Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Rhett's Father-Son Trip to Peru | Ear Biscuits Ep. 470

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

The boys are back together! In this episode, Rhett talks about his father-son trip to Peru with Shepherd – facing his fear of heights, eating interesting cuisine, and taking so. Many. Dog. Pics. Plus, a little glimpse into Link’s own father-son weekend at Coachella – and a water fight? Get a $75 sponsored job credit at https://indeed.com/ears Get the right life insurance for you at  http://selectquote.com/ear  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. Spring is here, and you can now get almost anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? You can't get a well-groomed lawn delivered, but you can get chicken parmesan delivered. Sunshine? No. Some wine? Yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. See app for details. Why not? But like, what is the reason? Wastin' water. Really?

Like, whenever I make a drink for Christy, I've noticed that she didn't drink the whole thing, so I'll like, make half of it. Make a drink? What do you mean, kinda make a drink? Like if I make a drink? Like if I make a coffee for, if I pour her a drink, like a... Yeah, well I'm gonna finish it.

You don't have to do that for everybody though. That's a lovely thing you do for Christy. But I mean, it was just like a puddle at the bottom of them. But you were in the desert for a few days, Link. If anyone needs extra water, you need extra water. Welcome to Air Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I'm Link. And I'm Rhett.

This week at the round table of dim lighting, we're gonna be catching up with each other. I was out of the country. I haven't told you anything. I'm gonna tell you everything. You survived. You had your own experience. Peruvian.

Out of the county, not necessarily out of the state of the country. Yeah, I'm still recovering from Coachella. I wanna talk about what just happened though. What just occurred moments before we started rolling. And that is, you asked me... I was pouring my water. I had this carafe of water on my phone. You asked me, would you want water? And I said, meh.

I said something that sounded a little bit like yes and no at the same time. Yeah, you did. My mouth stuck together. That's fine. You're said, meh. I said something that sounded a little bit like yes and no at the same time. Yeah, you did. My mouth stuck together. That's fine. You're like, meh. Yeah, but... I was like, yeah? And I was like, yeah. And then I didn't watch him pour it in. And then I look, and there is no more than a puddle of water in the bottom of my... Like a fifth... Okay, realistically, a fifth full.

Like, it was... Like enough to wet your fingernail if you were to stick it in the bottom. It might go to your first knuckle. And I looked at it and I said... It's full now because I asked him to fill it up. But I looked at it and I said, why'd you give me such a little amount of water? And he said, I don't like to wastewater. I don't like the wastewater. First of all, you're assuming that I'm not gonna drink all of it. Yeah, I did. But also, I understand that we live in a dry climate.

I don't like, like, if somebody was like, I don't like the wastewater, I would be like, oh, so you're the kind of person who has a setting on your irrigation system that doesn't turn on while it's raining, so that many, many gallons of water will be wasted. I do have that. Right, yeah, that's great. But wasting water, the difference between two ounces of water and 10 ounces of water.

It adds up over time. It doesn't, no it doesn't. It doesn't, it doesn't add up. Because I'm gonna drink it. But I didn't think, I literally thought, I'm gonna give him as much as I think he's gonna want. But what a weird way to live is what I'm saying. It's just a weird way to live.

I was living empathetically, Rhett. No you weren't. For Christie. You're like somebody who went through the depression who actually didn't go through the depression. I didn't. You know what I'm saying? You grew up in the 80s in a time of plenty. I didn't even go through,

I didn't even really experience the 90s stock collapse or whatever that was. The housing implosion. That wasn't the 90s. You mean 2008 financial crisis? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The 90s? The 90s were also great.

We grew up in the times of plenty, man. It's our kids who grew up in the times of the lean times. But I know what's coming. And so, you're gonna, I can respect that. That half, that top half of a mug of water that you kinda want one day, you're not gonna have. But the thing is,

I'm gonna tell you, remember this moment. But being hydrated is gonna be really important in the apocalypse. Like, this is not, this isn't too much, a cup of water is not a lot of water. Here's the reason why I did it. So taking a shower during the apocalypse, that might be a mistake.

I'm giving you what you need. I'm giving you what I thought you wanted because when I get a drink for Christy, what I've noticed is that I'll find like a coffee mug and I'll look in the coffee mug and I gotta pour out some coffee first. Or even if I give her a little bit of my La Croix or something, I'll notice later. Like if I give her a bottle of La Croix, like when I have my little treat and I give her one. A bottle? I'll give her the whole bottle. Where you getting bottles of La Croix, like when I have my little treat and I give her one. A bottle?

I'll give her the whole bottle. Where are you getting bottles of La Croix? I mean, not La Croix, Topo Chico. Oh. She will, I'll notice that later it's like half full, so I've learned, I'm just like whenever I... I'm not that kind of person. I give her a water or something, I give her half as much because then when I pick it up

later it's empty or there's a little bit in the bottom. Okay, listen. And I gave you what I thought you needed. Well, here's the thing. Because I've never seen you drink water during a podcast. What? I thought about it. I was like, he's not gonna actually. He doesn't actually want water.

I drink whatever is in the cup. Usually it's tea, but water's fine. Tea, but if it's water, you don't drink it all. Wrong. Okay. I thought I noticed that, but I guess I'm wrong. I'll finish it and I might get more. Well, I know that now I'm gonna be wrong because you're gonna prove that. There's a lot of people that do what you're talking about.

The leaving the sodas half, I mean, my kids. I gave you more water than I gave me. And their friends? Once you filled it up, look. I'm less than that. When my boy has friends over, and, which is a lot. They hit your cans. And there's a lot of them. And they drink half your cans.

I don't know half of them half of the time. And they only drink half your cans. And they drink sometimes a third of the can. And there's just can, I don't do that. I take offense at that. And I take offense that you think I'm one of those boys. I'm not one of those boys. I'm not like your wife or those boys what I finish my drinks

I would be ready to give you more if you if it turns out you needed more water. I reached out here I'll grab it. I'll pull you some more. Yeah, but that'll create an awkward moment in the podcast I think it's it's more fitting to have a full glass of water Okay, and then you know what maybe it's a spiritual practice What you can do for your wife is if she doesn't finish things, you pour it out, you pour it out in memory of someone. In memory of what my wife didn't finish.

Yeah. This is in honor of, I won't pour it on the curb for the homies or anything. You could do whatever you want. You want me to walk out to my front pour it on the curb for the homies or anything. You could do whatever you want. You want me to walk out to my front curb and pour it out for the homies? So, here's a better question. What do you do with the extra coffee? I pour it down the sink. But what would you do?

I pour it in a cup, it accumulates, and I give it back to Christy days later. But like, if it's Topo Chico, it's a set amount. Oh yeah. See, that's the thing. I don't offer her Topo Chico, it's a set amount. Oh yeah, see that's the thing, I don't offer her Topo Chico's anymore. Pfft. Or she can swig mine a little bit. That's gross. That's gross. She's my wife.

Still gross. Stay out of it, stay out of it. Backwash is still gross. Listen, you've been to Peru and all you wanna talk about is how much I put in your glass. How many ways can you say you missed me? You know? Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

I love Peru, let me talk about it. Don't you wish I was there doing stuff like this the whole time in Peru, like giving you half a glass of water? Oh, well I'll say, I went with my son, my 16 year old son, Shepherd, and I will say that seven days of us being together alone was enough, we learned.

Yeah, okay, that's fine. And it turns out that eight was too many, which it turned into eight because of a flight. That's right. Or turned into nine, I guess. Ooh, nine. Was that? No, eight.

So you had to add a day and you had to move your flight. Was that stressful? I know you get stressed. Yeah, you know, it was. There's nothing like wanting to be back in your country when you can't get there. I noticed something, first of all, that had an unintentional political meaning.

Shepherd and I had a great time. We really do get along. But there's something about being with each other constantly sharing a hotel room together, you know, for a full week where the 47-year-oldness of the 47-year-old man and the 16-year-oldness of a 16-year-old boy, it wears thin after a while, and you have different priorities,

and we had a great time, we connected as much as we've ever connected, and you have different priorities, and we had a great time, we connected as much as we've ever connected, and then by the end we were kind of like, yeah, we've had enough of each other. That's healthy. What was a big pain point, because you reminded me of my weekend. Well, 16-year-olds, I'll talk in generalities here. They're tough to wake up. They're tough to get going. In generalities. Not anyone particularly, but yeah, all of them. All of them. They're tough to wake up, they're tough to get going, and there's a

lot of like, hey, we need to be leaving at this time, and there was a lot of like, hey, get up. Hey, get up. Get up. Get up! Am I gonna shake you out of this bed? Get up. You know. In general. Yeah, in general. This is just how they are. Not just my son. And, um... But what was he complaining about you? Did you receive any complaints?

Uh, well, so one of our big things that we kept running up against was the fact that, so I was approaching this pretty systematically, which I will have a system for certain things. We wanted to travel without checking any bags because there's like transfers and I was like, we're just gonna go to proof for a week,, let's just take a backpack and a carry-on. And so we have everything with us that simplifies all the travel, which he was happy to do. But one of the things that I did is. I was like, we're going to be in Peru.

We're going to be this is a this is a little bit more of an adventure vacation because we're starting in Lima and then working our way to Machu Picchu. It's a lot of hiking and zip lining and horseback riding. It was an adventure vacation. It was like all forms of training. That's how you got from Lima to. Yep, yep, on a zip line.

A zip line and a horse, laying on a horse. And so what I did before we left because I knew that Shepard was not gonna do this is I was like, hey, let's go to REI and I'm going to equip you. What does REI stand for? Recreational Equipment. International?

I'm going to recreationally equip you for an international trip. I'm going to REI you. Pretty sure that's not it, but yeah. Maybe it's Recreational Equipment Incorporated? You are correct. Okay. Not ashmm. Okay. Okay, not as fun.

But I recreationally equip him with technical clothing. You know what I'm saying? I was like, you need some hiking pants. They're light, they're quick dry. You need a hiking shirt. You need some T-shirts, like a Viore kind of like t-shirt. So you wanted him to cosplay as you going to Peru. No, no. No. I knew he was gonna bring all his clothes. And I was like...

Big baggy jeans. Yes. And small t-shirts. Yeah. And multiple chains that connect different parts of his body to other parts of his body. And his wallet and things. And I knew he was gonna bring all that. Yeah. Okay?

Right. But I was like, and I said, you know, I'll pack it for you. There's no, oh, okay. No, I said, because. So not only does he not care for it, he doesn't really know it exists or is in his bag. Well, no, no, he went with me to REI as I equipped him. And he would look at it and he'd be like,

and I could tell it was a little hesitation. Yeah, he's not really into Rick Steves core. You know what I'm saying? But when you're, what I failed to understand is that a 16 year old is like, I'm getting pictured, like we're gonna go to Machu Picchu and there's pictures that are being taken.

And dad is gonna be dressed like Rick Steves. I cannot dress like that. And I don't want to look like Rick Steves, I wanna look cool so that I'm dressed the way that I want to. For the Gram or the Snap or whatever it is. And I didn't really know, I thought that Machu Picchu, especially the second day, which was supposed to be this longer, more intense hike that got canceled

because of rain. But so we basically just went back to Machu Picchu two days in a row. He did end up wearing the technical clothing for like one day or something like that. But and it's funny because. But was he making fun of you for it? Was he giving you a hard time?

It wasn't making fun of me as much as he was just basically being like, dad, I don't think I... Tolerate. I think I can wear these big jeans to Machu Picchu, I think it's okay. And we would have these little arguments about it. And eventually I was just like, why do I care? Why am I fighting this battle?

Let him. Yeah. Let him. Yeah, you're supposed to be learning that lesson. Well, it's just tough to apply. Can I tell you my version of that for the much shorter we can go into Coachella with Lincoln? So Lincoln drove up from San Diego. We each had like what could be a two and a half hour drive

or it could be a six hour drive. That's how it is when you're trying to go to like Indio or Joshua Tree or any of that stuff. So we've learned that lesson. I left Thursday and then I camped. Like I decided I wanted the full Coachella experience and they have these, well, but I didn't wanna do the full full, like camp in a tent or camp in a tent beside a car.

So I camped in a Sprinter van, which was parked by a company that parked like 15 of them in an area that's only for those people. So it's a little nicer. So I stayed in, it had a bed, it had a sink with running water. It had an air conditioning unit in the driver's seat. It was a little nicer. So I stayed in, it had a bed, it had a sink with running water. It had an air conditioning unit in the driver's seat. Because it was 100 degrees every day. Like in the window?

No, in the driver's seat. Like it was a huge unit. It looked like a droid. Like you would have it in your house in a room to like, see a house. It had like a duct that went out the window. And then a duct that went out the window. And then we had shade and a cooler and a refrigerator. So it was like, it was glamping and it was right on the edge. But I went Thursday to get in there. I was there Thursday, then he showed up Friday.

So we saw the festival Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And then we got to go back and see Posty. And then he had to leave because he had exams Monday morning, so he didn't actually get to stay for that show, but like, so then I stayed backstage and hung out and had a good time with the people that I know back there. And I met Shibuzy. I'll just throw that in there.

Shibuzy is a large guy. I'd love to see you two wrestle. He's real tall? He's real tall. But he's bigger than you, he'd beat your ass. Well, you don't have to be tall to out wrestle me. No, but I'd like to see someone that big just totally break you in half. And I'm nominating Shibuzy. Which, you know how I am. I was this close to proposing that. I got a friend. He's my best friend since first grade. He's not here.

Yeah, you probably Shaboosie'd Shaboosie. But I really want you to wrestle him. I didn't say any of that. What did you say to Shaboosie? That I... Put me up another shot, I'm asking. I said, he was asking Post about how it sounded and stuff, and I don't know if... I don't know. He said he sounded good, but I actually don't know if he heard his set.

But I did, so I stepped in and I was like... I was back at this point, my vantage point was from this place, and you sounded great. I was a little further away, I hope he wasn't offended. He was happy to hear some positive feedback. What did he say back to you? I think he said, I need to move around here so I can talk to Post. And like the nicest way possible. But Lincoln was there. Lincoln met the kid Leroy,

which was a big thrill for him because he was, he's always been told that he looks like him. And like when he had longer hair, they both had longer hair, and he like was him for Halloween one year many years ago. So it was like, and he's a fan, so it was like cool to meet him. They both have a haircut now and they still kind of look the same. Except he's Australian. Did he show him the picture from Halloween?

He looked for it but couldn't find it. Oh. So it was one of those things. Oh. But he wasn't there talking to him, looking for it. He went away, couldn't find it. So he's learned from the best in how to interact with, you know, top tier celebs.

Yeah, I wish him well. Yeah, and he was observing a lot of that. But back to the thing about, like, you and Shepard interacting with each other, the things that Lincoln ended up pointing out, first of all, Lincoln is a model middle child. He doesn't, I don't think he knows how to complain. When it's never heard, you learn never to do it, I guess.

So he's like a quintessential middle child like that. So even when it's us, it's like super chill and he's just like, the only thing is, yeah, waking him up's a little bit fraught. Right. Because you don't have to do it once, you have to keep doing it. Oh yeah. Yeah, and Lincoln is 20, but that still happens. It takes a while to grow out of it.

But let me tell you, by day two, by day three, I was so exhausted that there wasn't a problem. We were both just like conked out in this van, and knowing that it's 100 degrees on the other side of that window. And aren't you like hearing the sound checks like going through? They don't open the gates until one in the afternoon, and then one day we didn't show up until five,

and then we're going until, the earliest time we had to bed was two. Yeah. And then I think two nights ago it was four. But, when we got in the bed, the first night that he was there, it was like, there's actually plenty of room for us to both sleep on opposite sides of the van,

like in the same bed. And he likes to cram himself in a corner, is what he said. His bed at home has always had a corner that he would like shove his face into, and his room at college is in a corner. So like literally, it's like he's cowering in the corner sleeping, that's like his habit.

He likes to sleep in a corner. Wow, okay. But, so he was in bed first, I was like, damn, you're in the corner. He was like, this is how I sleep. He was already falling asleep. And then I get in bed, and I hear him just laughing. He's just laughing. I'm like... I didn't say anything, and then a few seconds later, he's laughing again. And I'm like, what are you laughing at? He was like, all the noises you're making. You're grunting, and you're like... He's getting ready for bed.

You're almost moaning, but they're not long enough, they're just grunts. And I was like, well yeah, they're dad grunts. You getting ready for bed is probably registered as a workout on your They're not long enough, they're just grunts. And I was like, well yeah, they're dad grunts. It's like... You getting ready for bed is probably registered as a workout on your orering. Ha ha ha! Just like... Yeah.

Just like... And then I was so sore. I mean, your homeboy had taken over 30,000 steps that day. Yeah, that's a lot. And that doesn't count when I was on the bike. I'll have to come back to that story. If we had time, I'll tell you the bike story. But yeah, he's making it funny for that. And that was, and then hours earlier was, we made it to the Lady Gaga show. But this is after

probably 25,000 steps, and like'm standing out there on the grass. We weren't too close. We had the ability to get pretty close, but for this, we started out in the back on the grass, and it was still in the crowd. And he looks over at me, and he's like, I looked over and I was like, where's daddy's gone? And then he said, I looked down and you were completely doubled over. I was like, where's daddy's gone? And then he said, I looked down

and you were completely doubled over. You were standing, but you were completely doubled over. It was like you were doing a toe touch. It was like you had folded yourself in half and your face was in your own crotch. And I was like, yeah, I was stretching. And he was like, well, people noticed. I was like, dude, I couldn't help it. And then if I wasn't just bent over,

like trying to stretch the lower back, then I was trying, once you do that, you're like, okay, now I gotta go into a deep squat, and now I gotta throw a leg out. There's a place for this. It's not in the crowd. I'm with Lincoln on this. I eventually ended up... I mean, see, he was making fun of me for that. Public stretching is a no-go, especially at a music festival. But I was hurting so bad. I ended up sitting down, and then once you sit down in a crowd of people who are standing for one of the most historic performances in the history of Coachella,

some people are arguing. Like the theatrics involved in Lady Gaga's... People are saying. Yeah, they're not talking about my performance, hers. Yeah. My performance was pretty stellar. It ended up on my ass in the grass, not seeing any of it. But I would look around, and I could see through legs, and there would be a couple of people seated. And they were of the...

Older. Aged variety like me. So there was... You had to be one of the older people there. Every time I stood up, Lady Gaga was being carried by groups of people on her back in different places on stage, and she was always wearing a different outfit. Sometimes her outfit would have gloves with fingers that were two feet long. Sometimes she would be buried in a thing of buried in a thing of desert dirt next to a skeleton. And I found out that it was an overhead shot, and she was laying down,

and it was like she was either being buried or coming out of the desert. And she was doing this choreographed dance routine... In the dirt? In the dirt with a skeleton. She did a lot of stuff. You sat down for this? Two skeletons. Well, no, that's when I was standing up, and I was like, man, every time I stand up, it's a treat.

I think I would've stood up more. I wanted to so bad. You needed that little stool that we had where you stand and sit at the same time. Yeah, look, he was like, you'd be one of those guys that have one of those stools that goes inside of your pants. And I was like, oh, I've done that. Oh yeah, see, yeah.

On the show. Yeah, yeah. So he was making fun of me. I think I was an added form of... I was like, am I embarrassing you? He was like, what? Yes. It's not that, Dad. It's amusing, it's amusing. It's amusing, Dad. But I knew what he meant. He's not conflict-oriented, so he's not gonna tell you

that you're embarrassed. In his way, yes, he did tell me. And in a way, it kinda hurt more. Oh, good. Oh, good. We had a really good time, though. Okay, well, yeah, I mean, Shepard and I had as good of a time,

and I told him a couple of times, like, Shepard, you're really easy, like you're easy to hang out with. It was just the 16-year-oldness of it all and the sharing the space, sharing the bathroom, that by the end of a week, you're kind of like, I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready to live with my wife again. I mean, did you shower in a trailer with 20 other people?

No. I did that. Yeah, but I had a week. That's true. Okay, incredible trip. I love Peru. I'm gonna talk about some of the highlights. Can you give a plug for Rainn Wilson on last meals first? Oh yes.

Rainn Wilson is Last Meals first? Oh yes, Rainn Wilson is on Last Meals, the preeminent interview series on YouTube. Okay. Josh gets existential with Rainn. I guarantee you, he's ready, Rainn is ready to go. Oh yeah, he loves talking about existential stuff. That's his whole deal. So I think it's a good one.

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the more people started coming to me with questions. How do you start a business? How do you raise money? How do I bounce back from failure? So it got me thinking, why not just ask the people I aspire to the most? How did they actually do what they do? I'm so incredibly lucky

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that actually help you level up. Listen to and follow Aspire with Emma Greed and Odyssey podcast available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Um, let's see. The first thing, so I'll just kind of give you the overview of what we did, and I'm just gonna talk about some of the highlights.

So again, I asked Shepherd over a year ago, where do you wanna go on your spring break when you're 16? Because the tradition that I tried to start with Locke and was COVID-ded out of that opportunity was, hey, when you're 16, we'll do a father-son trip anywhere in the world that you wanna go. Locke and I were gonna go to Tokyo and it didn't happen. We made up for it with two cross-country trips.

Shepard said Machu Picchu. And I asked him, when we were on the trip, I was like, you know what, why did you? I thought you would have said something like, someplace we could go scuba dive. Yeah. Because he had gotten, he's an advanced scuba diver now. I thought maybe we'd go to Egypt

and like go with the Red Sea or something. Yeah. And he just, he said that, I think he had, they had been talking, they had been like talking about it or learning about it someplace and it just sounded intriguing. And he was like, why not? We've never been to South America. I was like, okay, I had

never been to South America. I'm glad we're here. So you start in Lima, which is the capital, and then you spent basically a day there kind of exploring the city and then got on a plane to Cusco, which is sort of like the headquarters of the, it was like basically where the Incan Empire was headquartered back in the day where these four areas kind of met. Okay.

And I think the altitude is like 10,000 feet or something. Crazy. Oh, well that takes some adjustment. Well, when you go from sea level in Lima to that altitude in one day, and we came down a little bit, we ended up staying in the Sacred Valley area, which was still like 8,500 feet, I think.

I had a horrible headache that first day. I was just, I was not, and they were like, they give you like the afternoon to, like we didn't plan anything in our itinerary for the afternoon. It was like fly up there, go hang out, and get acclimated to the altitude. And boy, I needed it.

Shepherd was fine. He was fine. He didn't, he had no issues. He had a crazy headache. But then the first activity was the next day was going to be zip lining. Again, I told the person who helped us plan this trip, you know, got a 16 year old son,

we wanna do some adventure stuff. And so I just see zip lining. And first of all, I, if you don't know, I'm very scared of heights. And I always think when I'm on like a zip line or I've like went paragliding one time, I always just think that it's gonna break on me. I know that statistically speaking,

this is not a reasonable, this is an irrational fear, but it's gonna break on somebody, somewhere in the world at some point, and it's probably gonna be the big guy, right? Yeah. And I'm just scared of heights. I've been scared of heights for my entire adult life. Because that's where your head's at.

Right. But then we get into the car with this guy who's taking us to the zipline thing, and he's like, have you climbed before? Have you climbed? I'm like, I'm gonna climb. Ziplining, yeah, zip, we're doing zip lining, right? He says, well, you have to, we have to climb to get to the zip lines.

I'm like, I know where you went. Okay, yes, continue. And then I look at the itinerary and it says, via ferrata and zip lining. Via ferrata, that's the word. I know what that means. I don't know what it literally means, but what it practically means

is that you basically have a line. So, there's this metal line that goes up the side of a mountain, and you just are carabinered into it as you climb the mountain. Now, I will say that we were on what is considered a beginner route because it had like rebar that had been drilled into the,

like steps that had been drilled into the mountain. But like a ladder, straight hundreds of feet up. What? Dude, I know you would've, you would've. And I got there and I was like, You had to be shitting a brick. I know you. I look at it.

I mean I would've been scared but excited. First of all I told Shepard, I was like, well, if I hadn't known that this is what we were doing, if I hadn't known this is what this was, I would have said no. But you know me, I'm not a chump. Oh, is that what it is? And so I was like, I'm gonna be almost shitting

the entire time, but I'm gonna do this, because Shepard, first of all, Shepard, he's a rock climber, he loves rock climbing, he's a member of a rock climbing gym, and he's really good at it, and he's not scared of heights, and he's fast rock climber. He loves rock climbing. He's a member of a rock climbing gym and he's really good at it and he's not scared of heights and he's fast or whatever, okay? And so I knew that he was gonna love this. So, and then there was a guy,

you know, there's always somebody that's like, hey, I'm a professional photographer and I'll take your pictures for a fee because I was like, I'm not gonna bring my camera out on this sheer cliff. I mean, looking up at this mountain, I was just like, I cannot not gonna bring my camera out on this sheer cliff. I mean, looking up at this mountain, I was just like, I cannot believe I'm about to do this. Like, remember the time at the Central Florida Zoo,

we just did the ropes course, and I was like shaking the whole time? I hate it, I'm so scared of heights. It was like 15 feet off the ground. Yeah, and so, I'm gonna show you some pictures. Because the rebar, it's like a U-shaped piece of rebar that's like both ends of it are put into the thing and then it's just a step, right?

Well here's a picture. So, you know. Yeah, oh that's crazy. This picture doesn't really do it. This is sort of at the beginning, right? We're probably like 60 feet off the ground at this point. And as you can see, I'm not doing great. And I'm holding on with two hands, and I have two feet on the same thing, and I'm carabinered in here. Meanwhile, Shepard is way above me. So we climbed for like an hour and a half to get to the place where, I'll show you the place where we went.

Well, how many people are with you? Is it just the two of y'all and a guide? It's just the two of us and a guide and the photographer, but there's other groups of people who look like they know what they're doing, who are like a family like that went ahead of us and then, or no, that was behind us and then there was, I will say, I did catch up with these two ladies who were, I mean they were probably my age or older. And I ended up passing them. I thought I was going so slow because I was like so, I never looked down.

Never? Never. I was like, I'm just not gonna look down. I don't want to know how high I am right now. Oh man, you gotta look down, you gotta look out at least. Did you look out? Oh I looked out, yeah. Now, we got to this one place.

Beautiful. Where, this is a, all this is, is two lines. Can you see that? Like, can you see what's happening here? My feet are on this thing and I'm holding onto this other bar and it's a straight like 200 foot drop below me. You're not against the rock?

No, I'm just out there holding on to the thing. Now I'm strapped into it, but like when I got, I started going out on this thing, I thought what was gonna happen is I was gonna do that thing when you get in the middle and you start shaking and you can't keep going. And that's when you bring it down. Big man brings it down.

But, and I get out there and I'm like, okay. I looked at my aura ring data and my heart rate was like 150 the whole time. But I was like joking with Shepard and I was like, next time I ask you to clean your room, like I was just basically like finding ways to be funny and relax myself. But then I would get out here and he'd be like, hey stop, and he would get a picture. And so... myself, but then I would get out here and he'd be like, hey stop, and he would get a picture, and so. Yeah, there was no posing, there was just gripping

for dear life. There was a couple of times where I did do this, like where he would say, can you, and this is like towards the second half where I was, I mean, this is sheer face, man. Like I know that you're actually, cause you're strapped in and you've got two points of contact, you're not really. and you're two points of contact,

you're not really. If you fall, though, it's not gonna feel good. You're gonna be strong, you're gonna fall down the cliff face on the cable that you're attached to. Oh, it's gonna hurt, it's gonna probably grab, get you one of your balls or something in that harness, I was worried about that the whole time too. But, I was willing to do that.

He told you to let go. And I would be, if I felt like I had a good grip and everything, I was willing to do it, but like, I don't have a picture of Shepard doing this, but Shepard would like, lean back, you know? I'm still like kind of. What he had in mind was more of a fabulous pose, where you like, you, you, you,

Yeah, yeah, I'm not, you slay your body out. I'm not willing to do that. There's Shepard, he would go ahead of me and then maybe we'd have to tell him to slow down. Now let me, can I just tell you that like, that shirt and those pants, that's fire right there. Yeah, see, I don't know, look like, see, I look like somebody who knew

what he was gonna be doing that day, even though I didn't, I thought it was gonna be zip lining. That's technical clothing from REILink. Does moisture wicking? Shepherd's not even wearing gloves. Well, he took them off for this picture. He's got them strapped right there.

But we hiked to this thing, which was they serve you lunch at a glass thing that is suspended on the side of the mountain. Oh, God. And let me show you, I'll show you the picture because this guy actually didn't get the picture, but I got a picture of the guys cooking in there, and there's these chefs cooking

on the side of the mountain. Where are they? Here we go, here we go, here we go. Did you get good in your own cup there? No, they offered, so like these are the guys like, you know, like cooking on the side of the rock right there. This is the inside of that thing. Oh wow.

And we had alpaca. You ate alpaca? Yeah. What? Whoa. I thought you were supposed to just like pet those things. Well I pet an alpaca and then the next day I ate an alpaca. Okay, all right, fair enough.

That's the way, hey, when in Peru, I also ate guinea pig, okay, let's talk about that. How did it taste? I'm not gonna show you the picture of ate guinea pig, okay, let's talk about that. How did it taste? I'm not gonna show you the picture of the guinea pig because I don't want to offend anybody's sensibilities. I'll show it to you. Because they know that you've got people from other places coming in and they wanna try kui,

is the Peruvian name. And again, in their culture, they've eaten it for thousands of years, hundreds of years, whatever. But when they- It's got the name pig in it. At this certain restaurant, they dress it up in a hat and bring it to you

with like a Peruvian alpaca cap on it. And then you get all the pictures with it. Is it sitting up like a prairie dog? Yeah, sitting up. Coming out. That's a bit much. Fully intact. That's why I'm not gonna show it to you. I'm showing it to Link. It's like a deep-fried prairie dog.

And then they... You're hunking up there. And then they... You hungry? Then they take it... Take my hat off first. And they cut it up for you, and then they give it to you to eat in pieces. Yeah. And I would just say it tastes like rabbit, and I don't need it again.

I had the experience, and, you know, I did the Peruvian thing, and... But you... so you didn't have to climb back down for me. You ziplined from this height? No, I had to climb more after this. What? And then the ziplining pictures just look like two dudes ziplining from this height? No, I had to climb more after this. What? And then the ziplining pictures just look like two dudes ziplining, so there's no reason to see those. But it's like, you've seen that before.

Yeah, but from that height, how much be, there must have been a lot of ziplining down. Less than you would think. Okay. Like six of them? Wow. Because you're not as much of, you're afraid of zip lining but not as much, but this might be the most daring thing you've ever done.

Well I told Shepard, I was like, I think this might be the most physically, yeah, it might be the most daring thing I've ever done. I don't know the word that I used, but like the most challenging thing that I've, the physically challenging thing that I've done. Because it's not like, I mean first of all, it was kind of hard, it's hard to climb that many steps

at that altitude. Yeah. But also when your heart is beating that fast the entire time, like you're working out really hard. And I was just like, man, I'm glad I don't have like a hurt knee or my back, because you get up there and like, what would you do? So.

Take the slide down. So I was very happy having done it. Take the Rick Steves shoot. I was proud of myself. Shepard was proud of me. I was proud of Shepard because Shepard just completely embraces every single thing without any hesitation at all.

So he's very easy to travel with in that regard. And then the next day we took the train to Machu Picchu. We get on the train, there's a family there. Mom, dad, adultish daughter, like 20 or whatever. Okay. And the dad says, or like 20 or whatever. Okay. And the dad says,

oh, we had our suitcases and he was like, oh, there's a storage thing over here and he like shows it to me and then I sit down and he said, oh, also you can, it was like a dinner train almost kind of thing like with tables and you're facing like two people, four people facing a table. Okay. And he was like, oh, four people facing a table. Okay.

And he was like, oh, you can move this. If you're a big guy like me, you can move this. And I was like, man, I'd be lost without you. I'm glad you're here. And I was like, where are y'all from? And he's like, we live in Fuquay, Verena, North Carolina. Nuh-uh. Are you serious?

Yeah. He didn't know who you are? No. The Fuquayites didn't know who you were? No. To Fuqua, I just didn't know who you were? Well, he's a retired magistrate from New York City. Okay. Who retired to Fuqua two years ago. Because if you don't know, Fuqua is the town that we both lived in.

Your wife, Jessi... My wife was born there. ...grew up there. It's just down the road from Lillington. Our second studio was in Fuqua, and that's where we moved from when we moved to LA. Crazy small world moment. Now, I saw them talking and the daughter was telling them who I was, so she did know.

Okay, good. At least was somewhat familiar. So it wasn't a complete whiff, you know. Yeah. That's crazy. But I talked to them for a while and then ended up seeing them on the train back and then they stayed at the same hotel in Cusco.

Like we saw each other like three times. That's crazy. So shout out to Craig and his family from Fuquay. And okay, so Machu Picchu, you've seen the pictures, you don't need to see mine. It's incredible. I think maybe the most beautiful place I've ever been. Definitely. Really?

In terms of, you've got the, I mean, it as itself is incredible in the history of it and like why it's there and what it represents is all incredible. But the setting, I don't think a lot of people understand that it's like at the top of a sheer mountain. I will show you, you know, I'll show you the, so you know this is what it looks like of course, this is a picture I took. But it's like terraced area that I guess that's... The terraces were farmed and then this was where they lived.

But let me just show you the pictures I got from up there just to give you an idea of like how high you are and how absolutely amazing the environment is. Like this, it's just absolutely crazy. Like, I mean, these pictures are pretty good at capturing it, but absolutely nothing like being there. And like the clouds rolling in and out, we got one day in the rain, where we got to actually see all the drainage systems working,

the drainage systems that the Inkans built when they built it. Oh, are still functioning. It's all still functioning and like gutters and shit and all the water's going everywhere, and then the next day it was sunny. And so we got both and we saw two different routes and it was incredible. So was there a temple there? An Incan?

Yeah, so what this was is, and first of all, I'll talk a little bit more about this in a second, because I've been reading this book, I think it's called The Last of the Incans, which is basically the history of the end of the Incan empire and the beginning of like the Spanish colonization. Okay.

It's a very long book, so I've still got a ways to go, but I have read enough to like kind of understand the context of the area that I was going to. And the Incans were like the last, like indigenous empire. And so they were actually around like, after the year, I don't know exactly when it started, but like, this is like a thousand years ago.

This is not like 3000 years ago. This is, you know, they were in power when the Spanish showed up in the early 1500s. Okay. So like, you know, 500 years ago or so. And I think they had been around for a few hundred years before that, kind of expanding their empire.

So this, so Machu Picchu was, which means old peak, that's the old mountain, that's the shorter mountain that they're on. What they would do is they would go up there and they would basically take the granite that was in the mountain and they would, they don't know exactly how they did it because it's kind of remarkable. Some of these rocks are just massive. So it got somewhat like the mystery of how the pyramids were built kind of vibe. It's like, there's some theories

and there's like these little wheels, they've got like little rock wheels and stuff that are still there. They showed us one of them for like rolling the rocks and stuff, but these massive pieces of granite would create this society where they believe, I don't know how, I can't remember the number, but it's like less than I think a thousand people like would have lived

at this spot and they were all basically the elite. Okay. So you've got the emperor who has his house, you've got the queen who's got her house, separate houses. Well, okay. Sometimes it works, sometimes it works. And you've got the temple in the middle. There was multiple temples. There was like a temple of the sun and a temple of the moon, which is around the mountain, which we couldn't go to because of the

path was out, but multiple little temple areas and then like places where people stayed, places where the workers stayed, places where they stored farm equipment, and they kind of took us around all that. So they've archeologically like, expose some of this stuff? Yeah, so it's kind of crazy because I think it was 1911, this guy Hiram Bingham, I think is his name, American dude, is like down there. And there's all these rumors about lost cities

and stuff like that. And like the local people kind of know, but it still hasn't been discovered and by discovered like discovered by Westerners. And he basically finds it one day, like hiking up there with some other people, finds it and it's completely covered in vegetation. So over the next couple of years,

they come back and they rip all the vegetation off. And so the reason it's so like clean and exposed and just grass is because they came back and ripped everything off of it, all the vegetation that had grown over it. It was like really like a velocity would like vegetate. You could barely see anything. This is just 1911.

So it's very recent. And then there's a couple of places where they started to like restore it in some places where they would like put a thatch roof on it. Like you can kind of see a couple of these places where, actually I don't have it in this picture, but there's a place where like they've got the thatch roof sort of recreated.

And do they allow you to walk around all of this? Or like Gordon Hals? There's certain places you can walk and certain places you can't. But you basically get to see- Because I don't see people in the pictures that you're taking. Well, they're in there.

They're there, there, there. Yeah, so you can walk around a lot of it, enough to get a complete idea of what it is. And then there's guys working on these walls, and basically, I was like, what are those guys doing? He was like, they're taking the vegetation out between the rocks, because that will cause it to split. So they can do that, but it's now like a

UNESCO World Heritage Site so like there's different laws about it now So you can't they can keep replacing the thatch roof on the place There's the thatch roof right there on the places that they have done it, but they can't do anything else and they can't build anything else So you have to keep it exactly the same once it becomes that World Heritage Site. However, right there where you see that in the middle of this open field, right? There's this like little, what that is, is this panel of grass, it's like a panel of wood

with grass on top of it. And I was asking our guide like what it was, and he said. Looks like a stage. In 1980 1980 something, or maybe it was 2000, I can't remember when it was. The King of Spain was coming to it and there was this giant rock

that was right in the middle of that field that had been there since the Incans were there and they were like, well, he needs to land his helicopter there. So they took the rock and buried it so he could land his helicopter. Like, why don't you just take the bus like everybody else up to the thing?

And so they had like footage, they showed me pictures of like the guy landing and stuff. And then I was like, well, now that he's gone, why can't they bring the rock back out? He says, well, when they buried it, like the rock got compromised or whatever. So now I did have to leave it buried. That's a shame.

But it- So funny about that. This was super, like when we walked around the corner to come in and I saw it, like I got like misty eyed. It was like, this is absolutely incredible. Especially cause I'd been reading about the history of it and kind of knew enough to understand the context. There are so many things we keep meaning to get around to. Trying a new recipe, cleaning out that overstuffed closet,

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And then I wanna talk a little bit about something I learned about the history. So one of my favorite parts of the entire trip was the dogs of Peru. Okay. So I noticed, I noticed there was a lot of dogs, not as many around Lima,

which is more of like a modernized city. But once we got into the country and we got into Cusco and we got into Urubamba and like the Sacred Valley, there's just dogs everywhere. And so then I'm asking- Packs of dogs or just lounging dogs? So I started asking, so there would be some like sleeping outside of a store,

there would be some walking down the street, no collars or anything and so I start talking to our guide and he's like, yeah, we have lots of stray dogs but they're part of the culture and they're cared for and they're fed. And so I was like, I've got my little camera with me, my Fuji camera, I'm start taking pictures. I took like over 80 pictures of dogs.

I'm gonna show you some of the best ones. Okay. Because this is gonna be one of my Instagram posts that will come out. Did you feed them? No, because I mean, they're like, they're well fed by every one. Okay. But it's absolutely. And they're all like pets, they're like, they're well fed by every one. Okay. But it's absolutely.

And they're all like pets, they're like neighborhood pets. So like this one's at Machu Picchu, just in the restaurant at Machu Picchu, just waiting for this woman to feed him, right? Yeah. Because this one is a hairless Peruvian dog. I'll show you some more of these, but it is a black dog, all black skin, no hair,

and the only hair it has is a orange mohawk. What? Yes. And that's a Peruvian hairless dog. Yes. That's crazy. There are multiple ones everywhere. Now it's an ugly dog, but ugly in a good way.

I'll show you some more of those. But this is basically every coffee shop, every restaurant has a dog that is sleeping here, and it's not like owned by the coffee shop. This dog will also be like down the street later, like getting food from somebody and then coming back. Yeah. And so this is one of the ones that was at Machu Picchu. I don't have the, actually I'll show you this one.

Do you pet them? Me and Shepard petted them, yes. But like at Machu Picchu right here, this one, so you got five dogs right there. Those are some big dogs. That's like a- No. No, this dog's a lot smaller than you think it is. It's not that one, this dog's like barber size.

It's just I'm very close to it. Oh. But these dogs, every single day, they come from Aguacaliente, which is the city, Machu Picchu Pueblo at the bottom there. They climb up the trail to meet the tourists and basically hang out with the tourists all day and then go back and they're like a pack. And they're just like up there sleeping.

But in fact, that's the same dog. You can see that that's a small. Again, every- Look at the cute dogs. They're all cute. They're all cute. They're all taken care of. They're so smart because they understand the traffic laws

or the traffic suggestions is what I would say they are in Peru. Okay. But like the number of, you know, if we let Barbara and Sean out in the city, they would die. They don't understand cars and they don't. Human culture.

These dogs are like completely on their own, but also completely attached and dependent on the humans around them. But like they're just walking around and you don't see any roadkill. Like they're not getting run over because all the ones that got run over got run over a long time ago.

And now it's just a bunch of smart dogs that know to like wait with everybody then cross the street, they're like walking down and a bus is like coming and the bus driver doesn't even slow down and the dog just gets out of the way at the last second, like it's just part of the way that it is. This one's chilling out. Okay, this is another, so a lot of... This one's got an outfit. A lot of the Peruvian ones have sweaters on because they don't have hair, so they give them sweaters. This one is dressed like a dragon.

Ooh. Ooh. That's great. This one has got an outfit on as well. And this is the same one, this woman was, she had the dog and I was like, can I get your picture with this dog? She's happy to do it.

Oh yeah. This one, if you zoom in, you can see it's underbite. Look at this underbite. It's like an evil hawk. Look at the underbite. It's crazy. So you took- This is a good picture of a Peruvian dog.

Oh yeah. With that orange mohawk. That's a Peruvian dog that's mixed with something else, so it's got the white head and the white feet and then it's completely hairless everywhere else. So strange. And this is just like, they're just chilling out. Then we went horseback riding and there's just dogs out there in the field.

Living it up. Just sleeping everywhere. Being taken care of. I mean, you can go to other places in the world and this is. And I got some cat pictures. This is true for cats, there's more cats. In Lima, there were more stray cats and the dogs were on leashes

because it's a little bit more modernized and so everybody's got their dog on a leash and the cats are everywhere, just everywhere. You didn't like that as much. No, I didn't, but I was like, you know, I might put a cat picture in my post. I don't know, I haven't made a decision. You can put 20 pictures in a carousel. You put one cat picture, but you can put that one because there's a dog in the

mural in the background. I was talking to Stevie about this because I showed her these pictures. She went with Cassie and her family in 2019. And I told her, I was like, let me show you the pictures of the dogs. And she was like, Cassie insisted on petting all of them. And I was like, we pet all of them too. But you know, like Stevie's a little bit of a germaphobe. Yeah.

So she did not like the idea of touching these dogs, which again, they're just outside all day walking around. They're not, this is not the clean. They're not bathed. They're not the bathe, you know, cleanest dogs. But they didn't really stink. And then at least in Machu Picchu Pueblo, all the animals were spayed and neutered

by the government like a year ago. That's good. And he said that you can take any of them home that you want, like you just file with the government and you can take one home with you. Because they're all stray dogs. Yeah. Jenna, that's what you, you going back to Peru?

You've been to Peru? I've never been, I've never been, it's been on my list since I was in second grade. And you're thinking you wanna bring back a stray dog? A hairless dog with a mohawk? Yes! Well, the fact is, it would be like, they would be the best dogs because they're so smart

and they just understand everything and they would come back and they'd be like, they would be like, this is the life I get to be inside. Yeah, they have a sense of gratitude. Yes, they would love it. They seem to be pretty happy, though. No, they are, they are. So, okay.

But one of the things, so I wanna tell you this story from the book that I'm reading. Okay. Because this is, I kinda knew, you know, bits and pieces of this stuff, but then when you kinda really acquaint yourself with it, and then you go to a place like this, the gravity of it really hits you. So reading this book, Last of the Incas, and you know we're in Lima and they're in

the middle of the square there's a statue of this man Francisco Pizarro, Spanish conquistador, who basically founded Lima. And I was like, oh I haven't been reading about this guy. I'm gonna tell you a story. Okay. Trigger warning, this is a rough, rough story if you, you know, but this is what happened. So. A war story? Yeah. So you've got these guys, so there was a treaty that was passed, I can't remember the name of the treaty, like I always wanna say it's tortillas, but it's not that, it's something like that. The treaty of tortillas,

it's like something that sounds like that. And it was a treaty between the Spanish and the Portuguese government's kingdoms that basically said everything east of this line, Portugal owns and it was mostly like Asia and Africa, but also Brazil and then everything west of that line, Spanish would own and that's why the Spanish owned basically that's why they got the Americas originally.

Okay. That's why you got people speaking Spanish on western side of South America and Portuguese on the eastern side of South America. Ah. But the way that it worked is, is like, you know, the way they thought about it was that Western side of South America and Portuguese on the Eastern side of South America. Wow. But the way that it worked is, is like, you know, the way they thought about it was that God had given authority to the Pope who had given authority to the King who gives authority to the conquistadors to basically go and claim this lane for Spain.

It was, you know, it was imperialism, colonialism. It's the way that they did things. And of course, they show up in Peru and we're basically at like the height of the Incan Empire. Like the Incan Empire had expanded to 10 million people. And only like 100,000 of them were like Incan, like actual, you know, of the Incan descent, but the Incans had kind of done their own conquering of basically everyone on the western side of South America, all the way down to Chile up to Ecuador, I think, or Bolivia, I can't remember exactly how far it went. But it was

very, very long and encompassed like 10 million people that they were basically ruling. Okay. of people that they were basically ruling. Okay. But their headquarters was in Peru. That's where they were based. So Pizarro shows up with about 170 conquistadors. And these are like these outcast dudes from Western Spain. Like Pizarro was like not of noble birth.

He was a bastard kid, like he born out of wedlock or whatever. And they had really no hope in Spain, but they were like, you know. Nothing to lose, They had heard about Columbus and they had heard about Cortez and Cortez basically going in there

and taking over the Aztecs and killing Montezuma. And so, and they're like, there's all this gold and there's all this silver and we have a right to it. So, right? So 170 guys is how many he's got with him. And they've got some horses that they've, you know, some of them are on horses, they've got armor,

they've got swords, they've got guns, and they've got some cannons, like four cannons. And of course, if you've read guns, germs, and steel, as you did at one point, you know that in the Americas, they didn't, they had not, they didn't have iron ore that there was in other parts of the world. So they basically didn't have steel tools yet.

So like the Incas basically had like clubs, like wooden clubs with like stone things, that was like their weaponry. But there was a lot of them and they were a very well-organized army. So you've got this emperor, Atahualpa, who has 80,000 troops, 80,000 troops. And word is beginning to get out

about these foreigners showing up on their weird animals because there were no horses in the Americas. They had llamas, they had alpacas, and you can't ride a llama or an alpaca. They can't hold the weight of a person. So they didn't have any animals that they could ride. They used them as pack animals and for the wool and for meat.

So these guys show up and they're like, Adohoppa was curious. He was like, who are these, he hears about these guys who have come up to one of their cities that's kind of close to him. And it's like an Incan city that's four Incan, low building wall type things. And then there's a square in the middle

that's like 600 by 600 feet. And so Pizarro wasn't necessarily committed to fighting at that point. He was like, I'm ready to fight, but maybe we can negotiate. All they wanted was all this gold, all this silver. They wanna come in and pillage this place, right? And of course they wanna subjugate the people

because what they were also doing is they would, what Cortez had done is they would take over these people then they would basically force, you know, essentially have slaves, you know, of the people that they had conquered. And so he's like, well, Cortez did it, maybe, you know, maybe I can do something like that. So again, about 170 guys.

Monstrously outnumbered. Yeah, 80,000 Incan troops. Out of curiosity, Atahapa is like, well, let's go down and meet these guys. It's like, I kinda wanna see what they're about. And they come down and there's a little bit of like, there's this moment where they like stop and they camp outside of the thing, but then like a Spanish guy comes out and like waves them in, basically like, there's this moment where they like stop and they camp outside of the thing,

but then like a Spanish guy comes out and like waves them in, basically like, come on in to the thing, and they ended up, 6,000 of the troops come into this square, basically all that could fit, like the beginning of the army, and you've got the Spanish guys, the conquistadors all around them in these buildings. They don't know that they're

there. The Incans don't know that the Spanish are there. Okay. And the Incans have the emperor on this litter, which is like the thing you put on your shoulder and you hold him up. So that's how he got around. There were dudes who were trained from birth. It was like a line of people that were trained to make his ride as smooth as possible. Like that was their job. It was like, I hold up the emperor when we travel on the Incan roads and I know how to make it completely smooth. Shock absorbers. Shock absorbers. Like that was their job and they were the best in the world at it. Okay. So they bring him in there and then a friar...

I'm getting scared. A Catholic friar comes out by himself, goes up to Aduhahwapa and says, reads this proclamation to him. And I think maybe there was like an interpreter there that like tried to get some of it, but this was very early in the context, so like the level of what could be perceived and understood is probably very low. But he essentially says, again, this is the mentality that caused basically the conquest of the New World, right? It's like God has given authority to Pope, the Pope. The Pope has given authority to the Spanish King,

and the Spanish King has given authority to us to come here and claim this land for Spain and to force you to convert to come here and claim this land for Spain and to force you to convert to the one true God. And if you do not convert, you have basically the wrath of God coming to you through us. And then he hands him a Bible and the story goes that Adhahua looks at the Bible. They didn't have writing. You know, they had a system of knots that they would do for record keeping. Wow.

But he like, just looks at it, he's like, what the hell is this? And he throws it on the ground. And then that is the beginning of, that's when basically shortly thereafter, the Spanish fire the cannons into this crowd. They come out with their armor and their swords and their guns. And the Incans

had no concept for what these guys had in their hands. Explosions. They said that they had the lightning in their hands or the thunder in their hands, right? They used that word. And so they didn't even fight. They just tried to get away, right? So at the end of this battle, which was the Battle of Cajamarca, 7,000 Incans have been killed. Do you know how many conquistadors have been killed? Two. Zero.

Zero. Zero. Do you know how many were hurt? Zero. Wow. And it was just shock and awe. And so did they kill the emperor? So Pizarro goes up to the emperor. Now, meanwhile, the Spanish are killing the guys who are holding up the litter,

and they're being replaced by more guys who keep coming in and holding it up. Wow. And then eventually, they reached up and grabbed Aduhwapa off of coming in and holding it up. Wow. And then eventually they reached up and grabbed Adohuape off of the thing and pulled him down. And then the story is they made him prisoner. Pizarro actually kept him in his chamber with him. And Adohuape began to negotiate with them

because he was like, all you guys want is gold and silver? It's like they didn't have a system of currency. It was a system of trade and they didn't see gold and silver as money. They, it was associated with the gold was the sun god and the silver was the moon god. And they, I mean, it was all this incredible ornate stuff that they would wear, but they didn't value it

in the same way. They couldn't, it wasn't like, this is worth this much. It's they were like, these strange foreigners just want this stuff. And so he said, I will bring, get everyone in, I will get all my people to bring you gold and silver. And he like, he took a thing and marked it on the wall. And he said, I will fill this room up with gold

to this point. Because Atahualpa was like, well, if they get that what they want, they'll just leave. Of course. We all knew that, you know, Spanish knew that that wasn't going to happen. And eventually Atahualpa knew, but it was too late. They ended up killing him. And, you know, basically it just becomes, it's the typical story of a Western conquest

of like broken promises, broken treaties, and slowly just taking all this stuff from people. broken promises, broken treaties, and slowly just taking all this stuff from people. But the crazy thing is when you're in Lima, really when you're in any city in Peru, first of all, it's like at this point, you've got people all on the spectrum, like from a race standpoint, you've got people who like, okay,

that person is probably more directly descended from the Incans and this person looks Spanish and then there's everything in between in terms of just like the way the features and the way that people look, right? Because the cultures are basically just mixed at this point. And there's some weird like racism and colorism that exists along that spectrum, you know? But the thing that's crazy and ironic is just how Catholic it is. I mean, South America is like supremely Catholic. So you got these guys who came in with this God

and in this mentality that enabled them to, in their minds, they were justified, right? And they had taught themselves, and this is one of those things that like really bad ideas can make people do really, really bad things. It isn't, and you can rationalize and justify that and be like, well, this is right because my God mandates me to do this, and these people,

they're gonna die and go to hell anyway, so I need to by force convert them because at least they have, I'm giving them something. I'm giving them God, I'm giving them Jesus, I'm giving them heaven. That was the mentality. And maybe we'll take some stuff in the meantime, like everything. Correct.

And become these conquistadors became, they were like the oligarchs of the day. They were like so rich because, and they built these giant estates all over central and South America because they had all this gold. But anyway, we went to a bunch of cathedrals. You know, and you've got in Cusco,

you've got the original Incan walls still in the city. And then you've got the stuff that the Spanish just built on top of it. Oh. And then you've got the stuff that the Spanish just built on top of it. Oh. And then you've got like the Incan palace, and then you've got the Catholic church right next to it. Mm-hmm.

And it's, I mean, I'm just coming in as a complete outsider reading about the history, but then I'm seeing that here 400 years later, this is what it's like. You know, I go into this store and they're selling all this Jesus stuff, very white Jesus, you know? And this is the, like, it's so ironic that, like, the Spanish came, they gave these, they took everything. They gave them Jesus. And the thing that they've held onto is Jesus. Is this idea.

Like the power of religious philosophy to like grab hold of you and just like take a hold of you. Even if it's like, oh no, all that was done, all that evil was done in this name and that philosophy enabled them to do that. But because I was asking, because I was asking one of our guides about, because he was saying that,

this is a very Catholic country, and the old religions, the old Incan religions, and the old nature religions are just sort of like these historical artifacts. He said, but all of the tourism that we've had over the past couple of decades has caused all of us to get familiarized with our past and our roots. And some of those traditions have actually resurged a little bit. But it's very weird because it's all mixed together. So it's like, well, now we worship the God of this that's in the earth, that's in the mountain, but we also worship Jesus at the same time. They're kind of mixing

the two. But I just found it so fascinating that when you replay the story and if you were to go back to that time and you were to fast forward and you were to tell Ad Adhahwapa, like, these guys who say they only want your gold, they're gonna take everything. And you know what? You're gonna be worshiping their god. Your people will be worshiping their god 400 years from now. But you'll get a really sweet gift shop out of it. Right, yeah.

So it's... Yeah, that would be quite a shock. It was heavy. I mean, it was a shock. It probably couldn't have been more of a shock than what it already was, you know, in one sense. It's like you were already at this point where it's like you got these different type of people riding these different type of animals, exploding these fire from their hands,

and then you fast forward to the gift shop, and it's like, okay, yeah, I was already feeling that. It's probably no different. That's good. Yeah. And that was, that's why the Guns, Jerks, and Steel is such a, I mean, it's still a textbook. I will warn you.

It's a textbook. It's a textbook. The thing that it did for me is I think that It's kind of fun to connect the dots. Growing up where we grew up- Biggest picture. With some of the things that we were taught, there's a lot of very racist assumptions that are built into why things are the way that they are.

Right. The reason that things ended up the way that they ended up, the reason that one culture won out over the other culture. Like the things that we were taught was basically a bunch of racist ideas of why that happened. And then when you see that, well, it was, in one sense it was inevitable. It was basically the way that these cultures

were separated tens of thousands of years ago and the places that they went to, the environments that they developed in, determined where they would be at technologically when they met again. And where they would be philosophically when they met again. And so it's just, it's, you know, but again, people are just like, well, the reason that that happened is because these people were white. You know, that's basically what you're kind of,

that's the underlying assumption that you're kind of sold in certain places on earth. So that book does a good job of that. Matter of fact, I just finished reading, I did the audiobook of, it's a book called The Cretaceous Past and it's by the Chinese author, the hard science fiction author, Xi Jing Liu, I think is his name, who also did the show that came out on- The Three Body Problem?

Three Body Problem. So I was like, I was in the Three Body Problem, and this is a much shorter one novel, and if you're into an alternate history of the Cretaceous period that involves dinosaurs evolving basically consciousness and through cooperation with ants. Ants and dinosaurs basically derive and create their own global civilization that kind of has some Guns, Germs and Steel kind of vibes to it. Like the scope and the pace at which the civilization moves and you move through it, it's a pretty

short read, so it's like, you kinda get the dinosaur-ant alliance version of human cultural civilization. So it's pretty interesting. Sounds like there's something I'd be into. I got bogged down in the second Three Body Problem book. My critique of Cretaceous Pass is that there's not, it's not as much character and story. There's some character, but it's mostly history,

like a fake history that's based on a lot of the principles of Guns, Turrets, and Steel. So you might like it, but it's almost like, it's a soft introductory to all of those types of concepts. So it makes me think about it. But yeah, I finished it. Of course I had a long drive back, so I was able to finish it.

So you would recommend going, not just for Jenna, who's dreamt of it since she was in second grade. Yeah, I think it's a wonderful trip. There's great action adventure. Yeah, and the one thing I haven't talked about is the food. Hiking hikes, dogs, food was great. Shepherd and I were huge fans of Peruvian food before. We go to Peruvian restaurants here in town

with like ceviche is probably Shepherd's favorite food. And so there's like a bunch of ceviche and then when you get to the mountains, there's trout ceviche from the river, which was really good. I mean, the alpaca and the guinea pig is sort of like, do it if you wanna have the cultural experience. But I think that

like the ceviche and then like the big corn, like the yucca corn. Oh yeah. That comes both hard and soft. You talking about corn nuts? Basically the original corn nuts. Original corn nuts? I just absolutely love that stuff.

And then in, I'm gonna shout out this, if you happen to be going to these places, I'm gonna shout out a few restaurants because we had a great experience. So there's a little town, Urubamba, which is in the Sacred Valley. There's not a lot going on there, but there is this African Indian-Peruvian

fusion restaurant called Campu, K-A-M-P-U. And the chef, Eduardo, was a character and a half. I wanted to get a video of him. So you met him and you ate his food and it was great. Well, it was like a well-reviewed place and it seemed interesting and we went there and there was, you know, it basically was the end of the rainy season, so it's not,

Peru is very busy during the summer because it's the winter, but it's the, Peru is very busy during the summer because it's the winter, but it's the dry season. Okay. So our summer's their winter, but it's dry. And that's when people do most of like the big tracks or they like hike the Incan trail. You can hike for four days and three nights on the old actual cobblestone Incan trail

that the Incans built. They built this incredible trail all throughout the Andes mountains that connected all the fortresses and Machu Picchu and everything else to everything else. And you can like hike and you can do it like, there's Sherpas that carry all the camping stuff and the food and everything.

That's what their job is to carry all that. I saw a bunch of them walking. And then there's all the tourists who have like their little day pack who were just walking. And you walk for like four days and then you camp at these nice camps. That's cool. So Shepard kind of wants to go back and do that,

but he's also like, but we might need to go somewhere else because you know. That's cool though. But Campu, incredible restaurant. Crazy fusion, like I said, African, Peruvian, Indian, and just like great curry. And there's a lot of fusion restaurants in Cusco. We went to a Japanese Peruvian,

like sushi, Peruvian sushi fusion restaurant called Limo, which was the best meal that we had the whole time. And then the next night we went to a place called Kion, which was a Chinese Peruvian. So they have Chinese Peruvian fusion because there was a bunch of Chinese people that came into Peru and they created a cuisine called Chifa, which is basically Chinese and Peruvian fusion.

So basically you can get like Peruvian dim sum. What? And so we got that the second night in Cusco. I mean, we had some really good food. Recommend all those places if you're going to. And of course, any Peruvian restaurant, there's so many great Peruvian restaurants where you get ceviche,

Inca corn, alpaca. We had an alpaca pizza. Cooey, if you want that. There's plenty of those places, too. The food was great. Sounds like a success. It was.

You conquered some fears. Yeah. You convinced your son that there's a limit to the amount of time he can spend with you. These are all good things. Oh, yeah. You know, he's gotta branch out. Like, he now knows he's gotta find a life elsewhere.

He don't wanna live with you forever. That's a really good thing to teach a kid. I think you already knew that. I think he's ready for independence right now. Alright, maybe I have to go, Jenna. Yes! Maybe me and you and my family have to go to Peru now. When you mentioned that zipline and started talking, I was like,

I know exactly what that is. Thea Ferrada. I was thinking about doing that type of thing with our college buddies, and you can do that in Colorado and stuff too. I would do it now that I've done it. Okay. Well, it ain't gonna be like that. It won't be that amazing. You don't think so? I mean... I mean, the view won't be as crazy. Yeah, but ain't gonna be like that. It won't be that amazing. You don't think so? I mean...

I mean, the view won't be as crazy. Yeah, but it'll probably be awesome. Alright, that's it. We got some adventures under our belt. I have to save my bike story for another time. But I'll get back to it. Yeah. Glad you're back, man. Let's keep doing it. Let's keep doing our stuff. Okay, we'll keep doing it.

Alright, and we'll keep doing this, and we'll talk to you next week. ... We had to roll again, because I just remember one thing. How much water you still got in your mug! Look at this. This is his mug. This is my mug. Look, look. Hold on, we're not done, we have to do the ads! Look, look. Look at all that water. Oh, come on, that was like that much water,

and I wanted to drink it! That was this much, it was that much water. Like, I poured, this is how much water I poured in, and it's still in there. Hold on, you're bad at math, because it had this much left, which is what you poured me originally, I had had that much in there, I drank that much, and I wasn't done with it.

You were done! If I had been, if I had this much in. We had cut. If I, we gotta do the ads. I always finish the water during the ads. Well you can finish the water during the ads, but. But you came out of your cup now. Well it came out of your cup first. I drank all my water.

It's all gone, you better believe it. I was watching your water the whole time. And I was like, I'm thirsty, I'm gonna drink. There's hardly any in there, can you see that? I hope he doesn't notice that I'm drinking, because I don't wanna remind him of something that he will not do. My whole pinky is in there, and it's not even wet, look at that.

Whole pinky's in there, and I still not touching the water. It's full of water. No it's not, it's right at the bottom. I'm just saying, I know what you need, man. Trust me, this is how much you put in originally. You would have been exactly to the bottom. No, no, because you filled it to the top. You think 75% and 25% are equal?

Don't fool me with your numbers. Do I need a pie chart? I missed having you both here. Okay, all right, now we're actually at the end. Now that I've proven my point. Not quite, not quite, not quite. Hey Rhett and Link, this is Kayanna. Just wanted to say that I am currently in labor for my home birth listening to Ear Biscuits.

I thought that was interesting that I'm choosing y'all to spend this intimate time with, but yeah, love you guys. Thank you.