September 5, 2019 • 46 mins
Daniel Scheffler shares travel moments where the silence was all consuming - heli snowboarding in Canada, a ten day silent meditation retreat in South Africa, hot air ballooning in Cappadocia, Turkey, surviving a scorpion bite on the border of Namibia and Angola, and sitting in prayer on a floating temple in Cambodia. Turkish tour guide Anka Benli weighs in on the silence at Hagia Sofia in Istanbul, and Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Genevieve Morton shares her moments of stillness on the road. #travel
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Daniel Schaeffler. This is everywhere today's travel commandment,
thou shalt embrace the stillness. There are very few instances
during travels where I am fully immersed in silence, where
(00:21):
the stillness is louder than the noise. One of these
times is when I stupidly decided I was ready for
helly snowboarding in Canada, right up in more northern part
of Alberta, close to Revelstoke in Banff. After some very
serious safety training which included a bubble boy demonstration, I
(00:44):
was getting onto a helicopter taking off for the highest peaks.
This is the moment that my fellow snowboarders revealed that
they had competed in the Winter Olympics. Excuse me, your
professional snowboarders. The woman next to me then decided that
this was also the perfect time to tell me that
(01:06):
she's been training for this specific excursion for I don't
know three years. So I had to at this point say, well,
I snowboard once or twice a year. I also have
a broken knee. And then there was silence, a deep
silence where only the blades of the helicopter distracted us
(01:30):
from the upcoming feet. We touched down on this glacier
and we huddled together as a group and what seemed
to me the only way to get down. The helicopter
then left and boom, a group took off, everyone into
the zone, into their single minded focus. Okay, so picture this.
(01:54):
Now I'm standing with my snowboard thousands of feet up
on a mountain's edge, and my entire group has headed
down this insane hill. Silence, the loudest silence of my
entire life. I could only hear my own breathing, which
(02:14):
at this point had become a little louder as you
can imagine. Well, how was I supposed to do this? While?
I decided that I was going to try and remember
every childhood ski lesson, combine it with my sincere love
for snowboarding, and an absolute meditative concentration, and that's how
(02:37):
it's going to get back down to earth. Luckily, I
noticed that our trainer guide person was waiting just a
little way ahead of me. He seemed to trust that
I knew what I was doing more than me, And
trust me, if you've been in Canadian snow, it's mostly powder.
Once you're moving, you have to stay in motion. Or
(02:59):
the object in motion will sink into a tree well
or worse. So yes, it was me and the silence,
and I think a little bit of luck that brought
me down to the launch. Of course, there also times
where you can actively choose the silence, like the ten
(03:22):
days Silent retreat in the winelands of South Africa I
studiously attended. I drove a few hours from Cape Town
and pulled up at this farm with merely a few
structures assumed one I'd be sleeping in. They had massive
gardens where vegetables and herbs were being grown, and a
whole section of farm animals. I checked in and handed
(03:46):
over my phone and my kindle and an emergency contact
and every other piece of memorabilia from my life. They
suggest that you don't bring any distractions, no books, games,
not even a photo from home. Well I was all
in actually, Day one, like most new adventures, feels fresh
(04:09):
and exciting. Anyway, Oh, before I forget to tell you this,
As you check in, you also take a small vow
of absolute silence. For the next ten days, you will
not speak one word to anyone. Day one was aunt.
I smiled when someone handed me a plate of food.
(04:31):
I smiled when I watched everyone sit down for a
four hour meditation. I smiled when I watched everyone take
towels and go shower. I mean I was even smiling
when someone showed me a tiny single bed with a
small pillow where I was meant to sleep. When I
realized that there was only one meal a day, plus
(04:53):
a silly tea break, and the rest was for I
don't know, fourteen hours of meditation, I stopped smiling. But
onwards I marched they two. I was starving. Since you
don't dish your own food, I couldn't dish extra food
for myself or go back for my usual plate of seconds.
(05:14):
Lucky me, water was free and I could have as
much as I wanted. A kind act of benevolence suddenly
won't became my elexir. By day five, I was ready
to leave. And a lot of people give in at
this point. So you'd think it's the silence that disturbs
(05:35):
you and sends you off the edge, But no, After
a few days, you kind of forget to speak and
the silence becomes this beautiful, soothing bomb. By day six
and seven, my mind was playing tricks on me. Was
I in the matrix. Was I captured and voodoo mine
trick to be here? Have I joined a cult? Then
(05:59):
you get to the amazing thing. On day eight, full zen,
the silence becomes you. Sleep was never the steep food,
even one meal, never tasted this good. Even that water
started to taste like the finest first quench of my
(06:19):
whole life. Meditating for four hours straight no problem. My
knees and back were fully on board with my new
life and not giving me any pain. And I was
no longer fighting this silence. I was the silence. Of course,
I stupidly decided to have lunch with my parents on
(06:39):
the last day as I left the retreat, and after
ten days of silence, the world seemed so silly, so petty.
My parents were not amused and thought that I was
being far too banastic for their liking. And then there
are times where the silence just chooses you. Namibia with
(07:04):
its forever and ever silent dunes, and that's the exact appeal.
It's that extraordinary, ordinary thing. There's something primal and truly
unearthed about Namibia. Away from a usual glut of tourism,
the country holds the steep connection to the beginning of time.
(07:25):
Although now only a small percentage of the local tribes
still exists, Namibia is home to some of the original
hunter gather people. My and your first ancestors think about
that their presence and their untouched virtue somewhere propagate the
remote parts of the land right here. Even their fertile
(07:48):
lessons and simple life philosophy opposed to a constant drone
of bigger, better more, are kind of written in the
sand before you arrive of one of the many African tribes.
The sand had inhabited Southern Africa for at least thirty
thousand years and are one of the fourteen known surviving
(08:11):
ancestral population clusters from which modern humans descend. My knowledge
of these sand people and their unique click sound vernacular
actually comes from seeing this old BBC production from the
nineteen fifties by a South African author, Lawrence ban de Post,
who called these people the lost soul of all mankind.
(08:42):
To ponder what that looks like, it helps with some perspective.
So I hopped onto this tiny bush plane with a
female pilot and ticked off into the big African skies
with the wind creeping around us, looking down at a
wad of nothingness framed by cyan and dust. The understanding
(09:02):
of real luxury whispered to me space and time and freedom.
It's here in this pristine wilderness and eternal views and
the desert's magical cape enveloped me. The city dweller heading
out to northern territories of Namibia, where all you get
(09:23):
is just endless space. Tomorrowland, which is the inland area
close to the famed Skeleton Coast, romances with these early
morning mists coming off the numbing cold Atlantic Ocean and
then a hot desert air kisses all the way from
the canyons, creating this almost Mars like place. The area
(09:47):
is where I find my next moment of meditative calm.
The isolation in the world I know is at Bay.
Although not thick with wildlife, this tract is a perfect
example of how na each is laws of sustenance, ordained
tracks for the animals and humans are just visiting. Days
(10:08):
here feel like weeks, and you spend them tracking this
shy desert adapted elephant, or a magnificent aurex, or this
pointy lipped black rhino. Fast paced life is something I
now can look at from the outside inn the window
of its slightly smudged, and the jerk of quiet desert
(10:30):
life prevails. Even my attire changes t shirts become more slumped,
and the need for shoes simply dismantles. My longing for
anything digital is replaced by simple moments of observing an
ant or stretching out at a sunset. As you move
(10:56):
by a charter to the Hoa Nib Skeleton Coast Camp,
the privilege of access to the wilderness becomes so apparent.
It's located in this private concession between the Palm March
Area and the Skeleton National Park. This areas as remote
as you can possibly find. You fly over shipwrecks and
these stark coasts, and you think about the ancient navigators
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and conquerors that wanted to grasp their sort of idea
of Africa, and that soulfulness is likened to my own.
How can this continent, with all its toils, hold such
a grasp and such a love on me and so
many of its swains? The great beauty and then this
(11:42):
great silence. The coastal camp is accessible only by our
light aircraft and located in this wide basin at the
confluence of two tributaries with hills smiling from east to west.
The lunar like landscape is what over as the gravel
(12:02):
plains are covered with some low lying plants, rock formations,
flood plains and dry river beds, and that quiets any
monkey mind and brings this retreat state to Namibia. Nights
are long in the desert and they allow for proper
rest away from modern day side tracks and those bright lights.
(12:26):
Here it's just stars rocking me to sleep, and the
silence is what wakes you. The next stop on my
journey was on Gava, just a small flutter inland where
Namibia meets Angola. The famed Eatasha National Park encloses a
giant pan with silvery mirages toying with the savannah, grassland
(12:51):
and thorny shrubbery. The park, proclaimed game reserve in seven,
is known for its abundance of game, and it's even
visible from space. In the rainy season. Flamingos congregate in
the salt pan, and the park proudly counts three hundred
and forty bird species. I hang up the binoculars to
(13:12):
rather picnic on the grass to contemplate wildlife, sanctuaries and
the need for conservation in the world. Of course, This
is where my feet sink deep into the sand and
a scorpion decides to bite me. The strangest thing happens
in these life or death situations. The whole world goes silent,
(13:34):
time stands still. My whole body gave into this crazy,
excruciating pain. A local tribal guide came to speak to me,
as he probably saw me jumping up and down like
a full yelping in agony. He looked at my leg,
and he looked at me and he said, we have
about twenty minutes. Oh, twenty minutes before the pain stops. Right, No, No,
(13:59):
twenty minute before the poison kills you. Unfortunately, airlifting to
a hospital will take thirty minutes. I was trying to
just understanders to embrace the stillness, but it was becoming harder.
This man took my leg, sucked on it, plucked on it,
and did some kind of magic and somehow managed to
(14:22):
get the poison out. The pain not so much. He
had saved my life now that I didn't die from
a scorpion bite, which sounds rather bad. As I took
deeper breaths and went into a more contemplative headspace, I
think that's what happens when you are near death. Life
(14:44):
goes on as it always has, but Namibia's fingerprints are
all over me, reminding me of this existence. Of course,
there are also times where silence is so deafening and
so undeniable that it's some play consumes you, like the
Bolivian salt flats, where you can actually see that the
(15:05):
Earth is round. It is so flat the horizon actually curves.
I have this idea that we should suggest that the
Flat Earth Society hold their next conference there. I know
this year they are on a cruise ship of the Irony,
and then they're hot air balloons with their moments to
(15:26):
go into silence. I've been on a few of those,
but Kappadocia in the center of Turkey and the Serengetti
in Tanzania stand out. Hot air balloon ing f y
I is an early morning activity if the wind isn't
right or you're staying on land. In Cappadocia, wake up
time is four am. As you approach the field where
(15:50):
you'll be taking off, from your eyes seem to deceive you.
Hundreds of colorful balloons all waiting on the ground with
their little baskets filling up with people, and as the
sun comes up, the fire in the balloon gets all
jazzed up just enough that it gaintly lifts the basket
(16:12):
up into the sky. For the next two hours, the
only sound is the sound of the occasional fire spurting
upwards into the balloon to keep it in the air.
And you have this burn's eye view of cone shaped
rock foundations. You can also see Bronze Age homes carved
into valleys by cave dwellers, just a little dip into
(16:37):
the past. It's all kinds of magical peacefulness. Nobody speaks
because the silence feels so valuable you don't want to
waste it. In the Serengetti, you have this burn's eye
view of the animals, herds and herds of every animal
you can possibly imagine. What's so different about Safari in
(16:58):
the Serengetti versus Safari in the Kruger in South Africa
is that here you have these giant open spaces, planes
that are endless, so you can see animals in mass quantity.
You see them as they move from one area to
another to feast or to find water, whereas in South
Africa it's all bush and shrubbery, so you can get
(17:21):
much closer to them from a game vehicle, but you
never see them in quantity, or from the balloon a
few hundred feet up in the sky. You quietly watch
as these herds go about their business, young elephants playing,
the elder giraffes eating baby giraffes how to lean down
to drink water. Zembra is floating with each other. This
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is one of my favorite silent moments of my life,
animals in perfect nature harmony. The other was in Cambodia,
close to sim Reap, where there's this huge lake and
on the water are p people who actually live on
little boats, in fact, people who have never been on
land before. They're borne on the water and they die
(18:07):
on the water. So this is where I spent an afternoon,
just floating on this Buddhist prayer boat. I sat cross
legged on this floating temple and meditated as the sun
came down, with incense burning and flowers being offered up
to a statue of Buddha, surrounded by hundreds of little boats,
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all floating happily along, and the silence gave me this
brief moment, this tiny opening in my life to think
about how fortunate I am. Is this luck I don't
think so. Is it fate? Probably not. It just is
(18:49):
what it is. And what a perfect reminder that the
silence gave me. Let's take a breather and we'll be
(19:10):
right back with Everywhere afterward. From our sponsors trade tables up.
You're returning to Everywhere Land, Welcome back today. I'm with
my friend and tour guide, Unca Bentley, an Istanbul native.
(19:32):
I've never met anyone who knows more about all things Turkey.
Hello Anca, Hello Daniel. How are you fine? How are you?
I'm very good. I you know how much I travel.
And one of the best experiences of my entire life
is spending a day with you walking the streets of Istanbul.
(19:54):
And that experience I had with you at Haggis Sofia
is something that I think about and reference all the time.
It really was about thinking about embracing the stillness and
walking into the space and I want you to kind
of tell me exactly what it is and sort of
filming in on its history, but walking into that space
(20:15):
and just walking and being in the silence in this
beautiful place with so much history. And it's funny because
in that silence and just observing. I learned so much.
That is so beautiful. You put it so beautifully. It's
my favorite building. First of all, I think it's a
(20:35):
building with so many things combined in one. It is
actually one of the first churches, and it was built
three times on the same location with the same name.
And I really liked the name Sophia or Holy Wisdom
as beautiful. Sophia is the root for you know, we
know those words sophisticated philosophy. It's wisdom, and I really
(20:58):
do like that they appreciate that wisdom so much. It
was one of the biggest churches of its time, and
I even today, you know, you put the in the
same category with Saint Peter's Saint Paul Cadiral Milan. But
that was built in five thirty seven and five years.
Thousands of slaves have worked on it. It has a
(21:18):
huge dome's it's still the highest dom in Istanbul. It
inspired so many architects. Everybody tried to go higher than
the Dome of Haiger Sophia. I think it's so beautiful
with all of a different sides. So because it became
a Catholic church during the Latin invasion and fourteen hundreds
it became a Catholic church for sixty eight years and
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then you have those crosses made in that period whole
different than the Greek Orthodox Church it was, and then
it became a mosque. In four three it was converted
into a mosque. And since it's a museum, but when
you go into that building, you you're going to witness
all of these different periods. So if it's time and
it's it's beautiful, it's really an incredible experience to working there.
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In fact, I was yesterday there. It always makes me
happy getting in there. Well, the thing that stuck with
me so much was that everyone's been there, the idea
that all these religions and all these different cultures have
been in this one place, and that really the lesson
of that is that we're all the same, that there
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is actually more similarity than difference. That is true. What
really is interesting about that is that it was probably
built on top of a previous temple, a pagan temple,
and that tells a very big thing about people. You know,
they have to build their temple that they're going to
worship on top of a previous temple, like in many
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other places and people like sacrid locations. And that's what
really strikes me the most about Hiker Sophia. Has to
be the same location, has to be the same building.
When you look about it, I think it has an energy,
there's something special to it. When you walk in it,
it's so beautiful. You have all these different periods you
could witness, you know, mosaics from ninth century, ten century,
(23:08):
twelfth century. And at the same time you have big
calligraphies circles, the biggest caligraphic circles in the Islamic world
with the names of God, Mohammed and the Caliphs. On
the other side, you will see the mosaic of Virgin
Mary holding up Baby Christ Jesus and they're just next
to each other. And I really, I think I love
the combination of all of that together in a building.
(23:30):
That is the beauty. Also the decoration of the building.
You have all the different materials from many different sides.
But I really but really impresses me are those thin
slices on the walls, the marble slices that they put
together like a matchbook design. And you have devil faces
and you have different stories being created. You have angel
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wings being created out of the marble veins because you
put them like veneering, you know, you just cut them
in sin slice us and put them next to each other.
I always like to think about the time when people
had no media, no TV, nothing, But then you could
look at this marble slop which really looks like a
(24:13):
devil face, and the more you look at it, the
more scary it gets. Those images, they're so so alive
when you keep looking at them, right, uncle, Like, I
grew up in Europe, and to me, Turkey is Europe,
whereas Americans often see Turkey as the Middle East, this fictional.
(24:34):
Like when I was going to Turkey, remember I said
to you, My friend said, are you seeing any camels? Like?
And I was thinking, well, no, actually, like I'm at
the Soho house, I don't know about the camels. But
maybe talk a little bit about that misunderstanding of Turkey
and how travelers if they could just come into Turkey
without this preconceived notion of what it is. First of all,
(25:00):
I would say, Turks or Turkey isn't doing a very
good job at promoting itself. I always told you that
they're really like like today, I was at the spice
market and there is this candy store and it's there
on the same location until seventeen seventy seven. It is
actually one of the oldest candy stores and it's very modest.
(25:22):
They never even let you know about it. There's a
very tiny sign on the corner which says, you know,
we are with you since five dred something years and
and that would be really in a big city in Europe,
it would be in the books, it will be promoted properly.
Here they're really not good at explaining themselves in many ways,
or maybe they don't never learned how to. But this
(25:42):
is a crossroads of many things, like in Is tanbul
Is Tumbul is a city divided by the boss first
and two parts Europe and Asia. And people always say
that east east west, but it is actually not beating
south at the same time. It's it's such a crossroads.
It's been always a big part of the Silk Road,
of the trade routes. I always like to say Turkish Turks,
(26:06):
like the Turks living in Turkey are the most mixed nation.
We do have genes of all different kinds of nations.
Because this has been always um crossroads for many nations.
It's very diverse and many things, like even with the
city parts, every section makes you feel like in a
different city. Sometimes it's very diverse within the city. But
(26:28):
I would say in general Turkish people are very hospitable,
they're friendly and well. People have this idea of Turkey
and it's it's always seems too many people who haven't
been here, like a dangerous place. They have to come
and see more theirselves. It's really not like it's nothing
like what they imagined. This is the first thing that
people tell me because they have really a notion in
(26:51):
their head and it's really only changing once they're here.
So maybe it's my responsibility to to talk about it.
Maybe it's my responsible ability to tell people Istanbul is
part of Europe and the concept of the Middle East
does not exist. It was created by military ideals of
(27:13):
America to control an area. But there is no such
thing as the Middle East. There is Europe and there's Asia,
there's Asia. Turkey is Asia minor. We are not the
Middle East, that is for sure. Turkey doesn't belong in
the Middle East. I would say we are located on
Asia minor and on Europe, very tiny, tinsy part of
(27:34):
the country in Europe. But still though the West coast
in general is very European because when we consider Greece
as Europe, you could swim from many of the beaches
to the Greek islands. Literally you can swim, so it's
really quite west and located. It's really very difficult to
just cut these lines with a knife. One of the
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most amazing experiences of life is hot air ba learning
and Cappadocia, and I loved so much being in the
silence and hearing just the slight fire pushing up into
this balloon. It really was part of my whole Turkey experiences.
I felt again and again, We've all been here, every religion,
(28:21):
every culture. I looked down at this land and I
was like, wow, so much of travel is noise and chaos,
but here I have this moment of looking at this
ancient landscape without sound. No, you just put it so beautifully.
You're right. We are told to travel in a certain
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way and do things in a certain way, and it's
always kind of given to us. We don't look for
anything else. And what you just say is so beautiful
to just you know, take it in. It's a very
big I would say, ability, and not too many people
no of it. It's beautiful if you could do that.
And while we're at the hot air balloon subject in Cappadocia.
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Cappadocia is a wine country. Turkey has been some of
the few countries who started to make their wine. It
goes really quite back. We've been producing wine I think
forever in this part of the world, and we are
just not good at promoting stuff, as I told you,
And we are selling lots of our ready made wine
(29:29):
to certain European countries. We have seven different regions and
all these regions have their own kind of wine. Who've
been produced in this part of the world for for
a really long time. How long, oh, as long as
it goes. Wine in in Turkey goes back to before
biblical time exactly. It's it's been around and it's been
(29:49):
been produced, you know. So how are we going to
get people to come to Turkey? Like that's my mission?
Can you hear Anka, I'm just like ready to bring
people to Turkey. That is so kind of you, Daniel.
This it's so nice of you. It's one of my
favorite places in the planet and you're loved here. You
should know that. I would say Turkey is so diverse,
(30:13):
and it offers really beautiful beaches and all of that.
That's true, we have really surrounded by beautiful beaches. But basically,
I think the cultural diversity is really very impressive. You
have very different regions from another. You have this very
green Black Sea coast, you have the Aegean coast, you
have the Mediterranean, the central part Cappadocia, and there is
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so much natural beauty as well. We have so many
former volcanoes and they create many natural springs, and we
have those beautiful spring waters in many different regions, beautiful waterfalls.
You know, it's not only the historical sites, which there
is an abundance of. You have so many ancient Greek, Roman,
(30:58):
Hittite sites, But it's not only about that. You also
do have all the natural beauty. And it's really not
that far and he wants you think about it. Turkish
Arelines is doing great job flying from here to every verse,
so you could just you know, always make it a
stop location. Meanwhile, going somewhere, it's always useful to spend
(31:19):
a few days in Istanbul as well. The one last
thing I just remembered, which I can't believe I forgot
nearly forgot this. I was on a boat on the
Bosphorus with Anka and she said this beautiful thing to
me where she used this word hitch. And she said,
we is timber lights and we Turkish say, oh, that's hitch.
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It means everything is nothing and nothing is everything. And
my husband and I looked at each other and we
had this moment where we felt, this was the essence
of what we've learned in Turkey. We have to get
this tattooed on our um. And so later that day,
(32:03):
somehow we had met some guy at the Soho House
who owned a jewelry store who we were visiting, and
his very good friend was a tattoo artist, and he
called the tattoo artist to come to his store and
he tattooed us in the back of his jewelry store,
whilst Unca was putting on million dollar diamonds on Earth
(32:27):
and Michael and I were getting getting inked. I couldn't
believe that moment. Your tattoo is called hitch. It's mostly
written in Arabic, but I really liked that you did
use the Turkish version, which is the Latin alphabet a
little altered, and you have hitch written h I received that,
(32:49):
which is the sound. It means nothing, and it's a
very deep meaning. It has to do with the whirling dervishes.
It's it's very difficult to plain, like in inn in
a sentence or so what it means. Eventually you end
up with nothing or deeper than that. Everything you belong to, everything,
(33:12):
you're part of, this whole part of the universe. It's amazing. Well,
I can thank you for your time. I miss you
at Land. I'll have a beautiful day and I send
your kisses me too. Bye, Darling. This is a great
moment for us to travel to Advertising Land and we'll
(33:32):
be right back with Everywhere. The time has come for
more of Everywhere. Now where were we? My next interview
is with Genevieve Morton six Times Sports Illustrated swimsuit model
or as I would say, costume model who's done multiple
(33:53):
magazine covers and traveled all over the globe and always
with a pair of heels and that signature cat all
of a laugh. Genevieve and I've been friends for many
years and we've recently reconnected in Los Angeles. Hi Genevieve,
Hi Daniel, it's amazing to see you. Haven't aged a
day in a decade. Well, it's because I'm on the
(34:14):
plane all the time, and I think the compression of
somehow being in the skies doesn't age you. So I'm
basically preventing myself from it. Was the signature face masks
used to do. Remember the signature forget. I could never forget. Wow,
you need to take me down a trip of memory
lane of all the things we used to do. We
used to have a lot of fun. That is true.
(34:36):
I recently was on the phone with Genevieve and we
had this amazing discussion abound the things that we used
to love about each other and why we are still friends.
And the thing that I adore about you is that
you were always willing to evolve and grow and challenge yourself.
And you did this thing where you would just become still.
(35:00):
You would allow yourself to be still, and then you'd
go from that place. When I met you, your mother
had passed away and it was a difficult moment for you,
and you were just so ready to learn and feel
and evolve from that. And look at you now. Well
it's been a long time, and I'll tell you what
(35:21):
I learned from you. There's a couple of things. First
of all, I learned to read magazines that are more
interesting than just glassy fashion magazines, which is a big thing.
I have subscriptions to like legit magazines that you turned
me onto, which is great. Second, I learned how to
rest from you, which it may seem like a silly thing,
but you know, when you're someone who wanted to go,
go go, and you just keep going, you symptoms can
(35:43):
just forget to take a time out. And I remember
at the time when we were are hanging out some
days at call and I say, what are you doing?
And you're like, I'm taking a mental health day, and
like a what day? And you'd be like, I'm just
watching the show and I'm just relaxing and be like
I couldn't believe that this was a thing that people
were doing, and it was just so inspiring to me.
Of many things, but that's the thing that comes to
(36:05):
mind today. But ten of Vive, it's about embracing the stillness.
It was about those small moments where you just have
to be still. Travel taught me to do that. Like
you're on the road and you're experiencing all these beautiful things,
and the only way that you're able to assimilate this knowledge,
to take it from head knowledge and turn it into
heart knowledge is if you become still. The reason I
(36:29):
said that to you at the time, and I probably
say it to you again now. I don't know if
i'd call it a mental health day now I call
it a respite now or something a respite as Americans say,
But it's something to do with In that stillness, the
wisdom comes, and in that stillness you're able to process
things which you just can't do if you're letting the
(36:49):
monkey mind run wild. And travel is so stimulating, it's
so um there's so much happening, and there's so much
that you want to see and do. It put you
on this path of inquiry and curiosity. So it's hard
to find stillness. But in that stillness, I think there's
so much wisdom that's offered to you. So one of
(37:12):
the things with traveling for me is because I'm also
generally traveling for work, what I found that I've used
as a great technique and i'm traveling is once I
crossed the security line at the airport, I draw a
line in the sand and it becomes me time because
although these people around me. I'm generally traveling alone, and
I can be around humans but be completely alone. I
(37:32):
don't have to engage with people, and that's just time
where I can write, I can read, I can just
be by myself and I don't owe anyone anything. And
then the best of all getting on the plane, of course,
I wear the big headphones, the international signal for do
not talk to me, I'm not available for you right now,
and just knowing that I have like eight hours for me.
That's the most incredible part about traveling, I think. And
(37:54):
you're forced to be with yourself. You're not numbing out
on your phone or whatever else is available to you.
I think that's really important. So this leads me into
wanting to talk about you were a model when I
met you, and you've had this incredible career and you've
had so much fun, but you've evolved that into something
else now and you're helping people in a way. Then
(38:16):
maybe you didn't think you would be able to do
Ten years ago. When I met you, I was trying
to be a model. Let me rephrase. I was doing
some stuff and then I got a big break right
about the time that I met you, and I was
lucky enough to book Sports Illustrated America, which catapulted my
career into being in the top in my industry. And
of course I've done other magazines before and other jobs
(38:37):
and catalogs and things, but there's a big difference from being,
you know, just a regular catalog model, wearing clothes, taking pictures, whatever.
It's a whole other thing when you start building a
brand for yourself. I'm obviously older now, I'm thirty three,
and I know that there are a lot of models
that still model well into into their forties, fifties, sixties,
even may masks in the seventies. Amazing. But what happens
(39:00):
and we achieve our dreams and then what you have
to dream up a new dream and that's a really
hard thing to do. I mean, I can shoot, I
can take photos, and sure it's fun, but I don't
walk onto set and feel excited the way I used to.
And that set me on a journey of going war.
Who am I beyond just the two D image that
people have of me? So I had to ask myself
(39:22):
what do I have that other models don't have? And
for me, that was my voice. And what I love
about social media is that it's social and the point
is connection and if you use it for that purpose,
it can really bring a lot of people together. So
you've started helping people with grief. Yeah, Well, as you know,
I lost my mom when I was very young, and
(39:42):
I had to try and find some meaning around that,
and it's a really hard thing to do, especially you
know when you ask the universe like why why did
this happen to me? And maybe there isn't a reason,
maybe things just happened. But for me, over the years,
I found that had a lot of people with a
lot of pain and trauma come into my life and
was not afraid of those negative feelings. So people often
(40:02):
open up to me. And I thought to myself, what
an opportunity to do a course and a qualification where
I can actually help people through a set out program.
It's just very rewarding, it's amazing. It's not the only
thing I'm doing, of course, there's many things. So there's that,
and then I also talk vocally about being sober. That's
a really big thing for me. I think it's changed
(40:22):
my life and I'm very vocal about joining twelve step
programs and doing the work surrounding that because Oftentimes people
are saying they're diagnosed with this or that or the
next thing, but it's it's like, no, you you're just
an alcoholic. Maybe if you just pause with the numbing
and addictive behavior, do the work surrounding that and see
what's left, maybe you wouldn't have to be diagnosed with
(40:44):
all these things. You know, tell me um some stories
about modeling on the road. I remember when you did
Sponsor Illustrated. You told me the story about how the
water was so fucking cold and you had to like
pretend like it was warm and wonderful and you still
had to keep going right. So when you're shooting modeling,
(41:07):
you're shooting opposite seasons, so you for for summer clothes
you shoot in winter, and winter clothes you shoot in summer.
So in winter you're shooting summer things or bikinis, for example,
and the water is freezing, everything's freezing, the wind is blowing.
I mean, I've been on set where I'm wearing like
a bikini and they have to have heaters blowing on
us because we've turned blue and we have to try
and look warm. But just in terms of traveling, I mean,
(41:30):
the funniest story I had I think was when we
went to shoot in Fiji with Sports Illustrated and the
guy who owned the kind of island we were on
the island resort kept like evicting people out of their jobs,
I guess, and the chef got fired while we were there,
and they wouldn't give him a ride back to the mainland,
and he was sleeping in the hammocks on the beach
trying to like solicit a ride from this island to
(41:53):
the main and just like crazy things like that happening
all the time, just weird stuff, And I think that's
the beauty of traveling. Those you just see, like you
get a glimpse into all these stranger's lives and then
you carry on your merry way and keep living your life.
It's great. I like the idea of you sitting on
this flight for eight hours and just embracing the stillness
(42:14):
that comes to you like that, to me is really beautiful,
this idea of just being in that silence. I mean,
of course I'd like people to listen to my podcast
when they're traveling, but sometimes there's this an amazing thing
where I'd be on a flight and I would watch
no movie, I would read no book, I wouldn't speak
to anyone, and I would have headphones on as if
(42:35):
I'm listening to music, but they would just be noise canceling.
And that's when I'm processing. And then at some point
during the time, you're watching your mind go and it
stops and you just get this like moment of silence,
and that's where I think the work starts. Well, I
(42:56):
think you have a kind of relief because there's no
expectation on you. No one can like somehow reach out
to you via your phone. I mean, we don't take
downtime in our lives right now, like you're we're available,
and people don't have the boundary like and that time
on a plane, it's like an extended meditation. And if
(43:18):
you know, if you're meditated, you're not really trying to
get something first, you're just observing the crazy thoughts bouncing
back and forth in your mind, and like you said,
you get to that place of silence. I think what
I've found on planes is that I'm able to connect
with myself. See see what I'm saying, Someone's just trying
to get you. Ye can't you can't get a break?
(43:41):
Give me some lesson that travel gave you. But when
we were chatting the other day on the phone, we
were going over a couple of things because obviously we
haven't spoken in a really long time. And I think
the sentiment that we reached together ultimately was no matter
where you go, there you are. And I know for me,
I was running away from myself. I want I left
(44:04):
the little tiny town of Scottborough to get away and
show them that they shouldn't have bullied me, because if
they hadn't bullied me, they're going to regret it now
because I am all that and a bag of chips.
And let me tell you, when I went back to Scotborough,
nobody cares. Okay, no one cares about there's infants you
hold from high school and how you're spending your whole
(44:24):
life running away trying to like show them. And it
took me a full decade to get to that experience,
and just how many lives I feel like I tried
to live to get away and get to the point
where it's like you have to be okay with yourself.
And that's what I've learned to travel. What I didn't
say is how we met. We met in Cape Town
(44:45):
at Origin Coffee where I've met so many of my
closest friends. And it's funny that this coffee shop, this
little coffee shops serving incredible coffee in the tip of Africa,
in Cape Town, brought so many people together for me.
And I remember when we met and you were like
the girl about town and was I didn't feel like
(45:08):
the girl about town. I felt the loser about town.
You would never the loser about town. And I remember
us being like, we were this gaggle of friends, and
you were always so bubbly and ridiculous, and you used
to do like this funny impression like pinky in the brain.
I can't remember what it was used to do stuff.
I mean, I guess I do to my dream to
(45:28):
voice a cartoon or animation. But you know what I'm
thinking of doing. I'm thinking of making a little mini
Catrie already show and voicing the two cats in my apartment.
But maybe that's a little bit over the top. No,
I think that's great. It'd be hilarious. I can come
on and be like the tramveling cat returning home, the
baritone voiced lady cat. We're going to figure this one out.
(45:51):
I used to say, my name so funny to be
like Genevieve, you'd be like and then you hold your
hands up like, well, Genevieve. It is such a pleasure
to have you, and I'm so glad that I can
reconnect and we can do something meaningful together. Yeah, thank
(46:11):
you so much for having me on your show and
also reconnecting with me. It's a pleasure to reconnect with
you in l A. And I'm looking forward to listening
to your podcast and hearing more about all of your
journeys because I've really missed out. O good, we'll do
some journeys together. Okay, so I have a plan to
catch but if you'd still like to reach us, go
(46:33):
to Everywhere Podcast on Instagram, Everywhere part on Twitter, or
the website at everywhere podcast dot com. Thanks for hanging out.
I'm Daniel Scheffler and I'll see you everywhere
Hi, I'm Daniel Schaeffler. This is everywhere today's travel commandment,
thou shalt embrace the stillness. There are very few instances
during travels where I am fully immersed in silence, where
(00:21):
the stillness is louder than the noise. One of these
times is when I stupidly decided I was ready for
helly snowboarding in Canada, right up in more northern part
of Alberta, close to Revelstoke in Banff. After some very
serious safety training which included a bubble boy demonstration, I
(00:44):
was getting onto a helicopter taking off for the highest peaks.
This is the moment that my fellow snowboarders revealed that
they had competed in the Winter Olympics. Excuse me, your
professional snowboarders. The woman next to me then decided that
this was also the perfect time to tell me that
(01:06):
she's been training for this specific excursion for I don't
know three years. So I had to at this point say, well,
I snowboard once or twice a year. I also have
a broken knee. And then there was silence, a deep
silence where only the blades of the helicopter distracted us
(01:30):
from the upcoming feet. We touched down on this glacier
and we huddled together as a group and what seemed
to me the only way to get down. The helicopter
then left and boom, a group took off, everyone into
the zone, into their single minded focus. Okay, so picture this.
(01:54):
Now I'm standing with my snowboard thousands of feet up
on a mountain's edge, and my entire group has headed
down this insane hill. Silence, the loudest silence of my
entire life. I could only hear my own breathing, which
(02:14):
at this point had become a little louder as you
can imagine. Well, how was I supposed to do this? While?
I decided that I was going to try and remember
every childhood ski lesson, combine it with my sincere love
for snowboarding, and an absolute meditative concentration, and that's how
(02:37):
it's going to get back down to earth. Luckily, I
noticed that our trainer guide person was waiting just a
little way ahead of me. He seemed to trust that
I knew what I was doing more than me, And
trust me, if you've been in Canadian snow, it's mostly powder.
Once you're moving, you have to stay in motion. Or
(02:59):
the object in motion will sink into a tree well
or worse. So yes, it was me and the silence,
and I think a little bit of luck that brought
me down to the launch. Of course, there also times
where you can actively choose the silence, like the ten
(03:22):
days Silent retreat in the winelands of South Africa I
studiously attended. I drove a few hours from Cape Town
and pulled up at this farm with merely a few
structures assumed one I'd be sleeping in. They had massive
gardens where vegetables and herbs were being grown, and a
whole section of farm animals. I checked in and handed
(03:46):
over my phone and my kindle and an emergency contact
and every other piece of memorabilia from my life. They
suggest that you don't bring any distractions, no books, games,
not even a photo from home. Well I was all
in actually, Day one, like most new adventures, feels fresh
(04:09):
and exciting. Anyway, Oh, before I forget to tell you this,
As you check in, you also take a small vow
of absolute silence. For the next ten days, you will
not speak one word to anyone. Day one was aunt.
I smiled when someone handed me a plate of food.
(04:31):
I smiled when I watched everyone sit down for a
four hour meditation. I smiled when I watched everyone take
towels and go shower. I mean I was even smiling
when someone showed me a tiny single bed with a
small pillow where I was meant to sleep. When I
realized that there was only one meal a day, plus
(04:53):
a silly tea break, and the rest was for I
don't know, fourteen hours of meditation, I stopped smiling. But
onwards I marched they two. I was starving. Since you
don't dish your own food, I couldn't dish extra food
for myself or go back for my usual plate of seconds.
(05:14):
Lucky me, water was free and I could have as
much as I wanted. A kind act of benevolence suddenly
won't became my elexir. By day five, I was ready
to leave. And a lot of people give in at
this point. So you'd think it's the silence that disturbs
(05:35):
you and sends you off the edge, But no, After
a few days, you kind of forget to speak and
the silence becomes this beautiful, soothing bomb. By day six
and seven, my mind was playing tricks on me. Was
I in the matrix. Was I captured and voodoo mine
trick to be here? Have I joined a cult? Then
(05:59):
you get to the amazing thing. On day eight, full zen,
the silence becomes you. Sleep was never the steep food,
even one meal, never tasted this good. Even that water
started to taste like the finest first quench of my
(06:19):
whole life. Meditating for four hours straight no problem. My
knees and back were fully on board with my new
life and not giving me any pain. And I was
no longer fighting this silence. I was the silence. Of course,
I stupidly decided to have lunch with my parents on
(06:39):
the last day as I left the retreat, and after
ten days of silence, the world seemed so silly, so petty.
My parents were not amused and thought that I was
being far too banastic for their liking. And then there
are times where the silence just chooses you. Namibia with
(07:04):
its forever and ever silent dunes, and that's the exact appeal.
It's that extraordinary, ordinary thing. There's something primal and truly
unearthed about Namibia. Away from a usual glut of tourism,
the country holds the steep connection to the beginning of time.
(07:25):
Although now only a small percentage of the local tribes
still exists, Namibia is home to some of the original
hunter gather people. My and your first ancestors think about
that their presence and their untouched virtue somewhere propagate the
remote parts of the land right here. Even their fertile
(07:48):
lessons and simple life philosophy opposed to a constant drone
of bigger, better more, are kind of written in the
sand before you arrive of one of the many African tribes.
The sand had inhabited Southern Africa for at least thirty
thousand years and are one of the fourteen known surviving
(08:11):
ancestral population clusters from which modern humans descend. My knowledge
of these sand people and their unique click sound vernacular
actually comes from seeing this old BBC production from the
nineteen fifties by a South African author, Lawrence ban de Post,
who called these people the lost soul of all mankind.
(08:42):
To ponder what that looks like, it helps with some perspective.
So I hopped onto this tiny bush plane with a
female pilot and ticked off into the big African skies
with the wind creeping around us, looking down at a
wad of nothingness framed by cyan and dust. The understanding
(09:02):
of real luxury whispered to me space and time and freedom.
It's here in this pristine wilderness and eternal views and
the desert's magical cape enveloped me. The city dweller heading
out to northern territories of Namibia, where all you get
(09:23):
is just endless space. Tomorrowland, which is the inland area
close to the famed Skeleton Coast, romances with these early
morning mists coming off the numbing cold Atlantic Ocean and
then a hot desert air kisses all the way from
the canyons, creating this almost Mars like place. The area
(09:47):
is where I find my next moment of meditative calm.
The isolation in the world I know is at Bay.
Although not thick with wildlife, this tract is a perfect
example of how na each is laws of sustenance, ordained
tracks for the animals and humans are just visiting. Days
(10:08):
here feel like weeks, and you spend them tracking this
shy desert adapted elephant, or a magnificent aurex, or this
pointy lipped black rhino. Fast paced life is something I
now can look at from the outside inn the window
of its slightly smudged, and the jerk of quiet desert
(10:30):
life prevails. Even my attire changes t shirts become more slumped,
and the need for shoes simply dismantles. My longing for
anything digital is replaced by simple moments of observing an
ant or stretching out at a sunset. As you move
(10:56):
by a charter to the Hoa Nib Skeleton Coast Camp,
the privilege of access to the wilderness becomes so apparent.
It's located in this private concession between the Palm March
Area and the Skeleton National Park. This areas as remote
as you can possibly find. You fly over shipwrecks and
these stark coasts, and you think about the ancient navigators
(11:20):
and conquerors that wanted to grasp their sort of idea
of Africa, and that soulfulness is likened to my own.
How can this continent, with all its toils, hold such
a grasp and such a love on me and so
many of its swains? The great beauty and then this
(11:42):
great silence. The coastal camp is accessible only by our
light aircraft and located in this wide basin at the
confluence of two tributaries with hills smiling from east to west.
The lunar like landscape is what over as the gravel
(12:02):
plains are covered with some low lying plants, rock formations,
flood plains and dry river beds, and that quiets any
monkey mind and brings this retreat state to Namibia. Nights
are long in the desert and they allow for proper
rest away from modern day side tracks and those bright lights.
(12:26):
Here it's just stars rocking me to sleep, and the
silence is what wakes you. The next stop on my
journey was on Gava, just a small flutter inland where
Namibia meets Angola. The famed Eatasha National Park encloses a
giant pan with silvery mirages toying with the savannah, grassland
(12:51):
and thorny shrubbery. The park, proclaimed game reserve in seven,
is known for its abundance of game, and it's even
visible from space. In the rainy season. Flamingos congregate in
the salt pan, and the park proudly counts three hundred
and forty bird species. I hang up the binoculars to
(13:12):
rather picnic on the grass to contemplate wildlife, sanctuaries and
the need for conservation in the world. Of course, This
is where my feet sink deep into the sand and
a scorpion decides to bite me. The strangest thing happens
in these life or death situations. The whole world goes silent,
(13:34):
time stands still. My whole body gave into this crazy,
excruciating pain. A local tribal guide came to speak to me,
as he probably saw me jumping up and down like
a full yelping in agony. He looked at my leg,
and he looked at me and he said, we have
about twenty minutes. Oh, twenty minutes before the pain stops. Right, No, No,
(13:59):
twenty minute before the poison kills you. Unfortunately, airlifting to
a hospital will take thirty minutes. I was trying to
just understanders to embrace the stillness, but it was becoming harder.
This man took my leg, sucked on it, plucked on it,
and did some kind of magic and somehow managed to
(14:22):
get the poison out. The pain not so much. He
had saved my life now that I didn't die from
a scorpion bite, which sounds rather bad. As I took
deeper breaths and went into a more contemplative headspace, I
think that's what happens when you are near death. Life
(14:44):
goes on as it always has, but Namibia's fingerprints are
all over me, reminding me of this existence. Of course,
there are also times where silence is so deafening and
so undeniable that it's some play consumes you, like the
Bolivian salt flats, where you can actually see that the
(15:05):
Earth is round. It is so flat the horizon actually curves.
I have this idea that we should suggest that the
Flat Earth Society hold their next conference there. I know
this year they are on a cruise ship of the Irony,
and then they're hot air balloons with their moments to
(15:26):
go into silence. I've been on a few of those,
but Kappadocia in the center of Turkey and the Serengetti
in Tanzania stand out. Hot air balloon ing f y
I is an early morning activity if the wind isn't
right or you're staying on land. In Cappadocia, wake up
time is four am. As you approach the field where
(15:50):
you'll be taking off, from your eyes seem to deceive you.
Hundreds of colorful balloons all waiting on the ground with
their little baskets filling up with people, and as the
sun comes up, the fire in the balloon gets all
jazzed up just enough that it gaintly lifts the basket
(16:12):
up into the sky. For the next two hours, the
only sound is the sound of the occasional fire spurting
upwards into the balloon to keep it in the air.
And you have this burn's eye view of cone shaped
rock foundations. You can also see Bronze Age homes carved
into valleys by cave dwellers, just a little dip into
(16:37):
the past. It's all kinds of magical peacefulness. Nobody speaks
because the silence feels so valuable you don't want to
waste it. In the Serengetti, you have this burn's eye
view of the animals, herds and herds of every animal
you can possibly imagine. What's so different about Safari in
(16:58):
the Serengetti versus Safari in the Kruger in South Africa
is that here you have these giant open spaces, planes
that are endless, so you can see animals in mass quantity.
You see them as they move from one area to
another to feast or to find water, whereas in South
Africa it's all bush and shrubbery, so you can get
(17:21):
much closer to them from a game vehicle, but you
never see them in quantity, or from the balloon a
few hundred feet up in the sky. You quietly watch
as these herds go about their business, young elephants playing,
the elder giraffes eating baby giraffes how to lean down
to drink water. Zembra is floating with each other. This
(17:44):
is one of my favorite silent moments of my life,
animals in perfect nature harmony. The other was in Cambodia,
close to sim Reap, where there's this huge lake and
on the water are p people who actually live on
little boats, in fact, people who have never been on
land before. They're borne on the water and they die
(18:07):
on the water. So this is where I spent an afternoon,
just floating on this Buddhist prayer boat. I sat cross
legged on this floating temple and meditated as the sun
came down, with incense burning and flowers being offered up
to a statue of Buddha, surrounded by hundreds of little boats,
(18:28):
all floating happily along, and the silence gave me this
brief moment, this tiny opening in my life to think
about how fortunate I am. Is this luck I don't
think so. Is it fate? Probably not. It just is
(18:49):
what it is. And what a perfect reminder that the
silence gave me. Let's take a breather and we'll be
(19:10):
right back with Everywhere afterward. From our sponsors trade tables up.
You're returning to Everywhere Land, Welcome back today. I'm with
my friend and tour guide, Unca Bentley, an Istanbul native.
(19:32):
I've never met anyone who knows more about all things Turkey.
Hello Anca, Hello Daniel. How are you fine? How are you?
I'm very good. I you know how much I travel.
And one of the best experiences of my entire life
is spending a day with you walking the streets of Istanbul.
(19:54):
And that experience I had with you at Haggis Sofia
is something that I think about and reference all the time.
It really was about thinking about embracing the stillness and
walking into the space and I want you to kind
of tell me exactly what it is and sort of
filming in on its history, but walking into that space
(20:15):
and just walking and being in the silence in this
beautiful place with so much history. And it's funny because
in that silence and just observing. I learned so much.
That is so beautiful. You put it so beautifully. It's
my favorite building. First of all, I think it's a
(20:35):
building with so many things combined in one. It is
actually one of the first churches, and it was built
three times on the same location with the same name.
And I really liked the name Sophia or Holy Wisdom
as beautiful. Sophia is the root for you know, we
know those words sophisticated philosophy. It's wisdom, and I really
(20:58):
do like that they appreciate that wisdom so much. It
was one of the biggest churches of its time, and
I even today, you know, you put the in the
same category with Saint Peter's Saint Paul Cadiral Milan. But
that was built in five thirty seven and five years.
Thousands of slaves have worked on it. It has a
(21:18):
huge dome's it's still the highest dom in Istanbul. It
inspired so many architects. Everybody tried to go higher than
the Dome of Haiger Sophia. I think it's so beautiful
with all of a different sides. So because it became
a Catholic church during the Latin invasion and fourteen hundreds
it became a Catholic church for sixty eight years and
(21:41):
then you have those crosses made in that period whole
different than the Greek Orthodox Church it was, and then
it became a mosque. In four three it was converted
into a mosque. And since it's a museum, but when
you go into that building, you you're going to witness
all of these different periods. So if it's time and
it's it's beautiful, it's really an incredible experience to working there.
(22:04):
In fact, I was yesterday there. It always makes me
happy getting in there. Well, the thing that stuck with
me so much was that everyone's been there, the idea
that all these religions and all these different cultures have
been in this one place, and that really the lesson
of that is that we're all the same, that there
(22:25):
is actually more similarity than difference. That is true. What
really is interesting about that is that it was probably
built on top of a previous temple, a pagan temple,
and that tells a very big thing about people. You know,
they have to build their temple that they're going to
worship on top of a previous temple, like in many
(22:46):
other places and people like sacrid locations. And that's what
really strikes me the most about Hiker Sophia. Has to
be the same location, has to be the same building.
When you look about it, I think it has an energy,
there's something special to it. When you walk in it,
it's so beautiful. You have all these different periods you
could witness, you know, mosaics from ninth century, ten century,
(23:08):
twelfth century. And at the same time you have big
calligraphies circles, the biggest caligraphic circles in the Islamic world
with the names of God, Mohammed and the Caliphs. On
the other side, you will see the mosaic of Virgin
Mary holding up Baby Christ Jesus and they're just next
to each other. And I really, I think I love
the combination of all of that together in a building.
(23:30):
That is the beauty. Also the decoration of the building.
You have all the different materials from many different sides.
But I really but really impresses me are those thin
slices on the walls, the marble slices that they put
together like a matchbook design. And you have devil faces
and you have different stories being created. You have angel
(23:51):
wings being created out of the marble veins because you
put them like veneering, you know, you just cut them
in sin slice us and put them next to each other.
I always like to think about the time when people
had no media, no TV, nothing, But then you could
look at this marble slop which really looks like a
(24:13):
devil face, and the more you look at it, the
more scary it gets. Those images, they're so so alive
when you keep looking at them, right, uncle, Like, I
grew up in Europe, and to me, Turkey is Europe,
whereas Americans often see Turkey as the Middle East, this fictional.
(24:34):
Like when I was going to Turkey, remember I said
to you, My friend said, are you seeing any camels? Like?
And I was thinking, well, no, actually, like I'm at
the Soho house, I don't know about the camels. But
maybe talk a little bit about that misunderstanding of Turkey
and how travelers if they could just come into Turkey
without this preconceived notion of what it is. First of all,
(25:00):
I would say, Turks or Turkey isn't doing a very
good job at promoting itself. I always told you that
they're really like like today, I was at the spice
market and there is this candy store and it's there
on the same location until seventeen seventy seven. It is
actually one of the oldest candy stores and it's very modest.
(25:22):
They never even let you know about it. There's a
very tiny sign on the corner which says, you know,
we are with you since five dred something years and
and that would be really in a big city in Europe,
it would be in the books, it will be promoted properly.
Here they're really not good at explaining themselves in many ways,
or maybe they don't never learned how to. But this
(25:42):
is a crossroads of many things, like in Is tanbul
Is Tumbul is a city divided by the boss first
and two parts Europe and Asia. And people always say
that east east west, but it is actually not beating
south at the same time. It's it's such a crossroads.
It's been always a big part of the Silk Road,
of the trade routes. I always like to say Turkish Turks,
(26:06):
like the Turks living in Turkey are the most mixed nation.
We do have genes of all different kinds of nations.
Because this has been always um crossroads for many nations.
It's very diverse and many things, like even with the
city parts, every section makes you feel like in a
different city. Sometimes it's very diverse within the city. But
(26:28):
I would say in general Turkish people are very hospitable,
they're friendly and well. People have this idea of Turkey
and it's it's always seems too many people who haven't
been here, like a dangerous place. They have to come
and see more theirselves. It's really not like it's nothing
like what they imagined. This is the first thing that
people tell me because they have really a notion in
(26:51):
their head and it's really only changing once they're here.
So maybe it's my responsibility to to talk about it.
Maybe it's my responsible ability to tell people Istanbul is
part of Europe and the concept of the Middle East
does not exist. It was created by military ideals of
(27:13):
America to control an area. But there is no such
thing as the Middle East. There is Europe and there's Asia,
there's Asia. Turkey is Asia minor. We are not the
Middle East, that is for sure. Turkey doesn't belong in
the Middle East. I would say we are located on
Asia minor and on Europe, very tiny, tinsy part of
(27:34):
the country in Europe. But still though the West coast
in general is very European because when we consider Greece
as Europe, you could swim from many of the beaches
to the Greek islands. Literally you can swim, so it's
really quite west and located. It's really very difficult to
just cut these lines with a knife. One of the
(27:58):
most amazing experiences of life is hot air ba learning
and Cappadocia, and I loved so much being in the
silence and hearing just the slight fire pushing up into
this balloon. It really was part of my whole Turkey experiences.
I felt again and again, We've all been here, every religion,
(28:21):
every culture. I looked down at this land and I
was like, wow, so much of travel is noise and chaos,
but here I have this moment of looking at this
ancient landscape without sound. No, you just put it so beautifully.
You're right. We are told to travel in a certain
(28:44):
way and do things in a certain way, and it's
always kind of given to us. We don't look for
anything else. And what you just say is so beautiful
to just you know, take it in. It's a very
big I would say, ability, and not too many people
no of it. It's beautiful if you could do that.
And while we're at the hot air balloon subject in Cappadocia.
(29:08):
Cappadocia is a wine country. Turkey has been some of
the few countries who started to make their wine. It
goes really quite back. We've been producing wine I think
forever in this part of the world, and we are
just not good at promoting stuff, as I told you,
And we are selling lots of our ready made wine
(29:29):
to certain European countries. We have seven different regions and
all these regions have their own kind of wine. Who've
been produced in this part of the world for for
a really long time. How long, oh, as long as
it goes. Wine in in Turkey goes back to before
biblical time exactly. It's it's been around and it's been
(29:49):
been produced, you know. So how are we going to
get people to come to Turkey? Like that's my mission?
Can you hear Anka, I'm just like ready to bring
people to Turkey. That is so kind of you, Daniel.
This it's so nice of you. It's one of my
favorite places in the planet and you're loved here. You
should know that. I would say Turkey is so diverse,
(30:13):
and it offers really beautiful beaches and all of that.
That's true, we have really surrounded by beautiful beaches. But basically,
I think the cultural diversity is really very impressive. You
have very different regions from another. You have this very
green Black Sea coast, you have the Aegean coast, you
have the Mediterranean, the central part Cappadocia, and there is
(30:37):
so much natural beauty as well. We have so many
former volcanoes and they create many natural springs, and we
have those beautiful spring waters in many different regions, beautiful waterfalls.
You know, it's not only the historical sites, which there
is an abundance of. You have so many ancient Greek, Roman,
(30:58):
Hittite sites, But it's not only about that. You also
do have all the natural beauty. And it's really not
that far and he wants you think about it. Turkish
Arelines is doing great job flying from here to every verse,
so you could just you know, always make it a
stop location. Meanwhile, going somewhere, it's always useful to spend
(31:19):
a few days in Istanbul as well. The one last
thing I just remembered, which I can't believe I forgot
nearly forgot this. I was on a boat on the
Bosphorus with Anka and she said this beautiful thing to
me where she used this word hitch. And she said,
we is timber lights and we Turkish say, oh, that's hitch.
(31:42):
It means everything is nothing and nothing is everything. And
my husband and I looked at each other and we
had this moment where we felt, this was the essence
of what we've learned in Turkey. We have to get
this tattooed on our um. And so later that day,
(32:03):
somehow we had met some guy at the Soho House
who owned a jewelry store who we were visiting, and
his very good friend was a tattoo artist, and he
called the tattoo artist to come to his store and
he tattooed us in the back of his jewelry store,
whilst Unca was putting on million dollar diamonds on Earth
(32:27):
and Michael and I were getting getting inked. I couldn't
believe that moment. Your tattoo is called hitch. It's mostly
written in Arabic, but I really liked that you did
use the Turkish version, which is the Latin alphabet a
little altered, and you have hitch written h I received that,
(32:49):
which is the sound. It means nothing, and it's a
very deep meaning. It has to do with the whirling dervishes.
It's it's very difficult to plain, like in inn in
a sentence or so what it means. Eventually you end
up with nothing or deeper than that. Everything you belong to, everything,
(33:12):
you're part of, this whole part of the universe. It's amazing. Well,
I can thank you for your time. I miss you
at Land. I'll have a beautiful day and I send
your kisses me too. Bye, Darling. This is a great
moment for us to travel to Advertising Land and we'll
(33:32):
be right back with Everywhere. The time has come for
more of Everywhere. Now where were we? My next interview
is with Genevieve Morton six Times Sports Illustrated swimsuit model
or as I would say, costume model who's done multiple
(33:53):
magazine covers and traveled all over the globe and always
with a pair of heels and that signature cat all
of a laugh. Genevieve and I've been friends for many
years and we've recently reconnected in Los Angeles. Hi Genevieve,
Hi Daniel, it's amazing to see you. Haven't aged a
day in a decade. Well, it's because I'm on the
(34:14):
plane all the time, and I think the compression of
somehow being in the skies doesn't age you. So I'm
basically preventing myself from it. Was the signature face masks
used to do. Remember the signature forget. I could never forget. Wow,
you need to take me down a trip of memory
lane of all the things we used to do. We
used to have a lot of fun. That is true.
(34:36):
I recently was on the phone with Genevieve and we
had this amazing discussion abound the things that we used
to love about each other and why we are still friends.
And the thing that I adore about you is that
you were always willing to evolve and grow and challenge yourself.
And you did this thing where you would just become still.
(35:00):
You would allow yourself to be still, and then you'd
go from that place. When I met you, your mother
had passed away and it was a difficult moment for you,
and you were just so ready to learn and feel
and evolve from that. And look at you now. Well
it's been a long time, and I'll tell you what
(35:21):
I learned from you. There's a couple of things. First
of all, I learned to read magazines that are more
interesting than just glassy fashion magazines, which is a big thing.
I have subscriptions to like legit magazines that you turned
me onto, which is great. Second, I learned how to
rest from you, which it may seem like a silly thing,
but you know, when you're someone who wanted to go,
go go, and you just keep going, you symptoms can
(35:43):
just forget to take a time out. And I remember
at the time when we were are hanging out some
days at call and I say, what are you doing?
And you're like, I'm taking a mental health day, and
like a what day? And you'd be like, I'm just
watching the show and I'm just relaxing and be like
I couldn't believe that this was a thing that people
were doing, and it was just so inspiring to me.
Of many things, but that's the thing that comes to
(36:05):
mind today. But ten of Vive, it's about embracing the stillness.
It was about those small moments where you just have
to be still. Travel taught me to do that. Like
you're on the road and you're experiencing all these beautiful things,
and the only way that you're able to assimilate this knowledge,
to take it from head knowledge and turn it into
heart knowledge is if you become still. The reason I
(36:29):
said that to you at the time, and I probably
say it to you again now. I don't know if
i'd call it a mental health day now I call
it a respite now or something a respite as Americans say,
But it's something to do with In that stillness, the
wisdom comes, and in that stillness you're able to process
things which you just can't do if you're letting the
(36:49):
monkey mind run wild. And travel is so stimulating, it's
so um there's so much happening, and there's so much
that you want to see and do. It put you
on this path of inquiry and curiosity. So it's hard
to find stillness. But in that stillness, I think there's
so much wisdom that's offered to you. So one of
(37:12):
the things with traveling for me is because I'm also
generally traveling for work, what I found that I've used
as a great technique and i'm traveling is once I
crossed the security line at the airport, I draw a
line in the sand and it becomes me time because
although these people around me. I'm generally traveling alone, and
I can be around humans but be completely alone. I
(37:32):
don't have to engage with people, and that's just time
where I can write, I can read, I can just
be by myself and I don't owe anyone anything. And
then the best of all getting on the plane, of course,
I wear the big headphones, the international signal for do
not talk to me, I'm not available for you right now,
and just knowing that I have like eight hours for me.
That's the most incredible part about traveling, I think. And
(37:54):
you're forced to be with yourself. You're not numbing out
on your phone or whatever else is available to you.
I think that's really important. So this leads me into
wanting to talk about you were a model when I
met you, and you've had this incredible career and you've
had so much fun, but you've evolved that into something
else now and you're helping people in a way. Then
(38:16):
maybe you didn't think you would be able to do
Ten years ago. When I met you, I was trying
to be a model. Let me rephrase. I was doing
some stuff and then I got a big break right
about the time that I met you, and I was
lucky enough to book Sports Illustrated America, which catapulted my
career into being in the top in my industry. And
of course I've done other magazines before and other jobs
(38:37):
and catalogs and things, but there's a big difference from being,
you know, just a regular catalog model, wearing clothes, taking pictures, whatever.
It's a whole other thing when you start building a
brand for yourself. I'm obviously older now, I'm thirty three,
and I know that there are a lot of models
that still model well into into their forties, fifties, sixties,
even may masks in the seventies. Amazing. But what happens
(39:00):
and we achieve our dreams and then what you have
to dream up a new dream and that's a really
hard thing to do. I mean, I can shoot, I
can take photos, and sure it's fun, but I don't
walk onto set and feel excited the way I used to.
And that set me on a journey of going war.
Who am I beyond just the two D image that
people have of me? So I had to ask myself
(39:22):
what do I have that other models don't have? And
for me, that was my voice. And what I love
about social media is that it's social and the point
is connection and if you use it for that purpose,
it can really bring a lot of people together. So
you've started helping people with grief. Yeah, Well, as you know,
I lost my mom when I was very young, and
(39:42):
I had to try and find some meaning around that,
and it's a really hard thing to do, especially you
know when you ask the universe like why why did
this happen to me? And maybe there isn't a reason,
maybe things just happened. But for me, over the years,
I found that had a lot of people with a
lot of pain and trauma come into my life and
was not afraid of those negative feelings. So people often
(40:02):
open up to me. And I thought to myself, what
an opportunity to do a course and a qualification where
I can actually help people through a set out program.
It's just very rewarding, it's amazing. It's not the only
thing I'm doing, of course, there's many things. So there's that,
and then I also talk vocally about being sober. That's
a really big thing for me. I think it's changed
(40:22):
my life and I'm very vocal about joining twelve step
programs and doing the work surrounding that because Oftentimes people
are saying they're diagnosed with this or that or the
next thing, but it's it's like, no, you you're just
an alcoholic. Maybe if you just pause with the numbing
and addictive behavior, do the work surrounding that and see
what's left, maybe you wouldn't have to be diagnosed with
(40:44):
all these things. You know, tell me um some stories
about modeling on the road. I remember when you did
Sponsor Illustrated. You told me the story about how the
water was so fucking cold and you had to like
pretend like it was warm and wonderful and you still
had to keep going right. So when you're shooting modeling,
(41:07):
you're shooting opposite seasons, so you for for summer clothes
you shoot in winter, and winter clothes you shoot in summer.
So in winter you're shooting summer things or bikinis, for example,
and the water is freezing, everything's freezing, the wind is blowing.
I mean, I've been on set where I'm wearing like
a bikini and they have to have heaters blowing on
us because we've turned blue and we have to try
and look warm. But just in terms of traveling, I mean,
(41:30):
the funniest story I had I think was when we
went to shoot in Fiji with Sports Illustrated and the
guy who owned the kind of island we were on
the island resort kept like evicting people out of their jobs,
I guess, and the chef got fired while we were there,
and they wouldn't give him a ride back to the mainland,
and he was sleeping in the hammocks on the beach
trying to like solicit a ride from this island to
(41:53):
the main and just like crazy things like that happening
all the time, just weird stuff, And I think that's
the beauty of traveling. Those you just see, like you
get a glimpse into all these stranger's lives and then
you carry on your merry way and keep living your life.
It's great. I like the idea of you sitting on
this flight for eight hours and just embracing the stillness
(42:14):
that comes to you like that, to me is really beautiful,
this idea of just being in that silence. I mean,
of course I'd like people to listen to my podcast
when they're traveling, but sometimes there's this an amazing thing
where I'd be on a flight and I would watch
no movie, I would read no book, I wouldn't speak
to anyone, and I would have headphones on as if
(42:35):
I'm listening to music, but they would just be noise canceling.
And that's when I'm processing. And then at some point
during the time, you're watching your mind go and it
stops and you just get this like moment of silence,
and that's where I think the work starts. Well, I
(42:56):
think you have a kind of relief because there's no
expectation on you. No one can like somehow reach out
to you via your phone. I mean, we don't take
downtime in our lives right now, like you're we're available,
and people don't have the boundary like and that time
on a plane, it's like an extended meditation. And if
(43:18):
you know, if you're meditated, you're not really trying to
get something first, you're just observing the crazy thoughts bouncing
back and forth in your mind, and like you said,
you get to that place of silence. I think what
I've found on planes is that I'm able to connect
with myself. See see what I'm saying, Someone's just trying
to get you. Ye can't you can't get a break?
(43:41):
Give me some lesson that travel gave you. But when
we were chatting the other day on the phone, we
were going over a couple of things because obviously we
haven't spoken in a really long time. And I think
the sentiment that we reached together ultimately was no matter
where you go, there you are. And I know for me,
I was running away from myself. I want I left
(44:04):
the little tiny town of Scottborough to get away and
show them that they shouldn't have bullied me, because if
they hadn't bullied me, they're going to regret it now
because I am all that and a bag of chips.
And let me tell you, when I went back to Scotborough,
nobody cares. Okay, no one cares about there's infants you
hold from high school and how you're spending your whole
(44:24):
life running away trying to like show them. And it
took me a full decade to get to that experience,
and just how many lives I feel like I tried
to live to get away and get to the point
where it's like you have to be okay with yourself.
And that's what I've learned to travel. What I didn't
say is how we met. We met in Cape Town
(44:45):
at Origin Coffee where I've met so many of my
closest friends. And it's funny that this coffee shop, this
little coffee shops serving incredible coffee in the tip of Africa,
in Cape Town, brought so many people together for me.
And I remember when we met and you were like
the girl about town and was I didn't feel like
(45:08):
the girl about town. I felt the loser about town.
You would never the loser about town. And I remember
us being like, we were this gaggle of friends, and
you were always so bubbly and ridiculous, and you used
to do like this funny impression like pinky in the brain.
I can't remember what it was used to do stuff.
I mean, I guess I do to my dream to
(45:28):
voice a cartoon or animation. But you know what I'm
thinking of doing. I'm thinking of making a little mini
Catrie already show and voicing the two cats in my apartment.
But maybe that's a little bit over the top. No,
I think that's great. It'd be hilarious. I can come
on and be like the tramveling cat returning home, the
baritone voiced lady cat. We're going to figure this one out.
(45:51):
I used to say, my name so funny to be
like Genevieve, you'd be like and then you hold your
hands up like, well, Genevieve. It is such a pleasure
to have you, and I'm so glad that I can
reconnect and we can do something meaningful together. Yeah, thank
(46:11):
you so much for having me on your show and
also reconnecting with me. It's a pleasure to reconnect with
you in l A. And I'm looking forward to listening
to your podcast and hearing more about all of your
journeys because I've really missed out. O good, we'll do
some journeys together. Okay, so I have a plan to
catch but if you'd still like to reach us, go
(46:33):
to Everywhere Podcast on Instagram, Everywhere part on Twitter, or
the website at everywhere podcast dot com. Thanks for hanging out.
I'm Daniel Scheffler and I'll see you everywhere
Everywhere News
Host
Daniel Scheffler
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