Bridge Accident on New Zealand's Most Dangerous Road
Adam survives New Zealand's most dangerous road but not without injury! We hear how a wild 4X4 ride through Skipper's Canyon was a bridge too far! Lord of the Rings filming locations, a suspect first aid kit, and a high risk of landslides was more than Adam bargained for. Did Adam strike gold or was the experience a thorn in his side?
Alun's Miscellaneous Travel Item returns with a cameo from Vagabot. Adam's presented with a list of exotic travel destinations and must guess which one is completely fictitious. In with a chance of a free holiday, can he defeat his AI counterpart?
Tales of a Trip takes a horrifying turn, as we hear from an incredibly brave American listener. Whilst living in Medellin, Colombia, he was robbed and beaten by an armed gang. Extreme and traumatic, this story's not for the faint-hearted.
Support us on Patreon to access the Lost & Found section: It kicks off with a bang, as Adam tells the tragic story of two men who lost their lives whilst trying to defrost dynamite over a fire. Alun follows with some equally shocking health & nutrition advice that may have you eating raw vegetables for the rest of your life!
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tripologypodcast
Submit your travel stories: https://www.tripologypodcast.com/talesofatrip
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Intro
01:32 - New Zealand's most dangerous road
06:06 - Skipper's Canyon & panning for gold
08:40 - Adam's prickly situation
13:16 - Alun's Miscellaneous Travel Item: AI Travel Agent ft. Vagabot
21:42 - Tales of a Trip: Robbed by armed gang in Medellin, Colombia
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TRANSCRIPT:
Alun:
[0:02] Hello and welcome to this episode of Tripology. It's the only backpacking show that persuades you to travel around the world and refuses to give you a backup plan. I'm Alun and I'm here with the ever unknown, Adam.
Adam:
[0:15] Thank you for joining us for another week. We've got a wicked show in store for you today. I'm going to tell a little anecdote that happened to me this week where I was involved in a very serious accident. Didn't keep me from recording though, did it? And then we're going to go off into the second part of the show where we're going to have and Alun's miscellaneous travel item. Oh, yeah. And then, of course, it's Tales of a Trip where we're going to hear from one of you guys.
Alun:
[0:36] Yeah, you should get excited about that miscellaneous travel item, mate, because in the week I've been conspiring with one of your greatest friends and one of my greatest allies. It's Vagabot, our very own travel AI. The pair of us have teamed up to start
A Serious Accident
Alun:
[0:51] a new business endeavour together and we're going to test it out on you. But without further ado, mate, I've got to hear about this accident.
Adam:
[0:59] Well, I don't like the fact that Vagabot's getting his claws into multiple aspects of the show. Is this something I should be worried about going forward?
Alun:
[1:05] I'd be a little bit concerned if I was you. It depends on the results of today's sort of adventure that we'll decide how much of a remit he has in future.
Vagabot's Involvement
Adam:
[1:15] Oh God, if there wasn't more pressure on the record now, now I've got to be on my best behaviour. I've got to deliver something that's succinct and funny and informative, all of the above. Anyway, I'll dive right into it, mate, because it's quite a long story that I'm going to make nice and short. I'll give you the highlights. About... 40 minutes or so away from Queenstown is a place called Skipper's Canyon. I don't know if you got here when you were in Queenstown, did you?
Alun:
[1:40] I don't think so. No, I went to a bar called Skipper's Canyon, but not a canyon. about:blank 3/27
11/13/25, 11:43 AM Tripology TRAVEL PODCAST
Adam:
[1:46] Not an actual canyon. That's like the inverse of what would happen in real life, isn't it? You going to the bar and me going to the geological site.
Alun:
[1:52] Yeah, actually.
Adam:
[1:53] But because my partner works in tourism, she gets a lot of very well-known, very expensive tours completely for free. because how on earth can she sell these things if she hasn't been on them herself? And it's only fair that she gets a plus one. And of course, I'm... I mean, what better... Of course, what better plus... And of course, what better plus one is there than yours truly?
Alun:
[2:19] Well, I'm glad for that, mate. I hate to say that I think in six months' time, it might be likely that she's taking Vagabot. So you've got to get your plus ones in while you can.
Adam:
[2:30] Yeah, it's slightly more robust. Skipper's Canyon, very famous, especially the road leading through it, for being the most dangerous road in New Zealand and one of the most dangerous roads in the world. We've been on our fair share of dangerous roads.
Alun:
[2:44] We have, yeah. And knowing you, you'd have been primed for some sort of accident as someone who frequents dangerous roads frequently and also has been in serious car accidents before. I imagine you were sort of preempting.
Adam:
[2:58] Yeah so uh i i was told actually on the way up because we did the tour with another couple and we were in a jeep it was kind of like a safari thing you know you get picked up at eight o'clock in the morning you go ripping off down a down a country road and then it turns into gravel and it goes through a canyon and then you have to go through a little cattle grid with a big sign that says do be careful it's one of the most dangerous roads in the world blah blah blah and um through.
Alun:
[3:20] The cattle grid.
Adam:
[3:20] Yeah straight through it not.
Alun:
[3:22] Over the top of.
about:blank 4/27
11/13/25, 11:43 AM Tripology TRAVEL PODCAST
Adam:
[3:22] It yeah just yeah straight through it in the jeep um what was it toyota land cruiser something along those lines um they make absolute mincemeat of cattle grids and then um we we started going and the woman the woman that we were on the tour with she said we did this tour last time and just to let you know it is one of the most dangerous roads in the world and and my natural reaction was to say what makes it most dangerous is it because of the number of people who die on the road, I think that's a fair question.
Alun:
[3:52] How many limbs did this woman have? Because I always find when someone comes to harbing doom like that in my life, I always check first. Are they missing anything that I would consider vital?
Adam:
[4:02] Yeah. Well, having said that, she didn't get up off her chair for the entire four-hour tour.
Alun:
[4:06] Suspicious, isn't it?
Adam:
[4:07] Yeah.
Alun:
[4:08] To be sitting in a chair going, I once went on the most dangerous adventure. Let me tell you about it.
Adam:
[4:15] Did you really?
Alun:
[4:16] Is that why you're not standing up?
Adam:
[4:17] So I was met anyway with a bit of disdain. And she said, well, no, no, it's just the most dangerous. I mean, if you're not seeing the drop off the edge. And I, being maybe the knob in hindsight, said, well, if no one's ever fallen off, maybe it's not that dangerous. And then the tour guide turned around and said, well, no, no, hang on. I mean, there's obviously measures in place to make sure that people don't go off the edge. And, you know, very careful tour drivers, et cetera, et cetera. But it made me relax, if anything else, because I was sitting on the inside of the Jeep. Whereas you might remember when we were in Pakistan, I wasn't just sitting on the outside of the Jeep. I was actually sitting, like, hanging off the door. And I was nearly sort of, you know, half out of the vehicle anyway, wasn't I?
about:blank 5/27
11/13/25, 11:43 AM Tripology TRAVEL PODCAST
Alun:
[4:56] Yeah, you've not got a great track record of staying in moving vehicles. Also, when you came here to see me in the Philippines, you fell off a rickshaw. And we never talked about it or mentioned it on an episode ever.
Adam:
[5:10] No, I think we did. I think we did mention it on one episode because didn't I start running immediately next to the tuk-tuk? Like almost cartoon-like.
Alun:
[5:19] Yeah you you sort of acted as if it was part of a red bull event for you to jump off a moving motorcycle and started running alongside waving to the crowd it was quite beautiful.
Adam:
[5:29] Yeah i maybe exited the vehicle a little bit too early actually i probably could have stayed in that for for slightly longer but um in this case i was on the inside i was peering over to see down the canyon and it was absolutely stunning stunningly beautiful and i think what makes this road so dangerous is maybe not the number of accidents but it is due to the the road conditions and the fact that they are somewhat unstable and they do sometimes fall away I mean these tours are cancelled almost on a weekly basis because there's a rock slide or something along those lines so I was I was feeling fairly fairly safe on the inside now, As we meandered down, I've got to tell you, mate, this gorge is 22 kilometres long, and it is riddled with quartz rock carried by the Shotover River. You might have heard of Shotover River, but it was made famous, this area, in the 1860s when there was a gold rush.
Alun:
[6:17] Okay, that's nice. Is that one of the reasons why you went, trying to make some pocket money, now that Spotify has decided to take all our episodes down?
Adam:
[6:25] Yeah, you're telling me. Well, part of the tour, they throw it in. I mean, it's quite a gimmicky thing, but they do allow you to pan for gold. So the tour driver gets out, goes down to the river, gives you a pan and basically shows you the technique. Obviously, almost every single time without fail, I'm sure, picks up a couple of little pieces of gold. I mean, they're tiny little flecks. I mean, you know, it'd be the size of, I don't know, slightly bigger than a piece of dust. And then you're given the pan and expected
to do the same. And I'd be amazed if anyone gets any gold. There's just a technique to it. I don't know if she's got the gold in her pocket
Panning for Gold
Adam:
[6:57] or what's going on, but I was pretty unfortunate.
Alun:
[7:00] I would have thought even finding a couple of flecks of gold was quite rare.
Adam:
[7:05] I don't know. Maybe it happens. It sounded like it happened fairly often from the way she described it. But they weren't anything. They were so small. You could see them with the naked eye. But she said, yeah, just go back in the river. There's no real point.
Alun:
[7:18] It's not worth it. Sometimes I sprinkle it on my salad because it's so worthless.
Adam:
[7:23] But it's good fun. Have you ever been panning for gold? You seem like the sort of guy that would be, that would have done it.
Alun:
[7:28] I think as a kid, maybe I went somewhere and sort of did the performance of panning. Like, oh, there might be ever so much gold in this. And maybe the tour guide put some fool's gold in your basket because you're an idiot child who doesn't know.
Adam:
[7:42] The difference yeah well in in this case we were allowed to take the gold away it's um you know amongst all this chaos that i'm sitting in amongst uh somewhere in a little petri dish or something uh but we're probably not going to be millionaires just yet mate uh so the story continues anyway we got back in the van we ended up going up to this very old bridge where i think one of the first bungee jumps in this area um was cast off and then the tour driver said when we go over the bridge you're welcome to stay in the car but you can get out and you can just walk across it i don't know if you want to take some photos or if you want to walk across it so you see the lovely view and of course me being the adrenaline junkie adventurous person i am i said yeah we'll get out actually we'll get out the van we'll walk across it yeah would.
Alun:
[8:28] There be any opportunities for more additional panning on this walk because i've got quite the taste for it tour guide.
Adam:
[8:35] Well, I'm feeling lucky after finding no gold the previous time. But we got out of the van, me and my partner. We walked across the bridge. And my partner said to me, you know, can you just take a couple of photos of me? It's a really nice shot. You can imagine canyon below with the river and then there's lovely mountains and that sort of stuff behind. And then this really old rickety bridge. So there I was taking the kind of tourist photos. And she said, go on, go on, give me the camera and I'll take a couple of you. so I was standing there like a lemon waiting for her to take a photo and she said well do something do some sort of gesture or something funny so I put my arms out to one side and my legs out to another side and I tried to sort of stretch all the way across the bridge touching both sides at the same time and as I as my hand hit the beam to my right hand side I got the biggest splinter in the world I mean it went straight into my finger it was probably over a centimeter long and i immediately retracted and screamed at the top of my voice and uh it hurt me it hurt a lot i hate to say it but it was all caught on camera in two photos of one of me just about to touch the bridge and then the other one of me looking at my finger in agony it's all it's comical it really is but it obviously it hurt a lot.
Alun:
[9:53] Oh my goodness yeah that sounds like quite a painful experience i mean thank god that you uh are a member of safety wing use our promo code.
Adam:
[10:01] For the best travel insurance out.
Alun:
[10:03] There because if you hadn't i mean how would you have ever got that splinter.
Adam:
[10:05] Removed i mean a splinter though it's the sort of thing that it really hurt and it was massive it was massive for a splinter but.
Alun:
[10:13] Small for a building material.
Adam:
[10:14] So it's.
Alun:
[10:15] All it swings around about.
Adam:
[10:17] It's also the sort of thing you don't really want to bring up and then when i did bring it up, Because I didn't know maybe there was a first aid kit on board or, you know, a pair of tweezers or whatever that my partner might have had. People make a fuss of you, but you don't want them to make as much of a fuss as they are because it's only a splinter. And even, you know, it sort of ripples went around the group and other people were coming up to me going, Oh, you're all right. I heard you got a splinter. Is everything okay?
Alun:
[10:41] I've heard there was someone in this group that's been tragically maimed by a bridge.
Bridge Mishap
Adam:
[10:46] I was asking whether their insurance covers it and all this sort of stuff. But it was the sort of splinter that goes in so deep.
Alun:
[10:52] So it comes out through your.
Adam:
[10:53] Ears I've seen my finger it was awful I can still see the remnants of it here the damage but anyway all in all mate it was a very very good tour you can't argue that it was worth the money because it was free would I pay $300 for it probably not, Yeah, I see your eyebrows raising. It is per person, if that's what you were going to ask me. And the other thing is, there's a very famous filming location. I know you're a Lord of the Rings fan. Do you remember when, what's that, Elvish sort of queen or something? And she basically conjures...
Alun:
[11:25] Galadriel? Arwen?
Adam:
[11:27] Yeah, potentially. She conjures up a load of white horses from the white water of a river. And they fight off these, is it Nazgul or ringwraiths, that are pursuing Frodo and co. so that's exactly that that scene that i'm describing is exactly where it was filmed yeah.
Alun:
[11:42] That's arwen mate and that's a very ancient magic that she's using there to get rid of those nazgul so it should do you right to show her some fucking respect.
Adam:
[11:51] I thought you were gonna say that i should probably contact her see if she could help me get the splinter out my finger yeah.
Alun:
[11:56] Live taylor on the pod next week of course.
Adam:
[11:59] Yeah yeah it was good fun mate it was good fun it was adventurous it was thrilling um we didn't roll off the edge of the cliff so it remains new zealand's most dangerous road with absolutely no accidents but when we came back to queenstown uh in less than 48 hours believe it or not the whole thing was closed and everyone's access was blocked because of the road conditions being um well frankly very unsafe for for tourists and other passers-by and travelers so they basically blocked off the entire road and now you can't access it and it was due to some um a fear of landslides and other things so we missed it by the skin of our teeth just.
Alun:
[12:36] The fear of them with no evidence that one might actually occur.
Adam:
[12:39] Well i'm glad.
Alun:
[12:40] That you um.
Adam:
[12:41] I'm pretty sure no it's because of geological tests and assessments and of course maybe maybe it got back to the local council that i'd got a splinter and they um didn't want any of the smoke i'm sure well.
Alun:
[12:52] I'm glad you're starting to have some adventures because i feel like you've been cooped up in queensdown for quite some time and i'm sure we'll hear much more of them in the coming weeks speaking of adventures though and you going on adventures and the kind of adventures that are a little bit off the beaten track. I have collaborated with Vagabot to conjure up something quite special for you in an item that we've always liked to call Alun's miscellaneous travel item.
Vagabot's Travel Item
Alun:
[13:26] It's the one thing I can't live without, I swear. Travel items galore, Adam. Basically, this week, me and Vagabot have been discussing that little travel AI that we love so much. I've talked to him, them, they, she, and we've decided to start a little travel agent company with a twist. all.
Adam:
[13:52] Right i like the sound of this i'm um engaged.
Alun:
[13:56] Yeah well i was inspired by a previous episode where we discussed ai errors when it came to planning adventures so me and vagabond have come up with four obscure off the beaten track locations and we're going to send you free of charge to three of them in this hypothetical test but one of them is a fake fictional ai location So you've got to choose which three you want to go on, trying desperately to avoid the mistruth.
Adam:
[14:24] Okay. Interesting. I like the idea. I mean, this is obviously going to test my geology knowledge, I suppose.
Alun:
[14:30] Not geology, Adam. That's rocks. This will test your geographical knowledge.
Offbeat Travel Destinations
Adam:
[14:34] Sorry, I've got rocks on the brain. Yeah, geography. Yeah, I was never good at either, actually.
Alun:
[14:41] Yeah okay so shall we start with I'm going to read the locations to you and then you just have to say you know as we go along you'll decide which ones of these you want to go to and try and, find the fake.
Adam:
[14:53] Okay well what if i um the the approach i'm going to take just to um flesh it out a little bit is is which one i would genuinely or which three i would genuinely want to go to the most irrespective of whether i think they're fake or not.
Alun:
[15:06] Okay well then also use you can use that obviously one of them is written by me so but i've tried to sell them all so you just got to choose which one you think is fake as well yeah the first place mate you might have heard of some of these you may not have you just got to figure out i'm gonna take you to socotra island here you can wander through ancient dragon's blood tree forests swim in bioluminescent lagoons and explore limestone labyrinths socotra island okay.
Adam:
[15:41] I've not heard of it so it absolutely could have been something that was invented. It sounds fantastic, bioluminescence and limestone. I don't know really that much about whether those two things are normally in the same environment. Would be handy if I did. Maybe if I did, I'd be interested in going.
Alun:
[16:00] Piece it together. Piece it together. That's Socotra Island. Would you like location number two?
Adam:
[16:05] Yeah, go for it.
Alun:
[16:06] Tristan de Cunha. Tristan... Tristan da Cunha is one of the most remote islands in the world. Here you can hike to a dormant volcano. You can spot penguins, fur seals and albatross. Bit of a nature's lover's place, that's Tristan da Cunha.
Adam:
[16:26] Okay, what's throwing me off is that I think Tristan da Cunha is also the name of a well-known house DJ.
Alun:
[16:33] Oh dear.
Adam:
[16:37] So as nice as it sounds and look artists these days name themselves after many different things islands even yeah there's absolutely no reason why they can't have named themselves after this island after having an amazing experience spotting fur seals and albatrosses yeah exactly is he a first seal that dj hello albatrosses is that the plural probably albatry Yeah.
Alun:
[17:01] That's three of them. All right, mate. Here we go. Location number three. Pookie Pookie.
Adam:
[17:08] Excellent.
Alun:
[17:09] Pookie Pookie. You can hike... ancient basalt monoliths that exist there right you can go to lagoons formed over 2.5 million years ago and see phosphorescent species of fish and you can visit the drumming cave which is this acoustically resonant cave where ancient civilizations would bang on the cave structures and create these drumming patterns pookie pookie okay.
Adam:
[17:37] Pookie pookie sounds pretty cool sounds um like something i want to connect with and experience there's what there's one more to go isn't there.
Alun:
[17:45] There's one more there's one more if you want to hear about it pookie.
Adam:
[17:48] Pookie that's gone straight in the top spot i think.
Alun:
[17:49] The fourth destination is the danakil depression, crikey the danakil depression they've got hydrothermal fields that you'll have ever such an effervescent time wandering around on your way to visit these you've got neon green and yellow acid pools and an open lava volcano it's an adventure holiday for two okay.
Adam:
[18:15] Um this sounds uh also attractive um it's difficult for me to choose any one other than Tristan de Cunha.
Alun:
[18:28] Because.
Adam:
[18:29] I actually haven't heard of any of the other three so i would be like going against It's not only my gut instinct, but what my brain is telling me, because I know that that name is associated, for me in my life, and my perception of reality is associated with something else. It might as well be called...
Alun:
[18:45] So just to recap, you've got Socotra Island, Tristan de Gunia, Pookie Pookie, and Danakil Depression.
Adam:
[18:55] Danakil Depression sounds pretty awful.
Alun:
[18:59] Yeah, almost like an illness.
Adam:
[19:01] Yeah, it doesn't really sound like the name of anywhere.
Alun:
[19:04] I can't go out tonight. I've unfortunately been hit with the Danikil Depression.
Adam:
[19:08] No one goes out in Danikil Depression, do they?
Alun:
[19:10] Let me just check.
Adam:
[19:11] Just moping around, dragging their heels the whole time.
Alun:
[19:13] No, it says, Vagabot says nightlife is lacking. But there are some salt flats as well, which I didn't mention.
Adam:
[19:19] Salt flats? It can't be that then. Depression? Oh, maybe it means depression as in...
Alun:
[19:24] Now you're using the old noggin.
Adam:
[19:26] Oh, using the old noggin. Forget that bit where I said geology instead of geography.
Alun:
[19:31] Yeah.
Adam:
[19:31] Now, now we're using our brain. um okay well let's cut to the chase i'm gonna have to go for tristan de cunha as being the one that i choose not as much as i like fur seals and albatross and whatever the other animal was that you could potentially see there i'm gonna go plump for the other three actually sign me up.
Alun:
[19:49] Unfortunately mate you have missed out on a wonderful holiday exploring one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world in the south atlantic ocean tristan de cunha you've lost.
Adam:
[20:01] Out on an unforgettable.
Alun:
[20:02] Experience there mate.
Adam:
[20:04] Okay well then are you gonna are you gonna tell me which one was in fact fictitious yeah.
Alun:
[20:10] I'll tell you which one that i created which one i made and uh would you like to have one more guess before i do.
Adam:
[20:16] I am maybe now i'm overthinking i'm sort of thinking about order effects and which one you would have tabled first i do think i've heard it's a cotra is it spelled s-e or with a q is it is it the q that's a s-o-c-o-t-r-a interesting, All right, well, let's say that's the fake one because you started with it. Try to get it out of the way early.
Alun:
[20:38] Oh, you've missed out on a wonderful journey to an island near the Yemen, mate, unfortunately.
The Fake Location
Adam:
[20:45] Oh, really?
Alun:
[20:45] Yeah. The fake place is Pukipuki, which is actually a sort of Filipino egg fried aubergine.
Adam:
[20:57] Oh, right. Pukipuki, did I know that? Maybe I didn't.
Alun:
[21:00] I wanted it to sound like a sort of Hawaiian island, you know?
Adam:
[21:03] Well, it definitely does. I mean, there's even places in New Zealand that don't turn too dissimilar to Pookie Pookie.
Alun:
[21:08] There you go. So you missed out on an unforgettable experience there. I think that me and Vagabot do have a future scamming people with our brand new travel agency. Very expensive a trip to Pookie Pookie, I might gather. So I am going to start that business, me and Vagabot. Hope you enjoyed the show and we'll do that again. i enjoyed that but now we've got to listen to a listener as they tell us their greatest travel story they've gone to tripologypodcast.com forward slash tales of a trip and recorded three minutes of the wildest thing in all of travel that's ever happened to them let's hear what they had to say okay.
Tales of a Trip:
[21:44] Uh i guess we'll call this you know shit you're not supposed to do in Colombia.
Tales of a Trip:
[21:52] I'm an American citizen. I've been living abroad for a little over 10 years now. And the first couple of years in Colombia, I was like everyone else. I went crazy with all the beautiful women and, you know, the life here.
A Harrowing Tale
Tales of a Trip:
[22:08] So crazy, like I decided to change my career. But that's not that story. This story is about how we got robbed. My wife and I started our own webcam studio and our, you know, luxury apartment and a very trendy place. And, uh, in in medellin um and then one sunday afternoon my future mother-in-law was supposed to come over for lunch uh my sister-in-law had been living with us at the time uh she had just gotten out of the shower so my my then girlfriend and i went to go have a shower together during that shower together five armed venezuelan men broke into my building and then kicked in my door, and ran down the hall, kicked in my bedroom door, and threw my wife and my half-naked wife and myself and my half-naked sister-in-law to the floor and held a gun to the back of our heads and proceeded to rob me for over the course of four hours. They stole everything. You know, they even went through my clothes and took my underwear.
Tales of a Trip:
[23:20] Then they proceeded to try and rob every other condo in the building. They very nearly succeeded, but I guess they ran out of time. They said that they were going to kidnap me, drug me, take me to an ATM. I got hit with a crowbar a few times. I stood in front of the gun, pointed at my sister-in-law and my then-girlfriend, my now-wife. uh my mother-in-law actually did show up did halfway through the robbery because again she was coming over to have lunch with us they met her at the door and then tied her up also, uh and yes they stole all my webcam equipment my computers and all my lighting everything they stole everything they even took a bite out of the cake that was in the fridge wow.
Alun:
[24:11] I mean thank you so much to sean for sending in that harrowing tale adam i mean any thoughts you have it's an absolute insult to injury to have also taken a bite out of the cake isn't it yeah.
Adam:
[24:26] Yeah yeah i mean i feel bad for even mentioning the cake because of because of how horrendous the experience must have been.
Alun:
[24:33] I think in horrendous times like that it's good to reach for a piece of levity And indeed, in that story, the levity comes in the form of that cake being eaten.
Adam:
[24:43] Yeah, the voice message cuts off at that moment. And it's a great line to finish on. From a storytelling perspective, we even took a bite of the cake in the fridge. But absolutely horrendous. Awful. About as bad as it could have gone, really, without anyone. I mean, hopefully, obviously, hopefully, no one was injured. But in terms of being traumatised for the rest of your life, potentially... Then they went on to try and rob the entire apartment block. I mean, I don't think there's any avoiding that.
Alun:
[25:16] Well, I actually followed up with this listener and got some additional information. And I do know that no one was hurt, although it was an incredible inconvenience to them that all this happened, obviously. And it was like psychologically very traumatic. But I think, I mean, it's just awful, isn't it? It's awful to live in a house, in a home, in an apartment, whatever it was, and have suddenly this horrible maelstrom of aggression and thievery enter the building and cause all that mayhem.
Adam:
[25:46] I think it also, when push comes to shove, in extreme circumstances, you do find out what you're made of. And I haven't got faith that if I was in that same situation, I've got absolutely no idea how I would react at all. I don't think I've been in a situation like that ever before. And obviously, fingers crossed, I'm not in one again. But the closest you've come to that is probably the mugging in Johannesburg, isn't it?
Alun:
[26:14] Yeah, well, you might surprise yourself, I think, because you don't really know how you'll react in those situations until you've been in one. I mean, for me, the Johannesburg mugging, after it happened was when I could be brave or stupid or whatever you think. As it happened, I was just being robbed. I was behaving like someone who was being robbed and following the steps of that. And I imagine this listener as well. When a gun's put to your head, there's a limit. Unless you're like Keanu Reeves in one of his role that he plays. I think Keanu himself actually probably just. But, you know, unless you're like an action movie character, you're not going to do anything, right? Other than just do what they tell you. And as well, you should. And the same with me in the Johannesburg mugging. it's like when you're being robbed you just, you're just going along with whatever they tell you to do. And then after that, I was able to think and be like, oh, I wonder if I can get my passport back. Okay, I'll go and ask whether that's brave or stupid. We'll leave that to the listener. But it's just, it's horrible that these things happen. And the worst thing about it, I think, is like, there's not really that much to learn from a situation like that. It's just unfortunate. You could like be, oh, okay, this part of Medellin's not safe. I'll move somewhere else. But it probably is safe 90% of the time, you know?
Adam:
[27:29] Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know if you remember about 20 minutes ago, I was telling a story of me getting a splinter and it ruining my day. So now hearing this story from Sean about how he was set upon by an armed gang and had a gun pointed at him.
Alun:
[27:45] It puts the splinter in perspective for you.
Adam:
[27:47] Yeah. Yeah, you could say that. I mean, honestly, it's obviously not to deter anyone from going to Colombia or going to Medellin.
Reflections on Danger
Adam:
[27:57] It's just one of those extraordinary, we hope, extraordinary things that sometimes happens when you're abroad, when the rules don't apply. The same rules that you know from back home, let's say, don't apply. I just don't think they could have really done anything differently. It doesn't sound like they put themselves in danger. And maybe the way that things turned out, given the circumstances, was about as good as it was going to get.
Alun:
[28:22] The world is a dangerous place. And therefore, traveling the world is a dangerous activity to some extent. But this listener was living in the place. And I think that oftentimes when you're traveling, you can kind of keep a bit more low profile than someone who's set up with a business. and all that sort of thing, you know, staying in hostels and stuff is probably less likely to be a target. So I think, you know, as always, just stay cautious out there. Look after yourselves.
Adam:
[28:51] And keep the stories coming in. Keep the stories coming in. Keep sending them in. We'd love to hear from you. We'll play them live on the show. Thanks very much for listening to another episode of Tripology Podcast. Now we're going to go off into the Lost and Found section. Of course, the patreon.com forward slash Tripology Podcast where you can sign up to the Lost and Found where I'm going to tell Alun And a funny story that my tour guide told me when I was on that trip. And it involved a couple of people, funnily enough, blowing themselves up with some dynamite.
Alun:
[29:19] Yeah. Nice. I can't wait to hear it. If you do enjoy the show, you want to support us, please head over to the Patreon. It's a really lovely community of listeners over there.
The Patreon Section
Alun:
[29:27] But now we'll blast off and see you next week.
Adam:
[29:31] We'll see you there. Bye.
