¶ Taking a Sabbatical
In dictionarycom , the word sabbatical is defined as any extended period of leave from one's customary work , especially for rest , to acquire new skills or training , etc .
My guest , peter Cordova , or Junior or Petey as he is known , took his own sabbatical this past year and while I'm sure there was some rest , he certainly acquired new skills and , more than that , really experienced the culture and the people of the places .
He traveled to Get ready to take a sabbatical to India , africa , portugal and more with Petey Peter Cordova . Welcome to Journey with Jake . This is a podcast about adventure and how , through our adventures , we can overcome the challenges of life that come our way . While I expect you will learn some things about different adventures , this show will entertain you .
Each episode will feature a different guest or guests , as they share experiences and stories from the different adventures they have been on . Not only will you be entertained , but you will also hear the failures and trials each guest faces and what they have done or are doing to overcome the hardships that come their way .
My goal is to take each of us on a journey through the experiences of my guests , with the hope that you'll be entertained and inspired to overcome your day-to-day challenges . After all , it's not all about the destination as it episode of the show . My name is Jake Bushman and I am the host of Journey with Jake .
I have another fantastic episode coming your way Before we get to my conversation with Petey . I would love for you to be more involved with the show . The way you can do this is by following me on Instagram at Journey with Jake podcast and join the conversation there .
Let me know what you think of the show by messaging me on Instagram or sending me an email to jake at journeywithjakenet . Journey with Jake is also on YouTube at Journey with Jake Podcast , so feel free to check it out on YouTube as well . What a great conversation I had with Petey about his sabbatical last year .
From the religious culture of India to the porters of Mount Kilimanjaro , this episode had it all . If you like this , you will also enjoy episode 110 with Margaret Sullivan and her family's year of global adventures . Okay , let's get to my conversation with Petey Cordova . I have on the call with me today . I have Peter Jr , aka Petey , on the show .
Petey , welcome to Journey with Jake .
Pleasure pleasure to be here . I'm very excited . This is my first podcast experience .
Awesome . Well , I'm glad you're here with me on Journey with Jake . It's going to be fun . We're going to talk about your adventures , what you're doing . I know you just went on a sabbatical . I don't even know how long or anything . We'll get to all the details on that Before we dive into your travels and who you are and all that good stuff .
Yeah , let's find out about Petey a little bit .
Tell me a little bit of background where you're from , where you grew up , and a little bit about your family , that sort of thing . Yeah , absolutely so . I'm originally born in the mountains of Peru in a small little mining town called La Oroya .
I grew up there and it was actually the fifth most polluted town in the world when I was born , which kind of probably explains a couple of my breathing issues growing up . But when I turned eight , nine years old , I moved to America with my parents . They had the American dream .
It's a big motivation of what gets me to push myself to try a lot of new things . But they brought me over to America . We moved to North Carolina , charlotte to be exact and from there I kind of grew up mostly in North Carolina , just going to school there , meeting most of my best friends there , and eventually ended up going into IT sales .
So that's kind of what my main job is . That's what gives me the money to be able to do a lot of the things that I like to do , as we'll talk about later on . There's a pull of me into the world of videography . I've been doing that for about 10 , 11 years as well , and there's that constant struggle between what I love to do and what I have to do .
I just moved to Denver , colorado , here about four months ago . It's a great place to be outdoors . I'm a mountain kid , as you heard , born in the mountains , going back to the mountains , and yeah , that's why I'm here .
I love it . Any siblings ?
I do . I have a little brother who is just now breaking out of his shell as well . He's not that little . He just moved to Tokyo , japan , and his own journey to chase his dream of being an animator , big anime fan . It's kind of a big thing we love to watch growing up , but he's really going to the world .
He's speaking fluently Japanese , he's taking Japanese , he's going to a Japanese university in Tokyo . So yeah , very proud of him and I'm just proud to see him chase his dream as well .
That's very cool and you , coming from Peru , spanish , so you're you still speak Spanish . I'm sure your parents speak it to you all the time . Do you still speak fluently Spanish ?
Yes , yeah , I'm actually . Yeah , that's my first language . My mom only speaks to me in Spanish because she doesn't want me to forget , and my dad only speaks to me in English because he wants to practice . So my house is kind of like a big mush of languages . And then me and my little brother growing up , we both took German .
So when we want to chat with each other about random stuff , we'll just shoot a little German at each other .
You guys could talk your German when your parents around . That way you could just have your brother lingo go in and I like it , that's very cool and he's off doing his thing , which is awesome . You talked to kind of about that struggle .
You've been doing videography , you said , for like 11 years or so , but you said there's that constant battle , that constant struggle of doing what you have to do versus what you want to do . I think I'm in that battle . I think a lot of us are in that battle .
Yeah .
How do you alleviate that a little bit ?
I try to make time for both . I think it's definitely very important to like I couldn't . I can't go a full day without feeling both sides of my brain . I need to make sure I exercise both . But the battle is kind of losing in a good way , like I started doing it in college . So I just broke out a GoPro to film college parties .
That's basically where it all started . Just wanted to remember fun times with my friends , because I'm the first person of my family to ever go to an American university . I was like very excited . So I watched all the movies . I watched American Pie , you know . So I was very ready to make a lot of memories .
Then I started making a little bit of edits like recap videos , and surely enough , they got bigger , they got more complex . I started planning them out more . I started diving into other parts of videography and that filled me with enough to at least quench that thirst of the videography world .
But the more I do it now and the more I'm in the corporate world and learning a lot , I've kind of been leaning towards one side . I mentally had told myself I can balance both , I can do both at the same time . But now I'm starting to say , well , why don't I just start leaning towards one and eventually just give it a shot so to answer your question ?
Just give it a shot so to answer your question . I tried to alleviate it , but it looks like I'm going towards the way of maybe fully throwing myself into the videography world here In the next year . I'm already making plans to make the change .
Wow , does it feel like a big risk for you , or is that something you're looking forward to ?
It's definitely going to be a big risk , but luckily , because I've had a steady job , like , I have a house in Raleigh , north Carolina , that I'm going to sell to help me fund my next venture , which is just supporting myself while I do videography . So , luckily , I've done .
I think I've done the rat race enough to the point where I think I can support myself and launch myself into something new , but it is going to be risky . I do have the full confidence in myself to be able to do so , though .
I have a lot of friends that I've met throughout all my projects and all the networking and connections , and they're all very encouraging and I think if they can do something like that , very encouraging , and I think if they can do something like that , I've actually , in the last week , had a couple of calls with friends asking for advice , asking for motivation ,
and I'm more pumped than ever to give it a shot .
That's awesome . That's very cool when you do your videography and I've seen some drone work and things that you do . You started off just filming college parties with the GoPro . I love it . That's kind of how it started for you . Is there a particular kind of videography that you enjoy doing more than any other kind ?
Yeah , yeah , absolutely . I think once you know the , the party started to slow down and there wasn't as many parties that I was going to , I really started bringing my camera towards my trips . I love traveling . My grandpa was a big traveler . He encouraged all of his kids to travel . That's why my mom left to America .
All my other siblings are all over the world . My godfather is in Japan , my other aunt is in Italy . I have family all over . That's kind of why I grew up wanting to travel and now that I brought my camera with me , it kind of became the thing that I love to do most .
And then , specifically within each country that I like to go to , I've been to 40 right now been to 40 countries . I liked doing outdoorsy stuff and out of the city type of stuff more stuff and out of the city type of stuff , more natural and , uh , more natural experiences , rather than , you know , doing this like the Eiffel Tower or things like that .
I like going and camping in the Sahara with a bunch of people who live in the Sahara , type things . So I think that specifically adventure type travel content is what I like to film and we're in the right place for that , because this is an adventure podcast .
I think that's what drew me to your Instagram account . I , you know , came across you on Instagram and I was like this guy's doing some pretty wild stuff . I've seen some crazy pictures , things like that . The thing . I think that that caught my attention too .
As you mentioned , you went on a sabbatical recently and I kind of want to hit on that because I think I don't know how long it was . So hopefully you're giving me , you know , first , give me kind of the details , when did you go , how long was it , and then kind of where did you go ?
You know some things like that , and then we'll kind of dive into some stories and things , because I would imagine you have to have so many different experiences within such a short time . That's got to be amazing and let's go from there .
Yep , absolutely
¶ Global Travel Adventure Stories
. So . I was actually living in Chicago for just a little under 10 months , between Denver and North Carolina . I was still doing IT sales . That's where kind of the slippery slope began in my head , where I was like I need to quench this thirst . I really want to go and do this .
So I ended up going and deciding that I was just going to commit to this trip that I've wanted to take my entire life . I've planned it out in my head as long as I can remember , and it was about eight months . I took off , put everything in the storage , my parents decided to help me out and store my car and a bunch of other stuff .
They were very supportive and it was 17 countries . And then under eight months just a little bit under eight months where I left , june 15th last year . I remember it specifically because I thought about that day for so long and I came back about like end of or beginning of December .
Wow Okay . So you went June 15th . Wow Okay , where did you go ? Like , where did you start ? From what I saw , did you start in Honduras , or was that just I saw a post ? Yeah , okay , I could give you a nice little high level overview breakdown and then we can dive into some of the your story . It varied so much .
That's what I think was so cool about it , starting off Honduras , central America , but then I saw the Sahara , like you said , I saw Europe , I saw Africa . So , yeah , go ahead , let's do the high level breakdown first .
For sure . So I already had a list in my head of top things I wanted to do . I knew which countries I wanted to go , so I try to plan it out to reduce the amount of flight time as possible and try to do it in a type of chronological order . So I started with the closest , which was Honduras .
Wanted to get my scuba diving certification just something I've always wanted to do Very cheap place to do it . By the way , this entire trip was on a budget . I budgeted out exactly for it , so it's not like I'm rich , and I'm flying around first class . It was something that had to be very particularly planned but did .
Central America , then went down to Chile Patagonia I've always wanted to hike in Patagonia Went up to Rio , brazil , to see Christ the Redeemer and do some mountain climbing there , then flew across , was supposed to go to Africa . There's a yellow fever vaccine , one of my big challenges .
That happened , but I got redirected to Lisbon instead , still met a lot of people , enjoyed my time there , but it was the closest place that I could get my yellow fever vaccine and then hop on over to Africa right afterwards . So that's where I went to Morocco , south Africa , tanzania , to do Kilimanjaro . It was actually a year ago today .
I was starting my Kilimanjaro hike . Then went up to Egypt to see the pyramids just for a little while . Then Jordan , then took a bus over to Israel . I was actually in Israel a couple of weeks before everything went down . So it was Wow , there's another whole list of challenges . And then you could cut the tension with a knife while I was there .
Then I flew over to Mongolia because I've always wanted to live with nomads for a couple of weeks . So I did that . Then went over to Switzerland . I had a bunch of friends from America that were doing a big trip to Switzerland , so I went there to meet up with them and then we all took a train to Oktoberfest in Munich .
I then flew to India because that was my number one destination that I wanted to go and it fulfilled exactly what I needed .
It was my favorite destination , but did a couple of weeks through India , saw the Taj Mahal , did the Himalayas , some hiking in the Himalayas , went to Taiwan to see a couple of little small towns that I've always seen pictures of , then went to Korea just because I wanted to see Korea Actually I don't even know if I had a good reason for Korea Then Japan to
visit my godfather , and also I had a friend stationed in Okinawa , so I visited him as well . And then finished off the trip by going to Norway to see the Northern Lights . And and then finished off the trip by going to Norway to see the Northern Lights . And then I made it home to my mom by the holidays . I told her I'd be home for Christmas .
That's incredible . The variation is what's striking to me , because we could go off on so many different areas , and I kind of want you to kind of tell me a few of your favorite places , some of your stories , and then I might ask you some of the things that find interesting , because it's such a very thing .
Now , the first thing I do want to ask , though , before we jump into all this you said in Switzerland you met with a bunch of friends and things , the rest of the time pretty much solo , or did you meet with people ? Cause
¶ Cultural Connections Through Travel
it ? It seems like some of your pictures you had there's people with you , but other times there weren't . So how did ? Was it pretty much solo for the most part ?
So there was like 20 of us in Switzerland that they had they already had that trip planned before me . I just wanted to . I made the adjustment to go join them , cause I mean I came back from Mongolia , but it was totally worth it . And then one friend came and met me out in India .
He's actually a videographer friend , one that is inspiring me and motivating me to start off on my own journey . So shout out to Paul Yan if he ends up listening to this . But other than that , it was solo . I only stayed at hostels . There's a lot of different apps you can use . There's Get your Guide . I did tours to get your guide and make friends .
There's Couchsurfingcom to stay with people's houses and they'll take you out and introduce you to people . But I had to be social . There was no way that I could have met somebody at every town , like planned a friend to come visit me at every place .
But at the same time , I knew that in order to make the best out of this trip , I needed to meet as many people and collect as many point of views and experiences as possible . But also I didn't want to be selfish and ask anybody to join me on this very aggressive trip . You know it's . You can't really find someone to do this kind of stuff .
No , that's wild . I yeah . There's no way I could have done it . I mean , I'm I'm in awe what you did . Are you a social person to begin with ? No , that's wild . Yeah , there's no way I could have done it . I mean , I'm in awe of what you did . Are you a social person to begin with ? Are you kind of an extrovert who likes to be social , or what ?
was that like for you ? I would say I'm more social now Growing up I wasn't . I was actually a very quiet kid growing up . I don't know where that switch came into play . Actually .
It might have been in college , actually , when I started meeting a lot of friends who I still hang out with nowadays A couple of them live here in Denver but it was that time I guess they broke me out of my shell and then even once I got the taste for just meeting people . I've realized that the world isn't so bad . Everyone has something in common .
That was probably one of my biggest revelations of this entire trip was , no matter where I was that was probably one of my biggest revelations of this entire trip was , no matter where I was , there was common ground with every religion , ethnicity , nationalism , everyone . We all had something in common . It was very easy to talk .
We could always talk about good times , friends , travels , trips , goals , dreams . There was so much there . That's what makes it easy for me to talk to other people , because I know that there's a lot more there in common than there are differences .
I think that's what I love . When I talk to people like you who go on these adventures and go on these travels . That's one of the biggest takeaways I get is we don't need to see what the media is showing us or telling us , or you should look at these people like this , or you should . You know the people like this are going to react to you like that .
You got to experience for yourself More cases than not . It's totally different than what we've kind of programmed in our minds , and so I appreciate the fact that you you experienced that as well .
I was going to say I'm glad . I'm glad you mentioned that . It's a huge , huge ideal of mine . I'm not sure if you're an Anthony Bourdain fan at all . I am myself and there's one tattoo that he has in Greek that I got in Turkish on my chest because I experienced it in Turkey and that was I am certain of nothing .
And it's just the thought that you go somewhere with these preconceived notions . You think you know a person , you think you know a people just from everything you've seen and like in the media , and then you are so pleasantly surprised that you are dead wrong . And that's . I love finding out that I am wrong , I love knowing that I am certain of nothing .
You just got to go there and kind of experience it yourself to really have , or to really make a judgment on how you feel about it . You got to , you got to throw yourself in there .
Certain of nothing . I like that . That's a good saying . So you have that on your chest in Turkish .
Yep , yep , I didn't really know what it meant until I was in Turkey . It was my first all or mostly Muslim slash Arabic
¶ Hiking Kilimanjaro With Porters
country . Definitely didn't know what to expect , and I have friends that I still talk to to this day there . I keep up with them . If there's ever a turmoil , like an earthquake or anything , I message them instantly , ask them how their family is , and we keep in touch Because I realized that we're way more similar than I thought . Just wish they lived closer .
All right . So , going into this sabbatical , yeah , do you have a few , maybe some highlights and even some lowlights . Sometimes things don't go how you plan or what's going to happen , and those are interesting to hear about as well . So any stories or experiences you'd like to share ?
Yeah , I think , just because I've been thinking about it a lot . About a year ago today probably yesterday I began my hike towards Kilimanjaro . That was one of the biggest things I wanted to do on the trip , mostly because I grew up with a lot of breathing issues . I had asthma , pretty bad . I used to wake up like breathing machines in Peruvian hospitals .
I would just stop breathing in my sleep and my mom would have to take me to the hospital for breathing machines . So I've always had a doubt that I wouldn't be able to do something like that . My doctors growing up told me I would break out of it . So I always try to stay active , exercise run I can definitely .
When I push myself I can already tell my limitation . Sometimes it's just got to keep working the old lungs . This was very daunting to me because I was like all right , there's really no going back , I'm just going to have to go up , for it was an eight day hike that I did . I did the Lemosho tour I actually had .
There was one other guy day hike that I did . I did the Lemosho tour I actually had . There was one other guy , funny enough . So just to give a little backstory , when I landed in airport Kilimanjaro I was .
I was away for like 36 hours I'm just trying to get there , just for anyone listening Like I , in order to spend as least as possible on this on flights , I spent a lot of nights in airports , like on airport floors , on airport chairs , just not spending money to just go into a city asleep for a night and come back . So I was exhausted .
I wandered into the wrong tour . They were doing before every hike they do kind of a breakdown with your tour guide and I wandered into the wrong one . I was just half asleep and I sat down . There was this one other guy named Liam . He's from Groningen in the Netherlands . They gave us the whole breakdown of everything .
I had given myself a day in between to rest before Kili . But after they gave us the whole itinerary and the lowdown and all the dangers and stuff , me and this guy were really hitting it off . I was already nervous who am I going to spend eight days with hiking ? And it was just this one other guy and me and we were getting amped .
We were super excited and I was like , yeah , I lucked out . This dude is super cool , we're going to have a good time . And then at the end of the breakdown they were like , oh yeah , and we'll pick you up at 5 am in the morning . And I was like , wait , no , I signed up , for I have a whole day and I'm with this other group .
And they're like , oh , that's the . It starts with an M hike . No , this is the Lemosho hike . And I was like , oh well , I really think that it won't get any better than what we got going on . I was like , all right , count me in .
So I had to go and find all the stuff I needed that day , that night and pack up , and just , I was by five in the morning .
So you didn't go to the other one that you were originally scheduled to be on . You stuck with this Limo show or whatever with Liam Cause you're like , hey , me and Liam are good , but in the meantime you're already exhausted , you're tired , you're worn out and they're like 5 am tomorrow instead of having a day to recover . Wow , okay , sorry , keep going .
This is great .
It was just something . I was like . You know what this guy's awesome . The company is going to be one of the most important things of this hike . That was by pure luck , throughout the sabbatical . But I look back on them all the time and think what if I had not done this ? Or what if I took a left turn instead of a right turn ?
In this scenario , I was half asleep and wandered into the wrong itinerary tour Made of a life friend . We still talk all the time , but after the first day you're already over the clouds . So every day you're going higher the clouds . So every day you're going higher and higher . It gets tougher and tougher .
You go up and then you stay up there for a little bit and go back down . You try to acclimatize .
Okay , because Kilimanjaro it's like 20,000 feet or something , right . I mean that's pretty high .
Yeah , it's right under it's 19,586 or something . I have it tattooed here in Roman numerals .
Awesome .
Not really good with Roman numerals . It's right under the death zone type of height , which I think is 20,500 or something like that . So it's up there . So you do have to go up and down and acclimatize . The reason I did an eight-day hike is because you can do it in four to five . There's like a four to five route but that's for like very aggressive .
You go straight up , you start at 800 feet and you go all the way up to 19,000 . So it's very tough to go up that much . There's always people being chartered down by porters and stuff . Are you familiar with kind of what porters do ?
No , I'm not . No , not at all .
So they're kind of like the Sherpas of Chile . These are the hardest working people I've ever met in my entire life . They carry everything like the tents and stuff on their heads and they beat you to the camp .
They set up shop and then on the next morning they pack up and then they beat you to the next camp while you're still have just minimal stuff on you . They're making like seven or eight dollars a day . That was actually one of the biggest , one of my more favorite moments of the trip , because it was just me and Liam .
We were always just wanting to hang out with them . There was there's usually about four to five porters per person . So there was this trip . There was and I'll send you a picture there was probably like 14 of us and only there was two guides me and Liam , and then everybody else was porters . So it's a lot of Tanzanians .
And one thing I learned from them is that , no matter what , I already knew their situation . I looked at the town of Moshi . It's not like a rich town . I saw how hard they're working , see how little they're making , and yet they always had like a smile on their face . It was insane . Every morning they would wake up and dance and sing together .
Me and Liam would jump in and join in and greet the day with one of their songs . There was like a Hakuna Matata song , which is Swahili , which is what they speak in Tanzania , and they all shared one tent .
So there's one tent like a bigger tent and there's like 12 of them in there and just me and Liam have two small of our own tents and we were always trying to like go in and have fun with them and talk to them , because it was , you know , it's the reason we came to this country is to meet the people , and so eventually , once we knew all their names
and became friendly , we , we , we had the courage enough to go in there , watch them cook , watch them like just lay down and talk . We hung out with it for hours . I got a lot of footage of just us hanging out , just being friendly , and then afterwards the guide came up to me and Liam and he thanked us . He said the whole crew is very thankful .
We've never , not once , had any of our guests or any of the people hiking come in and hang out with us . You all are the first ones . That made me happy and sad at the same time that there's people who just go there . They don't even get to know the porters .
Yeah , they almost don't pay attention to them in a lot of cases , right , they're just kind of like oh , they're just here doing their thing and I'll do my thing that's awesome that you're able to look at them . Look at them and see who they are and for who they are what they are . Yeah , I love that .
We had full-on conversations about their family , what they're doing , what are they trying to go back to school . A lot of them were pretty young , I would say like 20-ish , maybe 18 , sometimes 17 . So
¶ Conquering Kilimanjaro Amidst Challenges
they're just supportive . They're the main contributors of their family , so they're supporting them . One of them even got sick , unfortunately , on the way up . Me and Liam still fully paid him . We fully tipped him . He had to go down on the fourth or fifth day . We gave him medicine because we brought stuff with us .
It felt bad because he can't get a helicopter ride out . We needed to send another porter to help him take down and it was like dusk already . So it's a tough life they live . They were always smiling and helping us out . So on the last day when we finally peaked , there was three of them with us .
Liam I hope he doesn't hate me saying this , but he cried when we got to the top because he had been exercising and practicing and training for this really hard . When he got there , he was very emotional . I got video of this him and the porters and the guy they're hugging it . I got videos of this . This was insane . It's oh , oh and the the one thing .
I guess that the moral of this story , the reason why this was one of my big biggest moments , is because I told or me and liam both told uh , our guides , we want to be the first ones up there , like there's only two of us every day . We were training and going faster and faster . The guy wanted to make sure we were able to do it .
His name is Sam , so shout out , sam . He's starting his own company here soon too , which I'm going to send him a couple of videos .
I'm making some edits for him and his website and his company because one of the best guides him and Eli were both the best guides , but he wanted to make sure we could handle it and by the last day he's like all right , I think I can get y'all to the top first , you just have to . When summiting , you got to time it right .
You don't want to get there too early , you want to make it right when the sun is rising , otherwise it'll be freezing . So everyone left around 11 PM .
There was about 150 to 200 people peaking that day or summiting that day , and we left at 1 am to give us enough time at the speed we were going , and we ended up , instead of taking the trails , climbing on the side , passing people , and at the very top we finally passed everybody , and me and Liam were the first ones up to make it to the top and I was
just in shock . I was , I was , I weren't . At some points I was losing . I feel like I was losing consciousness . I was pushing myself very hard to get up there and it's there's actually , I forget what the medical term is called , but when you get up there , some people experience like their brain like swells up and they start hallucinating .
It's like sometimes they'll ask people like where their car is parked and when they're , when they're at the top , and they're like all right , we got to get you . Yeah , get you get you some oxygen yeah , you're , you're , you're speaking crazy right now .
But yeah , we made it up there , uh , watched the sun come up , took a picture and then ran all the way down . We were like because , once , once everybody gets up there , it's absolute madness to get a picture that , yeah , that was that was my biggest triumph .
Yet I was like , yeah , I can barely breathe , but I'm up here just the word kilimanjaro itself is is such a big , you know there's so much lore and stuff with that . That mountain seeing liam up there being emotional for you . But you getting up there , any thoughts cross your mind ? Or did you not really take it until after it happened ?
Then what was it like for you ?
The one con about having my camera is that I'm always planning shots and taking pictures . So I was at a certain point like hell , yeah , I was screaming woo at the top of my lungs off the side of the canyon or outside of the mountain . I was just by myself . It took a minute to really breathe it and take it all in .
And then after that I was like all right , oh , over here , I got to take a shot . Over here , get Liam crying , you know , I guess . And I just kind of laid down there and I just kind of thought about it . The one thing about being up there's no cell service , there's no TV , you don't hear anything going on in the world .
You just kind of lay down and you look off the side of a mountain . It's wild . But it gave me a lot of time to think . I had a notebook that I brought with me throughout my entire sabbatical . I wrote in it every day .
I wanted to be brutally honest with myself on things , opportunities that I missed out , on things that I should have said , things that I should have done , things that I should learn and keep in mind , should have said things that I should have done , things that I should learn and keep in mind . And on this , at Kilimanjaro I definitely wrote .
I took my time to really write in some stuff . I even wrote in a bunch of Swahili because my guide was teaching me some of the main words and stuff .
And I love the fact that you have a notebook because you're going to look back on this and you're never going to forget not only Kilimanjaro , but everywhere else you were on this sabbatical . I mean that's super impressive . I love it . Thank you for sharing that story . Oh , that was good . I don't know how you can
¶ Unexpected Adventures in Africa and India
top it . What else you got for us . I mean , that was fantastic . Any , before you jump into another favorite one , maybe anyone that was like you know , like , or you learned a lesson , or you had a problem , or whatever , any any stories like that .
This was one of the things I wanted to mention . I was looking through my notebook before our call and I was trying to really search for the moments where I was not having a good time , but I try to stay positive throughout the entire time . There was minor inconveniences , like I mentioned earlier .
There was , and I think it's probably good information for anyone to know . But if you are traveling to Africa , depending on where you're flying from and what country you're stopping in , you have to be aware that you have a yellow fever vaccine . South Africa itself . If you flew straight from the US to South Africa , you'd be fine .
I told my doctor that when I I did a whole checkup before I left in the US , she said I'd be fine . But when I left Brazil , I had supposed to have a layover in Kenya and so they didn't account for that , so they weren't going to let me pass . So that was huge because I've been trying to go to South Africa for so long and I was upset .
But I had to think quick on my feet . They were like told me , we can redirect you somewhere . You'll have to pay the difference of the ticket , and I was like looking through countries . It was literally a last minute like all right , which country do I fly with ? With one hour notice , let's try to make something happen .
Make sure it's not too expensive , make sure that it gets me close to Africa , make sure that they will have yellow fever vaccines available . And so I picked Portugal . Because , yeah , I went to Lisbon and no intentions of going there beforehand , like at all .
That wasn't even part of the original plan . It became part of it .
Yeah , I actually met so many amazing people while there . I stayed an extra week because I was having so much fun with people . Getting the yellow fever vaccine was a nightmare and a half . They have universal healthcare and that's really cool for their citizens . Or four hospitals .
Got told no to some places , got told to go to other places , went to the embassy . That itself , I will say , was probably one of the bigger challenges , although in between days I would go and have dinner with new friends and go check out a town or go to a show , a live concert that they had on any one of the nights .
So even in between the tough moments , I try to make time to to really notice . I I just had to ask myself what ? What the heck am I complaining about ? I'm I'm doing a lot of things . I'm doing this thing that a lot of people can't do and like . It makes me sad that a lot of people want to .
They just don't have the means or , you know , yeah , they don't have the resources to make this happen . So I just felt selfish to complain myself about this inconvenience of me being in Lisbon and getting to dance around and then go to Africa .
That's the funny part . Yeah , you were sidetracked a little bit . It was a little bit of an inconvenience . You had to get the vaccination or whatever . A lot of people plan to go to Lisbon or want to go to Lisbon . You know Portugal , so that's pretty cool that you got to experience that , even though it wasn't on the on the plan . So I like that yeah .
I think , like the one thing I said earlier was I think about that moment . What if ? What if I had gotten my yellow fever vaccine ? I would have saved money , that's for sure , but I would have not made it to Lisbon and talked to a lot of the people I talk to regularly now .
I have so many good memories there and I almost didn't even I wasn't even almost there . I could have missed out on that entire experience and all those people that I related to so much . There's a huge backpacking community in Lisbon . There's a lot of Europeans that go there . It's a very safe outgoing place . There's a lot of young people .
So that's why I met so many people . But I was kind of nervous . I was like what if I hadn't come here ? I could have missed out on everyone here . This is wild that I'm here and I'm having a good time when I'm not even supposed to be here .
What other story or experience do you have ? Kilimanj , portugal , was great . What else you got ?
So I'll do India for sure . That was my place . I've always wanted to go to the most Just in terms of culture . I wanted to go to somewhere that was the least similar to where I live now . I wanted to go somewhere completely different .
I wanted to push myself into somewhere where I mean , you've seen all the other videos and like TikToks and you'll see people saying it's dirty and it's overpopulated .
And it's loud , I heard it's loud .
Yeah , and it's a lot of poverty . I will confirm all those things . And yet it was still my favorite location . It is an attack on all your senses when you land . That's the best way I've heard it described . It's loud , you smell things , not necessarily bad , but some things you're just like I don't even know . I've never smelled that . What is that smell ?
You see things . You see just cows walking around . You see a lot of tuk-tuks driving fast . You got to wash yourself , you don't want to get hit . There's a lot of movement driving fast . You got to wash yourself , you don't want to get hit . There's a lot of movement , but you do get used to it .
After a couple of days you don't truly get used to it , but you're not surprised by it . You're like all right , I kind of know what I have to do to not get hit by a car . I'll have to wear a rag to the really dirty or dusty area so you don't breathe in a lot of the dirt . But then you go out , and the farther you go
¶ Adventure Stories Around the World
out , like I started in New Delhi , but the farther I moved out , like the more calm I guess . Have you heard of Varanasi before ?
I have not no .
So that is , I believe , the second oldest civilization in the world . The first one is in Pakistan , but this is the holiest city in all of India . That's where the Gangaing River is , which I know a lot of people . It's not the cleanest river , but to them it's a very holy river .
A lot of beautiful things happen there ceremonies lot of beautiful things happen there Ceremonies People come to die . At Varanasi . It's a place where they have the oldest temples . These places look insane and we had a guide that I found . I forget how I found this guide . It wasn't like an official company .
It is a company , but it wasn't like one of those ones you can just Google . It was passed on to me by somebody who I met when I was doing Guatemala Volcano and that's a whole nother story , but I met someone who gave me their information . I met this guy . His name is Sunil . He's the coolest dude . He was about our age . He was like he was 30 .
And me and Paul , who was my videographer friend , who brought his camera too because he wanted to capture some beautiful stuff . He took us around everywhere . He got us into holy sites by just talking to people and getting us into places where we definitely shouldn't be . But he wanted to show us around and we were able to see people being cremated .
They do open cremations , wow . Like people being creamed . They do open cremation , wow . And they're you yeah , we .
He got us a boat , he rented us a boat and like drove us up to one of these holy sites where foreigners can't be , but you can see it from a boat out there and it's , it's wild , and there's people like humming a lot of these rituals and you know , sunil did one for too .
We happened to be there on the day of his one-year anniversary of his grandma dying , and apparently you have to . On the anniversary of the day of the death of a loved one , you have to do this big gesture ritual , make them a gift . There's nowhere else better to do it than the Gangren River while there , and me and Paul got to film that entire ritual .
It was very complex , there was a lot of moving parts and then , if you've ever seen a video of a lot of a fire ceremony , they do that every morning in Varanasi . You can go , and they have 5 am .
There's people doing all these wild things with fire and there's people all chanting there together and they paint the red dot on your head and I was like what is going on ? I feel like I'm in some other worldly organization . I might be in Mars or something . All that hit me at once . I wish I could name all the things that I saw .
I even saw a funeral , which was wild , because one thing I learned is I was just going out to actually buy some water or something , some bottled water , because you got to drink bottled water when you're over there .
I was walking around this is by the Taj Mahal in Agra and I saw a couple of people carrying like a body open casket down the street and if you see one of your friends like even if you didn't know that person if you see one of your friends or neighbor or something that's in mourning , you join them and so you just drop everything and you go next .
So the whole street was crowded and by the time that they had passed through , everyone had joined because they knew someone or was related to someone , and it just became this big town funeral place .
That for me , when I saw some of your story is you know , switzerland I've had that guest on the show talk about Switzerland . Is it just as beautiful as it looks like from these pictures , with these mountains ? And is it Grindelwald or what's the name of the place that I mean ? Just looks picturesque . Is it really like that ?
Yeah , it absolutely is , and it's just as expensive as it looks too . It's not cheap . It costs an arm and a leg .
I actually just went back this past June to do a videographer trip and meet a lot of videographers from a community I'm part of called Colder Creative Got to go back and see some other parts of Switzerland , so I've kind of seen most of the country by now , all the way from the French side , german side , a little bit of the upper North side as well , but
it's very beautiful Everywhere you go . You can't really have a bad view in any direction that you see , but Grindelwald is one of the top ones . I hope to go back and do a climb Matterhorn one day . I just started climbing here in Denver .
Denver is a good place for that . We've been chatting here for quite a while . I do want to ask you , though , kind of what is what does the future hold ? I know you are looking to go full time into the whole videography thing , which I think is fantastic . What else , as far as travel and things like that , do you have any other plans ?
Yeah , I think right now I'm actually I'm going to be flying to LA here in a couple of weeks to visit the Chinese consulate embassy . I need to do an in-person interview so that I can get my visa accepted . I plan to go to China . I want to see . I'm going to Beijing , shanghai , chongqing .
I need to see the Great Wall , because that's the last world wonder that I haven't crossed off the bucket list yet . So once I get that one off , finally I can say I saw the seven world wonders . And then the next big trip after that is next year . I'm trying to . I got reached out to by an organization that helps reserve the oceans .
They have a lot of different trips all over the world where they help and conservate the ocean . So they've reached out to me because they need a videographer to help . That would be a two months on a ship , wow . So I've seen a couple of their trips . It could be on the Galapagos , you could be on Western Africa , I don't really care where they send me .
I think it would be a great opportunity to fulfill that quench of videography while being able to help out , and even if it's in the smallest way , it'd be an experience .
Oh , absolutely .
And then my last big trip off my when I don't know when I'll do , but I want to do Mount Everest base camp and I think I can do that next year too if I really plan for it . After getting a little taste of the Himalayas in India , I was like , yeah , I need to really get in there .
It would be like a two-week hike up to Mount Everest Base Camp in Nepal , which I heard is awesome Sounds like you got some great plans .
You got a lot of good things going for you , For you , Petey . What does adventure mean to you ?
That's a great question . I've never actually been asked that To me . I guess if I'm really trying to put myself in the adventure space , it's just putting yourself in a place you don't have to climb Mount Everest to be on an adventure , right ? That's one of the things I wanted to explain to people on the sabbatical .
And come back because I'm making a lot of YouTube videos right now , the sabbatical . And come back because I'm making a lot of YouTube videos right now I'm going to post .
I have like 20 reels ready to go to start explaining my sabbatical with more pictures , videos , information , like education , because for the people who can't go to some of these places , you can have adventures in your backyard . You can go to a nearby town . You can check out somewhere like a city or just a forest near you .
To me , it means to just feel free . Get a couple of your best friends . Fine , it'll get a couple of your favorite beers , your favorite food . Take yourself somewhere where you've never been before . Doesn't have to be far , doesn't have to be expensive , just feel free .
Bring your favorite tunes along , as long as you can put yourself in that moment and you have like , because every now and then I'm sure you've had these moments where you can actually recognize you're living in a good memory . You're like this is going to be one of those things I look back on .
You can put yourself in there just going camping with your friends . That's one of the biggest reasons I came to Denver is a lot of my friends out here they're very are going outdoors . They like doing things , they like checking out new places , they like being outside . You can really go do that anyway .
Just feel free , feel happy and put yourself in that memory that you know you'll remember for the rest of your life .
And to kind of wrap this up , where can people find you if they want to look at your work or if they want to look at some of your YouTube videos ? Where's the best place to find you ?
I would say right now , instagram is where I share a lot more daily type things . It's PeterJr . There's already a PeterJr without an underscore , trust me . I reached out to that guy . He wouldn't respond , so I was trying to get that name . And then I'm doing a lot of videos . I'm trying to do weekly videos on YouTube Same , it's peterjr , underscore .
Right now I'm actually posting a video per country that I went . I'm doing like a recap . It's vlog style , with cinematics in it , with education , as well as some comedy wherever I can stick it in there . But I just want to make sure I show people the real experience . The Killing Manjaro video is one that I'm really looking forward to doing .
I'm doing it in chronological order . This next one is Morocco coming up , but if you really want to see what a sabbatical is like , if you want to see me sleeping on the airport floor , trying new foods , getting sick here and there , you can check out those videos , and I'm going to try to make them as real as possible , because I'm not an influencer .
I want to be a realist on how these travels go , so that's probably one of the best two places to find me .
Petey , this was fun for me . I enjoyed getting to hear your stories . Wow , amazing , amazing what you're doing and I know you got a lot to look forward to as you move forward . Thank you so much for coming on . Journey with Jake .
Yeah , thanks for having me . I was reliving all those memories just by talking about them .
Thank you , pd , for coming on the show sharing your experiences from your sabbatical . Be sure and give PD a follow on Instagram and YouTube at Peter Junior underscore . Again , that's at Peter Junior underscore . Thank you for joining me on another episode of Journey with Jake . This is a dream come true for me being able to host the show means the world to me .
Your support means the world to me , so thank you very much . Next week we're hitting the road with overlander Michelle DeVries . Another fun and insightful episode next week with Michelle . Be sure and check it out . Just remember , it's not always about the destination as it is about the journey . Take care everybody .