May 26, 2024 • 57 mins
Embark with us as our guest Jimmy, a former corporate cog turned leadership expert and global nomad, narrates his adventure to the vibrant heart of Latin America. Through his eyes, we traverse bustling cities like Bogota and Medellin, uncovering the spirit of digital wanderers who've traded office cubicles for the freedom of the open road. Jimmy's tales are not merely travelogues; they're a deep dive into the soul of each place he's touched, from the revitalizing echoes in Colombia's Comuna 13 to the tranquil charm of Querétaro, Mexico.
You'll feel the warmth of the Colombian sun on your back as Jimmy describes his jungle escapades, delivering aid with a heart as open as the van's rattling doors. This isn't just another travel diary—it's a masterclass in embracing the unknown, with stories of breaking down in the mountains and finding unexpected sanctuary in a driver's family home. As we wander through the musical streets of Medellin and sample the gastronomic delights of local Colombian cuisine, Jimmy's journey illuminates the profound personal growth that comes from immersing oneself in new cultures.
Grab your virtual backpack and join us for a conversation that melds the adventurous with the practical. Whether it's adjusting to a new family life abroad or managing finances in a foreign economy, Jimmy's experience offers a treasure trove of insights for anyone yearning to break away from the mundane. From the vivid colors of Guatape's rock to the flavors of a traditional Colombian breakfast, this episode is a passport to a world of transformational travel and the rich tapestry of life as a nomadic leader.
Map of Colombia.
You can find Jimmy's website here: https://www.jimmyburroughes.com/
And his Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/jimmybleadership/
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Hosts
Carol Springer: https://www.instagram.com/carol.work.life
Kristen: https://www.instagram.com/team_wake/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hi, welcome to our podcast.
We're Next Travel with Kristenand Carol.
I am Kristen and I am Carol,and we're two long-term friends
with a passion for travel andadventure.
Each episode, we interviewpeople around the globe to help
us decide where to go next.
Jimmy, thanks for joining ustoday at when Next podcast, and
(00:37):
we look forward to hearing aboutyour experience of spending
time in Colombia, so welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Thank you so much for the invitation.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yeah, sure, interesting.
I just we bring guests togetherand so sometimes I don't know
until literally I'm sort ofsurprised to meet you.
You know right then and thereabout your background and what
you do and I have to say thefirst thing that came up was a
leadership you know thing thatyou're doing.
And then I've got ways ofworking.
(01:06):
I'm like, oh, we need to talkfurther about that whole thing
after Columbia.
But very interesting, I wascurious that.
And then Columbia how did thosetwo connect?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah, good question.
Maybe if we rewind the clock alittle bit to 2016,.
There's always a good story,isn't there?
So I've had the I guess,untypical career.
I'm on my fourth career now,but my life started as an army
officer in the British army many, many moons ago, which was
essentially leading soldiers,leading organizations or teams
(01:38):
whatever buildinghigh-performing teams.
And then, when I finished doingthat, I ended up in the
corporate HR world for a while,focused on leadership,
development, learning anddevelopment all those things
before finally deciding thatactually, if you wanted to run a
business, you needed experiencerunning a business.
So I switched out of HR andmoved into a GM role, which
unfortunately, led me to burningout in 2017.
(02:01):
So 2016 is the sort of the buildup to the burnout.
I'm struggling immensely and Ihad always had this great dream
of traveling Latin America.
I'd done the majority of Asiaand Indonesia, I'd been through
the majority of Western Europeand in the job that I had as a
GM, I'd also managed to covermost of East Asia.
(02:21):
So that was, I guess, tickedoff the list and there's this
big hole on my map of where Ihadn't been, which was Latin
America.
So, long story short, when theburnout finally did come, I
thought well, why don't I bookmyself a one-way ticket head off
to Latin America and exploreand rediscover my passion for
(02:42):
living and learning?
And while I was on the road, Ibuilt what has now become our
business.
Jimmy Burrows Leadership and wework globally with organizations
, essentially to help turnextremely busy, overwhelmed
managers into high impactleaders.
But part of that journeythrough Latin America was
(03:03):
shacking up with an amazinglittle organization called
Remote Year.
Remote Year are essentially adigital nomad support business I
guess that would probably bethe best way to phrase them.
They pick you up from theairport, they take you to a
fancy apartment somewhere in thecity of choice, they support
you through the month with aco-working space, they introduce
(03:24):
you to a community, theyorganize events, they
troubleshoot for you if you getinto harm's way and then they
move you to the next city.
And you can do that for onemonth, four months or 12 months.
So I signed up for a four-monthprogram through Latin America,
and Colombia were two of thefour months.
So I got to meet Colombia atthat point and since then I've
(03:45):
been back a few times and spentsome very enjoyable months in
Columbia, and now I've ended upliving in Mexico but still
obviously enjoying that LatinAmerican vibe.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Wow, it was called Remote Year.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Remote Year yes, Excellent.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
And then, when you did the four-month stint, what
areas of Latin America did youall go to?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So we started in Peru , in Lima.
We had a month living in Limaand exploring the majority of
the surroundings of Lima and afew other places as well.
Then we moved to Medellinplaces as well.
(04:28):
Then we moved to Medellin andfrom Medellin we did little side
.
We call them side trips, butessentially a little sort of
week or week, weekend, longweekend or week-long excursion.
So we covered a fair bit ofColombia in the time we were
there.
Then we moved to Bogota and dida month in Bogota.
We also had some time inCartagena in between Medellin
and Bogota, and we'll probablygo into this story a little bit
later.
But we actually drove throughthe jungle in a 1970s Ford van
(04:51):
rather than taking the freeway.
So what is probably a four tosix hour drive took us two and a
half days and we were carryingaid to little villages that was
interspersed through the jungle.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Wait, so you're in Medellin, Bogota.
Are those in Colombia?
Yes, Okay, so the four monthsdid you just stay?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
in four different places throughout Colombia.
No, so they move you everymonth between cities.
So first month was Peru, lima,second month was Medellin, third
monthota fourth month, mexicoCity, and then, once I'd
finished my four months, I endedup doing a few other cities
with them as well in LatinAmerica and also traveled fairly
extensively for two and a halfyears independently through
Latin America, but the Colombiastretch was one of the most
(05:38):
enjoyable.
Mexico and Colombia are kind ofmy two favorite places in Latin
America, and why?
Why, I think both for similarreasons.
Both are staggeringly beautiful.
The landscape in both Mexico andColombia and obviously we're
focusing on Colombia today is amixture of so many different
places that I've seen before,all kind of smooshed into one
(05:59):
place.
So you've got these fantasticcities full of incredible
architecture.
You've got amazing parks andforests and greenery.
You've then got rainforests andjungle.
You've got beaches.
You've got mountains with snowon top.
It's almost like somebody hasdecided to take the world's best
bits and put them all into oneplace.
Mexico very similar, but Ithink Colombia is obviously a
(06:22):
much smaller, more concentratedenvironment and you can swim in.
You know two different oceans.
You can.
If you go to santa marta, youcan be on the beach with a
snow-capped mountain behind you.
Like, where can you do thesethings in other places and when
we, I think when we were drivingthrough the jungle again, I saw
pieces of italy, pieces offrance, pieces of germany, I saw
(06:42):
vineyards and olive groves andit's just like the most amazing
garden of Eden that you canexperience.
And then you said we so did, youand your wife, your partner, no
so I was traveling as part ofthe remote year crew and you
essentially sign up with acohort.
So I signed up with afour-month cohort and there were
(07:04):
, I think, initially around 20,25 of us and over the period of
the four months we lost a fewalong the way and we gained a
few along the way.
So you know, kind of stayedaround that 20 mark.
I was lucky enough to room withthe same guy for all four
months and then another guyjoined us for three of those
four months.
So we had a really tight knitlittle family and even though
even now this is in 2018.
(07:24):
And even now we still talk mostweeks on our WhatsApp group,
we've become lifelong friendsand we're all very different
ages, very different backgrounds.
One was the CEO of a bank, one'sa serial entrepreneur and I'm a
leadership guy.
So you know you wouldn'tnecessarily put us all together
in the same place, but thisexperience did that for us.
And then, once I sort oftraveled independently, I joined
(07:46):
what's called the CitizenNetwork, which is a group of
people who, like Remote Year,don't want to sign up
necessarily for a program, butlike to pick and mix into
different cities, and so eachdifferent city I went to with
Remote Year I was part of thetribe, but once I was a citizen
then I could just drop in andjoin whichever tribe happened to
be in that city that month whatdo they call that program?
Speaker 1 (08:07):
oh, the citizens program and then how much was
something like this I mean, thissounds incredible.
And like, uh, I mean, whencarol and I were talking about
doing this, what was it?
Three or four years?
ago yeah, three years yeah overthree years yeah, yeah, three
and a half years ago, um,digital nomad, I mean we were,
we were looking, there was a.
(08:28):
Actually I have it savedbecause when I first put you in
here, uh, my phone, uh, nomacollective, that's what it was
called.
Um, it was something similar tothat, but this sounds even more
.
It sounds like something I wantto look at.
It's really interesting.
Was everyone working remotelyand how was the wifi?
Or was it just kind of allcrusty people retired or how was
(08:53):
that?
Speaker 2 (08:54):
It was a real mix.
So in our little tribe and ourlittle crew that was going
around, we had people who justfinished university and they
were on their sort of gap year.
We had a surprising number ofpeople like me who burned out
and we're just trying to kind ofregain ourselves and there's a
lot.
There's a terrible cliche thatsays people on remote year are
either running away fromsomething or running towards
(09:15):
something, and I was mostdefinitely running toward the
next incarnation of myself,which is consulting and
mentoring and facilitating.
But there were a lot of peoplewho kind of had taken some time
out of their workplace and justneeded a break, and the
four-month programs, I think,are a good opportunity for that.
The year-long programs maybedon't lend themselves to that so
much.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
So is there a lot of time to actually work, or are
you like is?
There too much activity wheremost people really actually
aren't working working.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
No, I would say probably half to three fifths of
the group were workingfull-time in jobs.
So we had.
We had lawyers, we hadprogrammers, we had salespeople,
we had leaders of teams, remoteteams, people in marketing,
people in PR.
There was a girl I met who wasrunning PR for Primark, the
clothing brand.
We had the CEO of a bank.
He was on a sort of sabbaticalbut was still chair of the board
(10:06):
, so he was working back intohis country.
So the daytime is generally forworking and then the late
afternoon, evening, is when theyput on the more structured
activities.
So in Colombia it was let's goand visit a farm, or let's go to
see a cultural evening aboutColombian culture in this
particular city, or let's do acity walking tour, and they
(10:27):
would happen after working hoursto allow you to get some work
done in a day.
Alternatively, if you didn'twant to work, that was beach
time or exploring time orwhatever you wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yeah, did you also volunteer or actually give back,
like, do things like that aswell.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
They do.
They have a philanthropicelement to the business and I
don't necessarily want topromote Remote Year above any of
the other organizations that dothis, it's just the one I had
the luck to have the experienceof.
There are others as well, ifyou want to research, you know
Wi-Fi Tribe and Nomad Cruise andlots of other ones, but they do
, they have a philanthropicelement.
(11:08):
So if I think back to some ofthe work in Medellin we did, we
went to a school and we helpedto paint some walls that had
been graffitied and were, Iguess, relatively run down.
So we painted the walls, we dugthe weeds out of the garden, we
created a vegetable patch forthem where the kids could then
go and learn about vegetables ina more pleasant environment
than graffiti walls and trashand beer cans and whatever had
been thrown over a fence.
We tidied it up.
(11:29):
And in each city there was anactivity.
In Bogota they went and builthouses for families, so they got
sort of prefab sheds and turnedthem into houses with wriggly
tin roofs, and so there's alwaysa philanthropic element to each
group that goes through each ofthe cities and if you think you
(11:49):
know, remote Year has, I think,about 20 cities on the go at
any one point and there's agroup in every city, sometimes
more than one group.
The Mexico City sometimes hastwo or three groups.
So you know you're talking 30to 100 people in 20 cities
around the world.
That's a fairly large communityof people that you can be part
of.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah, I was curious how many people so about 30 to a
hundred people are at one timegoing through the program.
Did you notice any difference,I'm curious, between the one
month, the four month and the 12month.
I was curious.
Did you meet any people thatwere going for a year and what?
Why were they doing it?
I was just curious.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Absolutely.
I actually jumped into in Chile, santiago.
I jumped into a group ofyear-long travelers and they
were quite a different dynamicto our group.
Much more of them werefull-time workers, much more and
we were probably half tothree-fifths they were 75% were
in employment or trying tocreate employment for themselves
(12:40):
.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
They're freelancers who were looking for
opportunities and that was avery different dynamic
employment for themselves.
They're freelancers who werelooking for opportunities.
That was a very differentdynamic I also had there were
freelancers looking throughoutthe countries they were going
through.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
All virtual, all online stuff.
So I'll give you an example.
One of the guys I met was afilm producer.
He'd worked in Hollywood, hehad been in that world and
decided to get out of the ratrace.
So I met him in Santiago and hewas trying to set up a
freelance film editing and filmproduction business and ended up
doing a documentary aboutRemote Year while he was on the
(13:13):
road, which was a nice littleportfolio piece, but was also
picking up freelance work fromFiverr and Upwork and through
his network and gradually nowfast forward five years he has a
reasonably successfulindependent film production
business.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
That is really neat.
And then with the 12-month, arethey also picking Latin America
or Asia?
Are they bouncing?
Six months there and six months?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, so the 12-month programs you do are essentially
around the world trip.
So you get three or four citiesin each continent.
So you have a couple in Europe,a couple in Asia, a couple in
North America, a couple in SouthAmerica, um, a couple in
Indonesia, and depending onwhich program you choose, you
know they pick and mix the, the,the cities that you go through.
So they, they used to be in theearly days, used to be like
(13:59):
this is the route that you allwent around, Um, but as they've
picked up more cities then nowthere's a bit more variety.
So you could have a more Europeelement or a more Asian element
to your program.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
This reminds me of like it's like study abroad for
life.
I mean, there's people there'speople.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
I know there's a very famous citizen called Hunter
Hunter Pine and he's been aremote citizen for five or six
years and he just travelsperpetually with Remote Year and
they organize all of thelogistics for his life and all
he has to do is just take hislaptop wherever he goes.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Oh, like Kristen, like that lady had said, getting
your own travel agent.
But this is just a more grouptravel agent almost, where they
organize everything for you.
And Colombia is somewhere whereI would kind of be scared to go
to, just for these stereotypesthat I have in my head.
So, doing it with someonethat's organized and they know
where to go, where to stay, howto get around, I think like much
(14:59):
of Latin America, colombia hasa mixed reputation.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Obviously, there were the dark years back in history
Pablo Escobar's years and thenbeyond.
Colombia has done a very goodjob of creating pockets of
safety within each of the citiesand each of the tourist areas
tourist areas and there'sagreements been reached between
the gangs and the government andso on.
(15:24):
So it means now that there aremany places you can go as a
nomad, as a traveler withinColombia that are completely
safe.
You know you wouldn't have toworry.
Obviously, you have to havesome common sense.
You know there are places inAmerica that you wouldn't go at
night alone with lots ofvaluables.
The same thing applies in anycity in the world.
Then you do the same thing inColombia.
(15:45):
So you don't walk around in themiddle of the night, when
you're drunk, with your thousanddollar camera around your neck
because you're going to ask fortrouble.
But equally, I never felt at anydanger when I was in Colombia.
I know, when we drove throughthe jungle, that was what
historically was counted as FARCterritory, which is the um, the
Colombian sort of revolutionaryfreedom fighters.
(16:05):
Uh, but the people that we weretraveling with, the guide that
took us through the jungle.
Uh, he knew and had made theappropriate arrangements for us
to pass without any issueswhatsoever.
Uh, we were always advised whenwe were in each city which
areas were safe to go and whichareas were unnecessary for us to
go.
And then some.
One of the I guess mostmemorable things we did in
(16:27):
Medellin particularly was wewent to a place called Comina 13
, which is a suburb of Medellin,and this used to be one of the
most dangerous suburbs in all ofColombia Murders and bombs and
really, really violent incidentshappening all the time and over
(16:47):
a period of a few years nowwe're now a couple of decades
they've transformed that nowinto a tourist area, and so it's
the most incredible cornucopiaof street art and street
entertainment and cafes andbeauty that you would not see.
It's called Comuna 13,c-o-m-u-n-a 13, um.
(17:10):
There's another one that's upand coming called commoner 8
same thing, but they've reallytaken this violent area and said
we don't want to live like thisanymore.
We don't want to live in fearand violence.
We want to make somethingreally beautiful.
So they've made this incrediblesuburb that you can visit and
there's tours every single day.
Thousands of people go throughthere every day to see all this
incredible street art and allthese amazing places, and that's
(17:31):
an example of where Colombia istrying to turn itself around
and get out of the perception ofthis drug capital of the world
and this super dangerous placeand become actually somewhere
really attractive for people whowant to have a great life, to
go and live.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Wow, I'm just looking at some of that actually
somewhere really attractive forpeople who want to have a great
life to go and live.
Wow, I'm just looking at someof that.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
So Communa 17 is what Communa 13.
And the new one is Communa 8,which is they've done the same
thing, they've put a gondolaaccess to it, basically, so it's
become a more accessible partof the city, which has turned it
from a ghetto into a beautyspot.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
It's like Hunger Games, hunger games, district 13
, district 8, there you go right, that's so colorful.
Oh, I can see.
I see the graffiti trying tosee.
Yeah, I'm not getting thepictures, but I'll look at it,
I'll get.
It's very crowded, well, and Iwas curious also how much, um,
if someone wanted to do remoteyear, uh, what are the costs
(18:27):
involved?
Is it what?
What is a cost?
What's included in that?
Speaker 2 (18:32):
yeah, I mean I with that again, without advertising
them.
Um, I would go to remoteyearcomand have a good look.
They havea pretty transparentweb page full of the prices.
I think when I did the programit was about two thousand us
dollars a month, uh, pluscertain optional activities,
it's probably more than that.
Now you know, things have gotmore expensive over time.
It was significantly moreexpensive than just backpacking.
(18:52):
You know, I I uh, in the fourmonths I was with remote year I
spent as much as I then did inthe 12 months, um, afterward.
So you know you'll put you aboutthree times as much as doing it
on your own, but you're in, uh,a real like in Condesa.
I was in living in Condesa, inMexico city, in one of the
(19:13):
nicest parts of Mexico city, umin in Parker, mexico, so
literally having to go in in apenthouse apartment that was
probably worth, you know, acouple of million dollars.
In Medellin we had thisenormous 17th floor condo
(19:34):
looking over the city, um threelarge double bedrooms, huge
living open area, facilities,security.
So you know, that's much, muchnicer than you would do if you
just booked an Airbnb, forexample.
Uh so you're.
You're paying for that, thatlevel of support of, of example.
So you're paying for that levelof experience, but you're also
paying for the support that youget.
So you don't have to organizeyour airport shuttle, you don't
need to worry about making sureyou're there for your flights on
time.
They tell you what to do in thecity, they give you an
(19:56):
orientation walk, so you're kindof up and running really quick
and that was what made it goodfor me.
I could get to a city within 24hours.
I was up and running and I knewI could just work.
I knew where everything was.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
That's what I heard.
It's hard to like get that kindof situated, the system in
place, and where am I going towork out?
Where am I going to eat?
Where am I going to go buy myfood?
Speaker 2 (20:18):
So you've got somebody on site who can help
you with that straight away,Cause there is a city manager
who lives there and is theexpert in that area of the city.
They're like I need a gym, Ineed a pharmacy, I need a
supermarket.
They go cool here's the map, gothere.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Can we dive into the jungly area that you said that
you had to have a guide?
I have one last question, alsoWith the remote year.
When you paid it, did itinclude food, or I'm assuming,
or do you pay for food?
Do they do meal-wise?
Is that included or separate?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, so a mixture, I'd say so.
Most months there was some sortof team event or team get
together which was included.
So it might be a breakfast or alunch, but the majority of the
meals you're paying for yourself.
So if you want to eat breakfast, you can.
There's a.
Let's use Medellin as anexample.
There's a million cafes.
(21:11):
You can walk out out of yourAirbnb and or your apartment and
it's just full of cafes.
Mexico city the same, so you payfor yourself.
Lunches Often we'd be working,so just grab a sandwich or sushi
or whatever.
And then dinner we'd often goout as a group.
So somebody would put in thegroup chat hey, I'm going to go
try this amazing place.
I went to three Michelin starrestaurants while I was
(21:31):
traveling Latin America and oneof them was in Medellin and it
was uh, it was beautiful,absolutely beautiful.
And so somebody would say, hey,I'm going to go here tonight.
Anybody want to join by?
And that would be aroundlunchtime, and then five, six,
10 people would sign up and we'dall go off and have dinner
together.
But it was at your own cost.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Okay, Got it.
So it sounds like room andboards included and then
activities would be included, ifyou know.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
All the fun is where you spend all your money.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
But it's not included in it, or is it?
It's not included, so what youget is room and board and a
place and security, and thenwhat you pay for is your food
and your fun Food, and fun, yourfood and fun Basically, exactly
that Okay.
Excellent, thank you, I justfigured, just for.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
I mean, I'm even interested in looking into that?
Speaker 1 (22:16):
I think that sounds great.
Yeah, explore the world andwork.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Absolutely, absolutely, so I definitely
recommend checking out some ofthe other ones.
There's a beautifulorganization called Wi-Fi Tribe.
They do something exactly thesame, and there are a number of
others there.
The Remote Year and Wi-Fi Tribeare the two big ones, though,
who've been around for a longtime.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah, I like Wi-Fi tribe.
That's a fun name.
Yeah, that's great.
Thank you so much so Columbia,and talking about I know Carol
was mentioning the jungles andyour experience with that.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah, it was one of those serendipitous
opportunities.
I guess we were reaching theend of the month, living in
Medellin, and we had traveled alittle bit.
We'd been to Guatape, which isone of the most incredible
places I've ever been in my life.
We'd been to San Andres Island,we'd been to Cartagena and we
(23:09):
felt like we needed somethingelse to round off that month.
And when we were in Medellinwe'd met this guy who does the
Guatape trip and he runs a vanbusiness, basically a minibus
business, but his vans are allthese 1970s Ford vans that he's
kind of pimped, so they have LEDlighting and big fat wings and
(23:33):
they're pretty cool and most ofthe time you spend sitting on
top of the van in the roof rackrather than actually inside the
van.
So it's a lot of fun, it's areally party vibe.
And so we spoke to the programmanager and the city manager
while we were there and we said,well, hey, it would be really
(23:53):
cool to just do something thatwould involve this guy in his
van.
We asked could we potentiallydrive through the jungle with
him?
And they'd never done it before.
But we basically came up withthis trip.
Myself and my two roomies cameup with this trip where we were
going to drive through thejungle, and then this
opportunity came up to be alittle bit philanthropic about
it and deliver some aid.
So we went to the supermarketthe morning we left and we
filled the entire back of thevan with rice and beans and
(24:15):
veggies and drinks and whateverwe could find.
Basically A couple of thousanddollars worth of food went into
the back of to paint and do someart, with the local women
(24:37):
helping out on.
You know, dig a trench on afarm or whatever it is to help
out one of the working men.
We painted some stuff while wewere on the way and it was just.
It was a lot of fun, absolutely,and the rest of the time we
were sat on top of this vanlistening to crazy loud rock
music and partying in the jungle.
So it was a very enjoyableactivity until the last day when
we were about four hoursoutside Bogota and then the poor
(25:00):
1970s van showed its age andbroke down in the middle of the
mountains.
So we then sat on the side ofthe road for four or five hours
waiting for some things to bemade in a workshop.
Thank goodness 1970s vans aresimple, so a little piece of
metal got hit with a hammer andwe finally made it to to bogota,
uh, late that evening and the Iguess the the culmination of
(25:22):
the trip for us was actuallybeing invited to the, the van
driver's family home, uh, tomeet his mom and his, his sister
and his brother and their kids,and we got to have this
beautiful cultural experience.
Through the whole journey Stillgot some incredible memories
and photos and videos of thattrip and it really was a
beautiful opportunity toexperience something that most
people will never experience,which is really deep into what
(25:45):
we consider the dangerous partsof the jungle in Colombia.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Wow, that is incredible.
I can only imagine that'sprobably a life highlight, right
?
Speaker 2 (25:54):
It's definitely up there for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Absolutely.
And now do they speak?
Is it Spanish?
I'm sure it's a dialectdifference of that.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
It's known to be actually one of the easiest
versions of Latin AmericanSpanish to be able to pick up.
It's quite a clean version ofSpanish.
I did a couple of weeks ofSpanish school while I was in
Columbia and I definitely Idefinitely progressed Um, albeit
, you know, now I'm living inMexico and Mexican Spanish is
also pretty easy to pick up.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, oh wonderful.
So, um so communication.
I mean you had your driver thatcould communicate when you were
going through the jungles ofwhat, what you guys were doing,
and it sounds like he knew whoto uh arrange to make it safe
and fit.
Where did you guys sleep?
Was it just in the differentjungle cities?
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah.
So there would be hotel, hostel, motel type places that we
could just pull in, and he hadprearranged all the stops, apart
from one night where we wererunning quite behind for one of
the evenings.
So we ended up just literallypulling over on the side of the
road and knocking on somebody'sdoor and it turned out he was
(26:59):
actually one of the most amazinghotels in the entire region
that people book months inadvance to go there and we just
happened to stumble across itone evening.
You can imagine this superrural area.
There's nothing there andthere's this guy with a hotel
with a water slide and abeautiful swimming pool and we
were this guy with a hotel witha water slide and a beautiful
swimming pool and we weregetting, we were helping harvest
coconuts, we played a game ofsoccer with his kids and we
(27:21):
turned out and said this is oneof like the highlight hotels in
the region that we just stumbledacross.
It was just luck, I guess.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
And I'm curious, how much was it to stay at a hotel,
like for the night?
I think we paid 15 each so itlooks like bocata is like
elevated.
Is it in the mountains?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
is.
It's high.
Yeah, I guess it's aninteresting city because there's
lots of things going on there,obviously the capital of
columbia, but it's it's quitegray and it's quite rainy, uh,
and has a lot of smog issues andI think, like most Latin
America cities, the centro ofthe city is not the place you
want to be.
There's always going to be asuburb outside the centro which
(28:03):
is far more desirable, and so wewere living almost in the
centro, which was.
It was nice, we were in a sortof executive neighborhood, but
definitely in Bogota there wereother areas to visit, but it's
quite high.
So I remember I used to be well, I still am a runner and
running in Bogota, after aboutthree kilometers you'd be
starting to really feel it inyour lungs and heart because the
(28:25):
oxygen is less and theconcentration of oxygen is much
lower.
So it's about 16, 15% versusthe sort of 21, 22% you'd have
at sea level 15%, versus thesort of 21, 22% you'd have at
sea level.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Okay, and then going to these like the jungle, I see
there's a lot of parks.
It says like on the map, butwould you say anything that's
like not in a designated, likesafe area?
Would you just like don't gothere unless you don't really
know what you're doing?
Or is there like national parksthat are, yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
I guess it depends.
So let's use one of the parksthat's very famous in medellin
which is called paca avi, whichis basically you can get a, a
gondola from the river or themain train line right up into
the mountains, and it's thishuge national park like central
park in new york, you know, butsignificantly larger and has
trails and mountain biking, andit's extremely safe and people
(29:14):
go up there every day.
I wouldn't necessarilyrecommend putting a backpack on
and heading off into the jungleon your own in in colombia.
Equally, I wouldn't recommendmaybe hiring a car and doing it
on your own and, to be honest,if you, I think with many things
, if you want to get the bestout of a country, it can often
really help to get yourself alocal who knows, and whether
(29:37):
that's a structured tour orwhether that is part of
something like I did on a remoteyear or booking something off
Expedia or Viator or one ofthose website Airbnb experiences
, there's plenty of people whoknow where to take you and how
to take it and book sensibly aswell.
Look for something with lots ofreviews that's had many people
go through it.
Don't choose somebody who's gotno reviews and it's their first
(30:00):
time out?
Um, yeah, and it's free.
Um, you know, be sensible.
I think probably my biggestlesson in latin america is if
you're sensible, there are many,many people here who are
absolutely wonderful and cannotwait to help you and are so
generous and so kind and sohonest that the perception is
(30:21):
everybody's out to get you.
But you have got to have yourguard up all the time because
there are many people who areout to just rinse you of your
money and your possessions.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Okay, and Cartagena looks like it's on the water.
Is that a?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
touristy area Cartagena is incredible.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
With a G, Cartagena with a G right.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Correct.
Yeah, the G is a soft G.
So Cartagena is a UNESCO WorldHeritage Wall City.
Actually, you may have seenCartagena used in one of the
James bond films, uh, and he'son a motorbike.
Uh, it's also in, um, it's awill smith movie.
Which one is it?
Gemini man?
There's a scene in gemini manwhere he's being uh, chased by
(31:04):
himself, um, on a youngerversion of himself on a
motorbike.
Imagine a walled city, littlenarrow streets, almost like a
sort of french or or a Spanishcolonial town that is full of
little boutiques and beautifulfive-star hotels and cafes and
restaurants and it's the mostgorgeous colors They've
renovated and restored all ofthese buildings Absolutely
(31:25):
spectacular.
Then you walk out of the walledcity, you go across one of the
rivers and you're in this.
What used to be the slum areaof the city was where all the
merchants and the bars and thecafes were for all the sailors,
and that's now become thisreally hipster area full of cool
(31:46):
, vibrant restaurants andunderground cafes and sort of
really cool hipster scene.
And then you go a little bitfurther and you go into the area
called Boca del Toro, which islike Miami, so it's full of
skyrise, skyscrapers and hotelsand first world facilities.
So, depending on what you'reinto, you can kind of make
yourself at home in any of thoseregions.
(32:08):
I've kind of jumped between allthree.
And then the beauty ofCartagena is you can go out to
islands from there and they havebeach clubs on islands and
hostels on islands and all sortsof very cool things you can do.
So it's a really fascinatingplace.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Wow, really, I'm looking on the map and looking
at pictures and things.
But there's a lot there, and Iwas looking, you said rivers.
I mean I see a lot of justshoots of rivers.
And then there's a completelyprotected huge bay and then
there's another one that'salmost looks like a hammerhead
shark or something Water oneither side and then there's it
(32:47):
looks like a little.
There's a couple little islandson the inside of it too.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Lots of islands and if you know, part of being
catahena is, you do like anisland hopping tour, so you jump
on a boat in the morning andthey take you to five or six
islands during the day andthere's party islands and
sunbathing islands and jungleislands and you can have a real
kind of mixture of things.
You can swim with rays andsometimes you can swim with
sharks, so it's a very, verycool environment environment,
(33:13):
yeah, wow.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
And then this island, tierra Bamba, right next to the
whole, there's like a hugeisland.
Is that also part of Colombia?
Yep, okay, got it, and did youget a chance to go to that
island?
I'm curious what that was likeas well.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
No, I didn't get to go there.
I was kind of smitten with thewalled city and exploring all
the different fortresses.
I'm a bit of a historicalarchitecture nerd, so I was busy
doing city tours, looking atdoorway architecture and
fortresses and then looking atsome of the.
I'm also a foodie, so I wasexploring all the cafes.
(33:50):
But I'm also a very keen scubadiver, so the rest of the time
when I was in katahina I was outscuba diving, uh, exploring the
underwater reefs and some ofthe the exciting dive sites I
was gonna ask if scuba divingwas big there.
Huge, yeah um there's someincredible places to scuba dive,
uh, all through colombia, but Iwould say the two highlights is
(34:10):
diving off Cartagena, uh, andthen there's a, an island off
the shore of uh, offshore fromfrom um, from Columbia, called
San Andres, which is only small,uh, and then near to that there
is another island calledProvidencia, um, those two are
really well regarded forfirst-class Caribbean diving, um
(34:31):
, you know, beautiful, clear,you can see for hundreds of feet
and it's warm all year roundand it's beautiful, beautiful
diving places to go.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Wow, I have to rank the three.
Which ones First, second andthird in your mind?
Speaker 2 (34:45):
I would say Providencia is probably first,
then Katahena, diving offKatahena and some of the areas
there, and then probably SanAndres third, although I
actually spent most time in SanAndres because it was cheap and
easy to get to.
Providence is a little bitharder to get to.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Got it Okay.
I'm looking at it right now.
It does look very tropical, forsure.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
It is yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
And what's the cost to stay in Cartagena?
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Depends.
Is that more like Mexico orlike Miami?
$14 a night.
And then the third time I wasthere I stayed in a little
(35:33):
boutique hotel right inside thewalled city and that was about
150 bucks a night and that wasliterally a sort of five-star,
beautiful little environmentwith all the facilities of a
five-star hotel.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Okay, and are you being so kind of converting this
all into US dollars for us?
Speaker 2 (35:46):
US dollars yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
I'm very impressed you live in Mexico.
It sounds like what's your I'moriginally British.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Born in the UK but I live in Cabo, so the majority of
our currency transactions arepesos or dollars.
We think in both currencieshere.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Okay, oh, you live in Cabo Nice.
Do you just live there part ofthe time, or is that your home
base and now you just kind ofbounce other places?
Speaker 2 (36:11):
So we spend probably six, seven months a year here.
It's, it's.
We actually live about 30kilometers from Cabo San Lucas,
in a beautiful little towncalled San Jose del Cabo, which
is the home of boutiques andfarm to table restaurants and a
much nicer, calmer standard ofliving than you would find in
Partyville, which is down therein.
(36:32):
Cabo San Lucas and then the restof the time.
We have a place in the centerof Mexico, in a city called
Querétaro, which is again a veryelevated city up in the
mountains.
It's near to a city called SanMiguel de Allende which is where
a lot of Americans have been.
Yep, I hear about that, so it'sabout 30, 40 minutes from there
and then the rest of the timewe'll be traveling, so going
(36:53):
back to the UK to see friendsand family.
Headed off overseas to seefriends and family.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
How did you decide that town off of San Miguel?
Speaker 2 (37:03):
My father-in-law lives there.
So, we went on a visit to meetthe dad when my now wife and I
got together and we visited, andit's very, very different to
Cabo.
Obviously, we live where thedesert meets the ocean, at the
bottom of a.
My now wife and I got togetherand we visited, and it's very,
very different to Cabo,obviously it's you know we live
in where the desert meets theocean, at the bottom of a
peninsula, here Over there it'swineries and green and mountains
and it's a beautiful city, veryhistorical, colorful city.
(37:25):
And while we were there my wifesaid, oh, I, you know, I'd love
to have a place here.
So we went and bought a housethere and so now we have this
wonderful house that we can justjump between the two and,
depending on how we feel, we canbe at the beach or we can be in
the city, in the mountains.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
That's amazing.
What was the city called thatyou live in?
Speaker 2 (37:45):
What was it At the beach or in the city?
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Well, I guess, in the city.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Yeah, the city, the city is called Queretaro, so
it's Q-U-E-R-E-T-A-R-.
Okay, yeah, you might spell itas Queretaro.
Okay, yeah, it's about two anda half hours northwest of Mexico
City and about 40 minutes fromSan Miguel.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
So six, seven months out of the year you're down in
Mexico and the other time you'reeither back in UK or traveling
somewhere?
Is that?
Speaker 2 (38:18):
No, six, seven months a year in Cabo, three, four
months a year in Queretaro andthen the rest of the time on the
road.
I think now we'll probably leanmore towards being in the city
because we want to spend moretime with family and obviously
we've got my wife's family arebased in Mexico City and
Querétaro, so it's much moreaccessible for them.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Oh, that's great.
Wow, what a fun, fun life.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
A life by design, which I think is so important in
this modern modern life.
We only get one go at this andmany of us, I think, sit in
cubicles, bored, hating ourexistences and wishing we could
make a change, and then the onlything that's stopping you
making a change is you.
So I decided in 2017 that itwas time to do something
different and and build a lifearound the things I wanted to do
(39:05):
, versus trying to squeeze lifeinto what I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Yeah, absolutely.
Do you have kids or family?
I'm just curious if they?
I know one friend did and she'straveling the world right now
with four kids that are young.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Wow, amazing.
Yeah, no, we do.
We just had a daughter.
She's four months old and sheis definitely changing sort of
the way we're approaching things, but I, my wife and I are
definitely keen to continuetraveling.
We've got a few trips bookedthis year that we're going to
experiment with and actuallyprobably next week we'll we'll
do our first flight, uh, over tothe other house and see how we
(39:38):
manage with all the things youneed to carry with kids yeah, so
.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
So, columbia, what else in terms of, I mean, it's
really great, it's got mountains, it's got snow.
Is there skiing there as well?
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Don't think it's.
No, I think it's snow-cappedmountains that I don't think
they're skiing.
I could be wrong.
I didn't get to go skiing, andif there is skiing there, I
would love to experience it, butno, I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
And then you've got a lot of beaches and um, and
how's the temperature and um itdepends, real diversity and
temperature.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Bogota is is cold.
Um, we were certainly coldthere.
When was I in bogota, likeaugust, september time, and you
know, jackets and and hoodiesand jeans were definitely the
order of the day.
There were sunny days where youcould go out in shorts and
t-shirt, but the majority of itwas quite, was, was quite, sort
of ballish.
Medellin is is known as thecity of eternal spring, so every
day is, you know, 27, 28degrees, uh, you know seventies,
(40:36):
uh, all year round you get rainquite frequently, cause it's in
the middle of a jungle, so youget, you know, the four o'clock
or five o'clock downpour, butit's still warm rain and within
20, 30 minutes back to normalagain very, very humid.
And then Cartagena is in theCaribbean, so it's hot and
sticky most of the year.
They get all of the joys of theCaribbean lifestyle.
(40:58):
So you get hurricanesoccasionally, but it's very,
very different.
And again, if you go todifferent parts of Colombia,
climate varies wildly.
So that would be, it depends,is probably the best answer.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Caribbean Sea and then the other side.
It's funny because you look atthe Caribbean Sea in Cartagena
and then I just was panning outa little bit and it's literally
like this bay of water with Cubadirectly across from you,
nicaragua, like all of CostaRica, panama and then all of the
islands St Lucia, barbados,dominica.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
All of the Atlantic and the Caribbean and I think a
little bit of the Pacific aswell on the Northwestern coast.
So it's really diverse.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Yeah, and in terms of where you were at in corporate
America like buildings, itsounds like very diverse, but
lots of tribes, country farming,things like that a lot as well.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
I think one of the biggest surprises I had going to
Latin America in general wasI'd been to Mexico quite a few
times before I traveled LatinAmerica and coming to Cabo as
I'd been doing.
I, a few times before Itraveled Latin America and
coming to Cabo as I'd been doing, I thought this was what Mexico
was like.
And so flying into Mexico cityand realizing this was a full-on
city and this is huge, and thesame thing when I got to Latin
America, to Columbia.
(42:15):
Bogota is a you know, it's acapital city.
It's just like any capital cityanywhere.
It has obviously slums and thestandard of living is lower in
those slums than it would be inmaybe in the US, but equally
there are extremely upscaleneighborhoods with very, very
well-off people.
There are beautiful mallsYou've got your Chanel and your
(42:36):
Gucci stores and all thosethings and skyscrapers full of
fancy offices and apartments.
Medellin, exactly the sameReally backpackery areas, really
upscale areas, really financialservices-focused areas.
Cartagena is a little bitdifferent because it's got this
more walled city UNESCO heritagebut in Boca del Catorre there
(42:57):
were still office blocks andstill people making a living
there, working in those cities.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
And cost of living in terms of someone who.
I don't know if you got anopportunity to do just there for
just a little bit, but expensewise if someone wanted to live
there for like a year.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
A fraction of what you pay in the U?
S.
Yeah, I mean joy.
It's interesting, and one of myteam is is from Cartagena and
just completely randomly hiredsomebody to run our online
platform, and he happens to comefrom Cartagena, and part of the
joy of having him is thecurrency arbitrage, so I can pay
him really, really, really wellfor a Colombian, and it's still
(43:35):
a fraction of what it wouldcost me to hire an American or a
Canadian or somebody from thefirst world, so to speak.
So, definitely, when you gothere, your dollars go a lot
further than they would if youwent on holiday in Miami or
wherever, so it definitely helps.
Equally, though, the prices aregoing up, and tourist prices
(43:56):
are going up as well.
So, medellin when I was livingthere, you could live easily on
20, 30 bucks a day, and now,obviously, they've caught wind
of the fact that all thesenomads are coming in with lots
of money and they have lots ofmoney to spend and they want
yoga studios and fancy cafes, sothe prices of those are going
up.
So, then, my recommendation isalways, when you go to those
places, if you're trying to liveon minimum wage or social
(44:18):
security, which is what a lot ofpeople try and do.
They retire abroad and maybethink about the suburbs that
aren't the touristy suburbs.
Maybe try and live in a morelocal suburb and the prices are
a fraction.
You just choose carefully whereyou go and think about where
you're going to settle.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Yeah, I think COVID changed everything and everyone
was trying to make their dollarsstretch further and sadly,
they're trying to make theirdollars stretch further and it's
going back up.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
I was curious also water, food is it safe?
Do people get sick?
Does that happen also inColombia?
Speaker 2 (44:53):
I didn't get, no, I never got sick in Colombia.
Again, choose carefully.
Don't eat places that you, ifyou can see it's filthy, don't
eat there.
Often, in the suburbs that wewere staying in, generally the
restaurants are more touristfocused, so they're they have a
certain standard of hygiene yeahum, but equally, you know, be
smart, use your common sense.
(45:13):
Uh, if you can see that the foodis hanging or is coming from
one of those though um potsthat's been sat there for three
days and they reheat it, maybedon't eat there.
Uh, choose something that'sfresh Water.
A lot of people drink bottledwater.
I was lucky in the apartment Ihad had a filter system built in
so I could drink the tap waterand just carried a water bottle,
(45:33):
and then when I was in theco-working space, I could refill
.
When I was at the gym, I couldrefill, so I just carried a
water bottle.
For the months I was travelingand everywhere I could.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
I just refill it for free, rather than buying a
bottle of water and wastingplastic.
Okay, all right.
Well, we got to hit our rapidfire.
Questions, kristen, anythingburning before we'll talk about
the food and stuff in the fire.
Rapid fire, yeah.
The only thing I was going tosay is just, with anything any
place, like looking back, you'relike, oh, you need to go here,
and this is why, if there'sanything that stood out in
Colombia, do you know what.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
The place we probably haven't spoken about is Guatape
, so it's an easy day trip fromMedellin.
It's a long day but it's aneasy day trip and it's basically
this enormous stone column thatyou climb up and have an
incredible view of thousands oflakes all around you.
You climb about 650, 700 stepsto get up to this place, so it's
(46:29):
significant.
I think it's one of the largeststone columns in the world, if
not the largest, and the morningthat I went on my trip to
Guatape I actually found out mymother had been taken to
hospital and was very, veryseriously ill, and I still
remember it as one of thehighlights of my entire life.
So you can imagine quite howspectacular this place is.
(46:52):
It's quite breathtakinglybeautiful.
And the view from the top issensational, and the houses that
are sort of around the edge ofthe lakes.
I guess it's a little bit likethe Ozarks.
It's got lots of lakes all overthe place and people have
bought these waterfrontproperties that are worth
millions of dollars and theyhave a very abundant lifestyle
(47:13):
there.
It's also very lush countryside, so you're driving through the
jungle to get there.
There's lots of rivers andhills and incredible thinkers
like country homes you can stopat and have beautiful farm to
table restaurant experiences.
So you know if you're going todo one thing from edin, I would
definitely recommend guatape asa place to go.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Oh, that's great, it's beautiful.
Thank you.
Now, that was wow.
I'm looking at it now andthere's like a lot of.
I'm trying to pan out becauseit went directly into it, but
it's almost like a really biglake that has a lot of fingers.
I would call it.
Yeah, it's big, it's beautiful.
Thank you.
How long does it take to get tothe top?
Speaker 2 (47:56):
I guess that depends, how fast you climb stairs.
I think for me it was like lessthan 10 minutes.
Oh, okay, so it wasn't asignificant.
It's like a, so it wasn't asignificant 600 and something
steps, but there were people whowere making a half day of it to
get to the top and there'slittle rest spots.
Oh okay, so you can do itslowly if you want, but I wanted
to get to the top and see it,so I just went as fast as I
(48:18):
could.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Yeah, exactly, well, and then one last question Was
there any holidays or anythingspecific?
That was kind of neat thatcelebrations that they do, that
someone would want to see or goto in Colombia.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Do you know, I think, like most Latin American
countries, there's an awful lotof public holidays.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
They celebrate.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
I think that they've got it right in this part of the
world where they celebrate alot of things, and that's really
good.
I always think IndependenceDays are a great time to go, so
I definitely recommend hoppingon Google and seeing when is the
best time to be there in termsof national holidays.
Food festivals is another greatone to go for.
If you can find a food festival, if you can find wine festivals
(49:02):
.
There's always beautiful thingsto look for without knowing
specific dates for specific days, but I recommend looking for
those types of events to get thebest out of the country.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Absolutely.
Thank you very much.
Great Okay.
So my rapid fire questions.
What is the popular religionthere?
Catholicism, catholicismism?
Okay, um, what was yourfavorite food?
If you have to have like onemeal, what would you?
What would you be eating there?
Speaker 2 (49:31):
so I should say arepas con chocolate, which is
the arepas are sort of like abreakfast or a snack um, how do
I describe?
Second, across between a muffinand a crepe and a pancake, and
they're beautiful.
But actually I have to say thatI really loved I genuinely
really loved in Colombia theburgers, because the beef, the
(49:52):
quality of the beef, isfantastic.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
So they make incredible hamburgers.
Wow, okay, and what did youhave?
Like what would it be a typicalbreakfast that you'd have when
you're there?
Speaker 2 (50:06):
Arepas is a very popular breakfast item.
And what?
Speaker 1 (50:08):
do you call it Arepas ?
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Arepas A-R-E-P-A, so they're kind of the standard
Colombian breakfast, but you canhave anything.
You can have tacos, or you canhave cereal eggs, I mean all the
standard stuff that you wouldwant to eat.
I personally don't eat a lot ofbreakfast, so I would probably
avoid.
I normally have a cup of greentea and that's enough for me.
(50:30):
Anything you want, and ifyou're in the more tourist
centric areas or the nomadtraveler centric areas, you'll
find all of the delights of homethat you would like.
So you know your eggs benedictand your mushroom omelets and
whatever you want.
Okay, nice, all right.
Is there a specific type ofmusic that you noticed in
Colombia?
Absolutely, colombia is famousfor a type of music called
(50:51):
reggaeton, which is LatinAmerican dance, vibe music, very
popular rhythmic beat.
So people like J Balvin andsome of the people that
collaborated with justin bieberuh, many, many artists that you
probably have heard of withoutrealizing that they're colombian
um, it's a huge music scene anddefinitely very, very popular
(51:15):
and really catchy to listen to.
My now wife, when I first movedto mexico, um was quite stunned
that I knew what reggaeton wasand I really, I genuinely love
it and it's very lively and getsyou in the party mood.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
So I definitely oh, I have to look that up For sure
Definitely look for that.
Okay, got it.
Are there a lot of live musicevents then?
Speaker 2 (51:34):
Huge yeah.
Medellin has loads of livemusic venues, and Bogota are the
same and in Cartagena you cango and find lots of bars with
buskers and live music playingin squares and whatever.
But definitely Medellin isamazing for live music places.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
Okay, great.
And what's the money called?
It's the.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Colombian peso.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
Is it easy to deal with the money down there?
Speaker 2 (51:55):
Yeah, the interesting thing with Colombian money is
the numbers are really big.
So if I give you an example, ifI just say what is one US
dollar, it's 3,889 Colombianpesos.
So when you're buying things,you're paying in hundreds of
thousands of pesos.
Yeah, literally, you could be amillionaire in that currency,
(52:17):
and that can be interesting.
So if you go out for dinner,for example, could spend a
hundred dollars on dinner.
If you're going to a nice place, well, that's four hundred
thousand pesos, which is youknow?
So you that's probably theinteresting part of the currency
is you're having these, you'rehaving these notes with lots and
lots and lots of noughts onthem, and you have to be careful
that you're not giving a, youknow, a five hundred thousand.
(52:39):
When you went to give a fiftythousand, for example, oh, oh,
wow, okay.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
And then that closest place to surf.
I know scuba diving, but isthere also like a surfing?
Speaker 2 (52:48):
I think Santa Marta is a place for surfing Um the
and definitely I'm not a surfer,so I would recommend Googling
uh, where, where to surf inColumbia for for good options.
I couldn't I couldn't speakauthoritatively on that.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
Okay, no worries, okay, well, thank you so much.
This is super, supereducational and it looks like
there's so many beautiful placesthe Santa.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
Marta sounds amazing.
Yeah, I have to check that outand I definitely recommend it.
Speaker 1 (53:15):
If you it says ways of working, what is that?
Speaker 2 (53:19):
So ways of working is one of the product offerings
that we have from our business.
Essentially, we help reallybusy, overwhelmed managers to
become high impact leaders,juggle all the balls and keep
(53:40):
all the plates spinning and isfeeling maybe a little bit
burned out because they justhave so much on their plate and
they can't seem to see the woodfor the trees.
And they're also trying to getthe rewards and the recognition
that they feel they deserve forall their effort that they're
putting in.
What we do is we help thoseleaders start to switch the way
they work with their team tobecome more impactful, to get
(54:02):
better results and to driveproductivity.
And the goal is a commercialbenefit, which is to drive down
the turnover in businesses,because often in those types of
teams people are leaving quitefrequently.
The manager is always having torecruit, Then the cost of
bringing new people on.
You've got low engagement maybein the business.
You're not making the money youcould as a team because you're
(54:24):
not getting the results, becauseyou're not performing as well
as you might.
So our goal is to improve allof those results, make you a
high performance team with ahigh performance leader, using
the ways of working methodology,which is essentially a
facilitated program to supportthe team to develop.
Speaker 1 (54:38):
And how do we find more about that?
Is there a website or socialchannel?
Speaker 2 (54:42):
You can go to jimmyburrowscom and we're we're
in the process of revamping atthe moment, but you can find
information on jimmyburrowscomabout our high performance
leader podcast, the two booksthat we have available.
You can read our blogs, you canjoin our newsletter and there's
also information about ourproduct offerings there, and if
anybody's listening isinterested in a conversation
(55:02):
about how we do this and how wemake it work in some of the case
studies that we have, then I'mmore than happy to connect.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
And what do you cover on your podcast?
Do you have guests?
Speaker 2 (55:12):
We do so it's called the High Performance Leader.
We tend to partner with leadersfrom larger corporate
organizations who've runprojects or have experienced
something, have gone throughsomething that has ended up with
them getting better results,and we share that wisdom with
other people.
And then the other half of theepisodes we do are me doing
solos on specific topics thattend to come up in our workshops
(55:35):
or events.
So, for example, this morningI'll be recording one around why
it's important to prepare toperform as well as actually
doing performance, because oftenwe just relentlessly grind and
grind and grind, uh, and wedon't take any time off to
recharge the batteries or thinkabout the most important thing.
Speaker 1 (55:53):
So uh, preparing to perform is equally as important
as just performing.
Well, thank you so much, Jimmy.
It was so nice to meet you andappreciate shared Um.
Yes, and we'll definitely haveto keep in touch also.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
For sure, and if you end up in Colombia or if you end
up in Mexico, let me know.
Speaker 1 (56:11):
Sounds good, awesome, so nice to meet you, take care
Bye.
Thanks for listening.
If you enjoyed the podcast, canyou please take a second and do
a quick follow of the show andrate us in your podcast app, and
, if you have a minute, we wouldreally appreciate a review.
Following and rating is thebest way to support us.
(56:32):
If you're on Instagram, let'sconnect.
We're at where next podcast.
Thanks again, thank you.
Hi, welcome to our podcast.
We're Next Travel with Kristenand Carol.
I am Kristen and I am Carol,and we're two long-term friends
with a passion for travel andadventure.
Each episode, we interviewpeople around the globe to help
us decide where to go next.
Jimmy, thanks for joining ustoday at when Next podcast, and
(00:37):
we look forward to hearing aboutyour experience of spending
time in Colombia, so welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Thank you so much for the invitation.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yeah, sure, interesting.
I just we bring guests togetherand so sometimes I don't know
until literally I'm sort ofsurprised to meet you.
You know right then and thereabout your background and what
you do and I have to say thefirst thing that came up was a
leadership you know thing thatyou're doing.
And then I've got ways ofworking.
(01:06):
I'm like, oh, we need to talkfurther about that whole thing
after Columbia.
But very interesting, I wascurious that.
And then Columbia how did thosetwo connect?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah, good question.
Maybe if we rewind the clock alittle bit to 2016,.
There's always a good story,isn't there?
So I've had the I guess,untypical career.
I'm on my fourth career now,but my life started as an army
officer in the British army many, many moons ago, which was
essentially leading soldiers,leading organizations or teams
(01:38):
whatever buildinghigh-performing teams.
And then, when I finished doingthat, I ended up in the
corporate HR world for a while,focused on leadership,
development, learning anddevelopment all those things
before finally deciding thatactually, if you wanted to run a
business, you needed experiencerunning a business.
So I switched out of HR andmoved into a GM role, which
unfortunately, led me to burningout in 2017.
(02:01):
So 2016 is the sort of the buildup to the burnout.
I'm struggling immensely and Ihad always had this great dream
of traveling Latin America.
I'd done the majority of Asiaand Indonesia, I'd been through
the majority of Western Europeand in the job that I had as a
GM, I'd also managed to covermost of East Asia.
(02:21):
So that was, I guess, tickedoff the list and there's this
big hole on my map of where Ihadn't been, which was Latin
America.
So, long story short, when theburnout finally did come, I
thought well, why don't I bookmyself a one-way ticket head off
to Latin America and exploreand rediscover my passion for
(02:42):
living and learning?
And while I was on the road, Ibuilt what has now become our
business.
Jimmy Burrows Leadership and wework globally with organizations
, essentially to help turnextremely busy, overwhelmed
managers into high impactleaders.
But part of that journeythrough Latin America was
(03:03):
shacking up with an amazinglittle organization called
Remote Year.
Remote Year are essentially adigital nomad support business I
guess that would probably bethe best way to phrase them.
They pick you up from theairport, they take you to a
fancy apartment somewhere in thecity of choice, they support
you through the month with aco-working space, they introduce
(03:24):
you to a community, theyorganize events, they
troubleshoot for you if you getinto harm's way and then they
move you to the next city.
And you can do that for onemonth, four months or 12 months.
So I signed up for a four-monthprogram through Latin America,
and Colombia were two of thefour months.
So I got to meet Colombia atthat point and since then I've
(03:45):
been back a few times and spentsome very enjoyable months in
Columbia, and now I've ended upliving in Mexico but still
obviously enjoying that LatinAmerican vibe.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Wow, it was called Remote Year.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Remote Year yes, Excellent.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
And then, when you did the four-month stint, what
areas of Latin America did youall go to?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So we started in Peru , in Lima.
We had a month living in Limaand exploring the majority of
the surroundings of Lima and afew other places as well.
Then we moved to Medellinplaces as well.
(04:28):
Then we moved to Medellin andfrom Medellin we did little side
.
We call them side trips, butessentially a little sort of
week or week, weekend, longweekend or week-long excursion.
So we covered a fair bit ofColombia in the time we were
there.
Then we moved to Bogota and dida month in Bogota.
We also had some time inCartagena in between Medellin
and Bogota, and we'll probablygo into this story a little bit
later.
But we actually drove throughthe jungle in a 1970s Ford van
(04:51):
rather than taking the freeway.
So what is probably a four tosix hour drive took us two and a
half days and we were carryingaid to little villages that was
interspersed through the jungle.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Wait, so you're in Medellin, Bogota.
Are those in Colombia?
Yes, Okay, so the four monthsdid you just stay?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
in four different places throughout Colombia.
No, so they move you everymonth between cities.
So first month was Peru, lima,second month was Medellin, third
monthota fourth month, mexicoCity, and then, once I'd
finished my four months, I endedup doing a few other cities
with them as well in LatinAmerica and also traveled fairly
extensively for two and a halfyears independently through
Latin America, but the Colombiastretch was one of the most
(05:38):
enjoyable.
Mexico and Colombia are kind ofmy two favorite places in Latin
America, and why?
Why, I think both for similarreasons.
Both are staggeringly beautiful.
The landscape in both Mexico andColombia and obviously we're
focusing on Colombia today is amixture of so many different
places that I've seen before,all kind of smooshed into one
(05:59):
place.
So you've got these fantasticcities full of incredible
architecture.
You've got amazing parks andforests and greenery.
You've then got rainforests andjungle.
You've got beaches.
You've got mountains with snowon top.
It's almost like somebody hasdecided to take the world's best
bits and put them all into oneplace.
Mexico very similar, but Ithink Colombia is obviously a
(06:22):
much smaller, more concentratedenvironment and you can swim in.
You know two different oceans.
You can.
If you go to santa marta, youcan be on the beach with a
snow-capped mountain behind you.
Like, where can you do thesethings in other places and when
we, I think when we were drivingthrough the jungle again, I saw
pieces of italy, pieces offrance, pieces of germany, I saw
(06:42):
vineyards and olive groves andit's just like the most amazing
garden of Eden that you canexperience.
And then you said we so did, youand your wife, your partner, no
so I was traveling as part ofthe remote year crew and you
essentially sign up with acohort.
So I signed up with afour-month cohort and there were
(07:04):
, I think, initially around 20,25 of us and over the period of
the four months we lost a fewalong the way and we gained a
few along the way.
So you know, kind of stayedaround that 20 mark.
I was lucky enough to room withthe same guy for all four
months and then another guyjoined us for three of those
four months.
So we had a really tight knitlittle family and even though
even now this is in 2018.
(07:24):
And even now we still talk mostweeks on our WhatsApp group,
we've become lifelong friendsand we're all very different
ages, very different backgrounds.
One was the CEO of a bank, one'sa serial entrepreneur and I'm a
leadership guy.
So you know you wouldn'tnecessarily put us all together
in the same place, but thisexperience did that for us.
And then, once I sort oftraveled independently, I joined
(07:46):
what's called the CitizenNetwork, which is a group of
people who, like Remote Year,don't want to sign up
necessarily for a program, butlike to pick and mix into
different cities, and so eachdifferent city I went to with
Remote Year I was part of thetribe, but once I was a citizen
then I could just drop in andjoin whichever tribe happened to
be in that city that month whatdo they call that program?
Speaker 1 (08:07):
oh, the citizens program and then how much was
something like this I mean, thissounds incredible.
And like, uh, I mean, whencarol and I were talking about
doing this, what was it?
Three or four years?
ago yeah, three years yeah overthree years yeah, yeah, three
and a half years ago, um,digital nomad, I mean we were,
we were looking, there was a.
(08:28):
Actually I have it savedbecause when I first put you in
here, uh, my phone, uh, nomacollective, that's what it was
called.
Um, it was something similar tothat, but this sounds even more
.
It sounds like something I wantto look at.
It's really interesting.
Was everyone working remotelyand how was the wifi?
Or was it just kind of allcrusty people retired or how was
(08:53):
that?
Speaker 2 (08:54):
It was a real mix.
So in our little tribe and ourlittle crew that was going
around, we had people who justfinished university and they
were on their sort of gap year.
We had a surprising number ofpeople like me who burned out
and we're just trying to kind ofregain ourselves and there's a
lot.
There's a terrible cliche thatsays people on remote year are
either running away fromsomething or running towards
(09:15):
something, and I was mostdefinitely running toward the
next incarnation of myself,which is consulting and
mentoring and facilitating.
But there were a lot of peoplewho kind of had taken some time
out of their workplace and justneeded a break, and the
four-month programs, I think,are a good opportunity for that.
The year-long programs maybedon't lend themselves to that so
much.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
So is there a lot of time to actually work, or are
you like is?
There too much activity wheremost people really actually
aren't working working.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
No, I would say probably half to three fifths of
the group were workingfull-time in jobs.
So we had.
We had lawyers, we hadprogrammers, we had salespeople,
we had leaders of teams, remoteteams, people in marketing,
people in PR.
There was a girl I met who wasrunning PR for Primark, the
clothing brand.
We had the CEO of a bank.
He was on a sort of sabbaticalbut was still chair of the board
(10:06):
, so he was working back intohis country.
So the daytime is generally forworking and then the late
afternoon, evening, is when theyput on the more structured
activities.
So in Colombia it was let's goand visit a farm, or let's go to
see a cultural evening aboutColombian culture in this
particular city, or let's do acity walking tour, and they
(10:27):
would happen after working hoursto allow you to get some work
done in a day.
Alternatively, if you didn'twant to work, that was beach
time or exploring time orwhatever you wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yeah, did you also volunteer or actually give back,
like, do things like that aswell.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
They do.
They have a philanthropicelement to the business and I
don't necessarily want topromote Remote Year above any of
the other organizations that dothis, it's just the one I had
the luck to have the experienceof.
There are others as well, ifyou want to research, you know
Wi-Fi Tribe and Nomad Cruise andlots of other ones, but they do
, they have a philanthropicelement.
(11:08):
So if I think back to some ofthe work in Medellin we did, we
went to a school and we helpedto paint some walls that had
been graffitied and were, Iguess, relatively run down.
So we painted the walls, we dugthe weeds out of the garden, we
created a vegetable patch forthem where the kids could then
go and learn about vegetables ina more pleasant environment
than graffiti walls and trashand beer cans and whatever had
been thrown over a fence.
We tidied it up.
(11:29):
And in each city there was anactivity.
In Bogota they went and builthouses for families, so they got
sort of prefab sheds and turnedthem into houses with wriggly
tin roofs, and so there's alwaysa philanthropic element to each
group that goes through each ofthe cities and if you think you
(11:49):
know, remote Year has, I think,about 20 cities on the go at
any one point and there's agroup in every city, sometimes
more than one group.
The Mexico City sometimes hastwo or three groups.
So you know you're talking 30to 100 people in 20 cities
around the world.
That's a fairly large communityof people that you can be part
of.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah, I was curious how many people so about 30 to a
hundred people are at one timegoing through the program.
Did you notice any difference,I'm curious, between the one
month, the four month and the 12month.
I was curious.
Did you meet any people thatwere going for a year and what?
Why were they doing it?
I was just curious.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Absolutely.
I actually jumped into in Chile, santiago.
I jumped into a group ofyear-long travelers and they
were quite a different dynamicto our group.
Much more of them werefull-time workers, much more and
we were probably half tothree-fifths they were 75% were
in employment or trying tocreate employment for themselves
(12:40):
.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
They're freelancers who were looking for
opportunities and that was avery different dynamic
employment for themselves.
They're freelancers who werelooking for opportunities.
That was a very differentdynamic I also had there were
freelancers looking throughoutthe countries they were going
through.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
All virtual, all online stuff.
So I'll give you an example.
One of the guys I met was afilm producer.
He'd worked in Hollywood, hehad been in that world and
decided to get out of the ratrace.
So I met him in Santiago and hewas trying to set up a
freelance film editing and filmproduction business and ended up
doing a documentary aboutRemote Year while he was on the
(13:13):
road, which was a nice littleportfolio piece, but was also
picking up freelance work fromFiverr and Upwork and through
his network and gradually nowfast forward five years he has a
reasonably successfulindependent film production
business.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
That is really neat.
And then with the 12-month, arethey also picking Latin America
or Asia?
Are they bouncing?
Six months there and six months?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, so the 12-month programs you do are essentially
around the world trip.
So you get three or four citiesin each continent.
So you have a couple in Europe,a couple in Asia, a couple in
North America, a couple in SouthAmerica, um, a couple in
Indonesia, and depending onwhich program you choose, you
know they pick and mix the, the,the cities that you go through.
So they, they used to be in theearly days, used to be like
(13:59):
this is the route that you allwent around, Um, but as they've
picked up more cities then nowthere's a bit more variety.
So you could have a more Europeelement or a more Asian element
to your program.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
This reminds me of like it's like study abroad for
life.
I mean, there's people there'speople.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
I know there's a very famous citizen called Hunter
Hunter Pine and he's been aremote citizen for five or six
years and he just travelsperpetually with Remote Year and
they organize all of thelogistics for his life and all
he has to do is just take hislaptop wherever he goes.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Oh, like Kristen, like that lady had said, getting
your own travel agent.
But this is just a more grouptravel agent almost, where they
organize everything for you.
And Colombia is somewhere whereI would kind of be scared to go
to, just for these stereotypesthat I have in my head.
So, doing it with someonethat's organized and they know
where to go, where to stay, howto get around, I think like much
(14:59):
of Latin America, colombia hasa mixed reputation.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Obviously, there were the dark years back in history
Pablo Escobar's years and thenbeyond.
Colombia has done a very goodjob of creating pockets of
safety within each of the citiesand each of the tourist areas
tourist areas and there'sagreements been reached between
the gangs and the government andso on.
(15:24):
So it means now that there aremany places you can go as a
nomad, as a traveler withinColombia that are completely
safe.
You know you wouldn't have toworry.
Obviously, you have to havesome common sense.
You know there are places inAmerica that you wouldn't go at
night alone with lots ofvaluables.
The same thing applies in anycity in the world.
Then you do the same thing inColombia.
(15:45):
So you don't walk around in themiddle of the night, when
you're drunk, with your thousanddollar camera around your neck
because you're going to ask fortrouble.
But equally, I never felt at anydanger when I was in Colombia.
I know, when we drove throughthe jungle, that was what
historically was counted as FARCterritory, which is the um, the
Colombian sort of revolutionaryfreedom fighters.
(16:05):
Uh, but the people that we weretraveling with, the guide that
took us through the jungle.
Uh, he knew and had made theappropriate arrangements for us
to pass without any issueswhatsoever.
Uh, we were always advised whenwe were in each city which
areas were safe to go and whichareas were unnecessary for us to
go.
And then some.
One of the I guess mostmemorable things we did in
(16:27):
Medellin particularly was wewent to a place called Comina 13
, which is a suburb of Medellin,and this used to be one of the
most dangerous suburbs in all ofColombia Murders and bombs and
really, really violent incidentshappening all the time and over
(16:47):
a period of a few years nowwe're now a couple of decades
they've transformed that nowinto a tourist area, and so it's
the most incredible cornucopiaof street art and street
entertainment and cafes andbeauty that you would not see.
It's called Comuna 13,c-o-m-u-n-a 13, um.
(17:10):
There's another one that's upand coming called commoner 8
same thing, but they've reallytaken this violent area and said
we don't want to live like thisanymore.
We don't want to live in fearand violence.
We want to make somethingreally beautiful.
So they've made this incrediblesuburb that you can visit and
there's tours every single day.
Thousands of people go throughthere every day to see all this
incredible street art and allthese amazing places, and that's
(17:31):
an example of where Colombia istrying to turn itself around
and get out of the perception ofthis drug capital of the world
and this super dangerous placeand become actually somewhere
really attractive for people whowant to have a great life, to
go and live.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Wow, I'm just looking at some of that actually
somewhere really attractive forpeople who want to have a great
life to go and live.
Wow, I'm just looking at someof that.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
So Communa 17 is what Communa 13.
And the new one is Communa 8,which is they've done the same
thing, they've put a gondolaaccess to it, basically, so it's
become a more accessible partof the city, which has turned it
from a ghetto into a beautyspot.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
It's like Hunger Games, hunger games, district 13
, district 8, there you go right, that's so colorful.
Oh, I can see.
I see the graffiti trying tosee.
Yeah, I'm not getting thepictures, but I'll look at it,
I'll get.
It's very crowded, well, and Iwas curious also how much, um,
if someone wanted to do remoteyear, uh, what are the costs
(18:27):
involved?
Is it what?
What is a cost?
What's included in that?
Speaker 2 (18:32):
yeah, I mean I with that again, without advertising
them.
Um, I would go to remoteyearcomand have a good look.
They havea pretty transparentweb page full of the prices.
I think when I did the programit was about two thousand us
dollars a month, uh, pluscertain optional activities,
it's probably more than that.
Now you know, things have gotmore expensive over time.
It was significantly moreexpensive than just backpacking.
(18:52):
You know, I I uh, in the fourmonths I was with remote year I
spent as much as I then did inthe 12 months, um, afterward.
So you know you'll put you aboutthree times as much as doing it
on your own, but you're in, uh,a real like in Condesa.
I was in living in Condesa, inMexico city, in one of the
(19:13):
nicest parts of Mexico city, umin in Parker, mexico, so
literally having to go in in apenthouse apartment that was
probably worth, you know, acouple of million dollars.
In Medellin we had thisenormous 17th floor condo
(19:34):
looking over the city, um threelarge double bedrooms, huge
living open area, facilities,security.
So you know, that's much, muchnicer than you would do if you
just booked an Airbnb, forexample.
Uh so you're.
You're paying for that, thatlevel of support of, of example.
So you're paying for that levelof experience, but you're also
paying for the support that youget.
So you don't have to organizeyour airport shuttle, you don't
need to worry about making sureyou're there for your flights on
time.
They tell you what to do in thecity, they give you an
(19:56):
orientation walk, so you're kindof up and running really quick
and that was what made it goodfor me.
I could get to a city within 24hours.
I was up and running and I knewI could just work.
I knew where everything was.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
That's what I heard.
It's hard to like get that kindof situated, the system in
place, and where am I going towork out?
Where am I going to eat?
Where am I going to go buy myfood?
Speaker 2 (20:18):
So you've got somebody on site who can help
you with that straight away,Cause there is a city manager
who lives there and is theexpert in that area of the city.
They're like I need a gym, Ineed a pharmacy, I need a
supermarket.
They go cool here's the map, gothere.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Can we dive into the jungly area that you said that
you had to have a guide?
I have one last question, alsoWith the remote year.
When you paid it, did itinclude food, or I'm assuming,
or do you pay for food?
Do they do meal-wise?
Is that included or separate?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, so a mixture, I'd say so.
Most months there was some sortof team event or team get
together which was included.
So it might be a breakfast or alunch, but the majority of the
meals you're paying for yourself.
So if you want to eat breakfast, you can.
There's a.
Let's use Medellin as anexample.
There's a million cafes.
(21:11):
You can walk out out of yourAirbnb and or your apartment and
it's just full of cafes.
Mexico city the same, so you payfor yourself.
Lunches Often we'd be working,so just grab a sandwich or sushi
or whatever.
And then dinner we'd often goout as a group.
So somebody would put in thegroup chat hey, I'm going to go
try this amazing place.
I went to three Michelin starrestaurants while I was
(21:31):
traveling Latin America and oneof them was in Medellin and it
was uh, it was beautiful,absolutely beautiful.
And so somebody would say, hey,I'm going to go here tonight.
Anybody want to join by?
And that would be aroundlunchtime, and then five, six,
10 people would sign up and we'dall go off and have dinner
together.
But it was at your own cost.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Okay, Got it.
So it sounds like room andboards included and then
activities would be included, ifyou know.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
All the fun is where you spend all your money.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
But it's not included in it, or is it?
It's not included, so what youget is room and board and a
place and security, and thenwhat you pay for is your food
and your fun Food, and fun, yourfood and fun Basically, exactly
that Okay.
Excellent, thank you, I justfigured, just for.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
I mean, I'm even interested in looking into that?
Speaker 1 (22:16):
I think that sounds great.
Yeah, explore the world andwork.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Absolutely, absolutely, so I definitely
recommend checking out some ofthe other ones.
There's a beautifulorganization called Wi-Fi Tribe.
They do something exactly thesame, and there are a number of
others there.
The Remote Year and Wi-Fi Tribeare the two big ones, though,
who've been around for a longtime.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah, I like Wi-Fi tribe.
That's a fun name.
Yeah, that's great.
Thank you so much so Columbia,and talking about I know Carol
was mentioning the jungles andyour experience with that.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah, it was one of those serendipitous
opportunities.
I guess we were reaching theend of the month, living in
Medellin, and we had traveled alittle bit.
We'd been to Guatape, which isone of the most incredible
places I've ever been in my life.
We'd been to San Andres Island,we'd been to Cartagena and we
(23:09):
felt like we needed somethingelse to round off that month.
And when we were in Medellinwe'd met this guy who does the
Guatape trip and he runs a vanbusiness, basically a minibus
business, but his vans are allthese 1970s Ford vans that he's
kind of pimped, so they have LEDlighting and big fat wings and
(23:33):
they're pretty cool and most ofthe time you spend sitting on
top of the van in the roof rackrather than actually inside the
van.
So it's a lot of fun, it's areally party vibe.
And so we spoke to the programmanager and the city manager
while we were there and we said,well, hey, it would be really
(23:53):
cool to just do something thatwould involve this guy in his
van.
We asked could we potentiallydrive through the jungle with
him?
And they'd never done it before.
But we basically came up withthis trip.
Myself and my two roomies cameup with this trip where we were
going to drive through thejungle, and then this
opportunity came up to be alittle bit philanthropic about
it and deliver some aid.
So we went to the supermarketthe morning we left and we
filled the entire back of thevan with rice and beans and
(24:15):
veggies and drinks and whateverwe could find.
Basically A couple of thousanddollars worth of food went into
the back of to paint and do someart, with the local women
(24:37):
helping out on.
You know, dig a trench on afarm or whatever it is to help
out one of the working men.
We painted some stuff while wewere on the way and it was just.
It was a lot of fun, absolutely,and the rest of the time we
were sat on top of this vanlistening to crazy loud rock
music and partying in the jungle.
So it was a very enjoyableactivity until the last day when
we were about four hoursoutside Bogota and then the poor
(25:00):
1970s van showed its age andbroke down in the middle of the
mountains.
So we then sat on the side ofthe road for four or five hours
waiting for some things to bemade in a workshop.
Thank goodness 1970s vans aresimple, so a little piece of
metal got hit with a hammer andwe finally made it to to bogota,
uh, late that evening and the Iguess the the culmination of
(25:22):
the trip for us was actuallybeing invited to the, the van
driver's family home, uh, tomeet his mom and his, his sister
and his brother and their kids,and we got to have this
beautiful cultural experience.
Through the whole journey Stillgot some incredible memories
and photos and videos of thattrip and it really was a
beautiful opportunity toexperience something that most
people will never experience,which is really deep into what
(25:45):
we consider the dangerous partsof the jungle in Colombia.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Wow, that is incredible.
I can only imagine that'sprobably a life highlight, right
?
Speaker 2 (25:54):
It's definitely up there for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Absolutely.
And now do they speak?
Is it Spanish?
I'm sure it's a dialectdifference of that.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
It's known to be actually one of the easiest
versions of Latin AmericanSpanish to be able to pick up.
It's quite a clean version ofSpanish.
I did a couple of weeks ofSpanish school while I was in
Columbia and I definitely Idefinitely progressed Um, albeit
, you know, now I'm living inMexico and Mexican Spanish is
also pretty easy to pick up.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, oh wonderful.
So, um so communication.
I mean you had your driver thatcould communicate when you were
going through the jungles ofwhat, what you guys were doing,
and it sounds like he knew whoto uh arrange to make it safe
and fit.
Where did you guys sleep?
Was it just in the differentjungle cities?
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah.
So there would be hotel, hostel, motel type places that we
could just pull in, and he hadprearranged all the stops, apart
from one night where we wererunning quite behind for one of
the evenings.
So we ended up just literallypulling over on the side of the
road and knocking on somebody'sdoor and it turned out he was
(26:59):
actually one of the most amazinghotels in the entire region
that people book months inadvance to go there and we just
happened to stumble across itone evening.
You can imagine this superrural area.
There's nothing there andthere's this guy with a hotel
with a water slide and abeautiful swimming pool and we
were this guy with a hotel witha water slide and a beautiful
swimming pool and we weregetting, we were helping harvest
coconuts, we played a game ofsoccer with his kids and we
(27:21):
turned out and said this is oneof like the highlight hotels in
the region that we just stumbledacross.
It was just luck, I guess.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
And I'm curious, how much was it to stay at a hotel,
like for the night?
I think we paid 15 each so itlooks like bocata is like
elevated.
Is it in the mountains?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
is.
It's high.
Yeah, I guess it's aninteresting city because there's
lots of things going on there,obviously the capital of
columbia, but it's it's quitegray and it's quite rainy, uh,
and has a lot of smog issues andI think, like most Latin
America cities, the centro ofthe city is not the place you
want to be.
There's always going to be asuburb outside the centro which
(28:03):
is far more desirable, and so wewere living almost in the
centro, which was.
It was nice, we were in a sortof executive neighborhood, but
definitely in Bogota there wereother areas to visit, but it's
quite high.
So I remember I used to be well, I still am a runner and
running in Bogota, after aboutthree kilometers you'd be
starting to really feel it inyour lungs and heart because the
(28:25):
oxygen is less and theconcentration of oxygen is much
lower.
So it's about 16, 15% versusthe sort of 21, 22% you'd have
at sea level 15%, versus thesort of 21, 22% you'd have at
sea level.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Okay, and then going to these like the jungle, I see
there's a lot of parks.
It says like on the map, butwould you say anything that's
like not in a designated, likesafe area?
Would you just like don't gothere unless you don't really
know what you're doing?
Or is there like national parksthat are, yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
I guess it depends.
So let's use one of the parksthat's very famous in medellin
which is called paca avi, whichis basically you can get a, a
gondola from the river or themain train line right up into
the mountains, and it's thishuge national park like central
park in new york, you know, butsignificantly larger and has
trails and mountain biking, andit's extremely safe and people
(29:14):
go up there every day.
I wouldn't necessarilyrecommend putting a backpack on
and heading off into the jungleon your own in in colombia.
Equally, I wouldn't recommendmaybe hiring a car and doing it
on your own and, to be honest,if you, I think with many things
, if you want to get the bestout of a country, it can often
really help to get yourself alocal who knows, and whether
(29:37):
that's a structured tour orwhether that is part of
something like I did on a remoteyear or booking something off
Expedia or Viator or one ofthose website Airbnb experiences
, there's plenty of people whoknow where to take you and how
to take it and book sensibly aswell.
Look for something with lots ofreviews that's had many people
go through it.
Don't choose somebody who's gotno reviews and it's their first
(30:00):
time out?
Um, yeah, and it's free.
Um, you know, be sensible.
I think probably my biggestlesson in latin america is if
you're sensible, there are many,many people here who are
absolutely wonderful and cannotwait to help you and are so
generous and so kind and sohonest that the perception is
(30:21):
everybody's out to get you.
But you have got to have yourguard up all the time because
there are many people who areout to just rinse you of your
money and your possessions.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Okay, and Cartagena looks like it's on the water.
Is that a?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
touristy area Cartagena is incredible.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
With a G, Cartagena with a G right.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Correct.
Yeah, the G is a soft G.
So Cartagena is a UNESCO WorldHeritage Wall City.
Actually, you may have seenCartagena used in one of the
James bond films, uh, and he'son a motorbike.
Uh, it's also in, um, it's awill smith movie.
Which one is it?
Gemini man?
There's a scene in gemini manwhere he's being uh, chased by
(31:04):
himself, um, on a youngerversion of himself on a
motorbike.
Imagine a walled city, littlenarrow streets, almost like a
sort of french or or a Spanishcolonial town that is full of
little boutiques and beautifulfive-star hotels and cafes and
restaurants and it's the mostgorgeous colors They've
renovated and restored all ofthese buildings Absolutely
(31:25):
spectacular.
Then you walk out of the walledcity, you go across one of the
rivers and you're in this.
What used to be the slum areaof the city was where all the
merchants and the bars and thecafes were for all the sailors,
and that's now become thisreally hipster area full of cool
(31:46):
, vibrant restaurants andunderground cafes and sort of
really cool hipster scene.
And then you go a little bitfurther and you go into the area
called Boca del Toro, which islike Miami, so it's full of
skyrise, skyscrapers and hotelsand first world facilities.
So, depending on what you'reinto, you can kind of make
yourself at home in any of thoseregions.
(32:08):
I've kind of jumped between allthree.
And then the beauty ofCartagena is you can go out to
islands from there and they havebeach clubs on islands and
hostels on islands and all sortsof very cool things you can do.
So it's a really fascinatingplace.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Wow, really, I'm looking on the map and looking
at pictures and things.
But there's a lot there, and Iwas looking, you said rivers.
I mean I see a lot of justshoots of rivers.
And then there's a completelyprotected huge bay and then
there's another one that'salmost looks like a hammerhead
shark or something Water oneither side and then there's it
(32:47):
looks like a little.
There's a couple little islandson the inside of it too.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Lots of islands and if you know, part of being
catahena is, you do like anisland hopping tour, so you jump
on a boat in the morning andthey take you to five or six
islands during the day andthere's party islands and
sunbathing islands and jungleislands and you can have a real
kind of mixture of things.
You can swim with rays andsometimes you can swim with
sharks, so it's a very, verycool environment environment,
(33:13):
yeah, wow.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
And then this island, tierra Bamba, right next to the
whole, there's like a hugeisland.
Is that also part of Colombia?
Yep, okay, got it, and did youget a chance to go to that
island?
I'm curious what that was likeas well.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
No, I didn't get to go there.
I was kind of smitten with thewalled city and exploring all
the different fortresses.
I'm a bit of a historicalarchitecture nerd, so I was busy
doing city tours, looking atdoorway architecture and
fortresses and then looking atsome of the.
I'm also a foodie, so I wasexploring all the cafes.
(33:50):
But I'm also a very keen scubadiver, so the rest of the time
when I was in katahina I was outscuba diving, uh, exploring the
underwater reefs and some ofthe the exciting dive sites I
was gonna ask if scuba divingwas big there.
Huge, yeah um there's someincredible places to scuba dive,
uh, all through colombia, but Iwould say the two highlights is
(34:10):
diving off Cartagena, uh, andthen there's a, an island off
the shore of uh, offshore fromfrom um, from Columbia, called
San Andres, which is only small,uh, and then near to that there
is another island calledProvidencia, um, those two are
really well regarded forfirst-class Caribbean diving, um
(34:31):
, you know, beautiful, clear,you can see for hundreds of feet
and it's warm all year roundand it's beautiful, beautiful
diving places to go.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Wow, I have to rank the three.
Which ones First, second andthird in your mind?
Speaker 2 (34:45):
I would say Providencia is probably first,
then Katahena, diving offKatahena and some of the areas
there, and then probably SanAndres third, although I
actually spent most time in SanAndres because it was cheap and
easy to get to.
Providence is a little bitharder to get to.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Got it Okay.
I'm looking at it right now.
It does look very tropical, forsure.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
It is yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
And what's the cost to stay in Cartagena?
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Depends.
Is that more like Mexico orlike Miami?
$14 a night.
And then the third time I wasthere I stayed in a little
(35:33):
boutique hotel right inside thewalled city and that was about
150 bucks a night and that wasliterally a sort of five-star,
beautiful little environmentwith all the facilities of a
five-star hotel.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Okay, and are you being so kind of converting this
all into US dollars for us?
Speaker 2 (35:46):
US dollars yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
I'm very impressed you live in Mexico.
It sounds like what's your I'moriginally British.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Born in the UK but I live in Cabo, so the majority of
our currency transactions arepesos or dollars.
We think in both currencieshere.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Okay, oh, you live in Cabo Nice.
Do you just live there part ofthe time, or is that your home
base and now you just kind ofbounce other places?
Speaker 2 (36:11):
So we spend probably six, seven months a year here.
It's, it's.
We actually live about 30kilometers from Cabo San Lucas,
in a beautiful little towncalled San Jose del Cabo, which
is the home of boutiques andfarm to table restaurants and a
much nicer, calmer standard ofliving than you would find in
Partyville, which is down therein.
(36:32):
Cabo San Lucas and then the restof the time.
We have a place in the centerof Mexico, in a city called
Querétaro, which is again a veryelevated city up in the
mountains.
It's near to a city called SanMiguel de Allende which is where
a lot of Americans have been.
Yep, I hear about that, so it'sabout 30, 40 minutes from there
and then the rest of the timewe'll be traveling, so going
(36:53):
back to the UK to see friendsand family.
Headed off overseas to seefriends and family.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
How did you decide that town off of San Miguel?
Speaker 2 (37:03):
My father-in-law lives there.
So, we went on a visit to meetthe dad when my now wife and I
got together and we visited, andit's very, very different to
Cabo.
Obviously, we live where thedesert meets the ocean, at the
bottom of a.
My now wife and I got togetherand we visited, and it's very,
very different to Cabo,obviously it's you know we live
in where the desert meets theocean, at the bottom of a
peninsula, here Over there it'swineries and green and mountains
and it's a beautiful city, veryhistorical, colorful city.
(37:25):
And while we were there my wifesaid, oh, I, you know, I'd love
to have a place here.
So we went and bought a housethere and so now we have this
wonderful house that we can justjump between the two and,
depending on how we feel, we canbe at the beach or we can be in
the city, in the mountains.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
That's amazing.
What was the city called thatyou live in?
Speaker 2 (37:45):
What was it At the beach or in the city?
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Well, I guess, in the city.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Yeah, the city, the city is called Queretaro, so
it's Q-U-E-R-E-T-A-R-.
Okay, yeah, you might spell itas Queretaro.
Okay, yeah, it's about two anda half hours northwest of Mexico
City and about 40 minutes fromSan Miguel.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
So six, seven months out of the year you're down in
Mexico and the other time you'reeither back in UK or traveling
somewhere?
Is that?
Speaker 2 (38:18):
No, six, seven months a year in Cabo, three, four
months a year in Queretaro andthen the rest of the time on the
road.
I think now we'll probably leanmore towards being in the city
because we want to spend moretime with family and obviously
we've got my wife's family arebased in Mexico City and
Querétaro, so it's much moreaccessible for them.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Oh, that's great.
Wow, what a fun, fun life.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
A life by design, which I think is so important in
this modern modern life.
We only get one go at this andmany of us, I think, sit in
cubicles, bored, hating ourexistences and wishing we could
make a change, and then the onlything that's stopping you
making a change is you.
So I decided in 2017 that itwas time to do something
different and and build a lifearound the things I wanted to do
(39:05):
, versus trying to squeeze lifeinto what I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Yeah, absolutely.
Do you have kids or family?
I'm just curious if they?
I know one friend did and she'straveling the world right now
with four kids that are young.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Wow, amazing.
Yeah, no, we do.
We just had a daughter.
She's four months old and sheis definitely changing sort of
the way we're approaching things, but I, my wife and I are
definitely keen to continuetraveling.
We've got a few trips bookedthis year that we're going to
experiment with and actuallyprobably next week we'll we'll
do our first flight, uh, over tothe other house and see how we
(39:38):
manage with all the things youneed to carry with kids yeah, so
.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
So, columbia, what else in terms of, I mean, it's
really great, it's got mountains, it's got snow.
Is there skiing there as well?
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Don't think it's.
No, I think it's snow-cappedmountains that I don't think
they're skiing.
I could be wrong.
I didn't get to go skiing, andif there is skiing there, I
would love to experience it, butno, I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
And then you've got a lot of beaches and um, and
how's the temperature and um itdepends, real diversity and
temperature.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Bogota is is cold.
Um, we were certainly coldthere.
When was I in bogota, likeaugust, september time, and you
know, jackets and and hoodiesand jeans were definitely the
order of the day.
There were sunny days where youcould go out in shorts and
t-shirt, but the majority of itwas quite, was, was quite, sort
of ballish.
Medellin is is known as thecity of eternal spring, so every
day is, you know, 27, 28degrees, uh, you know seventies,
(40:36):
uh, all year round you get rainquite frequently, cause it's in
the middle of a jungle, so youget, you know, the four o'clock
or five o'clock downpour, butit's still warm rain and within
20, 30 minutes back to normalagain very, very humid.
And then Cartagena is in theCaribbean, so it's hot and
sticky most of the year.
They get all of the joys of theCaribbean lifestyle.
(40:58):
So you get hurricanesoccasionally, but it's very,
very different.
And again, if you go todifferent parts of Colombia,
climate varies wildly.
So that would be, it depends,is probably the best answer.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Caribbean Sea and then the other side.
It's funny because you look atthe Caribbean Sea in Cartagena
and then I just was panning outa little bit and it's literally
like this bay of water with Cubadirectly across from you,
nicaragua, like all of CostaRica, panama and then all of the
islands St Lucia, barbados,dominica.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
All of the Atlantic and the Caribbean and I think a
little bit of the Pacific aswell on the Northwestern coast.
So it's really diverse.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Yeah, and in terms of where you were at in corporate
America like buildings, itsounds like very diverse, but
lots of tribes, country farming,things like that a lot as well.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
I think one of the biggest surprises I had going to
Latin America in general wasI'd been to Mexico quite a few
times before I traveled LatinAmerica and coming to Cabo as
I'd been doing.
I, a few times before Itraveled Latin America and
coming to Cabo as I'd been doing, I thought this was what Mexico
was like.
And so flying into Mexico cityand realizing this was a full-on
city and this is huge, and thesame thing when I got to Latin
America, to Columbia.
(42:15):
Bogota is a you know, it's acapital city.
It's just like any capital cityanywhere.
It has obviously slums and thestandard of living is lower in
those slums than it would be inmaybe in the US, but equally
there are extremely upscaleneighborhoods with very, very
well-off people.
There are beautiful mallsYou've got your Chanel and your
(42:36):
Gucci stores and all thosethings and skyscrapers full of
fancy offices and apartments.
Medellin, exactly the sameReally backpackery areas, really
upscale areas, really financialservices-focused areas.
Cartagena is a little bitdifferent because it's got this
more walled city UNESCO heritagebut in Boca del Catorre there
(42:57):
were still office blocks andstill people making a living
there, working in those cities.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
And cost of living in terms of someone who.
I don't know if you got anopportunity to do just there for
just a little bit, but expensewise if someone wanted to live
there for like a year.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
A fraction of what you pay in the U?
S.
Yeah, I mean joy.
It's interesting, and one of myteam is is from Cartagena and
just completely randomly hiredsomebody to run our online
platform, and he happens to comefrom Cartagena, and part of the
joy of having him is thecurrency arbitrage, so I can pay
him really, really, really wellfor a Colombian, and it's still
(43:35):
a fraction of what it wouldcost me to hire an American or a
Canadian or somebody from thefirst world, so to speak.
So, definitely, when you gothere, your dollars go a lot
further than they would if youwent on holiday in Miami or
wherever, so it definitely helps.
Equally, though, the prices aregoing up, and tourist prices
(43:56):
are going up as well.
So, medellin when I was livingthere, you could live easily on
20, 30 bucks a day, and now,obviously, they've caught wind
of the fact that all thesenomads are coming in with lots
of money and they have lots ofmoney to spend and they want
yoga studios and fancy cafes, sothe prices of those are going
up.
So, then, my recommendation isalways, when you go to those
places, if you're trying to liveon minimum wage or social
(44:18):
security, which is what a lot ofpeople try and do.
They retire abroad and maybethink about the suburbs that
aren't the touristy suburbs.
Maybe try and live in a morelocal suburb and the prices are
a fraction.
You just choose carefully whereyou go and think about where
you're going to settle.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Yeah, I think COVID changed everything and everyone
was trying to make their dollarsstretch further and sadly,
they're trying to make theirdollars stretch further and it's
going back up.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
I was curious also water, food is it safe?
Do people get sick?
Does that happen also inColombia?
Speaker 2 (44:53):
I didn't get, no, I never got sick in Colombia.
Again, choose carefully.
Don't eat places that you, ifyou can see it's filthy, don't
eat there.
Often, in the suburbs that wewere staying in, generally the
restaurants are more touristfocused, so they're they have a
certain standard of hygiene yeahum, but equally, you know, be
smart, use your common sense.
(45:13):
Uh, if you can see that the foodis hanging or is coming from
one of those though um potsthat's been sat there for three
days and they reheat it, maybedon't eat there.
Uh, choose something that'sfresh Water.
A lot of people drink bottledwater.
I was lucky in the apartment Ihad had a filter system built in
so I could drink the tap waterand just carried a water bottle,
(45:33):
and then when I was in theco-working space, I could refill
.
When I was at the gym, I couldrefill, so I just carried a
water bottle.
For the months I was travelingand everywhere I could.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
I just refill it for free, rather than buying a
bottle of water and wastingplastic.
Okay, all right.
Well, we got to hit our rapidfire.
Questions, kristen, anythingburning before we'll talk about
the food and stuff in the fire.
Rapid fire, yeah.
The only thing I was going tosay is just, with anything any
place, like looking back, you'relike, oh, you need to go here,
and this is why, if there'sanything that stood out in
Colombia, do you know what.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
The place we probably haven't spoken about is Guatape
, so it's an easy day trip fromMedellin.
It's a long day but it's aneasy day trip and it's basically
this enormous stone column thatyou climb up and have an
incredible view of thousands oflakes all around you.
You climb about 650, 700 stepsto get up to this place, so it's
(46:29):
significant.
I think it's one of the largeststone columns in the world, if
not the largest, and the morningthat I went on my trip to
Guatape I actually found out mymother had been taken to
hospital and was very, veryseriously ill, and I still
remember it as one of thehighlights of my entire life.
So you can imagine quite howspectacular this place is.
(46:52):
It's quite breathtakinglybeautiful.
And the view from the top issensational, and the houses that
are sort of around the edge ofthe lakes.
I guess it's a little bit likethe Ozarks.
It's got lots of lakes all overthe place and people have
bought these waterfrontproperties that are worth
millions of dollars and theyhave a very abundant lifestyle
(47:13):
there.
It's also very lush countryside, so you're driving through the
jungle to get there.
There's lots of rivers andhills and incredible thinkers
like country homes you can stopat and have beautiful farm to
table restaurant experiences.
So you know if you're going todo one thing from edin, I would
definitely recommend guatape asa place to go.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Oh, that's great, it's beautiful.
Thank you.
Now, that was wow.
I'm looking at it now andthere's like a lot of.
I'm trying to pan out becauseit went directly into it, but
it's almost like a really biglake that has a lot of fingers.
I would call it.
Yeah, it's big, it's beautiful.
Thank you.
How long does it take to get tothe top?
Speaker 2 (47:56):
I guess that depends, how fast you climb stairs.
I think for me it was like lessthan 10 minutes.
Oh, okay, so it wasn't asignificant.
It's like a, so it wasn't asignificant 600 and something
steps, but there were people whowere making a half day of it to
get to the top and there'slittle rest spots.
Oh okay, so you can do itslowly if you want, but I wanted
to get to the top and see it,so I just went as fast as I
(48:18):
could.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Yeah, exactly, well, and then one last question Was
there any holidays or anythingspecific?
That was kind of neat thatcelebrations that they do, that
someone would want to see or goto in Colombia.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Do you know, I think, like most Latin American
countries, there's an awful lotof public holidays.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
They celebrate.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
I think that they've got it right in this part of the
world where they celebrate alot of things, and that's really
good.
I always think IndependenceDays are a great time to go, so
I definitely recommend hoppingon Google and seeing when is the
best time to be there in termsof national holidays.
Food festivals is another greatone to go for.
If you can find a food festival, if you can find wine festivals
(49:02):
.
There's always beautiful thingsto look for without knowing
specific dates for specific days, but I recommend looking for
those types of events to get thebest out of the country.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Absolutely.
Thank you very much.
Great Okay.
So my rapid fire questions.
What is the popular religionthere?
Catholicism, catholicismism?
Okay, um, what was yourfavorite food?
If you have to have like onemeal, what would you?
What would you be eating there?
Speaker 2 (49:31):
so I should say arepas con chocolate, which is
the arepas are sort of like abreakfast or a snack um, how do
I describe?
Second, across between a muffinand a crepe and a pancake, and
they're beautiful.
But actually I have to say thatI really loved I genuinely
really loved in Colombia theburgers, because the beef, the
(49:52):
quality of the beef, isfantastic.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
So they make incredible hamburgers.
Wow, okay, and what did youhave?
Like what would it be a typicalbreakfast that you'd have when
you're there?
Speaker 2 (50:06):
Arepas is a very popular breakfast item.
And what?
Speaker 1 (50:08):
do you call it Arepas ?
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Arepas A-R-E-P-A, so they're kind of the standard
Colombian breakfast, but you canhave anything.
You can have tacos, or you canhave cereal eggs, I mean all the
standard stuff that you wouldwant to eat.
I personally don't eat a lot ofbreakfast, so I would probably
avoid.
I normally have a cup of greentea and that's enough for me.
(50:30):
Anything you want, and ifyou're in the more tourist
centric areas or the nomadtraveler centric areas, you'll
find all of the delights of homethat you would like.
So you know your eggs benedictand your mushroom omelets and
whatever you want.
Okay, nice, all right.
Is there a specific type ofmusic that you noticed in
Colombia?
Absolutely, colombia is famousfor a type of music called
(50:51):
reggaeton, which is LatinAmerican dance, vibe music, very
popular rhythmic beat.
So people like J Balvin andsome of the people that
collaborated with justin bieberuh, many, many artists that you
probably have heard of withoutrealizing that they're colombian
um, it's a huge music scene anddefinitely very, very popular
(51:15):
and really catchy to listen to.
My now wife, when I first movedto mexico, um was quite stunned
that I knew what reggaeton wasand I really, I genuinely love
it and it's very lively and getsyou in the party mood.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
So I definitely oh, I have to look that up For sure
Definitely look for that.
Okay, got it.
Are there a lot of live musicevents then?
Speaker 2 (51:34):
Huge yeah.
Medellin has loads of livemusic venues, and Bogota are the
same and in Cartagena you cango and find lots of bars with
buskers and live music playingin squares and whatever.
But definitely Medellin isamazing for live music places.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
Okay, great.
And what's the money called?
It's the.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Colombian peso.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
Is it easy to deal with the money down there?
Speaker 2 (51:55):
Yeah, the interesting thing with Colombian money is
the numbers are really big.
So if I give you an example, ifI just say what is one US
dollar, it's 3,889 Colombianpesos.
So when you're buying things,you're paying in hundreds of
thousands of pesos.
Yeah, literally, you could be amillionaire in that currency,
(52:17):
and that can be interesting.
So if you go out for dinner,for example, could spend a
hundred dollars on dinner.
If you're going to a nice place, well, that's four hundred
thousand pesos, which is youknow?
So you that's probably theinteresting part of the currency
is you're having these, you'rehaving these notes with lots and
lots and lots of noughts onthem, and you have to be careful
that you're not giving a, youknow, a five hundred thousand.
(52:39):
When you went to give a fiftythousand, for example, oh, oh,
wow, okay.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
And then that closest place to surf.
I know scuba diving, but isthere also like a surfing?
Speaker 2 (52:48):
I think Santa Marta is a place for surfing Um the
and definitely I'm not a surfer,so I would recommend Googling
uh, where, where to surf inColumbia for for good options.
I couldn't I couldn't speakauthoritatively on that.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
Okay, no worries, okay, well, thank you so much.
This is super, supereducational and it looks like
there's so many beautiful placesthe Santa.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
Marta sounds amazing.
Yeah, I have to check that outand I definitely recommend it.
Speaker 1 (53:15):
If you it says ways of working, what is that?
Speaker 2 (53:19):
So ways of working is one of the product offerings
that we have from our business.
Essentially, we help reallybusy, overwhelmed managers to
become high impact leaders,juggle all the balls and keep
(53:40):
all the plates spinning and isfeeling maybe a little bit
burned out because they justhave so much on their plate and
they can't seem to see the woodfor the trees.
And they're also trying to getthe rewards and the recognition
that they feel they deserve forall their effort that they're
putting in.
What we do is we help thoseleaders start to switch the way
they work with their team tobecome more impactful, to get
(54:02):
better results and to driveproductivity.
And the goal is a commercialbenefit, which is to drive down
the turnover in businesses,because often in those types of
teams people are leaving quitefrequently.
The manager is always having torecruit, Then the cost of
bringing new people on.
You've got low engagement maybein the business.
You're not making the money youcould as a team because you're
(54:24):
not getting the results, becauseyou're not performing as well
as you might.
So our goal is to improve allof those results, make you a
high performance team with ahigh performance leader, using
the ways of working methodology,which is essentially a
facilitated program to supportthe team to develop.
Speaker 1 (54:38):
And how do we find more about that?
Is there a website or socialchannel?
Speaker 2 (54:42):
You can go to jimmyburrowscom and we're we're
in the process of revamping atthe moment, but you can find
information on jimmyburrowscomabout our high performance
leader podcast, the two booksthat we have available.
You can read our blogs, you canjoin our newsletter and there's
also information about ourproduct offerings there, and if
anybody's listening isinterested in a conversation
(55:02):
about how we do this and how wemake it work in some of the case
studies that we have, then I'mmore than happy to connect.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
And what do you cover on your podcast?
Do you have guests?
Speaker 2 (55:12):
We do so it's called the High Performance Leader.
We tend to partner with leadersfrom larger corporate
organizations who've runprojects or have experienced
something, have gone throughsomething that has ended up with
them getting better results,and we share that wisdom with
other people.
And then the other half of theepisodes we do are me doing
solos on specific topics thattend to come up in our workshops
(55:35):
or events.
So, for example, this morningI'll be recording one around why
it's important to prepare toperform as well as actually
doing performance, because oftenwe just relentlessly grind and
grind and grind, uh, and wedon't take any time off to
recharge the batteries or thinkabout the most important thing.
Speaker 1 (55:53):
So uh, preparing to perform is equally as important
as just performing.
Well, thank you so much, Jimmy.
It was so nice to meet you andappreciate shared Um.
Yes, and we'll definitely haveto keep in touch also.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
For sure, and if you end up in Colombia or if you end
up in Mexico, let me know.
Speaker 1 (56:11):
Sounds good, awesome, so nice to meet you, take care
Bye.
Thanks for listening.
If you enjoyed the podcast, canyou please take a second and do
a quick follow of the show andrate us in your podcast app, and
, if you have a minute, we wouldreally appreciate a review.
Following and rating is thebest way to support us.
(56:32):
If you're on Instagram, let'sconnect.
We're at where next podcast.
Thanks again, thank you.
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