Danny Jones Podcast - #243 - Death Tribes, Blood Rituals & Getting High with Hunter-Gatherers | Mike Corey

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

Tribal adventurer Mike Corey (AKA @fearlessandfar) explores lost tribes & cultures in the deadliest parts of the world. Mike has received 2 Emmy nominations for his Adventure Travel show "Uncharted Adventure", and for his podcast "Against the Odds". SPONSORS https://mudwtr.com/danny - Try it now for only $29. (that's less than $1 per cup) https://buy.ver.so/danny - Use code DANNY to save 15% on your first order. https://whiterabbitenergy.com/?ref=DJP - Use code DJP for 20% off EPISODE LINKS Mikes YouTube Channel: @fearlessandfar https://www.instagram.com/fearlessandfar https://x.com/fearlessandfar FOLLOW DANNY JONES https://www.instagram.com/dannyjones https://twitter.com/jonesdanny OUTLINE 00:00 - Venezeulan Santeria offerings 04:44 - Hadza tribe 14:23 - How to reach uncontacted tribes 17:52 - Going to war with baboons 31:01 - Drugs in uncontacted tribes 37:26 - Zimbabwe nose piercings 42:04 - Mortality uncontacted tribes 49:26 - Are ALL animals food? 53:51 - Rites of passage & body modifications 01:01:58 - Death cult tribe 01:19:05 - Truth about uncontacted tribes 01:23:11 - Solo camping in Satan's Castle 01:45:14 - Congo voodoo wrestling 01:53:07 - Sneaking into the Congo jungle 02:04:29 - Living among Congo tribes 02:12:08 - Singing, dancing & drugs 02:14:13 - Free diving & breath work 02:23:51 - Mayan blood rituals & sacrifices 02:29:46 - Butt trumpets for drugs 02:30:39 - Intense sky ayahuasca trip 02:45:52 - Fear Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We're rolling. Michael Corey, what is happening, brother? My mom calls me, Michael. Come on. Your mom and me. That's it. What's going on, dude? You got the fucking sickest YouTube channel I've ever seen.

It is so brutal, the things that you do. Brutal. That's an interesting choice. Explain. Brutal is the word that I think best describes your video going out into the jungle in Tanzania, I think it was, and hunting baboons with those dudes with arrow poisons. And you're barefoot and they're biting the necks of deer to kill them. That is like pure brutality to me.

Yeah. Well, you miss the part where when the dogs get cut, they actually urinate into the cuts themselves to heal them. That's also, I guess, quite brutal too. But honestly, man, the reason why I like that kind of content is it's real. And we don't see real very much anymore. Right? In a censored world, we think that everything is PC.

and we hear these stories about faraway places thinking they're all savages and they don't know how to behave, but those guys like the Hanzah in Tanzania, there's only a thousand left, and they live authentically how we did back when we were all hunter-gatherers. They're one of the last tribes in the world still living true to our very roots. And so when you see a guy whip his Johnson out and pee into a snail shell and heal a wound with urine, you're like, okay, that sounds, that looks really weird, but they obviously have to be. have some wisdom there, right? They got huge d-it, too, right? See, I wasn't sure if I could draw up. Give me an idea. Like, forearm, like full...

Well, here's a thing. It's not quite a baby's arm with an apple. Okay. But generally, I try not to film naked people in the videos. Right, right. Sometimes a lot of the tribes, the women don't wear shirts, right? So it's inevitable. But with the guys, you know, if it's a I don't want to, don't need to film that stuff. But this guy, tap me on the shoulder, pulled pants down and said, fill my dick. And he beat into a snail shell. And anyway, I can't put that on. I can't put that on YouTube.

That's the behind-the-scenes stuff that I put it on Patreon. I put it on Patreon actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God, dude. I brought you a present, man. Did you really? I guarantee you'll never in a thousand years know what it is. Or guess what it is.

You're probably right about that. Look at this dirty stained bag. It's stained from what's ever in there. All right. You ready for this? Is it drugs? Oh, I might have forgot. in the

hold on Oh no it's there Did it break off? Whoa dude Hold on this It's an assemble

Well that didn't quite survive the What is this? That's his stick No There you go It's like a Lego project You can put it together

So that is essentially A voodoo doll But not voodoo Santoria I got that in Venezuela In the witchcraft market of Caracas Two weeks ago

So how that works is you fill it with some sort of offering. So in the top of this strange two man's head, there's two corks, right? You would fill it a full of blood or sin or something like that. Wow. And then you make it off from that one. I put my blood and seed already. Oh, wow. So I want you to put in your blood and seam in the other one.

The sacrament. And then we burn it and then we cast a spell love or hate on somebody else. Now my seat is not inside. They're both empty. You can use. That's beautiful, man. can use both. Look at that. That's incredible, man. Thank you. It may or may not come alive at night. I'm not quite sure yet. That's the coolest thing I've ever gotten, man. That's going to live right there.

So, I mean, what they're for is there would because you burn them. And you can see a lot in a lot of my travels. You see these like witchcraft, these voodoo, these santaria things. Yeah. Especially in Latin America. I remember I was doing some abandoned exploration in Mexico City. And we came across this site where, where it was a bunch of burnt chicken heads, a half-burnt photo of a boy, and some burnt candy wrappers. And it was a Santeria spell cast on someone to make them fall in love.

So a girl would have come in there with chicken heads, burnt them with the photo of the guy, and candy means it's for love or for liking, and then that's cast a spell. So you would fill that full and off with an offering, and you'd burn it, or you can do whatever you want with it, really. So you just pack the top with whatever you want.

Yep. And then you can burn it? There's probably like a spell book for Santeria somewhere. I didn't bring that. Oh, that's amazing, man. Yeah, and he's fully erect. Yeah, he is. That's incredible.

Thank you. No problem, man. So going back to that, the tribe. What's the name of that tribe in Tanzania again? The Hadesa. The Haza tribe. Or Hanzabi. How many tribes like that do you think exist that are that primitive?

Is, uh, explain what, what's the threshold? I mean, like, That seemed like probably one of the most... I mean, I know there's uncontacted tribes around the world that will kill a human when they see them. Not as many as you'd think, but yeah. But it seems like those guys were probably the most primitive humans that exist on Earth. What makes the Haza unique opposed to other, let's say, uncontacted tribes

is because the Haza are very contacted. It's really hard to find uncontacted tribes, even like North Central Island, right, where the missionary got killed a decade ago or whatever. Like, we, people, people, or Christians or missionaries have been traveling this world for a very long time impregnating different corners of this planet with religion. Like, we've been doing that forever. And one of my greatest moments of sadness over and over again is when I go to like the remote, deep part of the Amazon. And we're finding a shaman who lives on a hill to do a frog venom ritual.

And we show up and he's got like a snake bite that's seeping and he hobbles out and he's got like one wonky eye. like that professor in Harry Potter and then he's got this gold chain that has a little cross on the chest and I'm like, fuck. He's a Christian? God,

Christians. But what they do is they take a bit of that and then they take a lot of their own stuff. They mix it together and it's some, some like pagan slash Christian type thing. Right, right. Yeah, this is funny. Have you seen that new show on,

I forget what network it's on, but it's called Shogun? No. It's all about like, I think it was, 16th century Japan and all these Japanese people had been there had been other Europeans

that came there and basically like settled and taught half of the culture there Christianity. So like there was all of these church fathers there and they were setting up churches and all of these Japanese people that were participating in like regular Japanese rituals and everything but they were Christians

that were wearing crosses and they were like very very devout Christians. It was wild. And I don't know, it just gave, it just goes to what you were saying about how they're impregnating different parts of the world like throughout history with religion. Yeah. It's interesting. And then you realize like what if like I believe in there is a god, but I mean, he's got a thousand names, right? So whether you call it like God from the Bible or Allah or whoever or the sun, right, it's all just painting a different paint on the same same sort of thing. Are those guys in Tanzania?

Are they religious at all? Funniest thing is missionaries would bring them, and this is a testament to what the hods are really like with the modern world is that the missionaries would come and be like, here is the Bible, you must praise our God, he is the only God. And they're like, you know, do you think we can smoke that Bible paper?

Because they grow their own weed and they make joints with the Bible paper and they smoke it. Incredible, dude. When I was there, I didn't bring them a Bible, but they're making a joint set of newspaper. But that's the attitude the Ahazah have and that's why they seem more uncontacted than they are

because they completely reject the modern world. They think it's poison. They don't want anything to do with it. They want nothing to do with it. Wow, dude. No. To the point where I've been there three times now on three different expeditions,

hunting with them. And we'll be out there running through thorn bushes. There's a horrid plant there that's called the Wait a Bit Acacia. and acacias are generally like these big thorny bushes. And it's called wait a bit acacia because instead of a straight spine, it's a fish hook. And so you run and you get an arm full of fishhooks and you have to wait a bit as you pull out all of the thorns.

And my white boy marshmallow skin can't handle it. So keeping up with those guys is not to mention a complete cardio blowout. Yes. Up and down boulders and scree and all that kind of stuff. there it is wait a bit of a cage look at those thorns that's it I love this this is awesome to be able to say things and have a pop up isn't that beautiful

that first photo so you get a bunch of those in your arm and you tear some holes in your shirt and your skin and you got to wait a bit to tear them out and they're everywhere but the hans have been running through the forest forever and their skins like elephant skin and so they don't give a shit man but that's why it's hard to film them

and there's not that many good videos is because most people can't like you can't you can't handle the landscape it's horrible and what is their language is like tongue clicks yeah it's called hadzane hadzane yeah and it's is it all clicks or are there different like are there different sort of uh idioms or like different ways that that they use the language is that they have any sort of there any sort of connection to any other african languages

yeah they they speak their own language but i think it's all i'm yeah i'm not like a linguist here but i think it all has a very similar route to i think it's maybe the sound people in South America. Don't kill me if I'm wrong. But there's a few click languages that I think have a similar route. But a lot of clicks, and it's really interesting.

And part of that tribe, too, is this boldness. When you hear them talk sometimes too, it's very full and energetic and very directive. And the tribe's very interesting because there's not really a chief per se. There's a hunter that maybe is a bit better

that kind of guides the group, but they're quite independent, each one of them. But anyway, you're out in the bushes and you're trying to keep up and you're there and let's say we haven't caught anything yet because generally when you catch something you eat it so let's say everyone's hungry and I was there with

one of my boys and we had some quest bars or whatever and they wouldn't touch them. They wouldn't touch anything that wasn't just straight honey. No interest. They think it's poison. I actually did an interview with them. I did like a question and answer video with them about their beliefs which was hilarious because

with these hunter-gatherer tribes you think that they would have very interesting answers to what's the most important thing in life? How do you be happy, right? And so maybe you can guess, but what's the most important thing in life? To me? Well, to them.

To them. I mean, I already know the answer. Okay. Meat. Meat. How do you, what's the key to happiness? Meat. And everything, so it's hard to get these philosophical answers because their day-to-day is just go out.

Survival. Yeah. And all this shit we cake on the rest of our lives, man, And it's just problems of a life where we have all of our bases taken care of. Have they seen like videos or pictures of like New York City? I don't know. They don't have phones. Again, but with the Hads, it's strange because they are one of the very few tribes in the world that actually reject, reject modernity.

Whereas you can go see the Maasai or you can go to the Amazon and you might go to a tribe that looks like they're living traditionally, but they got like a cell phone. And maybe they're, like if you go see a tribe, you pay for a tour. Often what happens in many parts of the world is you go to a tribe and they hear tourists are coming. They take off their jeans and their t-shirt. And then they put on their loincloth or whatever. And then you have a authentic experience. Oh, wow. Which is still, like, I'm not completely against that.

They still are showing you what the culture is. But to find a true, authentic living how you would imagine and fantasize tribe, man, that has been the most difficult. thing about my job finding these people, but also the most rewarding when you do. Because you can't just say, oh, I want to go see the Hada or the Maasai or whoever. You have to really ask the right questions,

find the right contacts, get the right guides, and then you can have the most holy, as in a whole, experience possible. But it's difficult because, again, there's very few tribes that are living completely traditionally. Because most people want

a phone. It's very convenient to have like a shingle roof and cattle, you know what I mean? Like, why wouldn't you want that? Why would you want to go hunting every single day for food when you can go buy a six pack of beer and get some cookies at the at the store or have some chickens or some cows? It's just so much more work to hunt. So the fact that the hansa, what makes them unique is that they, they are true to their life. They live in symbiosis with other tribes like the de Tuga is one of them that have rejected hunting and keep cattle because it's so much easier. And one of the biggest, and one of the biggest problems the hodza have is that they have

these other tribes with their cows going through the jungle scaring away all of the animals and they can't hunt. So that's what makes them unique is that they have nothing to do with the modern world. How did you first hear about them? I was in I used to have a TV show on BBC

called The Travel Show and I was with my contact in Tanzania called Gumbo and we were recording a video about a coral reef that's by Mount Kilimanjaro. Like a really interesting story. And I think I heard David Cho talk about it on Rogan years ago, but there wasn't any contacts or content about it on the internet at the time. And so I asked him, because we were

already in Tanzania, and he had thought he had heard about this tribe that there's like a thousand left in the west part of the country. And it took a while of joining the dots together. Oh, yeah. He did like a vice piece over there, right? I think that's what it was. Yeah, I remember him talking about that too. Yeah, that's how it originally found it. So you got there and You found a fixer or a guide that basically could speak their language. And they can, they have a relationship with these guys and they're able to introduce you. And they're like, what is their incentive to bring you in and let you film all this stuff? At the tribe.

Yeah, those tribe, those tribes. We would bring a donation. Okay. So this is generally how it always works. I'll give you another example. Last year I went to go visit a tribe called the ostrich-footed tribe or the Vodoma that's in northern Zimbabwe. very rare people that they live in the mountains and the scientific side of it is that they inbred so much that their feet have two toes like lobster claws. Their story is that their, that's them.

We were there, yeah, we were there last fall. Whoa, look at their feet, dude. That's wild. But they believe that their great, great, great grandmother came down from the sky. she was a bird and or maybe he was a bird and she he impregnated a local person and now they have bird feet ostrich feet but there's no connection up there it's very rural so to be able to get that we had to work for months to be able to find the right contact who could get the people together to meet us to then do a meeting with the local village elder to then get permission

and blessing from the tribe and then we had to go there specifically to be able to meet with another leader. And so generally there's four or five people in this chain where you have a fixer for Zimbabwe and then a fixer for like the province, another fixer for the local location. And then you have to make it happen that way. That is insane. Nectadactyl is what it's called. It looks like they have, they're really big feet.

And if you look at her hands on the left, actually, it affects both hands and feet in some people. So her hand on the left, you can see her right hand. and has also a bit of a claw. Oh, God. Yeah, it was a very interesting story. But it brings up an interesting question, dude. It's like, because of the modern world, now we have more migration of people.

The tribes are intermingling. It's almost gone. You can go to these villages, and there's only... In the population, there was probably like 400 people, and there was only maybe seven or eight who had it. So common, but not as common as it used to be, which I think most of the tribes had it. because the world's so connected, these things are going away.

And yeah, like, genetic deformities are, it's not a, you'd want them to go away. Right. But also so does some of the magic of the world at the same time. You know what I mean? When, when, as the world opens up, and I'm not wishing there's more people with genetic deformities, but as the world opens up and all of these very specific things are getting exposed and we're intermingling more, the cool shit's going away, bro. Like literally we're like the last generation.

So the Omo Valley in Ethiopia, the big-ass lip plates, you know, ever seen those photos? Yeah. There's very few people with those left now. Because they don't, they see the Hollywood, they see Hollywood movies, they see the ragatone videos, and those people don't have it. And that's what successful is. Their grandmother might, but who wants to be like their grandmother? And so the cool shit is just slowly going away. Oh, man.

Yeah, you can see that with the horns there. so incredible right yeah man that's fascinating shit so okay so you so you got there to to those guys in Tanzania and you guys

went on a you followed them on like a baboon hunt or were they were they targeting baboon or were they just trying to go find anything they could they could get to feed the village they'll eat anything and these are like

and you didn't necessarily like stay in a village proper. These guys were more of like a nomad hunting tribe. They would have they have a main camp and they have hunting camps. So I've gone three times. The first time we went

to the main camp but generally we would stay in hunting camps which would be a couple little straw shacks kind of like a lean to you know what that is? Yeah yeah. And then from there we'd go hunt but baboon is their favorite. Baboon is the best meat. That's bizarre.

And they love eating baboon ass. I saw that. That's their favorite cut. He said we like the fat ass on the baboon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because baboon asses are like huge, man, badonka donks, big pink fatty things. That's so wild, man. And then there's that guy who nailed a baboon from like 100 yards away in the pitch darkness with a bow and arrow.

Homemade bow and arrow. His name was Chaaba. Yeah, Chaaba. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, it was one of the most incredible feats of human strength and ability I have ever seen in my life. I was like jumping up and down when that happened when I was watching that. I couldn't, I couldn't believe it, man. Yeah, they call it going to war with baboons, man, because baboons are very aggressive and they're smart and they've got huge teeth like a lion wood and they attack, right?

And so you saw the video where the only way we could get them is we had to go raid their camp. at night. So me and the boys snuck up in bare feet in the pitch dark with our arms in front of our eyes. So the weight of bit of Caches didn't hook our eyes out. And then we had to sneak up, gather rocks.

And then at a certain moment one of the guys had borrowed one of our flashlights. And we had to flick it on. And we had to make monkey sounds and throw rocks at the baboons on top of this Lion King rock. Going, and they all ran around the other side where

the hunting hada, the top guys, all just fill them full of arrows, man. So they were on top of like this big sort of cliff type rock? Like a bluff, like the thread of the lion king. Yeah. Why do they hang out on those? Because they can see their surroundings. Are they not turnal? No, but they would want to be in a spot just like you'd put a castle on a cliff, right?

Because they can see their surroundings. They can see if people are coming. And they would spend half the day there. That was probably their home. they go out forage, come back, but from there they could see most predators, uh, not the hansa, their, uh, special breed. We had a guy in here a couple months ago, maybe two months ago, Andrew Eukles. He, uh, he's obsessed with hand catching animals.

And I forget where he was. He was in some sort of, some African country. I forget which one. But he, uh, hand caught a wild baboon. Damn, no way. He tried to catch a wild bobbin. I think he failed. And now he's only got one hand.

No, yeah. No, no, he's a psycho, man. He's upset. He's Australian and he goes around the world trying to hand catch these animals. And I think he found some guys like, hey, can you help me catch a baboon? And this guy, you know, he just wanted to make money, right? And he's like, oh, of course. Of course I know how to do this. And the guy caught a baboon, put it in a giant cage and he just wanted to go in the cage with it and hand catch it. And he basically, the baboon was like so smart.

It somehow moved its way to the entrance of the cage where the door was. blocked him in. So he couldn't get out and it trapped him in there. And then he ended up like climbing across the ceiling while the other guy distracted the baboon so he could escape. Like it was it was, yeah, that was a scary story. The problem with the world

now is we see monkeys eating bananas and riding a tricycle. But if you see any kind of monkey in real life, they are not fun. They are scary and they'll bite your face. They'll attack you. They'll grab your shit. Man, it's

I avoid monkeys at all costs. They're unpredictable and they'll just bite your dick. They'll just tear your lips off. They don't give a fuck, you know. There's so many scary-ass stories of monkeys attacking people. There's videos of like monkeys stealing children on the streets. Yeah. For sure.

No way. And then those guys like another thing, how they caught that deer and the guy literally bit its throat to kill it. Like they don't use knives or anything like that. They just use their teeth. Yeah, what I didn't show in the video because I have to... YouTube actually has been very generous with my content because there is some stuff in there that is very real and graphic. But they're documentaries.

So in a documentary setting, and I'm not trying to glorify violence or anything. I'm just trying to show how the world is. Right. But what you didn't see is they took a rock, the size of a fist, and just smashed that poor little thing, cranium three or four times. then bit the throat as it cried. Oh yeah, and they were biting its ear

to try to get it to cry to call its mother in? Right. Because it was a baby deer. You bite the ear, it goes, and then the mom comes back, being like, what, you do with my baby? And you shoot the mom. But the mom didn't come back.

Thank God. But that's their technique. That's brutal, dude. There's maybe by the time this comes out, the sequel will be posted. Oh, really? We went back again to, because I found out that Socorro, one of the better hunters, has a motorcycle.

And I was like, how the fuck did he get a motorcycle and why? Like, what does he do with it? Because again, they're supposed to reject modernly, but we are, again, coming to a world where there's a lot of very convenient things out there that at a certain point, it's like, I'd much rather drive my motorcycle to the market instead of walk for two days. You know what I mean? and what they use it for is they use it to trade honey to get arrowheads because they don't work metal. How do you get metal out in the outback or the bush?

So they would get honey. The hans are famous for their honey as well because no one else is crazy enough to hack open a beehive in a tree and get stung. They take this honey and they trade it for arrowheads. And so the little pseudo documentary is showing the process of them getting the honey and then getting on the bike, which is the most hilarious thing ever, man. these like hunter gatherers with their bows and arrows and their gazelle gazelle skins like three on a bike just like zooming. Dude, the shot of you riding in the car and there's like a GoPro shot where like you had like a dash cam and this dude, you guys are in this car and you guys have this like primitive hunter gatherer ride in the middle just like. Yeah.

So they catch honey and they where do they go to trade this stuff? They're not too far from small villages. So the other tribe I said that they live alongside the de Tuga, they work metal. And how they work metal is they take generally the shells from bullets. I don't even know where they get the shells from. But when we saw them making the arrowheads, they had the casings for bullets and they would melt those down in a, let's call it a forge. But basically it's a guy with two canvas sacks going like this, blowing air into the fire. And then they'd have a little metal trough and they'd melt the casings down.

into like a liquid then they'd form that into an arrowhead and the hodz I have I don't know like seven different kinds of arrowheads Really? Yeah, I was shocked at how many different types of weapons they have different types of arrows Yeah, and so for those ones the ones that are made of metal generally it's for the baboons which have Hooks on the side so it's a big point like a flat point with hooks because you shoot a Baboon and it can pull the arrow out because it's got hands you shoot a deer and it can can't do that. So those are generally wood. And they have, for birds, they put like a corn cob section on the end and they shoot the birds. So it's like a concussive force. It's, and it's honestly a little bit funny to see a bird go poof. And then it just falls. Yeah, they'll literally,

they'll catch anything, man. They're catching, they were catching all kinds of rodents, climbing inside of trees up the center of these giant hollowed out trees with bees just crawling all over their bodies, stinging them, not even flinching. The, uh, in this, this one that I'll be posting soon, it was, there was one of the most graphic scenes of them hunting, which was, there's this really cute animal, if you could pull it up called a bush baby. A bush baby. It's like the cutest Pokemon on, on planet earth. And there, they, I thought they were quite endangered. Oh, look at that, look at that, look at that, the blue thing. It's adorable. And there was one day we went out and they got like seven.

it was a genocide and they shoot them with with those concussive arrows because if you have the big blade you just slice them open and it but with a concussive you knock them out and what so yeah and they jump really well

you'll probably see it in a second looks like a what's it called a lemur it's like a lemur yeah yeah so they're the cutest little things big eyes and they've got big long legs to jump with and so I watch these guys

shoot them with the arrow it falls out the poor thing stunned they grab it hold it up take their femurs

with their bare hands snap the femurs so taking the leg snapping the leg with a big crack snapping the other leg with a big crack and then taking this

the poor I don't know who gave you this but I'm not going to break it taking the head and just crunching the skull into its eyes go and then Sokoro

takes it and then tucks it in my belt and your belt yeah and then we keep going and this is the kind of I'm like this is such a brutal thing but it's how they do it

and I wish you could see I wish you could be there because you would just see how this is how they've done it forever and it's I wouldn't say it's wrong it's definitely not right either but who am I to go in their kitchen in their backyard

and get all my panties and twist about things. Like, I don't, again, I wouldn't do it myself. There's, I think participation is a big important part of travel, but there's a certain point where it's like, woof, but too much for me. Do you ever get any criticism for going out there and documenting this stuff with these, with these tribes? People call me like a neo-colonialist. They, all sorts of things.

But what you don't see is, this episode of the podcast is brought to you by Mudwater. Mudwater is a coffee alternative. containing four adaptogenic mushrooms. With only a fraction of the caffeine as a cup of coffee, you get energy without the jitters or the crash of coffee. And each ingredient was added for a purpose. Cacao and chai, for a hint of caffeine in hot chocolate-like flavor,

Lyons Main to support focus, cordyceps to help support physical performance, and both Chaga and Rashi to support your immune system. What I really love about mudwater is that it tastes great, and they took their time to find all the perfect ingredients to develop a product that helps you feel better every single day. Mudwater donates monthly to psychedelic research and

treatments as they believe the country is in a mental health epidemic and sees psychedelics as useful tools for individuals with depression, PTSD, anxiety, and other mental health experiences. So get 15% off and a free frother by using my link below, mudwater.com forward slash Danny and use the code

Danny at checkout to get 15% off. That's MUDWTR.com forward slash Danny and use the promo code Danny at checkout to get 15% off. It's linked below. Now back to the show. Make Mother's Day even more special at Whole Foods Market. Kick off brunch or dinner with quality cheese and charcutory with no synthetic nitrates. Then go seafood. There's an abundance on sale at Whole Foods Market, where it's all sustainable while caught are responsibly farmed.

At the bakery, grab seasonal treats like their strawberry pretzel cream pie, and you can't go wrong with a ready-to-heathe Kish Lorraine, deviled eggs, and fresh-cut fruits to go. Celebrate Mom with Whole Foods Market. If you love diving into culture and comedy, like on Danny Jones podcast, playoff hockey is right up your alley. NHL on T&T has the best coverage, making every game feel intense and unpredictable. Playoff hockey is a different level, overtime, big hits, and no one coast. The studio crew with Paul Bissonette cracking jokes and Wayne Gretzky breaking things down makes it even more fun to watch.

Every shift matters and the personalities keep things lively. Watch the Stanley Cup playoffs on TNT, TBS, True TV, and HBO Max. We bring grand gestures to these tribes. I mean, and the ones that use money get money. Like we, like Africa, you would think that trips to Africa would be cheap, man. They're not. If you want to live like a local and take local buses and then, yeah, you could probably get by a little bit cheap. but if you want to stay in a hotel with reliable power and a bed

and you want to be able to stick to a production schedule to actually get shit done, you're spending like 20K for two, three weeks out there. And that money goes mostly to local people, the tribes and stuff. Of course, like the facilitator gets some too, but we make sure everyone's taken care of. And so if anything, like, yeah, no one's ever really upset that we're there. People throw all kinds of stones on the internet,

But we have fun. How prevalent is drug use in those tribes? And then what kind of drugs are they using? I know you said marijuana, but is it real actual, like the weed we're used to? Like the weed we're used to, no. We make some weapon grade shit up here now. Like bushweed.

So you can actually smoke it enjoyably and not go to outer space. But the places I've seen weed have only been in rural Africa and in like Pakistan I haven't seen weed many other places Pakistan huh

dude Pakistan we were there and we the first day we get out we're in Islamabad which is on the more safer side of things and the local contact wants to take us to take us

to the scenic viewpoint to watch sunset and so you're like I'm jet leg is all right let's go you know and then we get out we open the door

and then there's a ditch filled with weed Like it's just literally a weed Weed is a weed Just the entire countryside is dope man It was it was I couldn't believe it either Like growing in the dish? Yeah just as a weed

So And they they smoke it Of course they do But it was growing everywhere there What how is How is it viewed there in Pakistan Like what is there any sort of like Cultural

Bias or is it looked frowned upon Or like compared to what it's like here in America I would think It's still illegal there. Oh, is it? Okay. But I mean, so are like psilocybin mushrooms here, but you can find psilocybin mushrooms. If you know what you're looking for, anywhere.

But generally the thing you see most places is alcohol, and not in a good way. Alcohol's a sleeping potion, man. The sad thing is a lot of tribes I see just getting wrecked by alcohol. Really? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's really sad, especially in Ethiopia where you see a lot of these more iconic tribes, like in lip plates and body paints and things like that, all have trouble with alcohol.

The Haza don't, for whatever reason. Maybe they've found pot instead, and pot's a bit more functional, but a lot of places alcohol is just corrupting the tribal life. I heard that opium is a big thing out somewhere in, like in some countries in Africa. I've never seen it personally. No? Maybe it's not opium. Maybe it's a different plant that has like a... Oh, Kot, maybe? No, Kat's a stimulant, right? I think this was a different one. This was like something that's really similar to opium. But Kot is very prevalent in that area too, right? Especially on Ethiopia. Ethiopia, Yemen, places like that. Tried it. It was a lot of work, man. We went to have this really fun experience in Harar, this place in Ethiopia. you. Herr is famous for

one particular thing that you might see content about, but there's a man called the hyena man who has domesticated hyenas and every night he goes out and you can put a piece of meat on your shoulder and there'll be a hyena come and eat it and you can put it in your mouth like lady in the tramp and a hyena will come

bite it out of your mouth in this place called Harar where there was they were the cleanup crew for the city for a long time. Anyway, there we had caught and they're selling it everywhere And we sat in a cot den, so it was almost like this small little dark amphitheater place with like music and espresso. And you just sit there and chew green leaves like a cow for like an hour and a half for like a medium high. Get higher off a fucking three milligram Zinn than you would chewing on a like literally a grocery bag of that shit for an hour.

Really? We chew. Is it similar to Zend? No. I chewed a basketball's worth in an hour. and felt less in this coffee. I felt like I was a bovine, man. I felt like a cow in a field.

Oh my God. Somebody needs to fucking do an airdrop of Zin. Yeah. Zimbabwe. Just change it all. But apparently people say it's addictive. And our local guide there was really against it. Really, really, really against it.

Everyone was walking around carrying a little bag full of it. And he said it made people lazy. Really? I just saw people sitting around chewing, a lot of chewing. But it really, I don't know how much you'd have to chew, man, but I got really impatient after an hour. I had this dude on here one time, this Eric Zoolegger. He went to this place called Somaliland,

which is like right next to Somalia. And I think he was the ambassador. They made him the ambassador to some other country. Anyways, he was the ambassador for like a month. And he was explaining to me how prevalent cot was and how everybody there was just like addicted to cot and they had like their teeth were falling out

their lips were rotting away and there's like a big there's like a lot of like pirates out there too right in Somalia yeah between Somalia and I guess it's probably Yemen or whatever it is yeah it's pirates are a big problem Somalia is not a place you generally want to go but yeah Cot's very famous there too

and I think again I only had that one experience but I think one of the biggest problems too is because people can get addicted, apparently, and then from there, when you're trying to grow crops, you have, there's more, like, if you're a farmer and you have a field, and you can make more money with cot than anything healthy, like a vegetable or whatever, then you're just going to grow cot because you want money. And so there's more and more caught fields, less and less actually crops to eat for agriculture.

And so I think, and cot takes a lot of water. So I think that's the biggest problem is that, Farmers want money so they grow that and there's less food and less water available to water the crops and all that kind of stuff. I guess the biggest problem. Right. How far is where you were from Zimbabwe? I've been, I was in Zimbabwe last year. But Zimbabwe's down near South Africa, kind of like. It's down farther south. Okay. God. You know, like Madagascar, where that is, kind of like if you go up diagonally to the west of Madagascar. Ethiopia is kind of more up near Egypt.

Oh, yeah. Perfect. We got a map. Thanks, Steve. There you go. I'm geographically challenged. I was almost right. It's more across, but yeah. Yeah, so that's where the Oster's Footet tribe was. Oh, they were in Zimbabwe. Dude, I also tried to get my nose pierced by a local tribe in Zimbabwe when I was there.

You tried? You didn't succeed? No, we succeeded. Oh, okay. We succeeded. We succeeded. If you want to pull it up quick, it's... Yeah, pull that one up.

So I had this, because really what I want to do is I want to have the most authentic experience possible, possible, right? And so when I was in Ethiopia, I went there and I was able to get scarified, like scarification, where they take a blade and a thorn and they actually scar your body. So if you go down, it's like the second row. Go back to videos. Go back to videos. Yeah. Go down a little bit more. There we go.

Getting my nose pierced by tribal, grumpy tribal grandmas. That's it. So the idea was that Turn the volume down so we can talk with it. The idea was that After that experience, it was just so cool to be able to Like if you do the local

They'll treat you like a local. The comparison I always give is like If you, if I contacted you Saying hey, I want to come to your house For Christmas Because I've never had an authentic Christmas before And I'm from Nigeria And can I come?

And you're like, yeah man. Come on the 20th. And so I show up on the 24th. I'm excited to have Christmas with your family, authentic American Christmas, whatever. And then you're like, all right, well, now it's time to do the turkey. And I'm like, oh, no, Turkey's kind of gross, man. I brought my own baboon. It's a hollaboon shank. Yeah, that would be very rude, right? Yeah, you'd be bringing like a chocolate bar or a Quest bar and you sit in the back and you don't have it. You'd be kind of like what the fuck. You know what I mean? so um but if you go and you do what the locals do they'll treat you like a local just like if i was there and i had the dinner i'm like cutting the turkey and you'd be like oh he's he's awesome right

same with this the mistake i made though with this tribe was that i assumed that all of the ladies with the nose piercings could give the nose piercings and it turns out that they also smoke these big bongs they had weed as well and they uh it's more at the end You can see it as well. We all smoked together. But they smoke these big ass bongs, and they get super high. And so these ladies were actually completely ripped off weed and tobacco. And we got an acacia thorn.

And I thought it'd be like a little pop, boop, done. She went slow. And it took her 15 minutes, bro. 15 minutes of pushing and twisting and then taking it out and putting it in and taking it out, putting it in. Oh, no. Oh, God, dude. It was the worst. And at a certain point, it was halfway through.

Oh, no, that does not look good. It was halfway through, and then when do you keep going? Do you stop? They couldn't even pull it out at a certain point. This lady's got you in a freaking rear naked choke, and she's shoving this stick right through your sept. What is that? Your septum.

Yeah. And so the lady in the left is completely grossed out. And it turns out none of them knew how to do it. They had no idea. Do any of them bathe? Do they bathe there? There's not much water. I don't know if they would bathe.

Do they smell? Um, no. You know how like people here, you know, like, you can tell when someone like doesn't take a bath, they have a certain smell to them. Yeah, no, they don't smell. They don't. No. Because the body's got like natural defenses to that stuff when you're out there, right? Yeah, I think we don't give our body a chance anymore, man.

Right, right. If we're always using toothpaste and shampoo and sunscreen, the body can't do its thing. That's what I'm saying. Like it's got to be, it's got to be so much to, oh. Dude. It was interesting though because. Did they go all the way and just left it there? No, they couldn't go any farther.

I didn't want them to dig it. It had been 15 minutes at this point. All right, you're over it at that point. You're like, I'm done. Yeah. But the idea is like, listen, we take a lot of precautions. It's not as reckless and stupid as you think. So I made everybody, like, sanitize their hands.

We made sure we did like proper as much as we could. How would they sanitize their hand? I brought some. And so we sanitized the tools, like with a thorn, we sanitized as well. And then after, the idea was to keep it in there, but they did such a poor job that there was, they would have got so infected. So I kept it for like two days. And then luckily with some topical antibiotics, it was all right. What is the leading cause of death in these places?

I would say probably dysentery. or in the sense of getting, getting dysentery, dysentery? Yeah, tomato tomato. Yeah. What is dysentery? What does that mean? I think it's just a slow death by diarrhea.

What? I think so. Whoa. Unless it's a particular disease, but I think it's more just not being able to get adequate nutrition and also having parasites. Parasites, yeah. Because dysentery is not a parasite per se.

I think it's just that you can't stop. stop having diarrhea based on nutrition and diseases and things like that. Oh, contagious intestinal infection that causes bloody or mucasy diarrhea can also lead to other symptoms. Ooh. Yeah. I would think something, getting clean water is always a pain. Right.

Like for them to get clean water, there was a, and my buddy got his ear done. Oh, nice. Yeah, I would have started with the ear. Yeah. They were the raddest, though. and we're so much fun. But again, like my, I guess people can look at that and think I'm a little bit crazy, but like I can, I take my job really seriously, man.

I can tell. For a lot of these tribes, they don't see foreigners that often. And so if you're going to go hang, like, I want to be able to, number one, have the full experience because I like that. Number two, I want to be able to make them feel good about the experience. experience and that I'm not thinking they're weird or gross for doing their practices. Because for them, it's everyday stuff. And I feel a duty to you guys, like anybody watching to be able to document it effectively. Because I can be the presenter and be like, oh, here we are in Africa,

and here are the savages and they're eating their gazelle and oh. And you go in and get the B-roll and you're like in a little metaphorical bubble of your own protection and you're not getting in there. But I want to get in there, see it, do it, show you, get dirty, like take a couple hits along the way, and take the precautions to not get too sick after. I get sick all the time, man. I literally have diarrhea now from water in Venezuela. But the idea is that I want to capture it authentically so the world can see what it's really like. And you can only have that experience. That experience is only unlocked if you go and you show up and you participate. Right.

Right. Yeah. It's so refreshing to watch your videos, dude. I was binging your videos from like 8 a.m. until now. And it's it's refreshing to me. I'm so jealous because I sit here and I just talk and use words. But when you go out there and you literally experience that shoves sticks through your nose, smoke weed in newspapers with these uncontacted tribes or somewhat uncontacted,

very remote tribes, it is like it's an experience that is really, really difficult to put into words. really have to be there with those people and like spending time with them to understand what that's like. Words just won't do it justice. And what YouTube helps with is that, or at least this style of capturing, which is a bit more vlogging. You saw Ben on the camera for a second. Ben's my videographer from London. One of the only guys that could find who could keep up and be masochistic enough to enjoy these trips sometimes. But the idea is like, Like, I lost my train of thought, man. What was I saying?

I forget. What did I say? I don't know. We're talking about the tribes, how it's crazy. You can't put it into words. It's a crazy experience. Right. YouTube.

Yeah, there you go. Being able to capture it that way, like on a vlog so we can sit down together and me, you, the viewer, whatever, and we're there in it, opposed to being recorded on a telephoto lens from a distance. That's not immersive. But being there where you can hear the hands move the, the grass or whatever, right? Like being immersed inside of it, it allows you to feel like you're actually part of the tribe.

And that's where I thrive, man. My entire life, I always sucked in school. I was a CD student. But when I did a field course, because those were available sometimes, and I was out there, I was A plus student flipping over rocks, finding bugs, chest deep in tide pools,

pulling out algae. Like, that was always me. But put me in a classroom where I can't touch and feel any. thing and I bomb right out. And I was always really passionate about the things that were misunderstood. I think now that I've done a bit more soul searching, because I think I was misunderstood. So my quest from the beginning was to prove to people that these misunderstood things are really, really cool. So that was like snakes and salamanders and spiders when I was a kid. But now it's countries and people and foods and festivals, all of that. I just, I really get excited showing people

things that they're like, oh, that's gross and weird. But those words are just ignorant excuses for not understanding something. Exactly. Right? Yeah. It's just different, man. Like, who's to say our understandings any better than their understanding? We're just two different people, two different attitudes, right? Yeah. I think the one thing I think that stuck out to me the most, like when you said you were interviewing that one guy and you asked him what the most important thing to him was is like the primary value and he said meat. And it's like a lot of these cultures out there, a lot of people that live in Africa in these remote places, they are, their number one worry is survival. And it's amazing to me, first of all, that they can exist at the same time

that we can exist over here, driving around in electronic cars using iPads and, you know, smoking vapes, whatever, running around basically wearing, you know, whatever, these helmets are that we can, the Google helmets that you can live in virtual reality at the same exact time in different parts of the world. But like it is, it is like the complete antithesis of, of that, what they are living in, and meat is the most important thing, and survival is the most important thing to them. And, you know, there's, there's, I know there's like a big poaching problem in some parts of Africa, and there's people out there who get paid lots of money to shoot rhinos or elephants or whatever for their, for their ivory and for their tusks. I guess they

export it to China. There's a huge demand in China for that stuff. And I know there's Americans that go over there to try to help counter the poaching. But it's, and it's a, it's a, it's a sort of a paradoxical problem because you have these people out there who are killing these animals that we in America think are like so sacred and they're, they're endangered. And that's true. They are. It's like what you were getting to earlier with how brutal they are killing animals. But it's like when you need to kill this sacred animal to feed your kid, it's different. Like if your kid is starving, are you willing to go kill an, are you willing to go murder an elephant or or endangered rhino to save your kid? Probably.

And it's just, to me, it's interesting to see like Western values get sort of projected across the people that lives in these parts of the world. And I was just curious to your perspective on all that. Well, it's, it gets really philosophical, right? Because I think of like a zebra, for example, right? beautiful animal. And over here, like, they're quite special, right? But if they were to kill a zebra over there for food, and maybe we would be against that,

or even like a lion, for example, but, like, what makes one animal more valuable than another animal? Right. Like, being endangered, okay, that's valid. But, like, intelligence, is that something we value? Like a dolphin or, like a porpoise? Yeah. But pigs are pretty smart, man.

Pigs are smarter than a lion is, right? Or an elephant. but we kill. I don't know how many people. They don't even talk about it. So then, okay, so if it's not intelligence, then is it cuteness? Maybe, but we can't say cute things

are worth more than less cute things. That's a slippery slope when it comes to people. So then what base do we value animals? And so what animals are okay to eat and which ones aren't, right? And that's something that I run into a lot with the tribes like you had mentioned, where we're out there, we're in the jungle

and they find a cute bush baby. and in my head I'm like oh my god I can't I don't even want to see it and they're like breaking the femurs bite in the brain and it's just food it's just food and my my cultural attachments to these animals are very different than theirs

for them everything's on the menu for me there's definitely like a totem pole of which animals are more valuable but why you know what I mean for me I grew up in in New Brunswick Canada so like right above Maine and there's moose everywhere there I don't care

But we see moose Hit the people hit moose all the time They kill themselves They kill the moose And no one thinks anything of it If you've seen one dead But an Australian probably thinks A moose is pretty cool

And they put it higher in the totem pole For me it's just kind of like this big ass horse Right That's killed a couple of my friends honestly So people hit them dude Like Oh wow You think a moose is like a horse

It's bigger And back up in that part of the country Of the continents You They come out of at night, they're black, you driving your car, don't see them, you take the legs out and the moose comes

right through the windshield and just takes the whole top half off, man. Happens all the time. It's interesting. We just had, I just had this other guy on here who, he made this movie called The Cove where they slaughtered dolphins in Japan and Taiji Japan. Yeah, I've seen that.

It's crazy, man. They take these fishing boats out into the harbor or out into the ocean and they basically like herd all these porpoise into this little tiny cove harbor and they put a net across it so they can't escape and they take sticks and they just stab them to death and you see these dolphins like, and then they have people from like SeaWorld

and Dolphinariums to come in and like look at them all before they kill them say like find the pretty little bottle-nosed dolphins and they'll pay like upwards of $150,000 to bring them to their dolphinarium or their like water park sea world type place and they were feeding the dolphins that were killing they were feeding the meat

to all the people in the community. Like they were giving it to the government to give out to the school. So the government was paying them for the dolphin meat. And they were basically giving out the dolphin meat as free lunches to the children of school.

And then there was a crazy epidemic of people getting mercury poisoning because dolphin is high in mercury because they're super pelagic. You know what I mean? Open ocean fish. Yeah. And they had to do all this,

you know, they had to like go there and protest and there was like suing the government over it like this guy. Rick, you know, he's a super, um, big time dolphin conservationist. And he was, he literally sued the Japanese government over this many times, went over there. And, you know, they were fighting about us saying this goes back into our culture for, for, you know, however many centuries. And then, you know, you have the whole stigma of the United States bombing Japan and they don't want to do

what we want them to do. And it's just, it gets really, really, really messy. It gets complicated. And again, And for us, it's absolutely appalling. Like, no excuses. And for them, it's something they've been doing forever. And who's right and who's wrong? I like to think that they shouldn't be slaughtering porpoises and dolphins, right? But there's no international police that can go in and control that kind of stuff. But where do you draw the line, right?

So something like that or like FGM, like a female genital mutilation in Africa. You know, like that's a cultural... Have you heard of that before? No. Oh, dude, there's like a whole right of passage where they, they literally cut off for the sake we're on YouTube now like certain parts of the female genitalia

so they don't feel and they sew that shut happens right so that's a cultural practice that still happens today by the way and it's slowly being banned and phased out and that should be because it's absolutely terrible okay so mostly in Northern Africa

human rights violation that affects 230 million girls and women in 30 African countries in the Middle East and Asia but there's a lot of ways that it can be done. Sometimes you take off the with some sort of sharp knife or you can sew the shut completely. It's horrible. Why do they do that? Just tradition? Most of those countries there would be Muslim countries. So I would assume it has some ties to female modesty, things like that. Oh my God. So obviously you should not exist in this planet. It's horrible. Then, for example, in Ethiopia, we said there's the lip plates, right? Where little girls before they can consent to anything have their lips cut

and they have put the dish in, which is not as invasive, but we interviewed a girl there who said, I wish I didn't have it. And she had this huge, sagging, like, floppy lip because her father chose to put that in her face. And now she doesn't have it, but you can't get

rid of the scar. It's like those dudes who have, used to have, like, the plug earrings, what are they called? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they have, like, a big, like, floppy ears. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you can't fix that, you know what I mean? Right, right. So, okay, then is that too much?

Maybe. But then, like, where is the line for things we should make a human rights violation or not? Or, like, things we should discourage or encourage. Like, for example, one that I saw on the Amazon a few years ago is we were doing this trip by, like, dugout canoe. And there's a place called the Tissia, which is in the southern part of Columbia, where it's a triangle between Brazil, Peru, and Colombia. And there's, like, the Amazon River goes every which way. We were doing some dugout canoe camping, visiting villages, meeting people along there. And we came to this village where there was all of these young girls who just had like a little loin cloth around their waist.

And they were all like blue, like navy, navy blue. And there's a certain berry, I think it's called Wheat Shoal with an H, that when you squeeze the berry, it makes a clear fluid. But then when it goes on skin and oxidizes it turns deep, deep blue. What country did you say again? This was in, it was probably in Brazil, but it's anywhere in the Amazon. It exists. We had started our journey in Columbia. But all these girls were blue and we were asking questions and they were saying, oh, there's a, it's now getting to the time of their lives where they're going to have their first menstruation.

And then what happens is they get colored blue. And then very shortly they'll go into a hut, like a grass hut in the darkness. They'll spend one month in this hut. The women of the village will come in and they'll pluck it. out each hair of their head individually. So, pick, pick, until they're bald. And as they pluck out each hair in their head individually,

they'll teach them by candlelight what it means to be a woman. And then after a month, they'll come out, they'll be bald, they'll be blue, and they'll be a woman. And there was a human rights group that had been in there a few months ago, they were saying, that was trying to ban this right of passage, for women. And that was very interesting, because that would not be fun by any means, right? That would be painful. But it's, it's well-intentioned. It's not as evilly intentioned as FGM, for

example. You know what I mean? And then it's like for men, especially like pain is so necessary sometimes. You know what I mean? Like men, I feel, need pain and challenge to be able to actually become men. And you see that, those rites of passage all over the world too, right? Where there's some sort of, like another example of the Amazon is there's the... This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Verso. The older I get, the more I want to invest in my health. Because I don't just want to look young. I want to feel young.

Recent scientific findings demonstrate that it is not only possible to slow down the aging process, but it's also possible to reverse it. That is why I use Cell Being by Verso. Cell being contains scientifically proven ingredients that target the root causes of aging. And that way you can avoid the whackamol process that you get when you use regular supplements. It contains NMN, Resveratrol, TMG, and together these ingredients turn on longevity pathways in your body to help fight the effects of aging. It also improves metabolism, boosting your NAD plus and so on. I started using Cell Being years ago, originally when nutritional scientist Dr. Don Dagestino came on the show and explained to me all of the amazing benefits.

Now I use it for pre-workout. I use it in the morning for an extra boost of energy. And essentially it is the holy grail. Verso also publishes third party testing from each batch produced to guarantee you're getting what you pay for. So if you want to support the show, click the link down in the description. It's buy.v.r.s.com. or use the coupon code Danny at checkout for 15% off your first order. Again, that's B-U-Y.V-E-R-S-O-S-D-A-N-N-N-Y for 15% off your first order.

And don't forget to use the coupon code, Danny. It's linked below. Now back to the show. Maui-Sawi tribe? Ooh, is this like, Maui-Sawi? Maui-Sally. Steve, see you see for us. We're looking at bullet ant gloves right now,

is we're looking at where they take these bullet ants, which are these good inch-long ants that are called bullet ants because when you're stung, it feels like a bullet, and they put a hundred in each glove, and they weave these gloves out of reeds, and the guy puts his hand in, the boy, and he gets stung hundreds of times over 15 minutes, probably thousands of times by bullet ants

and he dances and I think he does it like twice a week for a month or something like that where it's just the most extreme pain possible and like scarification in Africa or like vision quests or like pain just seems to be the thing that humans need to be able to change their lives

and so you see things like that and I'm not totally on board with having people's hair pulled out one by one but we can't give people no pain because in a world today where we have very little pain. We're struggling more than ever. Right. Right? So as much as we don't want to be, that's a bullet ant. Yeah, those things are scary, dude.

If you put in bullet ant glove? I've heard, I've heard stories about these things. Paul Rosley's talked about these. Oh, man. There we go. Bullet ant glove? Oh my God. Look at that. That's it. Look at that, dude. That makes my heart pump right now just thinking about it, man. Maui. Well, I'm almost got. Scroll, no, scroll down by the photo. I don't want to watch that video. I'll get copyrighted. I think it was a...

Yeah. So that's not fun, but I've never tried it. But again, like pain. Do humans need pain? Should we remove all pain and discomfort from a human's life? Yeah. Well, we're doing it here, definitely. In the United States, we don't...

You know, we're building a culture to avoid pain. You know, everything's about distractions and comfort. It's the opposite of what your YouTube channel is. Well, that's honestly part of the reason why I do it, man, is because I feel that if I have a challenge on the horizon or I have really a proper spectrum of what pain and discomfort is, then I can come back into everyday life and accurately assess how much pain and struggle I have. But I think the human soul needs struggle. And I don't think it's coincidence that with the least amount of required struggle ever in our existence, we are struggling more than ever. I think there's a direct correlation, but you know those two things. Yeah.

So moving on from Africa, you have, you went to Indonesia and you documented this like death cult tribe. These people that they seem like they're modern. They seem like they're modern relative to the Tanzanian tribe because these people are walking around in pretty like blue jeans and collared shirts and they have iPhones. yet they like venerate the dead. They have this bizarre culture where they keep their dead relatives in their houses for years. And then and then what? They sacrifice animals and that's supposed to shuttle them to the afterlife. Yeah.

So that's in the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, which is not a very common place for people to go. And the cult's a funny word there. Can you find that map, Steve, so you can show us so we can see like where exactly that is in Indonesia? Sulawezi Sulawezzi. It's the island that looks like a llama. What made you... How did you discover this place? I...

No shit, I found it. I don't remember how I first saw it. I generally have a big map, like a Google map where I pin everything I come across on Instagram or on YouTube or whatever, and eventually that all comes together into trips. Yeah, this was wild. How in the... Did they carve those square cutouts in that giant boulder?

Yeah, by hand, bro. How long did that take? So it's interesting, I saw one. It takes some, I don't even know, five years or something like that. What? So it's incredible as you go there. And I was searching this out because I had a really tough time dealing with my grandmother dying. And she was the sweetest old lady and just the most perfect.

grandmother when she heard we'd come she'd spend days baking cookies and pies and she'd have a whole pile of things ready and she'd be waiting at the top of the driveway and she'd give us big hugs and she slowly succumbed to Alzheimer's and then dementia and died I couldn't make it back to see her die I got stuck in a snowstorm in Toronto I was in where I was Africa someplace couldn't get back in time and made us the funeral but I didn't get to say goodbye and had a really hard time digesting that that part of my life. And so it made me really question what death was, what it meant. I had been in Mexico a little bit and knew a bit about Day of the Dead and how their understanding of death is a little bit different where you can still hang out with your

grandfather, grandmother after they die, you go to the grave, you play the music, you bring the food, you have a little party. It's on Halloween, isn't it? Or close to Halloween? Yeah, right after, the last day of October. Right. And then from there, I started, to think more about death and our culture and how I didn't, like we're all scared to die, you know? That's something that's very common is, is a fear of death. And so I came across these, this walking dead festival was what it's called. And this place is called Toraya, where this is. Look at that wall, dude.

Yeah. How tall is that wall? Oh, you can see us sitting down on the bottom. Oh, yeah. Yeah, quite tall. But they're famous for something called the Walking Dead Festival. festival where they take the bodies. So you see these cliffs and they take bodies out of the caves, your entire family tree,

and you change their clothes and you hang out with the family, the skeletons, the bodies. You all just have a family reunion with cadavers. What they do? Every couple decades. Rotting corpses, like often just bones, right? Often just bones. And so I went there wanting to learn more about their view on death. And I would, I never would have realized how crazy it was.

So when someone dies in Turayan culture, they are considered sick. And so by our terms, they're very much deceased. But by them, they've just become sick. And so they keep them in the house. I wanted to learn more about this. So my guide, Andri, you can see in the video, found a family where there was two sick grandparents. Again, sick. We got to the house. They invited us in. They were super excited to see us. They said that Grammy and Grampy wanted to see us too, that they had been sick for a while.

Grammy had died five, three years ago, I think so like that, and the other had died three weeks ago. So the one that's more decomposed had died, I think, I believe three or four years ago, and the other had just died three weeks ago. And they're waiting for their funeral. But these people aren't dead. Okay, they're just sick. And so what that means is every day the family goes in, they bring them food, they sing them songs. And then Grammy and Grampy still communicate to them in their dreams, in the birdsong. There's still a very much relationship between the sick and the alive. And in this case, they were waiting because they were going to, they were saving up for a funeral for both of them together. Because funerals, people spend, let's say like if I was

going to put it in USB equivalent for us. They'd spend 100,000 USD on a, on a funeral or more. That's like more than people will spend on weddings here. Yeah, it's considered a giant party because it's the biggest party of your life. It's your death party, man, and you have to be sent away correctly. And so there's special water buffalo there that are bred and sacrificed for the weddings. There's albino water buffalo. And so generally what you want to do is for your funeral, you want to have 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 buffalo killed for your funeral because, and there's only certain kinds of buffalo, certain color patterns. So you want to buy a buffalo with a white head because in the afterlife, once you kill that buffalo, the light gets emitted from the head. You want to have, and he's going to lead the pack.

You want to have a buffalo with a white ass because he's going to go in the back and he's going to light the back. And so you want to have all these different buffalo with different white splashed patterns. to be able to lead the way into the underworld and pave your way to see your ancestors. And so they have these giant death parties where they spend $100,000, kill 40 Buffalo, all this kind of crazy. And then what happens is they get buried in those cliffs like you saw. And then 10 years goes by, whatever, and they bring out the entire family. And I had the most beautiful realization with my guide where I was obviously quite shocked

when they started pulling out dead bodies from this cliff. And they're filled with ants. And they're all wrapped in cloth. And they're taking the cloth off. And there's ant colonies living in the body. It was just a lot. And they're in this cave. There's hundreds of coffins with bodies.

And they're pulling them out one by one because they're all coming out. They're all going to be put in the sun. We're all going to hang up together. And they take out some great grampy who still has his military uniform on. They give him a new cigarette. they take his skull off his body. They hold it up and they're like talking. Like, oh, look at Graffy.

Look at Grappie. Give him a cigarette. And this girl comes over and says like, Mike, this is my grandfather. I haven't seen him in 15 years. It's so good to see my grandfather. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on? And I'm like, Andrew, man, this is a little like too much, man. And he took offense.

And he said, what do you mean? This is too much? And I go, like, these are like dead bodies. Like don't people get sick or like. goes, this is your family. Like, you came from these people. Like, why would you be afraid of them? I'm like, well, I'm not, like, I just don't do this kind of stuff where I'm from.

He goes, listen, what do you guys do? Is that better? So when your grandmother died, what happened? She died. You put her in the ground a couple days later. And have you gone back to the grave? No. Right?

That's what your culture does. That's what your culture does. When someone dies, you rush, you throw them in the ground, you bury them, and you never go back. Here, we respect our dead because we came from these people. They are our ancestors. They went through so many struggles. They fought. They survived.

They had you. And we respect them. And therefore, we have family reunions this way. We want to show them respect where we came from. We celebrate life. We celebrate death. Death is the biggest party. And what we do is right and what you do is wrong.

And how do you argue with that? I mean, he's not wrong. Right. Someone dies. We rush them into the ground. He was saying as well, like, what if someone can't make it to the funeral? Right? Then you never get to say goodbye. And that's part of the reason why they wait so long is so everyone can be there who needs to be there. If Uncle Jerry can't make it, you don't have the funeral because Uncle Jerry needs to say goodbye. And the funeral is when they die. It just seems like such an unreasonable way to respect your dead. for an excessive way

Yes especially for a culture of people who They have iPhones Yeah yeah and they're very modern They're very modern people They're not in the video I say tribe Like the title's tribe But they're just people who have a different view on death

Yeah like They're pulling these bodies These corpses out of the ground out of the case This is like an all This is like a lot of work there's a lot of people carrying these fabric coffins. I guess they are? So the fabrics there because the wood is all rotted away.

Okay. Okay. Like this is a lot of, it seems like it's a full day's work to drag all these bodies out of these caves. Yeah. And to pull them out and to pull their bones out and, you know, play with them and stuff.

I would think that every family would do one of these. They're called Manenays or like Walking Dead festivals every couple decades. Yeah. This doesn't happen every year, of course. And it's mostly to refresh the, again, ants get in there. Right, right. Shit starts to fall apart. They go into show respect, keep the graves there, put some photos in.

Again, give Grampi new cigarettes, whatever it be. But I like, oh, my God. You want to start a zombie apocalypse? That's how it starts, man. Right. You're there, like, I was getting bit by ants that were like eating dead bodies. And you're like, this is how we start the, um, World War Z.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely, man. It's stunning. It is terrifying. But it's the craziest thing is where I'm there, a little bit freaked out, you know? Little reserved.

Little, like, what the hell am I getting myself into? And you can see the smiles. They're all happy. They're stoked. It's, again, you haven't seen Grampy in 20 years, man, or whatever it be. Like, everyone is just so happy.

It's a big, fun festival, which seems so strange for something. It's so dark. But why does it have to be that way? Like, why does it have to be dark? Right. Yeah, why does it have to be dark? It's just, it's just interesting.

Like, there's so many cultures throughout history from different parts of the world that, where they treat death as, like, more noble than life. It is almost better, they look forward to their death, right? And they build their whole culture and all their symbolism around death. Like, like, Japan is a great example of that. And like where they have, you know, like they have the Japanese have that, where that ritual where they commit suicide. Sapuku or Akirir or whatever. When they disrespect somebody or dishonor somebody, they disembow themselves.

And it's like, yeah, man. I mean, going deeper, the deeper into the past you get, the more people are obsessed with death. And it's just, anyways, it's just shocking that these people are so modern and they're still like this. It's a very normal place. Yeah. I mean, it's, of course, a little rural. It's the middle of jungle in Indonesia, but it's, yeah, it's quite incredible. What is that?

A coin? A coin? A coin? And so they get to keep the coin, I believe, after. Yeah. But it was such a cool thing, man. But it really makes you think about some things about our own life and how, like, they, they there, they believe in reincarnation. Do they?

So death is not as final as we would think, this atheistic, agnostic culture we find ourselves in now. And no wonder fear of death is getting more and more because we don't believe in any kind of faith or God or, you know, most of us think we rot in the ground or we don't know. We definitely don't think that something's going to happen after. But in a strong culture like that or how most people used to live, there was a purpose in death, right? And one thing that I think makes my life interesting is you're familiar with Graham Hancock, yeah? Yes. So Graham Hancock is, I believe, a journalist by title. But he's done a lot of books about archaeology and anthropology and things like that.

And what, I believe that's true. But really what's them apart is that he was one of the only people to go to all of these different places and stuff. ancient cultures. So, for example, like an Egyptologist, but only study Egypt, right? And so then they would have a very narrow view on Egypt, and they'd be very well-versed in that topic. But they wouldn't be so well-versed on the Aztecs or the Mayans or the people who used to live in Angkor Wat.

But what was the beautiful thing about Graham Hancock's work is that he went to hundreds of sites and started to see the similarities between all of these places, something that no one had done before. And with that you see, oh, look, there's a little vase in the hand here in Egypt and also a little vase in a hand in Mexico. It's the same vase. What's that about? You know what I mean? Or snake imagery.

Like he talks about the younger dryness impact theory with the meteor in the sky and the rise of the water. And you start to realize that, okay, there's like floods and all these different cultures. And when you start to hear all of these different stories and different places that shouldn't really be talking too much. But they all say the same thing. You ask a couple questions because there's very. few coincidences in this world. And I love his work. But I guess what makes my life a little bit interesting is I've kind of done a little bit of the same thing with cultures because I visited tribes in Siberia, in Indonesia, in Amazon, in Zimbabwe. And you see certain commonalities between

people all over the world that aren't connected really as much. I mean, more now than before. But one thing that everyone has is some kind of faith. Interesting. Everyone, except for the modern world as well. You know, like we, there are, of course, Christians and Muslims and things, but generally, let's say, a lot of us in the modern world, probably a lot of people watching these podcasts, don't really have a religious path, right? They don't really think too much about God or what happens later, but that is such a core part of the human experience that a lot of us have rejected now, but many people still have

that. And so for them, do you think they're afraid to die? No, man. Like you get reincarnated. You have a big party after. Things are good, you know? And so, I don't know. I just like seeing how I feel how sick a lot of us are in the modern world and going to these more tribal or basic or traditional places.

And seeing how much happier and healthy they are with these beliefs or these lifestyles that aren't so convenient or comfortable or faithless, you know. How similar are there gods or their religions in all these different parts of the world that you've been to? too. Again, you'll find Christianity everywhere, man. Oh, right, right, right. But a lot of, actually, what's really interesting, dude, is we talked about this, right? This is middle of nowhere Indonesia. Three weeks ago, I was in Venezuela, in the Amazon there, and I had one of these Q&A questions with the elder from the Yanomami tribe.

And I asked, what happens after you die? And he said, we take the body, we put it in the woods, the animals, the insects, eat it for a month. we come back, we take the bones, we grind them up into a soup with bananas, and we eat the soup. The whole family has to eat the soup with the ground bones of the deceased and a banana for whatever reason. And that's because then you'll keep the soul of your, let's say, grandfather in you forever. So maybe even a level up from this tribe here, right? And they still practice this today, the Yanomami in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, you know, Venezuela will eat the bones of their deceased.

Whoa. Again, to keep that connection. So have you, when you, um, you said you spent some time in South America. Yeah. Have you ever brushed up with any uncontacted tribes? Uh, I feel that the word uncontacted is not, um, it's a bit confusing sometimes. So, how? to find an uncontacted tribe

like you might think North Sentinel Island is uncontacted right that's the one where the missionary went and got right yeah yeah it's an island but I would imagine and there's even stories of potentially some European going there and

and fucking them all up yeah what is the story do you know that for people that are aware I think the guy was like a missionary right and he was trying to spread his religion or trying to teach them about God and then he went there and then he got them to all believe that he was some ordained deity or something like that

and that he had all this magic magical powers and then a bunch of them I think got sick maybe some of the kids or a grandmother got sick and died I think he assaulted them sexually or something like that oh no no no he was taking photos of him he was taking photos of like the kids and stuff see I'm getting this mixed up with a Rick and Morty episode have you seen that one?

Yeah. No, no, no. It just came to me, though. Yeah, I remember this guy was taking photos of, like, the kids, like, naked. And there's, like, censored images of it online. Yeah. But, like, the guy was a sick fuck. Yeah, exactly.

So this is before John Allen Chow went, which was recent, I think, 2018, it seems. And there was a freighter, like a freighter ship that ran out of gas or ran a ground right there. And they literally, like, ravaged that ship within a couple days. They literally like pulled everything off the ship. All of the tools, all of like the metal, like the like the whatever steering wheel it was, everything they could have used. It was like it was like a colony of ants eating a carcass in a matter of days. They just stripped the ship down to nothing. Yeah, man, they're resourceful.

I guess I'm not trying to burst the bubble too much in uncontacted tribes because you'll see a lot of people throw that word around a lot. And coming from experience, it is very difficult to find an uncontacted tribe. in the Amazon I would guess they probably exist but again people can move there right and us white people have been everywhere bro throwing that cross around

doing all kinds of things so they definitely do exist but I think like less contact it would be a good way to put it but I think the ones that are aggressive like for example in North Sentinel Island there is that story of this old German or something and that from 80 years ago

I don't remember exactly when it was either that did something bad and now there is some kind of aggression towards people coming to the island. In other places, like Papua New Guinea, for example, right? We can say there's probably some uncontacted tribes there, but what's more accurate to say was there's probably some less contacted tribes there that have had really bad altercations with illegal mining.

And they associate outsiders with violence because illegal miners will shoot native tribes, right, if they try to cause problems because it's lawless out there, right? these uncontacted tribes who are violent probably most likely have reason to be violent like a dog that was beaten and now bites people. Exactly. Yeah, totally. So, and the world is very fluid, you know, like people are always moving around. So in the Amazon, part of the reason why it's so hard to get in there and get out of there is because there's no roads.

You have to go by river, right? And the river also goes one way. So if you're going upriver, which you normally are, it takes a long, a long time. So for me, uncontacted tribes specifically, I have been told I have seen some, but everything has been friendly. I don't exactly know. No hostility. No. I've had no hostile experiences with tribes. I have had one very hostile experience doing this job.

I don't think I've told this story on a podcast, maybe. But I have this like fetish with sleeping in. in amazing places. I grew up as a Boy Scout, and so I got camping with something you'd do with like a little group and you go to a campground, and then along the way,

I realized you can camp wherever the f you want if you don't get caught, right? Right. And so I started finding weird places to camp, and so I've camped like under Africa's second biggest waterfall recently. Whoa. Yeah, in Angola, we did that.

And then there was a place that I found. And since, like, we live in, North America, there's not much for like castles, right? So I've always had a fascination for castles. And I was traveling in Turkey and I found a castle called Satan's Castle. Really? Yeah. Steve, you got to find this. And I wanted to camp in a castle that was like the fantasy. You know what I mean? Because there's like some ruins and bulls. But I wanted to find one with like a tower and like a rampart and like really a castle feel. But the problem is like in Europe, anyone that's still well preserved is like it's guarded it's got tickets you know you can't go do that you have to find one

that's abandoned but generally if it's nice it's not going to be abandoned until i found this one in a really remote part of turkey near the border of georgia that's my video and uh it was uh you can find a maybe the very beginning oh yeah there's a yeah there's a photo of it wow so holy cow dude isn't that that is bizarre way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way Wait, wait, wait. Altamice. Look at that. Pause, pause, pause.

Pause, pause. Okay, this is going to be important. Oh, my God. Stop it, Steve. Stop, no. We missed it, Steve. Steve. Oh, my.

Okay, there we go. That is insane. Exactly. That is the full castle fantasy. I didn't want to just go, oh, I slept in. I wanted to sleep in a fucking castle. How did you get there?

Exactly. Exactly. It looks like Circe's castle and Game of Thrones where the dragons live. Uh-huh. It is, it's perfect, isn't it? No, it is, yeah. And abandoned and in the middle of nowhere.

And I was... What country again? Turkey. Turkey. Near the border of the country of Georgia. So it's like northeastern Turkey. And I'm going to refer to this photo in a second if you want to keep it up because it's going to be important to this story, which is crazy.

That is mind bending. So I wanted to camp. As you can see, I was able to make it happen. But it was such a remote part of Turkey. and I had to rent a car and drive hours from the nearest big city to get there. And I didn't quite know what I was going to get myself into. I just saw a couple crappy phone photos, but it looked like it was going to be epic. So I got my little tent.

I got my equipment, my drone, all that kind of shit. Firewood, hacked it on the way, got to this place. And there's a road that goes through this really kind of crappy town that's just cheap and tarps for roofs and bricks, like maybe 20 little houses. And then there's this road ends and there's a little path that goes along the side of... The viewers can see it here, right?

Yeah. So on the left, maybe you can see it. There's like a little winding road that goes as like a break. See, on the left-hand side? There's a path that goes along there then it dips down and it comes back up. So I park my car

where it's like maybe like a half-mile walk, maybe almost a mile to walk along this little edge. And then you dip down, you come back up. And along the way, you can see it. I'm stoked. I'm like, oh, my God, it's perfect. It's perched up on this cliff, like a pinnacle in this valley. And I can't believe it's actually still here.

And there's, like, nobody around. And so I get there and I climb up and I'm exploring this place and there's murder holes where they would have dropped, you know, like oil down. And there's tunnels and like these walls. And I'm just having like, I'm a kid in a candy shop, man. Again, as a guy who grew up here in North America, we don't get to just explore a castle. There is no castles. And maybe you can go to Europe, but there's tickets and there's fences and like, I got to be a medieval king, you know? When is this castle from?

Do you know? This is where things get interesting, man, because it's, I think it's a thousand. I don't remember. This is like three years ago. But basically, it's been rebuilt over the years. Because if you build a house and then you renovate it, renovate it, renovate it, renovate it, how old is the house? Right? I think the foundation, you can look it up, Satan's couch.

See, you'll find it. It was 500 BC. 500 BC. Can you find a Wikipedia on it? I want to read about this place. So then over the years it was added to and expanded and things like that. So 500 BC is when it was from. But then again, if it was 500 BC, it wouldn't be still standing completely.

So they would have over time would have... Restored it. Yeah. That is the coolest thing I've ever seen. Yeah, man. So epic campsite for sure and didn't see a soul. So I was there exploring it. The sun was going down.

I haven't time my life. One really weird thing that I saw when I was there, though, is there was, like, floodlights that were around the outside. But they were, like, broken, and the wires were cut and looked like they had been, I don't know, like, busted for, like, five years or something like that. But I was happy because I was like, oh, should they're going to light this up? Because sometimes they'll light up castles at night just to make it look nice. But there's no road you can see it from. No one lives out there. So I thought it was strange.

They would have lights. but they look broken anyway, so I was like, okay, I guess that's weird, but that's fine. Do you know why they call it Satan's Castle? I think because they believe the devil lived there. Really? Yeah. Steve, what have you? It's tough to find.

There's no articles on it, so I'm looking at. You can't find any information. No, if you look up on something, I'm just having to dig through this guy who went on this road trip and then he stopped by the castle. That is so beautiful, dude. It's like Kalesik's, if you look up the Turkish name, you'll find it. is that is that it that's it that's it yeah that's it look that up weirdness google that cool zetan calesi i'll get back we gotta figure out why they called it that that is nuts all right i'm there how long did you say there yeah keep going oh i was there well let me let me get

to the story okay okay so the idea was to spend the idea of suspend the night there all right oh it's satan you might have to translate it into english yeah what does satan mean Satan. It's a... I can't read that. There we go. There we go. There we go.

It's an old castle located in the something something village of C. C. Deer district in Ardahan province. The castle is a historical insuti region

is referred to as this is a hard thing to read, man. The devil's castle. Okay, the devil's castle. Yeah. In a Georgian sources. And, and, And is the date of the Ottoman's capture of the region.

The name of the castle was later translated from Georgian. There are opinions that the cacta Tsi mentioned in the epic, the man in the tiger's skin, written by a famous Georgian poet, Shota Rustaveli, in the 12th century, is the devil's castle. Huh. Fascinating. That was built. Yeah, it doesn't really say.

Pull up the map. Built. Oh, there we go. Built between, according to the Chronicle named Mashuri Metanine, which tells the history of the Georgian principality

of Shamashi Shabatoga and the neighboring states between 1561 and 1587. I think he wanted to do detective work yet ago. It says it was built during the time of the Uriarch Artians. So at the top, maybe

Yeah, there it is. Time of the Geratians. You know, just common knowledge. Yeah, just Google the Herodians, figure out when they were. When was the time of the Eradians? I wonder what the Erudians are doing now. Mentioned in the Assyrian sources. Wow.

From the early 13th century BC. She's an old one. She's an old one. No way, that's 13th century BC. How old they say, Gilbeckley-Tepi was? Oh, dude, like 12,000 BC. 12,000? Okay.

But again, it's been renovated, right? Right. The last renovation is probably medieval ages or something. Right, right. But there's some stories about this place. So I was a kid in the candy shop. Like, it was, if I go to a place or visit a people and it's better than I imagine, I am so happy. Because often the photos, you know, are like Instagram versus reality for a lot of things.

You know what I mean? And so I'm there. I'm like exploring. I set up my tent. We started campfire. We, I mean, me and the devil that lives there. There's no one else there. And so we're there.

Me and the devil. And the sun starts to go down. I'm like, all right, she could find my flashlight. And I couldn't find my flashlight. I was like, I must have dropped it when I was moving my camera gear and stuff around. And the sun was going down and I had a torch. I always, when I go to these places, it's like cinematic. You bring one of those medieval torches with the fire.

And so you can make those pretty easy with kerosene and the old t-shirt. And so I make my little torch and I get my tripod and my camera and I thought I'd get some cool shots of walking around the castle with the torch at night. And also I found my flashlight inside. And so I'm going down and down the back steps and I have the torch and it's great. And then I look over and then on the, again, the left-hand side you can see that the path. And so I was on one of these ramparts here on the left of the castle and I could see two flashlights like on. on the path and realized that they were standing there, like looking at me.

But that's kind of far away. You can't really see too much detail. And I'm like, that must be like two local kids or something. And I'm there with my torch. And then all I hear yelling like, like, like, giggle, like, and I was, oh. And then I didn't know if they're yelling at me or yelling at each other. And then I hear a, it was a bullet.

Bullet zipped over my head. and I was like wow what the like no they weren't shooting at me like they must be hunting but it's like fucking like nine p.m like who's shooting like it must be a mistake and so I kind of like I have my fucking dorky torch

I like a movie like look again and then another bullet zoom over my head and I realize no they're shooting at me and I hear them yelling again and they start running along that path on the left towards the little bridge of the castle and I have a literal watermelon because there's only one way off this place and it's that one bridge that they're going to get to and I have all my my tents there like what do they want like they are they going to like kidnap me this is kind of close to an area that's quite sensitive and people sometimes there are terrorists and stuff yeah so I was like they can't be coming for me but like they're obviously shooting at me specifically like maybe they think I'm like a kid who's grapiting because there was a little bit of graffiti and I look yeah I look yeah

and they're very much sprinting towards to catch me. And so I'm like, game mode. And so I put the torch out and I'm like, there's no way I can get to my tent. I don't know what they want, but I don't want to find out. And I figured if I sprint, I can beat them to the front gate and I can hide on the mountain. So I have the torch out and have my phone.

I didn't want to turn the flashlight on the phone. So I pressed record on the phone so I could use the dim light from the screen and it wouldn't turn off. And I use that to find my way. couldn't see where I was. As a bonus, I have the footage. But in the time, I'm like, I don't want to put in the flashlight.

Record, boom, like that. And so I was using the screen light to be able to go. Also, I guess as a bonus, it's nice to have the footage if I'm not dead. But at the same time, I'm trying to find my footing without showing them where I am. And so I'm jumping from rock to rock and I make it down. I don't have anything on. It's very cold this time of year. It's like November.

And I'm able to get out the front, climb up the side of the cliff and I'm hanging on the side. behind a bush, and these two guys run in and they're like yelling, and they're on the top of the rampart there on the left, and they're looking around, and they start shooting into the air, and I'm hiding in the bush, and the flashlight scans by my bush, and that's the most terrifying feeling, man.

Like, feeling like you're being hunted by people with guns and you have nowhere to go. You can't move. The flashlight's on your bush, and you stay still. Complete freeze response. And the flashlight kept going, and they went around to look somewhere else because I can't escape, right? They went to go look in the field or something.

I'm trying to climb back up the cliff and get to the path, but it's really rough and very steep. And I have my phone, luckily, and I look at my phone and I have one single bar of reception. And I have a local friend who's three, four hours away in the town. And so I messaged my friend Sueat. I'm like, Sueat, I'm at the castle that I told you I was going to. people are here, they have guns, and they're trying to get me, what do I do? And he said, luckily he gets back to me pretty quick and it's like, they're terrorists.

They will try to kidnap you and they will steal everything in your tent. Try to get away. But my car keys were in the tent. So where am I going to go? Even if I was managed to get back to the path, I can't get the keys. So I'm there shivering because it's November and it's like 10 p.m. or something. Being like, what do I do? What do I do?

And so I was like, Sue, can you send the police? And he goes, yes, don't worry, I'll definitely send the police. You hang tight. They should be there soon. And so I'm there shivering.

And these guys are now realizing I'm not on the little peninsula thing here, on the rock field. So they're starting to spread their search out and coming back towards... Still just two of them. Yeah, two. I think actually there was three by that time.

But there was... And they have their guns. And they fire shots. They're yelling. And their search is expanding. Which means I can't really go anywhere else. And they'll see me if I come back. So I'm stuck and I'm like, I can go up the top of that hill and I can try to sneak out, but I'm going to die of exposure, man. It's so cold. Like,

I'd have nothing. Really? Yeah, because it was too cold. And so I was like, I had to wait here for the police. So I'm waiting, I'm waiting. And then luckily, after like 30 minutes, I get a call from my buddy Suea and he goes, okay, the police are at your tent. It's good now. And I'm like, I didn't see anybody come. Like, there's, There's not, they're not at my tent. And he goes, no, they're, like, they're at your tent. He told me your tent is red, right? And I'm like, yeah, okay, you're sure.

And he's like, yeah, yeah, they're at your tent. I'm like, what am I most, I have no other options, right? I can't leave. I can't get my keys. The keys are in the tent. So my only option is to go back and see if the police are at my tent, even though there was two or three dudes with guns, right? And so I sheepishly come back, luckily find my flashlight on the path,

get that, and I creep up the back. to see who's at my tent and it's the guys with the guns but they're like Mike and I'm like hi and I realized that they were the police all along and the story came together that when I came in with all my equipment apparently some locals saw me and thought I was a treasure hunter and that I was trying to steal the secret treasure of the princess that no one had been able to find at the castle. And so the locals reported me for me being a terrorist and treasure hunter, called the military

police who came in with guns blazing. They saw the lights were cut. They assumed I cut the lights and they just went nuts. And so they're like, Mike, where were you? We were looking for you. And I was like, what the fuck? I was like, how many times did you shoot at me?

And they're like, oh, like eight times. And I was like, why did you shoot? And we're talking, like, we're conversing with Google Translate basically. And they're like, why are you here? I'm like, I was just like making YouTube video. And they're like, YouTube channel, I subscribe. What is channel? Oh my Lord.

And so they're like, no, dude, you can't stay here because there's too many wolves and bears and they'll eat you alive, apparently. And so they literally, they brought me back to my rental car. They drove me in my rental car to the local hotel. Then we smoke cigarettes and drank, whatever, what's that drink called? like a whiskey, a local whiskey for the night until like 3 a.m. and they left. Oh my God.

And everything was totally fun. But like why? It brings up so many questions. Why would just sneak up on me, man? Like just sneak up and catch me. Hey, are you stealing the treasure? Oh no, you're a tourist. Like why shoot so many times?

Why? God, it was just. Just shoot first and ask questions later. Yeah. That's insane. So I didn't end up spending the night, man. But that was the most. that's the most closest

you've come to death on any of your excursions? I mean, they wouldn't have shot me, I don't think, but it was close, but I could have so much, I could have

They wouldn't have executed you but they easily could have accidentally shot you. Or I could have fallen off the cliff climbing. Right, exactly. Or I could have not had any reception and then fucking,

I don't know what would happen. Dude. So do you, you obviously, do you bring any kind of weapons with you after that happened? No. I like, I don't know.

I think. Especially if you're by yourself in a remote place. Imagine the scenario. All right. So they see me like they did. They shoot. I hide.

They come in with their guns. I'm there with a fles machete saying, let's go, boys. Yeah, it's not going to work, right? No. So that's it. It's like, and there's been a few crazy things happen like that, but it's always misunderstandings, man.

It's never someone actively trying to cause harm. There's opportunistic people out there who will break into your car, steal your pickpocket you, try to steal your luggage from an airport. That's happened a bunch of times. But I've never had anybody come try and cause harm to me in a confrontational way. Right. Except for misunderstandings like this. In the most dangerous countries in the world, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, Pakistan, like Mauritania, all these places, you know? Right.

It seems like in all these crazy places. that you can go the most dangerous thing as human beings, right? Like, sure, there's deadly animals, there's diseases and, you know, treacherous landscapes, but generally humans are probably the most dangerous thing you're going to encounter. And honestly, you do weird shit, you get weird results. Yeah. No shit. So is that all, all that stuff you were talking about?

You filmed it with your iPhone and that's in this video? It's all there? Wow. So if you're on YouTube, just search solo camping in Satan's Castle. gone horribly wrong and you're going to find out everything you just watched that's insane bro

so you also you made a video about you made a couple videos about some shit you did in the Congo yeah and there was some pretty crazy like rituals that these people would practice in the Congo what were those about

well that was another situation where it's like do weird shit get weird results because Congo doesn't this is there's two congo The big one's called the Democratic Republic of Congo. And the reason why I went is because I love the jungle. I love it.

And if you look on a map of the world, there's really three big green patches that are jungle that people don't generally go to. Central Amazon, Papua, Papua, Papua, Papua, Papua, and Deep Congo, Central of Africa. And I wanted to try Congo. So I found a local contact. We worked for a month to get a tourist visa for this country. again, not very common. Well, tourists do go to Congo, but they go to the east where there's the gorillas, there's a really cool volcano you can see there.

There's tourism that happens in the east, but no one goes to central Congo. And so I had to pay like $300 for a tourist visa. It took us a while to figure it out. The idea was to go to Kinshasa, the capital, do a couple things there, big crazy city, and then go to the heart of the jungle. So Congo is the most corrupt place. I have ever been in my life. I land after doing this whole visa dance,

paying a lot of money for that, and I get to immigration. And I'm like, excuse me, here's my visa. And they look at it like, okay, yeah, sure, come with me. Go in the back room, a bunch of guys with AK-47s. And they're like, you have to pay your tourist visa. And I'm like, I have it. It's here.

Like, no, that's not it. You need another one. I'm like, no, I haven't. He's like, no, no, you need another one. And so you're like, here we go. And so you shell out 300 more dollars to get the same piece of paper. And then you're in Congo. So what I wanted to film in Kinshasa first was there was a couple things.

Number one is there's people called the Sappers, the Society of Elegant People and Amiance Makers. These dudes who live in complete poverty spend all their money on fancy suits. So you have this guy living in a concrete hole wearing the brightest, most bedazzle, old orange suit with like a top hat and like alligator shoes and they go up and they perform on the streets and they're kind of like a mime meets like a catwalk kind of and they block

traffic and they dance and it's really really interesting and also there's something called voodoo wrestling where they have it's like WWE meets Harry Potter meets witchcraft. Whoa! So they set up a ring in the middle of like a barrio like

a favela kind of and they fight with magic spells And so they'll be there and they'll like make someone trip And then they'll pull a snake out of an umbrella And they'll like sick the snake on the person And it's the most crazy thing ever And how that night ended is there was Is this it?

Yeah yeah yeah Catch Congolet voodoo wrestling Wow Was that guy wearing a tutu? Probably yeah That's amazing If you want to see some funny shit you can go Again all the stuff on my YouTube channel too

But how it ended man is There was a a woman named Shakira, who was the champion. And I watched her plunge a machete into a man's chest and eat his intestines. For real? No, but it looked real. Oh. That was funny, Mike.

But she really did eat intestines. So, again, it's just kind of like WWE. I'm sorry if you believe in World Wrestling Federation, but it's a little bit fake. See, it was one of the shorts. Oh, no. Why is it like that? Oh yeah, it's a short. Oh, this is a one minute video.

But you'll still see them. So what do they bring? So that's a fart attack. There, magic spells, bam, he catches it. Has some kind of magic smoke. Oh, that's amazing. And there's a bit of like actual wrestling in there. And there you go, magic spells.

Boom! Ouch! They're, um, they're, this is WWE inspired, obviously. Yeah, for sure it is. Yeah. Look at the magic sleep umbrella. He's putting wine on them. Look at that.

Oh, orange juice. Wow. There's, this is Shakir on the left. Boom. And then there's, ah! It's amazing. And this is,

so, is it in the short? Yeah, so she sticks him with the, with the machete. Uh-huh. And then she eats the, his intestines.

Oh, that's beautiful. Look at that. This is so much more entertaining than WW. That's way better than WWE. Yeah. YouTube did not like that one. Really?

No, no, no, no. It got age restricted. It's so bizarre how they love. People in those remote parts of the world are such big WWFans. I met a guy, I met a taxi driver in New Orleans a few years ago. And it was during, I went there for WrestleMania.

And he was telling me a story about when he was a kid, when he was like eight years old, he grew up in Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe. And he said when WrestleMania would come on, him and his friends would walk like 12 hours to where they knew there was a TV. And they would go watch WrestleMania. Like they would talk about Hulk Hogan and macho man.

These guys, they were like super obsessed with this stuff. I think probably because it's real life superheroes. It's what it is, right? Because you got Spider-Man, you got Batman, but there's no real Spider-Man and Batman. Right. But there is a real Hulk Hogan and Undertaker. And they do some pretty magical type shit. Not as magical as like Voodoo wrestling.

Yeah, man. It's very performative. And there's obviously like, you know, drama involved in it in this theater. but it's still pretty fucking brutal. I mean, Hulk Hogan's had like 12 back surgeries and like 14 hip replacements. They really f***ed themselves up. Yeah.

So these guys are doing a more traditional wrestling. But yeah, there's a fight, I think right after this one that's a bit... Boom! Again, you're right. Like that shit hurts. That, yeah, that fucking hurts. Doing the push-ups, man. I love the costumes, too.

It's just so perfect. Hulk Hocke's... His name was Ninja. Oh, that's amazing. This one is also more standard. So there's like this catch-congolet, which I think is what this is, which is more standard. And then there's like catch fetish, which is the more magical spells. But we organize, like talking about how like this neo-colonialist that I hear sometimes, like we organize this whole event.

So we paid for this entire event for the whole community. Really? And with that, I was able to film inside and everything like that. But to be able to, yeah, this is a good one. Yeah. And they, like, everyone was just, there was a whole parade to get there. But it's just so, it's so fun to come in and, like, make a big fun thing. And just have, look at all the people.

Yeah. And we can all this have fun together. Yeah. You know. And with that, I can, I can get in the ring. I can get the good angles and that, that's all good. But, like, just being able to create that, like, vibe, you know? Yeah, dude.

That's super, that's so bizarre. So the guys in the orange will start fighting with spells here in a second. It's a father and son. There is, boom. That's fun. Isn't that great? It was so fun to watch. And then you'll see in a second, she leaves the ring,

and she is full zombie mode. It's like you can't communicate with her. And then how this video ends is that after she goes, goes to the crowd my local contact comes to me and says we have to leave now things are going to get bad and so we just I'm like I don't know what that

means but let's get out of here really yeah that's what he told me yeah so she's I mean she's really eating those things that's wild dude yeah it's just a bit weird sometimes because the stories sound so crazy but like I there's

like it's there you know I mean yeah that's like that's like that you find out about it in a horror movie or like some sort of crazy Stephen King novel. How often do you go out and do this shit? Originally, how YouTube used to work was that you vlog, you go, you have a camera, you record, you do your day thing,

you might find something interesting and posting often was something that I used to do. There was a point where I did two a week, I think, for this style video? No. How did you start? like vlogging. How I started in the beginning was making these applications for travel competitions.

There was this era of like five years where every travel company was trying to make a travel video competition. The first one was the tourism board of somewhere in Australia, Queensland, where they, it was the first ever like video, best job in the world competition where you could submit a video saying, hi, I'm so-and-so. travel and if you won you'd get the best job ever or best job in the world i forget what it was called and you'd have a job exploring australia for a summer and it got like 100 000 applicants or something around the world and i just coasted on that i submitted all of these different videos to uh these competitions but then it got into vlogging and now answering your question huh with this shit what yeah with this shit it's like it takes a lot of planning man um like i told you with the Congo,

the Congo wrestling. It takes a while to figure that out. Yeah. And with that, you can tell a better story. And ultimately, what I want to do is tell better stories. I want to have the real authentic thing. And there is definitely a point where you can find real authentic stuff and just show up. And that's great, but not always when you got a crew, like I have a videographer now, I've got editors, I got all this stuff.

It's like a lot of, you got to make sure you deliver. You can't just have a fun trip. You know, you have to be able to get your needs. It's work, yeah. Yeah. And continuing that Congo story, one thing I've always realized is some of the best stories that I've ever told are the ones that you could never plan, right? Yes. And so after the Voodah wrestling and seeing Shakira the man eater disembowl a man, we headed off to the jungle.

And there was a city called Buende, which was as close to the middle of the green heart of Congo as we could go. And then from there, my local contact, a guy named Obed, had spoken to people in this town who had told him about this tribe where there was this big woman matriarch, apparently this like six foot, seven foot woman, obese woman, with a bunch of these little naked male subordinates. And it was a tribe and they had never seen tourists before. And they had made this decision to allow us to go and some kind of special deal we had done. And so like for me, I was like, that sounds amazing. You know?

Imagine like in the middle of the Congo jungle, some giant woman and a bunch of naked males just like carrying her around or whatever they did. But we had no plan. Like we had heard a rumor, right? And so we ended up going to this small town in the middle of Congo called Buende, landed there.

There's only one flight a week, arrived to the village. And immediately upon arrival, we had to deal with all of the payment bullshit for whatever bullshit they could ever come up with. And we had heard the government, was informed that we had arrived and we had to see him immediately, which is normal. You go to any place in the world that's weird.

You meet the local tribe leader, the local government. You tell them what they're doing because why are you here, right? So we go roll up to this big kind of flat house in the middle of town. Walk up the steps, enter inside, and there's this giant man sitting on the couch watching TV, looking really pissed off. and as we walk in he doesn't even look at us he beckons towards the couch and so me and my guide sit down and then my guide begins to speak and he interrupts him and he's like why are you here in my village and then my guide begins to speak again and as he does the governor turns up the television louder as my guide starts to explain hi we're here i'm with a foreigner he's Canadian

and he likes filming, he makes like small films, like television films. We're trying to make it relatable to him. There's no Wi-Fi there. And he wants to see the jungle and the people here around the jungle. And he's like, why does he want to come here in my jungle? And I start to jump in. I'm like, well, I find the people here very interesting. And I have a biology degree and I love the jungle.

And he goes, well, you have forests and you have people in your country. so why come here? And I'm like, well, no, it's just, it's different. And he goes, we are not that different. You're a forest and my forest and your people and my people. And I'm like, fuck. Like, this is not, negotiations aren't going well. And he starts to explain like, he's like, listen, people come here all the time.

Most, no, he's like, listen, people come here and they want to exploit my jungle. They want to mine in my ground. They want to cut my trees. Anybody with white skin is bad. And you have to remember that Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo has a nickname called the Heart of Darkness. It's called the Heart of Darkness because around 1900 something, a guy named King Leopold II from Belgium came down and made this whole rubber operation. This man, this horrible son of a bitch, killed, I think 15 million people in Congo. to exploit the country for rubber and other resources.

If they didn't pick rubber fast enough, he'd cut off their hands and still make them keep the same quotas. And if they didn't make the quota, he'd kill them. He killed 15 million people. Think of that. We're talking early 1900s? I think it's like 1890. Yeah, until early 1900s. And so with that filming in a lot of these countries in the West that were exploited so much by colonialism,

It's very difficult because everyone thinks a white person is trying to take advantage of you. Yeah, man. It's like that epigenetic trauma. Exactly. And even now, and he was right. He would have seen a few foreigners in his life, and they would have been there to illegally log. I'm a dude with the camera. I just want to take photos of the jungle and meet this giant woman with her little crew.

And so we're here, and he does not trust us at all. and so he's like he's like there's so yeah he doesn't trust it at all and he looks at my camera because I have my camera on my hip and he goes how do I know that's not a GPS device because he'd never seen a camera like that before and I'm like no it's a camera he goes no how do I know how do I know it does not give GPS

so you can send GPS to people to mine in my land I can't prove to this man what this thing can do he's never seen it before and honestly it probably does do GPS if it's a camera, you know what I mean? And we could not convince this man. And at all about anything. And so he said, okay, I will think about it. I will consult with my committee and I will let you know tomorrow.

And so we're like, and I can't, there's no internet there, right? Or not that he had. And so I couldn't pull up anything to show him like, look, I've got a YouTube, he doesn't know what a YouTube channel is. Like, how am I going to explain to him? I'm not tagging the location of some ancient hardware. wood to log. So we go back to our little shack of a of a of a hotel and we sit and then his security guard comes over late at night like around 9 10 p.m. And there power goes out, generators go out, people sleep like that kind of stuff. Right. So it's weird to see people that late. He comes over and

he speaks a bit of English. At this point we're speaking in in French mostly. And he explains, listen, the governor didn't meet with the council. He's not going to let you pass. He's going to keep you here. And he's going to make you leave on the next plane out because he's not going to let you continue in the jungle. Next plane is a week.

So we're not going to sit in a hotel for a week. And so he's like, what I was like, listen, I was able to find some internet, like dial up or something somewhere. And I can see like you do photography. You do photography. You should tomorrow morning get two local men on motorcycles and leave the city early before he can catch you to go to the border of the state. And once you're out of the state, then he has no power. And so we thanked this guy because we would have been trapped otherwise.

And so the next morning early, we get two local guys and motorbikes. We load up supplies because it's like four days to the next village where we can actually, get a get a any kind of civilization and we head off into the jungle because we would have been trapped there

and he wouldn't have imprisoned us necessarily but we would have been we would have been locked not well we would have been monitored and not allowed to leave so me Obed

and two local guys take off on motorbikes first thing in the morning after getting supplies into the fucking Congo on the shitty little dirt path with a vague idea

by a asking some people the direction to go to find the next village outside of the state where we can kind of reassess the plan. And so we take off and we're zipping along. I had trusted my, my, my guide Obed to get us enough food for the way. He ended up getting for four guys, two packs of spaghetti, a can of sardines, and like that was it. And so we eat all that on the first day and there's no more food left. And so we were, we'd eat in all our, Spaghetti, slept on the side of the road with a little local village. It wasn't a try, but it was like people living very traditionally.

And then continue the next day until we find someone selling an alligator on the side of the road, like one that was probably three, four feet. And I didn't know why or what, but he was there. He had an alligator in his hands. And he, my guide, my driver stops. And so there's a four of us stop by this alligator. And my driver's like, oh, like this is dinner. And there's a four-foot alligator.

And I'm like, this is dinner. He goes, yeah, yeah, we'll eat that tonight. And so the guy takes a machete, the guy who has the alligator, the crocodile, whatever it was, cracks in the head a few times. We tied up to the back of the bike. And we continue. So then there's this hilarious video of this overloaded motorcycle with a dangling alligator in the back as we're going through these dusty roads. There's a Congo River, one of the most powerful rivers in the world. that goes through this part of the country too.

And apparently we had forgotten it was wet season or something and it had flooded the path. So I double check with my driver. Like, what do we do? And he goes, oh, we can drive through. And I don't own a bike. I don't haven't driven that many bikes. I just assume that you couldn't drive a motorcycle through water for very long.

My driver said, don't worry, it's fine. So we plow through this flooded part of the trail. and the bike gets flooded. Completely. And stops. And sunset. And we're in the middle of nowhere in the Congo jungle

with no motorcycles and a dead alligator dangling off the back. Is this it? Yeah, yeah, dangling off the back of the motorcycle. And so we don't have, like,

there we are. We don't have a tent or any... That's so insane, man. It's also beautiful. And it's beautifully insane is what it is. Yeah. So this is like,

yeah, they had tried to build a bridge or something. cows in the road that's my guide we're like what the fuck's going on this is our bridge is it gonna hold the bikes we don't know

so this is before got flooded though yeah and very soon we'll get flooded so we're continuing it's before the alligator as well and I guess it's probably

a crocodile and we do have tent sorry and so and that's people illegal yeah this is it so this is people illegally logging yeah oh shit

and it was a Chinese guy so Logging is not permitted there? I think that, so this is the road getting flooded now. It isn't, it isn't. It's like you pay enough money, you can do anything you want. So I think people get bribes or whatever it is. Right, right.

Bikes get flooded. Oh my God, dude. Oh, no. And we get stuck. So then what happens is that we, yeah. So there's this little village, see it here. the people walking on the path the whole thing's flooded

and we have to make a choice it's like we can't we're too far from a village to walk the sun's setting there's not really any place to pitch our tent and so we decide to see if we can make peace with the

alligator they're dangling on the bottom oh yeah yeah I saw how can you make peace with this tribe and we had the food we had the crocodile and so there is in the bottom.

That's amazing. And we decided to barter the crocodile for a night in one of their huts. So in a moment we show up with a crocodile over our shoulder. These people we've never met before, never seen before right here, and we're like, hi, and they don't even speak French. Because, again, people from Belgium were French. They colonized this place. So French is a language you can speak in Kinshasa, a lot of places.

They only speak the local language. luckily one of our guides did this is me trying to like hide the camera behind the crocodile so I'm not running up with them and just filming right because this is a first these people probably never seen a camera before they wouldn't but the only people they would have seen would have been probably Chinese people legally logging okay yeah wow and he's like she's like totally she's like who is this white ghost right now and the first thing they do is they bring over a chair for me a bucket and I can't communicate and so I'm waiting for my local guide to come And here we negotiate, we talk, we exchange the crocodile, and there they had already eaten, I guess, for the evening. So we have the crocodile the next day for breakfast. And this night is a really beautiful scene of them bringing, them having a dance, singing and kind of celebrating that we were there. They bring a pangolin over, too, do you know what pangolin is? I've seen them, yeah. Really, really endangered animal.

They had caught it. they wanted to show me. Yeah, you can see this is them cutting up for the, that thing. Yeah, the panglin. That thing's crazy looking on. I'm like, it's a panglin because they're very endangered. It's dead? Yeah, they had just killed it.

Did y'all eat it? I didn't see what happened to it. It probably would have went to the family. So here I explain that they're very endangered. The Chinese grind up the scales and they use it for Chinese medicine. But look at that incredible creature. Yeah, the Chinese, they use a lot of things, like a lot of weird. pieces of animals for medicines.

And like I think they used the, they used like the tusks of the elephant for like Viagra. Yeah, like boner pills, man. But like if that works. And we sing and we dance. And the next morning we have we have Crocodhoffa breakfast,

which is great. Did the bike ever start back up? Yeah, well, actually, the two guys, I think, pushed forward to some point, I think loaded the bikes onto boats and there was the next morning here we wake up, We eat the crocodile, and then we take boats to the village because you can't get by on the path.

So we get in these boats, these dugout canoes, we load everything up and we go, we take most of the day to get to the next village. And then in the next village, we end up sleeping in the tent. It's a different video. But we get there super late and we, I pitch a tent. And from there what happens? I wake up the next morning and there's all these people waiting outside. So here they're fishing in a very weird way. So they have like a stick and they put a dead fish on the end of the stick and they're trying to get catfish, I think.

Oh, wow. And so it's like an automatic fishing rod. They keep it there all day and then they, but this is something you couldn't plan. Like this is not part of the plan at all. But. That's so wild, man. Make lemonade, you know? Yeah.

The sequel is what I'm showing here now, which is hunting with a tribe in Congo where they, yeah this is the next video it's a green mamba that attacked us is something poisonous dude it'll kill you in an hour really yeah and they we end up eating it which is the next video

but yeah it's so funny the next day and in the next video is we camp that night we wake up the next morning and I just hear like a ruckus outside and so because we arrived late in the dark and I open my tent and there's like 50 people all gathered around seeing who's inside of the tent because they'd never seen a tent before.

Probably never seen a white guy before. And there's a woman there grinding this some kind of paste from a bark to put on my skin because she knew my white skin wouldn't handle the sun. And so I wake up and they put the sunscreen on my face. And then we spend two days hunting in the forest. And then one of those days, we were out there walking through a river and all of a sudden, like one of the guys freaks out, jumps back, and this green mamba, this six-foot-searched.

seven foot snake, sprints out of a hole on the side and comes right at me. And the guy bangs it on the head with a machete. It goes off in the jungle. They chase it and then they catch it and they cut it up. But a green mamba, like mamba has black mambas, there's green mumbas. They're the most aggressive and one of the most venomous snakes on the planet. They have a neurotoxin. So if that bites you, it stops your heart from beating. It stops your diaphragm from moving your lungs like you're dead meat. And we're so remote. It's a, it's a lethal. dose every single time. When you spend like weeks and months out there in these remote places with no technology,

no cell service, do you get the sense of other people have described this where like other senses in the body sort of like open up, right? Like when you're when you're in the jungle around all these insects and all these beating hearts all around you like what you just described with the mamba jumping out. Do you have like a higher sense of perception for like. defending yourself against other animals or like your hearing or your vision. Do you notice any anything like that, any more like sensory perception? Well, part of the reason why I like this job is because it makes you aware. Because if you're always searching for a story or a, or a,

you're always looking for a shot, whether it be a face or a caterpillar or a cool flower or whatever it is or a monkey in a tree, you're always aware when you're making videos or for photography, you know, because you're always looking for a cool thing to shoot. And so what amplifies that even more is hanging out with guys like this who are like, oh, hey, look, the ants are moving. That means it's going to rain in the next hour. Right. And then 45 minutes later, it rains because they knew because the ants do this at a certain time.

Ancient knowledge that we've all lost, man. And like even knowing what the medicines to use, what plants. counteract other plants and how there's like a poison ivy and beside a poison ivy there's always some kind of other plant you can rub on the poison ivy and it's just incredible to be able to do that yeah everything you need is out there it's incredible it really is yeah and those those moments are special man um because you're just you're just people doing what people do and it's it's nice to be able to communicate in charades and just joke around and they're still doing fart jokes and All kinds of stuff.

They actually smoked a lot of pot too, those guys. Really? Yeah, yeah. They had a homemade bong made it a bamboo. And so, yeah, me, smoked a bunch of pot. You said, I think you said it on Mark's podcast. Shout out to Mark. He's awesome. Mark Gagnon. You mentioned on his podcast that at all the, I think you said you've been to like 90-something

countries, right? Yeah, yeah. You said that the one thing that you found in common between all these countries was singing, dancing, and drugs. Yeah. I want some singing and dancing for sure, which is just storytelling. Like think about this. You are one tribe visiting another tribe and you don't speak the language.

How can you communicate who you are, where you're from, what your values are, what your tribe stands for? If you can't communicate, you dance and you sing and you show the struggles of your people, you show your recording rituals, you show all of that. And so song and dance is an international language. Dance especially, right? Because it doesn't matter where you go. If you can express yourself, you can communicate, right? And you can see someone's intentions about how they dance, right?

If you're their jabbing spears, or if you're... And so that language is international for sure. And it's just storytelling. And that's why I think why we still remember, at least I still remember, the lyrics to Britney Spears. Hit me, baby, one more time, not because I wanted to listen to Britney Spears. I was force-fed it for most of my childhood. Right.

But the human mind is designed to keep information in the form of song because it's the most perfect time capsule. Right? A floppy disc out in the hallway there's like iPods and shit or like hard discs like that rusts and falls away. But a song and because our brains are made to understand songs and remember songs, That's the perfect time capsule for information and writes a passage and what God is and how you should be.

That's why we all love music, even in the modern world, and why we can listen to songs or like marketing jingles, you know, and still remember them so long after we've heard them. It's because our brain's wired for that. Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely something magical about it. And so you've said also that you're a free diver. You spent your diver, you spend a lot of time around the ocean. Yeah, man, I've got probably close to a thousand scuba dives, and I do a lot of free diving now too, yeah.

Yeah, I started scuba diving when I was really young, but then I soon got into just I strictly free dove after that. I love that you got into free diving. Tell me why you like it. I like free diving because there is a, well, number one, there's way less chance of you getting fucked up with like the bends. It's so complicated with all the gear. I've almost died many times.

scuba diving because I've done a lot of stuff like filming filmmaking underwater in like Cayman Islands and in the Caribbean and when you're filming you're focusing on getting the shot and you're not paying attention to your gauges right like one time I was diving the Cayman wall and I literally the Grand Cayman Wall which goes

from like 100 feet to like over a thousand feet in like an instant and we were in a cave or whatever and I sucked my oxygen tank dry a hundred I was a hundred feet down and I was like grabbing my buddy's fit. I almost shot to the surface. I almost died. My buddy grabbed me down and gave me his octopus and I started breathing on that. But free diving is different. Free diving is like you're very,

you've got to be way more hyper aware of your surroundings. And when you're doing those long breath holes, it's like meditative. And when you're done like after you're done like a like an hour of free diving or spear fishing, you get this crazy. I don't know what it's from. I don't know if it's from the breath holds or what like chemically is going on in your head with the oxygen deprivation, but you get like this crazy sense of euphoria after. It's super, it's super, uh, meditative. I don't know another word to describe it. Uh, dude, breath is this underrated thing that we, that we have. I think it was one of these ancient things that some cultures began to understand the power of and then we just lost it. But if there's, like what I preach now is if there's one,

skill you want to work on to reduce stress, be healthier, just feel better in your body. Breath, man. Because all the time we're always breathing and even like doing anything nervous, like, even before this podcast, you know, it's not my first rodeo, but still like if you feel energy, right? And if you just breathe into that, oh my God, you can alchemize any feeling in your body into anything, right? But if you just get caught in that fight or flight breath,

it doesn't matter if it's asking a girl out or at work or doing something like skydiving or some kind of public speaking, if you don't control your breath, you can don't control your actions or your emotions. Yeah, 100% amount. And free diving, I respect you a lot for that because I would say it's one of the most difficult skills to learn because it puts you in direct conflict with your fear response.

it puts your brain your body against your mind because when you first learn to hold your breath then that feeling of oh my God I need to breathe and how the convulsion start to happen

literally you have a physical response that's a scary feeling man and especially if you've never dealt with your panic response before your panic response will come in because you're essentially suffocating yourself

yeah we used to free dive through these caves these grottoes in Cayman where you could like, I don't, it wasn't that deep. The bottom was probably maybe 50 feet. And these caves, you could swim into these caves. You could do like these crazy swim throughs, right? Where you could swim through it.

It would be like beautiful, like sand on the bottom and then just like caverns above you. And then you could see the light shafts, right, where you could escape. And there was one of the last times I did one of those swim throes was when me and my buddy were doing it. And I went down like maybe 30 seconds after him and I was behind him. He found the, he got to the exit. And I was like, done. I was like, I got to get to the surface. And he was going up the exit super slow.

Just like taking his time. And I was like, there's no way I can wait for him. So I just darted, kept going, looking for an exit, couldn't find an exit. My life's flashing before my eyes. I finally find that little light shaft. And bro, my head barely fit through it. I was like squeezing myself through this hole out of this cave. And I was like scraping my whole torso trying to get out of it, dude.

It was the most terrifying thing. But, you know, free diving, it's super. dangerous and and people get fucked up shallow water black out all the time a lot of people i know a lot of people around here in florida you know we're surrounded by water so there's a lot of you know spear fishermen and free divers i hang out with around here and um yeah it's just like part of life being in florida man yeah yeah yeah my buddy manny he's been on the podcast before he makes these tridents and he uh he free dives and he used to get gators with these things when he was younger he uh he that's some badass florida everglades right there yeah he still hunts skaters

but now he mainly just hunts tilapia, but he's killed like boars and stuff with these tridents and they're like super heavy duty. Florida's great, man. There's a lot of really good wildlife around here. We got the Everglades. We got the Atlantic Ocean. We got the Gulf.

We got the Keys. There's a, I think Florida is shit on too much, man. Every time I've come here, I've seen some awesome shit. Like, one of the coolest things I did is there's a place called Neptune Memorial Reef. Heard of it? No. Off the coast of Miami, there is a,

It's not far. It's maybe like 10 minutes by boat. There is a underground, underground, underwater cemetery where if you choose to, you can have your ashes after you're cremated, put into concrete and then sunk under the water. And so you go into this like mausoleum type. There it is. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. Oh, like crap. Yeah. How have I not heard of this? Yeah. And so in this concrete are human ashes. And so if you want to be part of the ocean, man, you become the reef. Yeah, it's amazing. That's really cool. It's like, yeah, big lions. And I think most people, you become like a sea star or something simple.

Okay, so they'll like, they'll basically create like cool looking concrete statues out of your ashes and put them down. What's that one? What's that guy with the beard down there, Steve? Is that an actual person? Oh, yeah, that's a fucking statue. Wow. I was there probably a 20, I don't know, a while ago. But that wasn't there when I was there.

That looks new. But, I mean, the hurricanes wreak some havoc on these things, but it's still there. Yeah. It's a really cool dive site. And in places like that, right, it's an artificial reef. And so, like, it's full of fish. And it's so cool to see the sea creatures, the corals grow on it. It's a really, really cool dive site. Yeah. Oh, here's a video. If you want to look at my video, it's even better. Oh, yeah. Of course you got a video on it. Have you spent a lot of time in, like, the Caribbean or, like, Central? Central America, like around there. A little bit, yeah. Like right now I'm living in Mexico.

Oh, yeah, obviously. Yeah, and this, like, the sonotes there for free diving. Amazing, these freshwater sinkholes. Dude, I can go on forever about how cool Mexico is. Really? Yeah, like people think, oh, it's like wet t-shirt competitions. I think cartels when I think of Mexico. Back in when the channel was cold, kick the grind, man.

That was a long time ago. Look at all those fish. What did you say back when the channel was cold? It used to be called kick the grind. Oh, really? Yeah. I changed it. Yeah. That's insane.

It's an awesome place. Yeah, there's, I know a lot of people scuba dive the area where the Chixilube crater was in the Yucatan. Yeah. Where the comet that it took out the dinosaurs is. There's some crazy video. Have you been there? I haven't been, which do I be talking about? It's the, I don't know.

I've just seen videos of where that crater hit right in the Yucatan. Where the comet that took out the dinosaurs, there's like these crazy. crazy like underwater caverns. It was Halloween and we made Jackal and it was under water. And wait, it'll show in a second. And then you, I'm not going to spoil the surprise, but you'll see you in a second.

What we do with the pumpkins. Yeah, but that's why the sonotes are there. That's why there's all those freshwater sinkholes. It's because when the meteorite hit the earth killed the dinosaurs, Swiss cheese, the landscape, then all the, it's limestone, so it's ancient coral reef. we put the glow sticks inside Oh that's sick

Dude you stayed there after dark Yeah yeah You guys are nuts Night dives are Terrifying man I did one in the Cayman Islands Kaman's crazy Because they got all the

What's it called What's the word What's the word? Bialuminescence Yeah that's cool Yes dude All it's glow in the dark Little creatures

Yeah That's really cool That kind of makes you realize That fact can be Stranger than fiction Sometimes Like the world's an amazing place. We just always go to the same locations, you know?

Yes, yes. Yeah, man. But yeah, scuba diving in Mexico is amazing. The Mayan, I guess, the reason why I live in Mexico of all these places is because Mexico has probably the coolest amount of shit per square mile in the world. If you got to peel the Zen off, there's a trash can right there. For example, dude, like the Mayan culture is super fascinating. And there's a lot of things that people don't realize about the Mayans, like how badass they are. Like we've done a lot of cave exploration there, a lot of Sonote exploration.

But you can go down into, like there's one cave we went to. It's actually just south of Mexico in Belize, but it's all still, you could take Mayan. And I had heard a rumor of a crystal skull, like Indiana Jones crystal skull. Have you heard of the blue hole in Belize? Yes. So a really famous dive spot, right? It's kind of like the Sonote thing out in the wild. water.

Yeah, it's beautiful. There's a black hole in Belize that very few people know about. And it's inland. And it's a sinkhole, a mountain collapsed, boom, and made this hole, a black hole that goes deep into the ground. And I had heard that in the black hole, there was a crystal skull, an old Mayan sacrifice from a thousand years ago. And they had cut off the head and they had put it there and it stayed there ever since.

And because of the limestone, it mineralized into a crystal. Wow. So we did an expedition like a year ago or something where we went into, we had to repel down into the into this black hole. We had to set up a camp, sleep there in hammocks in this sinkhole, which was badass in itself. And then the next morning went down this crazy, sketchy cliff slope thing into an underground river, walked through the underground river for three hours until there was this kind of like opening. We climbed another slope in the dark. and then there was this huge chamber with cave formations

that are a million years old like these giant towers of stalak mites and stalactites and we were poking through there and climbing through these shafts with like crystals and bats and it was amazing and then true enough

that's the cave going down in that's the black hole that was so this is from going down to the black hole camping and then the cave continued off to the side hiking down the side in a second we find

Mayan obsidian so volcanic that they would have used for bloodletting. And bloodletting wasn't like, oh, like blood brothers, let's cut your finger. Like dudes would cut their foreskin with obsidian and then take a knotted vine and pull the knotted vine through the foreskin

to be able to get blood sacrifices. Wild, right? Also you do it through your bottom lip and you pull the knotted or thorned vine through to get the blood. And what do they do with that blood? Man, well at this point, again, you don't know the full story.

but what they would have done most likely is due sacrifices to the reign god chock because no one really knows why the Mayans civilization collapse. It was one of the most advanced ever, right? They invented zero. They had this incredible calendar, right, that the world was supposed to end, but it didn't, but that's like a misconception anyway. But they think it's because of drought. And so this is near the end of the Mayan empire where the drought most likely was ravishing

the country. because they couldn't grow crops. And they were doing sacrifices, blood sacrifices. And then this is one of the human sacrificial spots. All those are stalactites made by dripping and dripping and dripping. And how can you tell it's a sacrificial spot? I guess there's bones.

Oh, shit. Yeah, you pop up for a sec. That's Chuck there. The mind god of rain. So they would do these sacrifices in hopes to bring to appease the rain gods to bring rain. And these towers you see, they grow like a millimeter a year. And so some of them are like, stories and stories tall.

And so we're putting ourselves through here. Here we find another skull down there. It was a child. Oh, my God, dude. And see how its heads really strange? Yeah, what the hell is an alien. So it would have been flattened. So what Mayans did with their children is they would tape a, or they would put a reed

or a rope around the forehead of a child with a board and they'd flatten the skull. and so the head would become almost like a cone head. This is kind of halfway in between, but they believe people came from corn. So they'd shape baby skulls with boards to make their heads look like corn. So the whole skull will be shaped like a cone head. Really crazy, right?

And so we climb up the shaft, which is like very claustrophobic. Yeah, that's not a place I'd be wanting to go. Yeah. And the interesting thing too is like, You don't, like, how did they get here? Like, we've got all of this climbing equipment to repel down. We've got head torts.

All this monitor equipment, they would have had a torch maybe. They would have carried a victim down there. There's a skull. Cut off the head of most likely a virgin a thousand years ago, placed there and never touched. Crystallized like the rock. There it is. Whoa, dude. That's wild.

Yeah. Yeah. Insane. Literally a crystal skull. and it's been there ever since. Shout out to a place called Ian Anderson's Adventure Lodge where they have, if you wanted to go to the black hole,

you could. You can go check out their facility there. Oh, really? Yeah. This is kind of like a secret. I mean, obviously the secret's a bit out, but you can go speak to them and it's a thing people can do. I mean, I don't want to say that too much

because it's very difficult. to be able to get there. But if you're fit enough. And if it's still there, like part of the curse of this job is like, you uncover something and anything can happen, right? But look at that thing, man. So that's bizarre. So imagine this.

Let's just put ourselves back there for a second. You have these Mayan warriors with shaved teeth, because they used to shave their teeth the points. They used to embed jewels into their teeth too. So you have these like cone head guys with sharp, teeth with jewels embedded going down probably fucked off psilocybin or some kind of hallucinogenic they had these strange things i forgot they're called but it's like a butt trumpet where they would they would they would put things into their butt so they would do hallucingenics most likely through the rectum they think most of the time and they'd bring down these people who were

probably also tripping they could have been how do we know they did that like that because there's still a lot of imagery like there's like codices like codex that are still you can still see them um so there's still images of what they used to do that you can see. I mean, not like cave paintings, but some of the old books still exist. And they would have cut off ahead from somebody who was also probably tripping. Right. And then leave it there. And then a thousand years later, you got a crystal skull man. And one really interesting thing happened around my life then is I had my first really powerful ayahuasca trip shortly after that. a few weeks after that.

And I took way too much. Where? In Mexico. There was a shaman that had come up from Peru, who had a particularly potent kind of ayahuasca called Sky Ayahuasca. Sky Ayahuasca. And I've got a guy, a good friend of mine named Arturo in Mexico, and it was one of his contacts that he had worked with many times

with a lot of different things, medicines. And so I had this rare opportunity to work with this shaman who had this crazy ayahuasca. And I'm Mr. Fearless and Far, bro, you know, like, I've looked under the, Asia fears. Exactly. I've looked under the bed. I've seen the monsters. I've tackled my fear of public speaking, of heights of all this shit. So I'm like, I know my childhood wounds. So I thought. And didn't think there was too much that could make me have a bad trip. And I've been able to talk myself out of other bad trips I've had before, too. So I went in arrogant, man. That's not a good spot to be in with hallucingenics. So, Do you want the abbreviated story or the long story?

The long story. All right. We got time. All right. So basically, we go to this spot in the jungle in Mexico. There's a group of 15 of us or so. And son is set. We're sitting around a circle.

We have our shaman there. And he's pouring this ayahuasca. It's in a little shot glass, like an ounce, probably like two ounces. And he's got a candle in the middle. And a bunch of people that I haven't met, just randoms from all over Mexico. and it was so so interesting he cracks open this this bottle that he has the ayahuaskin and he starts saying a prayer to it so he blows on it and says some prayers immediately the wind kicks up and i'm like what the fuck like i travel the world trying to find ghosts and demons and unicorns and devils and like i'm so down for that but i have a bit of a scientific mind so i want to see proof i can't explain that coincidence maybe but but seems like a little bit too much of a coincidence.

And he blows on it and the wind picks up. He doesn't even bat an eye. It's like that's what normally happens apparently. I don't know. He reaches over his candle, starts pouring it in the glasses. It looks like a giant tarantula, the silhouette of his hand on the ceiling of this yurt. And he pours everyone a glass. And so I take my shot and everyone goes around.

It tastes like the clippings from under a lawnmower, like gasoline and like plants. And almost like he scraped it from the bottom. And then the funny thing about these ceremonies is that they happen in the dark, right? If you've done psilocybin before, acid, whatever it is. Like, generally it's in the day, right? And if, like, if you have mushrooms, for example, you can go to a dark place, but you can kind of change the channel by focusing on something else. In ayahuasca, you're in the dark, essentially by yourself the whole time.

There's people around, but it's not a shared experience. It's a very much individual experience. So he blows out the candle, and it's dark. 20 minutes goes by, nothing, 25 minutes, nothing. Both 30 minutes, I'm not seeing anything, but I hear this like, like the most ominous, like I'm going to vomit my guts out, burp I've ever heard.

And that's a very common thing. So all of a sudden, people start popping off and it's like puking everywhere. And then they have instruments and they're like, yeah, the medicine is good, let it relax. And they're singing songs in Spanish and different languages. And I'm there, I'm like, well, I'm not feeling anything. Right?

So I'm sitting and I'm sitting and I'm sitting. And then about another 20 minutes goes by. He flicks on the candle again and it's like a zombie apocalypse. So like one guy standing up looking at the sky. People in like puke laying on the ground. And I'm like, I'm not feeling anything. And there's me and one other guy who are just looking like, shit. You know, we missed the experience.

The shaman invites us up for more. So we go and take a second shot. Me and the sky. Candle goes back out. Sit there and then I start to see some visuals. And those feelings kind of bubbling up. Joy, fear, all these things. but like breathing through always breathing right breathing through these feelings and I'm feeling like I'm starting to figure out what what it's like and I'm feeling a bit comfortable and so I'm like I've really got a piss so I'm going to go up and at this point you could have as much as you wanted I'm going to take my third shot and I'm going to go take a piss outside and I'm going to come back and just settle into my cocoon so I go up take my third shot wander out the door and into the jungle and I start taking a piss and then like the visuals are starting to happen I see like mandala's patterns like zigoon

zigzags purple orange clothes like that i'm like all right i got a piss but like now it's starting to kick in and i'm like no piss is coming out so i'm there i'm like like let's go let's go let's go and then i'm like i got a puke and so i take an knee and i puke and i puke and i get up and i have no idea where the fom any more just lost in patterns i look around i can't see the front door anymore i'm like oh and so i i know like i went this way and i see like a black thing i assumes the door i walk towards it it's just patterns And I can't make it. The pattern goes away.

I close my eyes and it looks the same. I open my eyes. I think I can't open my eyes. But the reality is I can't tell anymore. And I look down and I see this pile of like wriggling leaves or snakes or something. And I'm like, that's probably not snakes. And I just lay down and I have a little blanket and I lay there like a little toddler with my little bum, bum out of my blanket. Just like, because I'm not, I'm out in the jungle.

And I'm there. and I'm having this like my heart starts racing, racing, racing. And it's patterns, but I can still kind of like cling on to reality. And then my world starts to rumble. And everything starts to like shake in my vision. And I feel like the world, these patterns just start like ripping open. Like this.

And I feel this absolutely all-encompassing panic. Fear doesn't even do the word justice. It's like terror, like pure primordial pawns, scum, creationary terror of just, I am now lost. I am on a speeding train holding on by a pinky and I have no idea what the, where this train's going. And with the opening of the world, I'm there and I feel this presence of something. But this something is, can see everything, like see through me and everything. Every cell of my body you can see inside. And I feel like I'm, it's almost like this feeling of, let's say the whole world was watching you shit or something.

Like this feeling of being so vulnerable. Like everything can see you. Violated. Nothing you can. Like a violating intention, a violating view of your entire, everything you've done, everything that's been, it sees everything. And then as my heart's pounding and racing and pounding and racing, I feel like what it's doing is it's showing me what the world is, what the universe is, that it's that what I'm seeing this white light and these patterns exploding everywhere. Like this is what the universe is made of. And the terror is coming from that this thing is showing me the minutia of existence.

and I have no idea what the fuck I'm looking at. It's like an earthworm being shown the schematics of a rocket ship. The earthworm can't even understand what the paper is, let alone how to fucking get the space. Like, I have no idea. And so in that, I feel like, my heart's like starting to beat right now because I'm going back there. But in all of that, it's like, this, this presence is like, oh, so you wanted to see behind the curtain, eh? Like, this is what you wanted to do. Have a fucking look, you know, like this is everything.

You can't even begin to understand this. You insignificant moat. You are an atom in a grain of sand on an infinite beach. You don't even have the right to look. But here it is, congratulations. You got what you wanted. And it was horrifying. The same way if you'd never seen inside a human body and someone just tore open a human body in front of you, you'd be like, what the f***?

But you have to admit, it's a little bit fascinating, like your bloody heart pumping, your intestines, the lungs. Like it's an amazing creation, these meat suits we have. But it was that kind of feeling where you just, you wouldn't even know how it worked, you know? Like you don't, no idea what I saw. And with that, I was having like panic attack after panic attack and having to like, like breathe, breathe through and breathe through. And luckily, the shaman was very good at what he did. And he said in the beginning, the more you fight it, the more it'll fight back.

Right. And so, again, went back to the breath. No matter how much you're panicking, no matter what's happening in your life, if you can breathe out of these feelings. That's all I had. I didn't even know where I was anymore. So just with the breathing, with the breathing, with the breathing, remembering every trip has an end, every trip has an end.

I was there. I had eyes open or closed, you know? I couldn't tell. You don't even know. That was the scariest part because I didn't know where I was, lost in the abyss. So I'm there with my little booty hang out of my blankie. And I remember saying, it's okay, baby, it's okay, baby. Every trip has an end.

Every trip has an end, baby, it's okay. And then slow, I don't know how long I was there for. Generally, an ayahuasca trip is for, four, four, five hours or something. I don't know. If you have, like, multiple, then it's longer. But generally, it's all said and done in about six hours. So I was there for maybe an hour or two, and then once I could crawl again,

I crawled back inside and snuck up into my little, you have a little like pad there and spent the night. That's up for a long time. How long does that like super intense feeling of the universe being ripped open? How long does that last? Again, I can't, you can't tell. But judging by the time where I could come back to reality, I would guess I was probably there for like an hour.

But after that, it's somewhat manageable. Then, yeah. then a general, a general ayahuas experience, you would be able to mostly control yourself. Like, I had a lot. If you have like a heroic dose, you kind of lose yourself. But if you were to go have one shot or two even, you wouldn't lose track of reality generally, depending on your body and your intolerance. But, dude, that fucked me up for months.

Really? Yeah. How so? I missed one important thing there. what started the story with the skull is in the presence of that God is what it was. I felt that I was so insignificant that the only thing I could ever possibly do with my life is just give myself to this thing. I have no other gift to give. I can't give money.

Can't give any possessions. The only gift I can give as a human being to whatever that was was my life. and then I got how human sacrifice could be a thing because we looked at the crystal skull those people all would have been on some high level hallucinogens so if you're meeting God and you do feel like

you have to help your entire culture, your people, your Mayan brothers, whatever, you could sacrifice and not in like a suicidal sort of way, but like in a self-righteous, like I, the only gift I can give is, is my life.

And it kind of fuck me a little bit because once you see that, you can't, once you feel that even, you can't unfeel that. Like, what was that? Does it exist? This is the question about psychedelics

that I always want to know. Does that always exist or is our brain just painting it on? Right. Yeah, that's a good question. Is that something that's always there and that just like our brains are filters

that are filtering out, out that world so we can survive and eat and reproduce and when we take these psychedelics, it maybe breaks that filter so we can see what's really here. Are our perceptions, our smell, our sight, is that just a filter? Who we'll never know. It felt real, but we'll never know. I considered myself agnostic before that and it took me, this is about a year and a half ago when that happened. And I've been slowly realizing that, like, there's probably something else and I probably saw it

and I can reject it and I can feel I can feel I guess I think I have a bit of shame in the sense that I guess I've been painted with this idea that like Christianity the religion I grew up with is bad and it's like shallow minded and it's not it's not something that I want to be into

right most people you see are like devout Christians aren't painted always in the best light I guess sometimes in culture or there seem to be like they don't understand the world. But I'm starting to believe that after again visiting all these tribes and seeing how every culture has a spiritual practice, how man needs some purpose, some reason why we're here, that if you don't have a relationship with whatever that was, it's a very lonely existence.

Because you see all these people in prison who they get into God and they become religious because you're alone. But if you have belief that there is a higher power out there, it could be nature. be the universe, it could be God, then you're never alone. And you can give you hope to get through the day. And if you are depressed or suicidal and you think no one cares, someone cares, right? And I've begun to understand that maybe man should have a relationship with God. Whatever that is, a relationship with, again, I feel God has so much pre-cultural bullshit attached to it, but just a relationship with the universe, right? That everything happens for a reason,

that there's always a lesson to be learned, that while there might be some giant challenges thrown at you, they're there for a reason if you choose to live that way. And if you choose to believe that everything happens for a reason, it does. It does. It will, because you'll find the reason. So it took a long time to digest that, man.

And even now, I still have these like almost like flashbacks of just like a glitch in the matrix where it's like, not in like a psychotic sort of way, but just in a like what is this reality sort of way. And one thing that's really interesting too is ever since that, my relationship with fear has changed. Like the name of the channel Fearless and Far comes from the idea that fearlessness is a choice you make and not some state of enlightenment. Like no one, everyone can be fearless if you choose to walk into your. your fears. It's not not feeling fear. It's feeling fear and doing it anyway. So that's the idea of fearlessness. So I wouldn't say I'm sorry, I would say I'm fearless, but I still feel a lot of fear. And ever since having that relationship with whatever that thing was, and then realizing that

fear can be, fear can be alchemized, that energy is something that can show up in your body, energy is the motion and how that can be changed to. And having a bad, trip is just you having energy inside your body and you filing it in the wrong filing cabinet that if you are on a roller coaster and you feel your heart racing and your blood pumping and you're excited that's not that different from fear and if you start thinking about fear that way where I'm not like instead of being like oh fuck I'm so scared for the presentation tomorrow and you just say I'm so excited for the presentation tomorrow your brain kind of goes because physiologically they're very similar right and in those moments

moments, you can change those feelings. And so even to the point where I got back from that crazy ayahuasca trip and I got, speaking about weed, I'm back to Canada where weeds legal. And after smoking bushweed with these tribes, I went back and took like bushweed toaks of like shit from. And I got so high, man. And I laid there and I was having a bad trip and I just watched it. Like I was like, huh. Like I feel really afraid right now. Huh. That's That's a really weird thing. But like, what's the difference? How is this excited?

Is it fear or is it excitement? And then being able in that moment of being like a little bit off my rocker to feel a feeling in my body and be like, why isn't this excitement? And then being like, maybe it is excitement. And then all of a sudden the fear going over to excitement and then changing it. And ayahuasca too, throwing up is something that's very common. And when I was going to throw up, I thought I was having smiling attacks where I was going but I was dry heaving but I was like wow I'm smiling so hard right now

and then at the same time I thought I was hungry but again nausea and hunger aren't they're in the same spectrum and so just the power of the mind to kind of change feelings is really interesting yeah really interesting stuff I feel like fear is really important right like fear not but you have to like you said you have to approach it right you can't run from it

you should you should lean into fear because that's what makes life worth living. Dude, a man should live on his edge. Yeah. And I think you and I both probably respect people most who can live on their edge. Because they aren't afraid of fear. Most people are afraid of fear. And so when you get in a situation that causes fear, fear comes up.

And then you're afraid of the feeling of fear. And then all of a sudden you're a tire on fire rolling down a hill and you can't stop it. You're powerless. You panic. And then in panic, you can't survive. Right. Mike, that is a beautiful way to end this podcast, man. That was a solid three-hour journey through the ether.

I appreciate you coming down here and telling these stories, brother. Always go by so fast, man. Fucking amazing. Tell people where they can find your stuff. I'll obviously link it all below. And then also, do you have any trips planned or any new shoots you're going on? Yeah, just go back from Venezuela, which was a really good one there. went to the Amazon, did a couple of other few things.

But it's all on Fearless and Far, the YouTube channel. Now, yeah, there it is. We are, now we're doing something really fun and interesting. So with this idea of fearlessness and travel and overcoming limiting beliefs and how fear does control your life, we're doing group trips now. There's an adventure retreat called Tribal Rights that we do in Mexico. We're doing two more this fall. We did one earlier this year.

22 people from the States and around the world came, Many had never traveled before. We showed up. We actually did ayahuasca. We also did sweat lodges. We did ice baths. We did a lot of tribal stuff that I've picked up from around the world. You go to trips.

Oh, wow. That's sick, dude. Yeah. And so, I mean, I've learned a lot of lessons, right? And a lot of misadventures. But now we've got this retreat. So if you want to have the lessons of a life well-lived, but don't want to go get shot out at Satan's Castle.

You can come to tribal rights And we'll do a lot of the similar stuff Yeah Hell yeah man Yep I'll link it all below for everyone And thanks again bro This has been an amazing An amazing conversation

Thanks for having me man Cool pleasure All right goodbye world Boo