionally goes out and finds them and catches them and wrestles with them and stuff, you know. So if you know what you're doing, which I didn't, I mean, I was just trusting my guy. Yeah. I mean, what do you how do you what like skill can you have to like wrestle? What do you got to know to do? You need like the crock hunter mentality, you know, true. I know if it's like quicksand, if you like, I know if you like lay on your belly and quicksand, it's better for you. Spread out the. Yeah, I guess anaconda, I would try to poke its eyes. Yeah. And there's all sorts of poisonous animals, creatures, you know. The weirdest thing is that there are these like, you know, well, and also Kyman, you know, which are not as gnarly as like an Australian saltwater croc. But we we went out evening spotlighting for Kyman. They're like an alligator. Yeah. Yeah. And or they are an alligator. They're smaller. They're how big are they? Yeah, they can get pretty big. But these the ones we were messing with were just like four feet. But even then is dark and you're like, I don't do not know my normal course of life to be grabbing alligators. Yeah. I'm messing with them. Even though I was born in New Orleans, I should be more. True. Burley about gators. I think can can they jump out of the water? Yeah. Yeah. They kind of leap up and say yes. Yeah. So that was and, you know, it's just like the stuff that it's the unknown to me. So you're you're like sleeping in this hammock and then you hear all the stuff like the howler monkeys who make this really wild lion like husky roar sound. And, you know, just being out in that environment is so intoxicating for me. Yeah. I don't know. So and you and you recently went to the Arctic, right? I did. That was surprising. Like what the hell? I've never that's one place I've never even thought to go. Yeah. I went from the jungle to the great north, the ice, you know. Yeah. And I've actually now I'm on my fourth Arctic book and. Do you like the Arctic? I really do. I like the. Again, well, you know, there's so so many elements to it, like. But I was going to say that on my most recent book, I wrote about the first people who tried to fly blimps to the North Pole, like back in the early 1900s. And when I first read that, I'm like, huh, we're going to we're going to take a 200 foot. Balloon inflated with like 270,000 cubic feet of flammable hydrogen stick a freaking, you know, Johnson 40 outboard motor on it. What could possibly go wrong? You know, the blow up. How do they make out? Well, there's some really great stories of that. And that's just my third Arctic book. You know, there there were crashes on the ice and people having to survive for months on end on floating sea ice, big birds. And, you know, in credit, well, this that book is called Realm of Ice and Sky, and it set off the largest Arctic rescue in history. But the cool, the funny part about going to those places is so I went. What's at this place called Svalbard, which is 600 miles north of northern Norway is still in Norway, but it's halfway between the northern, the Norwegian, north coast and the North Pole. So it's like it's the most northern inhabited place on earth. And I had I had met, I had previously met this woman in Greenland, and which is actually before we owned it and had a golf course there. But, you know, what are you going to do? This was 20 years ago. Yeah. And she got me really turned on to the Arctic and Arctic explorers and stuff. And so I ended up meeting up with Ingrid, my friend, and went to Svalbard. Bizarre thing when I were before I left to go to Svalbard, I read this story and I was like, because I wanted to camp and I wanted to get the feeling of what, you know, at least to a degree of what it was like for these people to sleep in the cold and on the ice. And it turns out that there's only one campground that you can stay in Svalbard. And it's like during COVID, a guy, this Dutchman, whose job was to put an electric fence around this campground. He was there with all this is like one of the great tragic ironies, man. He was there. All the fencing equipment was lying there at the camp site, camp area. And the day before he was going to install the fence, he got mauled to death by a polar bear. Right. So in Svalbard, the polar bear is protected. There's signs all over the outskirts of the town that's just have a picture of a polar bear. And then it says like beyond this, you know, you're kind of on your own. Yeah. And so, you know, you can imagine the first few nights sleeping there. Electric fence or no. If you've ever watched videos of polar bears, like they're just step right over that thing or break through it. You know, they're really, really. I for some reason, I thought they're I just, I think I've only ever seen them in like Coca-Cola commercials. So I like didn't even knew they, I didn't know they ate people. I thought they were pretty chill. Lord. They're pretty vicious. They are. I mean, I, you know, there you go. Learn something every day. I thought they were honestly like chill bears. I swear to God. You said they ate them. I was like, that sounds unlike polar bears. Yes. So there were some fitful nights in the camp site. Wait, so they never finished the electric fence after the guy got much by the. He did, but man, the thing is this high, like it just wasn't going to do it. But, you know, after a few nights, you're like, I mean, you know, you hear the tent flaps rustling and stuff and you're like all sketched out. Plus at that far north in the summer, which is when I was there, the the midnight sun is there's no darkness. So, you know, you're kind of not sleeping anyway. And then you, you know, you hear anything. And you're like, what are the people like who live there? I always wonder those places where like it's light 24 hours a day. Do they get like the total darkness too? Oh yeah. So what are the people like there? They like completely weird or like, I feel like you'd be really weird if you like didn't have a natural. They're hardy folk, man. Like six, you know, half the year it's nearly dark. And so, but there's northern lights. There's the aurora borealis stuff. So, you know, they cruise around on dog sled and with snow machines in the winter. And in the summer it has like, you know, a three day growing season. It's like, yeah, they do some quick harvesting. But no, it's just so it's never really that warm. You know, I was there in June and it snowed and it's a, it's a harsh. I really, you end up appreciating the kind of people who are carbon out a life there. I mean, Svalbard itself is very organized. It has a lot of tourism, you know, big tour ships come in, but also you can go on guided expeditions and go sea kayaking among the icebergs and the glaciers, which I did. And really it's so, so rad. I love that place. Really? Yeah. I've never, that's, I gotta, I gotta think about that. Every time I hear about like North Pole, all that Arctic exploration, I'm like, count me out, man. I don't know why. I just, isn't it just like snow as far as you can see or like. Well, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of mountains too. And having grown up in the mountains, I'm drawn to that. So, you know, huge and it comes from sea level. So you've got these massive peaks jutting up and fjords. It's kind of like you picture Norway, but farther north and, and stays icy and cold and windswept for more of the year. So. So here's the question, because it's like, if you're on an expedition, you would you prefer dying the death of someone dying in the Amazon or in the Arctic? Yeah, that's a good one. You know, I've, I've read and written about both kinds of death, right? I, there's something appealing in a way about like the cold. If you were just going to get hypothermia and freeze to death, that would be okay. Cause you just sort of like go to sleep and, you know, lie there and let it happen. Yeah. As they say. Yeah. But, uh, you know, if you go the other route, um, you know, in the jungle, you get like dengue fever or something, which would not be fun. Or, you know, you're bitten by some snake that gives you paralysis first. So yeah, I'm going to take the north, the north, except I will say that when I was in Greenland, um, we went out on a boat with a, um, I was actually writing about a blind adventurer named Eric Weinmayer, who was the first blind man to summit Mount Everest and kayak down the entire length of the Grand Canyon. How the hell did he do that? Uh, well, he had, he had help. Got you. He had a guide. Um, but amazing. I mean, he's a transformative human. Yeah, that's crazy. But I was following him in Greenland on this adventure race and where it's just like a week of different, really hard, um, sports. And part of it included like boating for like a day or two or all around this Southern Greenland. And I, we were following him in this boat and I get, I get in the boat with this seal fisherman dude, um, or seal hunter, I guess. And, you know, I said, I, when we got in the boat, I said, like, where are the life jackets? You know, and he, he looked at me and he kind of smiled to Greenlandic in you at dude. And he was like, um, we don't have them. And I go, why? Cause I mean, I'm going to get off. And he goes, no, no. Uh, if we fall in the water, we don't want it to take that long to die. Oh, and I'm like, that makes a lot of sense. Because if you're just like floating along, you know, then you will take 10 minutes. Whereas if you just bob and then how cold is this water? Oh, man. Cause salt water can keep it below free. You know, it's like, birds are floating around on the top. I mean, it's literally three minutes. You, without a dry suit, you'd die. You would die. So you're going in this boat hoping like everything goes well, you know, like, I don't really trust the dude, but. Yeah. So he was basically like, if you fall in, we're dead anyway. So like, it seems like, you know, what size craft you guys on? Well, this boat was like a 20 foot outboard. Okay. But we were following the people who were actually kayaking in rubber raft, you know, so they were a more imperiled than we were. Yeah. So, but they had the wet suits, which I guess they were only even preserved you for not that. Oh, while the good, really good dry suits, you'd stay alive for till somebody came in, if they came and got you. But, you know, of course that made me realize again, I'm thinking, I'm trying to think about the stories that I'm telling and the people I'm writing about in like, they had none of that, you know, no Gore-Tex, no dry suits. And they're out there in like native in the North, you know, like the, the, the, um, Scandinavians and the, some of these Northern people are the ones who invented like skin seal skin kayaks, right? So they are expert in paddling these things, you know, what is a seal skin kayak? So basically, if you see it, you know, the plastic kayaks that you see out on the river here, but they build them with like, um, wooden frames and, and sometimes bone, because in a lot of these places in the far North, there's no trees. Yeah. And then they, uh, they put the outsides are like stretched seal skin or sometimes walrus, um, and so they are really, they're watertight. Um, and you know, they're the ones who invented the whole, the, the older kayaks actually look pretty much, the designs have stayed similar. You know, where there's a little cockpit and you're sitting down, but you're so low on the water, you know, it's, it's in any wind and waves and shit. It's just terrifying. Like, I don't want to be in there. That's crazy dude. Well, it's funny too, the guys who explored that place cause like, you know, again, going back to the Amazon, it's like, okay, check it out. Like here's like a kind of a useful place with like the thing for the North Pole, it's like you get there and you're like, yeah, it's ton of snow. It's like, okay. It's an open polar sea. Like there's nothing there, but what was really intriguing to me, I'm not trying to rig on the North Pole, but it's like, you know, they didn't, um, they, they didn't know. Um, like so we're the people that I was writing about up until, uh, and even including the dirigible airship journeys. Um, in like the 1880s, uh, this was just a giant blank white spot on the map. I was about to say, what did they think was up there? Was there any like tales of what they thought might be there? Yeah. And some really confused tales that actually ended up like not helping people because they, they, there was this theory that there was a ring of ice around this kind of, um, warm temperate zone. So they thought that it was like open sea there. And so a lot of times when the, the Brits and some of the other, I mean, the, the Nordic, the Norwegians went there or tried to go there. Like the theory was, okay, we're going to break through this ice barrier. And then it's like warm. I don't know why they believe that exactly. Um, could be, did you ever get into hollow earth theory? Could just, there are people who think at the top of the North Pole, like it hollows out and kind of go in, yeah. Just jump in. Right through. Um, teleport right to China. See at the bottom. Yeah. Where it's also ice and frozen. Found out there was not the fabled oasis in the middle of all the other. Right. And a lot of times the early expeditions went, uh, with not enough gear and warm clothes, because they thought they were going to end up in these more temperate places. Um, and they should have figured it out by noted noting what the indigenous people were wearing. Yeah, true. You know, they're like totally bundled up with freaking caribou. How high up do indigenous people go up to the, are they all in the North Pole? Well, nobody lives at the North Pole, but they, they, um, they live the salt bars, the most northern place, but on the northern coast of Greenland, there are still, uh, Eta native populations, people who are still carving out a life up there and living in traditional way with, you know, um, seal hunting. And I mean, there's, there's like whales in beluga and, uh, you know, yeah, I think they're hardy. I would imagine. I think, uh, which I'm gonna call it the egg loser. I read about, I was in a like a kids museum with my kids and apparently they like retain heat, like insane, like snow retains heat. Oh man. And unbelievably. So yeah. One of the things that's in, in writing about these, um, expeditions, you know, I marvel at the endurance of these, you know, the explorers because, uh, in many, in some cases they were smart enough to take along indigenous guides and hunters. And, you know, they, they would slog for like 12 hours across the snow and ice, get to the end of the day, build an igloo, uh, in like 45 minutes. And then you have like a seal blubber lantern at one end and you're tucked into this igloo and there's, and these guys are, you know, taking, um, not only writing down where they've gone, what the coordinates were, um, writing letters home, you know, and recording in their journals and diaries, everything that's happened, including what the weather was like. Um, but you know, they're doing that after, after just trekking for a day or something. And the other thing that most people don't realize is that they're, the, especially in the north, it's not, not the case in the South Pole. Um, but these, they're giant, um, flows of ice that's breaking up and they move, uh, tremendously. So you could be in your igloo and all of a sudden you hear this crashing crash, you know, heaving sounds and shattering. And now the ice is breaking up underneath your igloo. And so they like, you kind of need to sleep with your boots on or your rear walk looks. Oh, that's what you're saying. It's just a frozen sea. Right. And then, and so it'll shatter and then you have to get out of there and like regroup somewhere over here and you know, you're yelling at each other in the darkness and she says, gnarly. Oh, that sounds awful. It really does sound terrible. That's not, it's not, you're not pitch me on the North Pole. What's up with the South Pole? Yeah. Well, the South Pole is different. It's more of a land mass that has frozen sea too. Um, but what I've always found funny is that, you know, cause not, not a lot of people know about the Arctic and the Antarctic. So they'll, they'll, I'll tell them I'm writing about the Arctic. And they say, um, the only thing they know is Shackleton, which is one of the, the most famous explorers, right? And, uh, they're like, Oh, so like Shackleton, right? And I said, well, yeah, it's like Shackleton, except on his journey, everyone lived. And I only write about story for half the people died at least. And Shackleton was Antarctic. Yeah. Yeah. It's an amazing story. Personally, if I was talking to Arctic and someone came at me with Antarctic, I probably wouldn't even respond. I'd be like, okay, dude. I know what you mean. But I haven't been there. That's the one on my bucket list of, uh, I've been on every continent except Antarctica. And so that's, that's an action. So in North Pole, like the North Pole, is that like a military base or like, what is there? No, there's just, it's just a spot on the map. What? Still. Um, so what the, what they did discover was that there, there had been a theory that there was a, another continental land mass there. So, you know, maybe we, maybe there's, um, reserves of something oil, maybe we can, you know, and there, it was contested, uh, by a number of countries. So what they did figure out in the book that I wrote, realm of ice and sky, they fly over it in a blimp and are able to take pictures and, and confirm that there's no land mass there. That it's just a giant expanse of, of moving ice. Okay. And then I'm trying to like picture it. So if you fly to the North Pole and then just keep going straight, you, well, these guys ended up in, what is it? They, they crash landed in Teller, Alaska. Well, it depends on, uh, what direction you go, but like, well, the cool thing is once you go, once you pass the North Pole, every direction leads south, you know, it's like no matter if you turned around or which in one case they did, they turned around and then went back to Svalbard. That didn't work. They crashed. Um, but yeah, it's, um, yeah, these stories I love because, you know, once they're out there, then something usually invariably terrible happens. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's really, it is, I do like that when you're reading all of a sudden it's like they're about to die. They're like literally on the verge of death the entire time. Right. How are we not going to die? Yeah. Yeah. I was, I was bugging out on the poison and it's a different thing, but the poison arrows in the river darkness was like, I couldn't stop thinking about them. Just one little scratch from a poison arrow and it's just like a 24 hour shivering horrible death. And your arm turns black and falls off. Right. And it's like, yeah, uh, don't, you know, duck and stay under those manatee shields. You know, dude, that shit sucks. Guys, this episode is brought to you by on it. Ever feel like your brain is on, but nobody's home. Hmm. Spend 10 to 15 seconds sharing a quick, relatable and funny story from your own life about a time. How about this guys? I'll be honest. I, uh, I do dumb stuff all the time. Uh, this is for alpha brain, by the way. I, they sent it to me. So I've been taking it. I fucking like it. I swear to God, I figured I would like, let me just try it out. Let me see, you know, let me see what it's all about. I like it, dude. It feels like it's a nice, uh, it's caffeine free. First of all, that's why I never took it because I'm like, I don't need any God darn caffeine. Um, but yeah, I don't know. I think it, I looked it up and I don't know if I, it's just like, you can say what it does, but apparently just like boost your dopamine or like pushes dopamine into your brain. Give it a try. Give it a try. I, I like it. And, um, yeah, it gets, it gets me charged, man. I take it. It's a very, and here's the thing too. I'm very, uh, I'm very prone to just taking stuff and being like, Oh, I think it's working, but I gave it to my brother. I, I guinea pig, my brother swim, who's no stranger to chemicals and chemical compounds who has a heartier constitution than me. And he even was like, bro, this stuff's got me kind of, it's got me moving and grooving. So, Hey, look, we did it with that science right there. Did a fucking study on myself and my brother and Spud and we were all like, damn this shit fucking rips. So get it yourself. Try it out. Try it out. All right. Alpha brain is a daily supplement with science backed ingredients like L-theanine design a support memory and focus so you can lock in, tune out distractions and stay sharp. Visit on it.com and shop alpha brain to unlock your next level. That's O N N I T dot com. And yeah, I literally take it every day. Now I like it. Go ahead, Sean, do you have the plug or show? Yeah. Thank you. Cause. Hello. It's what we do it for. Hello everybody. This is Sean. I just want to let you know one last time that I'll be in Salt Lake city this weekend, Friday and Saturday with Nate Marshall, March 27th and 28th. Tickets are at shangardini.com. Please come. There are plenty of tickets available to these shows. So many tickets and we'll be at the Houston riot fest the week after that April 3rd and 4th and then Anachtise is after that at the creek in the cave. So please come tickets at shangardini.com or the Mary Lee dot fund and you good Shane M. Gillis dot com to sell out the link. Thank you guys. Thank you, Matt. Of course guys. Um, oh man, this leg of the tour is winding down on April 10th. I'll be in St. Paul, Minnesota, the Fitzgerald Theater. Oh, it's all good. What you guys need? I was just my red light was when you were reading it. Oh, you're fine. Ain't no big thing. Just getting the audio out to the people. Sorry. Um, also 411 the next day after I leave Minnesota, I'm going to Des Moines, Iowa, uh, Hoyt Sherman place or whatever. I'll be there at 411. So Iowa, Minnesota, I have shows there. Let's go. Let's finish this out strong guys. What do you say? And then also motherfucking Phoenix man, celebrity theater guys. Come on. It's in the round. It's a cool place. Don't embarrass me. Oh, yeah. Guardian will be there. Fucking it's going to be a blast. By the way, I come alive in the round. If I'm being honest, I've done the round with Shane. I love it. So please guys, please, please, please. Um, otherwise I'm, I'll literally, I'll just pay to get feet seat fillers and I'll, I don't fucking care. I'm going to have a good show in the round one way or the other guy and I'll pay them to laugh at me too. That's 417 guys, 418. I'll be in Tucson, Arizona. And, uh, let's, let's get it going. Also, uh, I'll be in Toronto. We have two shows in Toronto. Both of them are, one of them is definitely sold out. The second one's dang near sold out. So my dad a third, I don't know. Uh, Riviera theater, Chicago. Yeah, let's go get that. I think that's going to sell out guys. That's in April. Um, there's been a rumor about adding a possible, if that sells out in 11 o'clock show at Zany's secret show. We'll see. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. I'm just going to see the, oh nice. Chad, yeah. But yeah, guys, go to mammakuster.com. That, that took way too long. Just a six shows left before I chill for the summer. Thank you. Oh, this is good. Quite. Oh, so yeah, the, okay. We're bringing up the fabled Amazon. Oh, the women. Um, oh, I thought, cause there, yeah, everybody who lives there is considered an Amazonian now, but, uh, there's different tribes. So yeah, the Amazon women, that's an interesting and, um, perplexing myth and story. Um, I didn't meet any, I was looking for them. The warriors are talking about the warriors. That was on women warriors. Yeah. But they had their breasts in the jungle, whereas the Greek, the Greek, that's where the term comes from, right? They're Greek women who would, would they like strap their breasts down or down? Yeah. Time down so they could shoot the arrow. But what I loved about that story in the black sea is that they, and this persists too in the Amazon basin is that they would take men, uh, mate with them. Yeah. I know. And then like, tell them to fuck off. And then they just have the women on the island that were like, we're using you as, you know, you're just pro creators. It's fantasy. It's a collective male fantasy. Get out of here. We're done with you. Done with you. Go do shit in the jungle with your friends. I have no use for you right now. Go hunt. Well, that was the question. That was kind of what I was thinking about just yesterday. I was, I was reading it. And, uh, so you have the, you know, because the conquistadors had the fabled myth of El Dorado, the, you know, the, the kingdom, kingdom of gold and all this stuff. And that was kind of the myth. That was like a myth that was driving them. But like, why would, I think you might have just answered the question, but why would it, these Amazonian people all make up a myth of like powerful female warriors? Right. I mean, there's the sexual thing of them, like abducting you from your village and taking you to have sex with you or whatever and dropping you back off. But it's like, it is just a weird collective myth to have all these people in the jungle form of like powerful women warriors. Yeah. Especially back then. Now I'd be like, yeah, I get it. My people would do that. They're like, back then in the fucking 1500s, like why, why would they all do that? And like all agree that was a thing. Well, and also it, you know, since it has persisted for hundreds of years, um, I mean, I love the fact that this is where mythology, um, becomes, you kind of wonder, like, is there a kernel of truth to this? Because, you know, with modern technology, wouldn't we have found them? But I have to say in the Amazon, I mean, when I came, when I did my journey and came out, um, and landed in Iquitos Peru, there, there was an article in the paper, uh, or you know, online and it had images of, you may have seen them, like they're uncontacted tribes still and they're like painted orange and, you know, helicopters or whatever small planes are flying over to check them out. And they're just standing there with spears going, you know, land, please. Yeah. See how that goes Navy seal. But, but, uh, you know, they, I think they would do all right with their guns. Yeah. But for me, the point was like, well, okay, if there are, if there remain uncontacted tribes, um, even in, you know, I was down there in 2008. Um, they're still today are uncontacted tribes. Yeah. And so it's so vast. And of course, you know, it's being imperiled by logging and farming and all this stuff, but there's still, it's so vast that there's, if there are pockets of people that have lived the same way for thousands of years and, and then there's myths about these particular female tribes that are warriors and don't want to be messed with. To me, there's a, I have to believe that it's possible. Yeah. Well, the guy in the book saw them, he fought them. So it was like they were, they were paler. They were like lighter skinned, tall women that had a bunch of like short guys. They were bossing around. Hey, look at that. And if you don't, and if you, if you push out, you're fucking killing you. Yeah. That holds, that still holds this day. How do I tell you about you better keep fighting him. Yep. I might have an Amazonian in my house. I'm the last Amazonian. Why don't you pick up your shirt off the floor? Don't back down. No, that, uh, yeah, it was, and it's just such a funny thing. Cause you hear, you know, they were like, while they're floating around the river, it's like, there's these tales of Amazon women, warriors. And you're like, you know, you're like, okay, it's just like a fable. Then they actually battle them. And you're like, what the fuck was that all about? They killed a couple. Yeah. Yeah. They killed almost all of them. Now shocking. You didn't take one of them prisoner. I know. It was silly. You know, cause if you look back to what Cortez did, and you know, there's also, um, there's albinos that come into camp one time. Yeah. That was a weird one too. Tall albinos. Tall albino dudes. Um, you know, they may have been pituitary giants or something, which, um, what is a pituitary giant? What is that? Well, like you grow really fast and, uh, and you're usually they're marked by having a really big head. Actually, I played rugby for seven years and one of our, um, or one of our best players in the scrum was a pituitary, a pituitary giant. Um, so he was like huge, like Andre, the giant. Yes. Yeah. So you plans just produced good to have on your rugby team. I would imagine. Yeah. Giant is, I mean, that was like medieval battle and everything. That's fucking awesome. And he had it. He was like, oh, he talked like that. I would have pissed if he didn't. Honestly, if I had a giant with a soft voice, I'd be like, it's bullshit. Howdy. Uh, but Cortez had the wherewithal to like snag some of these, um, you know, specimens, uh, and take them home to England or part of me to Spain. Yeah. And he would be like, I want to show the king what is here. And so there were like dwarfs and albinos and some of them, he, you know, absconded with, put them on a ship and sent them with the, you know, with the Royal fifth of, um, gold that they were required to send back. And it was like, check them out. Like this place is rad. You know, it's crazy. Just a set up, just a bunch of treasure than like essentially like an old free show is just a hit of it. Like he was like, you open a chest and like, dude, just pop out. You're like, whoa, the hell's this? But in fairness to Oriana, he, he didn't have like, you know, he was just trying not to die and get down the river. So he didn't have the capacity to put them in the boat. Even he was trying to feed his own men. Yeah. True. Cortez was like, okay, we're going to put these guys on ships and send them back and show what I'm taking over. The worst story of all, I think from river of darkness is when they landed in that village and it was just women there and they took over the village and just all just slept with these ladies raped him. Obviously. Let's be, let's not be frank about it. And then the guys, then they're, all their husbands came home from a trip to just see these like people they've never seen before all with their wives and their huts. And it was just like, dude, that's the most insane thing you could possibly imagine. I know everyone goes out to work. You come home and everyone's wife is now being detained by like a strange being. You never spend my whole day at the turtle farm and come home to this. Really, even having turtles all day. And I was, I was, I was chuckling too. And you guys were talking about how they named everything. And the one place that you call, you know, you read it in the part three or whatever, and it's like, um, it was like, um, place of the, of the burned people. And I was thinking, well, you should have been called the place where we burned people, you know, like they didn't want to name it when it really was. Yeah. I also love what he called it. When he had like that, Gonzalo Bizarro had a bad March and it was named the worst March ever through the jungle. Literally, that was a literal term. Yeah. This was the worst March ever through the jungle. Okay. There have been a lot of bad ones. This one. Worst, worst ever. Well, it is pretty bad when, when he gets back and he's like literally in, you know, skins and barefoot, you know, the fact that any of those guys, the worst, the worst is them, I didn't know you could do this with a horse. You cut it open, drink the blood as needed. And then you pack it full of mud. And it's just like a walking, it's just like a food truck. You just kind of want you to cut slivers, cook a sliver of it, eat it and just let it keep walking as you're eating. It was like, oh. Yeah. That was grim. I was listening to it a little bit on the plane and I'm like, God, I forgot about that. You know, it's just what people will do. And, you know, I have to say, there wasn't much cannibalism in the Conquistador tales, but in, if you really, if you like cannibalism, as you get to the, as you get to the, the Arctic stuff, a lot of cannibalism. That was the root because that's the, that's the funny thing too. Cause I, you know, whenever I'm like, I'll like organize notes for things and I'll use like, you know, Grock or Claude and they're always like, by the way, they didn't sustain themselves on cannibalism. It was for ceremonies. It's like, okay, dude, they're still eating. Like don't like nice it up. Like it was church. Okay. But so that was, Arctic was like, they need it to munch guys. That was like sustained. That was like sustaining. Yeah. And you know, you're talking about a different, um, like the idea was that the explorers coming from, from Europe and North America were like, you know, it was taboo, um, in different cultures, it's less, less so, you know, I mean, um, it, it does beg the question. I'm, I've been asked that at book readings, like, would you eat, uh, human flesh? It's always one guy at a book reading. Yeah. So would you ever eat a person? Mr. Lovey, would you eat a person? And then if I died, your fate, I'm gonna, I mean, what do you say to that? When someone asks you that? I say, would you, um, to say, I mean, it depends on how, if it was your fucking homie, you know, like, how well do you know him? True. You know, is it a guy or a girl? I would eat a guy personally. Yeah. I would personally. Oh man. Unless it was a powerful warrior. I would eat a powerful warrior. Yeah. I mean, I think at a certain point, um, I would, you know, yeah, obviously if you get hungry enough, yeah, for sure. You know, you're delirious with hunger and it's like, it's meat. Yeah. If you ever a vegan, I would say no. I, I have a cupboard full of like cereal and all this stuff and I'll be not hungry and I don't want to eat the cereal and I'll eat the cereal. If I was starving to death, I would totally eat a person. Yeah. Well, I like, no, not even not a question. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. So then I literally would eat every person, everyone here. I think you guys are great. But if I got hungry, but so it gets kind of grim. I'll try. It gets kind of grim because then it becomes a question of, okay, if they're already dead, yeah, like let's say they starved to death and then they're, which happens in a couple of my books where, you know, they're, they're dead already. They starved. So you're looking around. Okay. Not a lot. You know, we've already gone out hunting and we haven't found anything in there. There's a guy. Yeah. Starving skin. You know, are we going to, are we going to do it? And versus you're going to, you know, kill someone to eat them, which is a different thing for me. Well, this went dark. No, that's, no, I, I hear what you're saying. Cause if someone stars to death and you know, you got to split up your friend with all your other friends to eat them, but it's like, they isn't a lot of meat on them. Right. Next person starts lagging. Like we can just eat this guy now and get a better meal out of it. Yeah. And then in some cases what happens is like they start looking around. This happens in, in that book actually, um, uh, or in labyrinth advice. So one guy, you know, everybody else is like emaciated sort of walk in dead situation on the ice and, and then you've got like one guy who's like 200 pounds. It looks like he's just come from CrossFit, you know, and they're like, up with him. Like what, why is he so, you know, burly? And they realize, well, he's been going off to the, the title crack where they've been throwing the dead people and like feeding at night. You know, feeding at the title crack. He's just jacked and ripped. And then that guy, it doesn't go well for him. I would say. So it was, he kind of gave himself away about me. Like, man, I'm just different. I'm just built it for his crazy. It was as crazy. It's genetics. So he was just sneaking off at nighttime and just frying up the guys and. Yes. And then, but, but the commander, this was an army, uh, expedition and the commander figures it out, uh, Adolf is Greeley. And he's like, um, I don't, I don't, I hate you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's so funny. He ends up going, okay. He catches him, um, stealing food. And then he says, okay, we're going to take three guys out there and, um, Henry, that's his name. Henry's got to go because he's eating what little food we have left. And so they do a thing. We're, we have to. He was munching the food reserves after and, and dead people. Oh, and so then he's like, uh, we, you know, we'll all die if Henry keeps eating everything. So they have an execution and they just like go out there and you know, I got to say that's not very fat positive of them. And I'm getting all that he's hungry. Yeah. Yeah. And Henry was body shaming people. That's fair. Damn. So he was, so they executed him, but you know, they wanted to not know who, who did it. So they really put like blanks in two of the guns and then a live round in the other one and all fired. They all fired on him and then they had to report it to the, if they, you know, they met some survived. Um, so then they had to like write a report of like, yeah, we took out Henry. Made a kill him. Sorry. That's what you get, man. He can't be doing that on the expedition. No, it's bad form, bad team player. It's a terrible, that's a terrible team player. Things all about himself. There's no iron team, Henry. Dang, that's awesome. So what is like, so out of all the expeditions you've done, what are they? You've done the Amazon, Arctic. Well, I will also, I went to Borneo. Um, this was, uh, I think I mentioned you. I had followed these crazy, uh, multi sport adventure racers around the world for about seven years. And, um, this was run by Mark Burnett, the guy who created survivor of the apprentice. Um, and so I was doing some research and I was, or I was a journalist then writing about these sports. Um, and the first, one of the ones I went to was in Borneo, which is, you know, Northern Malaysia islands. And that was super intense because, and it was actually during this race where Mark Burnett found the island that was the first survivor island where the first competition happened, however many, like 112 seasons of survivor ago, or whatever it's been. Um, and so we, this was really incredible. We were, we were following these racers around and we were in boats, uh, motorboats, but we would sleep on islands, right? And I had heard my friend is trying to freak me out. He's like, yeah, well, Borneo, that's where the headhunters are. Right. So I thought, yeah. Really? Uh, and he, he's like, well, they're, they're south. They're south of where you're going to be, you know, and I'm like, oh, good. And he said, but, you know, Borneo has like some of the most, uh, toxic snakes in the world. And also, um, so at one point I'm on this island, um, and we were like waiting to go to the next island and we camped out there. Right. This is, couldn't have a hammock there because of no trees. And so I had heard about this C Crate, K R A I T, which is like one of the most toxic snakes in the world. Right. And if it bites you, I think you have like hours to live. Really? So we're like, get to this island. It was beautiful. We're all sitting up camp in this one guy. We had this MacGyver dude named Brito. He's British and his nickname was Brito, which isn't that clever, but that's just what we called him. But Brito, it turns out, was really scared of snakes. Right. So we had seen in a couple of their water snakes. So it's freaky cause you had, we had to anchor out like it's shallow. We anchored like 200, 300 yards from the island. And then you couldn't get into shore cause it would break, you know, fuck up the boat. Um, so we're like carrying all our crap through the water, seeing occasional slithers going, God damn. And so when we got to shore, Brito was like, buddy, I'm so scared of snakes. And I'm like, okay, well, you know, stay away from them. But we ended up like, so in the middle of the night, so I set up my tent and in the middle of the night, I feel something next to me and the dude is spooning me. You know, and listen, I'm okay with spooning, you know, but the guy, I'm like, Brito, what the fuck are you doing? He's like, I can't take it. I can't be out there. And then I showed him, I go, well, it's not going to help you that much in here. My tent had like a little hole in the corner and I'm like, the sea crates going to come right cause they look for warmth too. You know, and I'm like, but they, there's, there are water snakes. Yeah, they're water snake, but they can come on laying their amphibious. It's not a good, it's also like, don't be, be next to me. He's like, we're going to, you know, right. She'd be like, I'm afraid of snakes too, bro. Back up, man. Get off the guy. Get your snake away from me. But, but, and then I went the next day, I go, I go like, I think you made it all up and get close to you. Honestly, he probably did. Help me, buddy. Yeah. So the next day I went out and took a leak and I'm like, I see the movement in the scrub, you know, and I'm like, what is that? And it was like, it was a, it turns out to be, it was a, a monitor lizard, which are next to the Komodo dragon, the monitor, the second largest reptile in the world. I mean, there's like from me to these guys, you know, and it's like a Shetland pony elongated, look size lizard, you know, and you're like, and they're kind of gnarly too. I mean, you know, if you don't spook them or something, you're good, but like, it all just makes you nervous. You know, we, we, we're the size of a Shetland pony. That's a dino. Yeah. And you're out there in its Jurassic Park situation and, you know, it's just trying to, that's just trying to make a living. That's fucking terrible. And then how did you just own that island for a day? Yeah. And then we were like, went off to the next, I mean, it was like a 10 or 12 day long race. And we also had to crawl through the, they had this really cool section of the race where they had to, there are these bat caves that are really famous in there. Um, they're huge. You go through these, like you crawl through these tunnels to get inside the big cavern and they're massive. And then there's these bat caves that actually are the, um, the local population, they harvest these birds. They're kind of like a swallow. They're called swifts, but they, they harvest. There's a, they go up on these like, uh, vine ladders to harvest the eggs from these swift birds. It's like a medicinal, uh, aphrodisiac situation. What? Uh, yeah. Every single place has their, like, I swear, like give you, this is like the tree bark liquor or whatever. Yeah. Whatever. Every single civilization has their own, like boner medications. You've got to have it. I mean, hey, I turned 40 this year. I'm, I'm the thick of it, bro. I'm like, it's finally come for me. But so yeah, then you're crawling. It was kind of nasty. I'm, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not against bats or anything, but like when you're, or, and you guys, I know, uh, Congress, you got bats. Um, but you have to crawl through like tunnels of bat guano, like, you know, centuries of bats shitting there to get into the cavern place. And then as part of the race, the racers had to go through there and then, um, climb up this huge, uh, like escarpment and then like rappel down the other side. Right. So, you know, you're just coming out of there going, did I pick the wrong gig? Like I'm covered in batshit. Yeah. You know, which, uh, it's not good. No. Can you get, it's like, it's like, I know bird shit. You can get really sick. Yeah. You back on, oh, um, you don't want to eat it. True. But no, it has, uh, you can get sick. Well, cause the bird, the bird shit, what happens is it dries and then you hit something and it goes up in the air. And then as soon as you breathe it in, it becomes that like, when it gets wet, that's when it kind of messes you up. Like, I think moisture activates. Yeah. It's good. It's been, I was working with my dad, we're doing the thing with pigeon shit. He might have been making this all up. And he was just like moisture activates the germs and bird shit. It's like the hunt to virus. You know, don't be snorting that. That's pretty cool though. So what do you, um, what do you have? What do you have like cooking up? What's your, what's your next? So, well, I'm doing a, I'm doing a fourth Arctic book. Cause I am the master of the Arctic. You are the master of the Arctic. Uh, as it turns out, I'm claiming Antarctic. I'm going to go to the Antarctic. Yeah. I'll beat you to it. Well, my editor, I'm actually, this is avoidance behavior right here. Cause I'm, I am working on a new book and it's, it's about, uh, so you may have heard of, uh, John Franklin, who, um, this Franklin expedition that went off in the two boats, uh, ships got stuck in the ice and then, uh, he never came home. He had 120. Well, did you know, have you guys heard about the terror? Uh, it's an AMC show called the terror. That was a huge deal. But anyway, um, these two ships got stuck in the ice and then nobody came home. And so his wife, uh, Lady Jane Franklin sent for like 20 years, sent expeditions to go try to find them. And then half of those people died. Um, but those two ships were recently found in like 2017 and 2014 because of Inuit oral history, they said, we, we saw, you know, their ancestors said, we saw these boats where they went down and they, they ended up using submersibles to go find both those ships. And it, it helped solve the problem or the questions about what happened. And in fact, cannibalism, um, occurred. Of course. 129 men perished. Um, but that's not one of the books about my books about the first Franklin expedition away. What the hell? Yeah. Uh, is about the first Franklin expedition in Northern Canada, uh, which is an overland journey in like 5,000 miles on foot in canoes with, um, Diney, Yellow Nive, um, indigenous people. It was during the time of the Hudson Bay company in the Northwest fur traders, right? And so it's 18, 19. And it's just this incredible ordeal where they're trying to figure out where the Northwest passage is. In fact, almost all this stuff was related to finding the Northwest passage and these arctic, many of the Arctic tales. And, um, it's just an incredible ordeal. Um, what, what's the Northwest passage? They were trying to find a sea route instead of having to go all the way around to Asia, you could, you could go quicker from Europe through, through, through this circuit is all these islands north of Canada. Yeah. But it's really hard to navigate. And half the time it's, um, frozen and not navigable. And so it took centuries to figure out that it's not practical and you can't do it. Many people, I mean, with, with global warming, it's becoming open, uh, longer. I mean, if you believe in global warming. But, you know, it's, um, it's still not, it's too, uh, circuit is to get through quickly and it doesn't really solve the problem, but it took them a long time and many, uh, lives to come to this realization. Sucks. A lot of those guys too, I've noticed when they, whenever, whenever someone has like a successful voyage and they try to do the second one, it never works out. Besides, I feel like Christopher Columbus is the only guy who kind of like, I don't even know what happened to him ultimately. He gets, yeah. Like where, where their journey is improved. Yeah. He just kind of just, I, I don't know. If this is true, I, I was talking to somebody months ago about Christopher Columbus, who was a history teacher and he was saying that Christopher Columbus, when he first got to, what was it? Like his spaniela or whatever. They were the people there. I forget the name of them. They were like, you know, he famously was like the super docile. Well, uh, apparently he would just like hop on their back and make them piggyback him around the aisle, which is so disrespectful. He'd be like, I'm tired and just piggyback. You know what? They were just carrying him around. You look fit. Oh, that's disrespectful. Yeah. I thought that was crazy. I mean, there's obviously all of them did a lot of terrible things, but that would just, if a grown man was like, all right, come on, let me hop up. We hop on you real quick. I'd be like, it's fucking bullshit. Yeah. But he, he made it. He was the only guy I feel like he did. I mean, I'm sure there are others, but he had like multiple successful expeditions, right? Yes. Yeah. He was the only place. Well, yeah, but you're right. They, they tend to end poorly. I mean, even in the case of Oriana and River of Darkness, like you, he thought like what he learned going down the river would have helped. And then the return voyage was disastrous. Right. Yeah. Plus you can't figure out where you're going, you know, like, because of the mouth is so wide. One of the staggering facts that I, I wrote it, I, I'm going to have to confirm this after we are done here. If it's actually true, that there's an island at the mouth that's the size of Switzerland. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's insane. It was already looked at up. I think I think, I think that it'll probably quote me. No, I, I swear to God, I think that's the case. Yeah. And it's, it's, so imagine Oriana arriving back there with his child bride, you know, um, and he did bring a child bride in return for which was just crazy. And they're like, we're going back up and we're going to mostly visit the places that were nice to us. Yeah. Marahoe Island. Yeah. That's insane. And it, I forgot about that. And then he survives it and then brings a child bride, honeymoons, the child bride. Great honeymoon. She'll love it. Crazy. Dyes in front of her. Brazil is nice this time of year. Yeah. I do like learning about those little like, um, those weird like waterways, like the Boca de Serpiente and the Boca de Dragão, where they got to like navigate these weird rocky channels with like wetlands through, where was that? Like the Trinidadian coast. Mangrove swamps and everything. Fuck it sucks. Yeah. I mean, that would suck. So, especially just to learn where you're at. And I go, the place where it is called the mouth of the dragon. I'd like, fuck. Fuck. I wonder why they call it that. Well, buddy, this was great. Thank you so much. Um, is there anything else you have or anything you'd like people to know or any of that stuff talking business? No man, just, I really appreciate being here. Sure customer. It's, it's been a blast and, uh, I'm going to keep writing these things until I'm weak and infirm and need to feed on a friend. Thank you so much. My pleasure. See you buddy. Take care.