Swimming with Sharks! Thresher Shark Diving in Malapascua, Philippines
This week, Alun's been diving with Thresher sharks in Malapascua. Rounding off his time in the Philippines, we hear what it's like to be back at scuba diving school and then thrown in at the deep end... with thresher sharks!
Adam's out of character, as he relives the moment he simultaneously smashed his laptop and studio lamp, resulting in a trip to see some wheeling, dealing, Punjabi friends.
Tales of a Trip returns with a wonderful story from a free-spirited traveler who embraces the chaos. An innocent stroll through the streets of Cusco turns into 7 hours of partying with strangers. Start the celebrations! Follow Pafi: @pafitrend
Submit your travel stories: https://www.tripologypodcast.com/talesofatrip
Support us on Patreon and access the The Lost & Found section. This week, Adam shares a hiking story from earlier that day, and we continue the wildlife theme, discussing all things Borneo.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tripologypodcast
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Intro
01:28 - Announcement: Tripology Tuesdays
03:53 - Adam's Laptop and Lamp Nightmares
11:14 - Diving with Thresher Sharks: Alun's back in the water
23:23 - Are fish pets ethical?
29:05 - Tales of a Trip: Partying in Peru
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TRANSCRIPT:
Alun:
[0:02] Hello, and welcome to this episode of Tripology. It's the only backpacking show where the hosts go all over the planet for your benefit, not ours, for your benefit. I'm Alan, and I'm here with my best friend and one of the greatest travellers on the old damn planet. It's the ever-Selakian Adam.
Adam:
[0:24] Ha ha ha! Said with confidence. Thank you so much, guys, for tuning in. Absolutely love. Thank you so much for tuning in for another week. We're happy to be back. We've got an amazing show because this week we're going to tell you a lot of stories. I'm going to tell you a story about how I smashed my laptop and my phone at exactly the same time, just after last week's recording. And then, Alan, you've been off gallivanting around, swimming with some thresher sharks and doing some really, really amazing stuff. I cannot wait to hear about that. And then, of course, at the end, it's everyone's favourite. It's Tales of a Trip.
Alun:
[0:59] Yeah, you might have noticed. I wasn't particularly confident about the word Salakian because I've only just learnt it. It means shark-like, possessed of the qualities of the shark. And it is Thresher Sharks with whom I've been having a diving experience ever so recently. Finally, I'm in a new location and I'm here in Cebu and it's been a really crazy time. I'm looking forward to telling you about it. Before I hear about your laptop smashing adventures, Adam, I want to do a little bit of housekeeping because just like I'm in a new location, just like we're moving around constantly, Tripology is finding a new home on Tuesdays as opposed to Saturdays. Fans of the show know Tripology comes out every Saturday and has done for the last couple of years. But we recently learned that Tuesday would be a better place for it. So we're going to put it there instead. So the next episode is going to come out on Tuesday.
Adam:
[1:57] Yeah, we hope that's all right. We've just done some digging and we think that maybe a Tuesday, a midweek release around sort of UK commuters time would be better. So I hope that's not an inconvenience to anyone. And yeah, it'll be a pretty smooth transition. You can just look forward to it on Tuesdays now.
Alun:
[2:13] Well, that's the beautiful thing about on-demand media is if Tuesday is inconvenient, just wait. Until a day that is convenient and listen to it then it's still gonna be every week i mean if i get even one complaint about a change to tuesday i'm gonna be pretty annoyed because it's literally free and it's literally uh whenever you want it just download it and listen to it whenever do you know i mean uh speaking of ungrateful horrendous people who i have a problem with still having an ongoing feud with the old spotify so apologize if people have struggled to access our episodes recently on that platform it's just us and spotify we're in that phase of our relationship where it's all beautiful and nice at first we were providing free content they were providing wonderful publication and over time that relationship staled they've taken a couple of little jabs at us we've tried to say oh you're being unreasonable spotify please we're just trying to be good travelers and they're going oh we're not bothered to reply to those emails just Yeah, it's become toxic.
Adam:
[3:18] Yeah, it's a pretty difficult situation we find ourselves in because I don't feel like we have reached a human at this stage, Alan. I think we're still getting bounce backs. I think we're still getting automated emails. The moment we do land on a human, though, mark my words, you might see a few things happening. So, you know, we're both on it on different sides of the planet. And I'm sure there'll be some sort of resolution very soon.
Alun:
[3:44] I believe so. I believe we're inching towards what can only be described as a resolution. And when we reach one, you'll hear about it on Tuesday. Yeah? Okay, nice. Adam, that's enough with the housekeeping. What happened to your laptop, mate?
Adam:
[4:00] Well, you would have remembered, but maybe you listening at home, you won't necessarily know. There's a lot of stuff that goes on around creating a podcast. And some of that involves technology like laptops and even a studio lamp.
Adam:
[4:12] And after our recording last week, Alan, it went pretty well, I think it's fair to say. I was just doing the usual cleaning up, just putting away the cables.
Adam:
[4:22] Putting the laptop off to the side, just arranging the table as you would, because even though we move around a lot and it is technically a backpacking show, we like to make an effort. So I do set up a desk, I do set up a table, I've got some notes maybe in front of me, I've got a lamp off to the side. The
phone is placed just on the top of my laptop in front of me. As you can imagine, a professional studio might be set up. So there's things to put away. And I was doing that. I thought, you know, I thought that the recording went very well. I was in good spirits. And then I moved one cable. And at exactly the same time, my laptop fell off the front of the table towards me and the lamp fell off to the side. In hindsight, had it only been one of the two, my reactions might have been good enough to catch them. But because they both happened at the same time, my brain was fast enough to try and catch both, but not fast enough to think that the laptop is worth saving and the lamp probably isn't. So in going for the lamp, I lost grip of the laptop. It fell flat on the screen on the back, immediately went black. I knew that that was toast. And then the lamp went off the other side, hitting the floor. The bulb popped out by force, started emanating sort of a very horrible burning smell that I immediately called you about.
Adam:
[5:44] And my whole world started spiraling because, you know, these things are incredibly important to us.
Alun:
[5:50] Yeah, in many ways, you experience the trolley problem, the philosophical thought experiment in real life. In the trolley problem, of course, you either keep the train on one track or actively divert the train, saving a couple of lives, but ultimately ending the life of one person. You experienced that in real time with both a lamp and a laptop, and your inability to react ended up in killing both of those things.
Adam:
[6:17] Yeah, it was a tough one. The first thing I did was, well, just slightly after I'd panicked, of course. Very strangely, I could hear the video of our previous recording playing on the black screen. So I thought maybe if I just close the laptop and reopen it, some miracle's going to happen and everything will reappear and it'll be totally fine and we never have to talk about it ever again. But that isn't what happened. I phoned you, the Oracle, and I said, all these things have happened. And you said, but was it your fault? I said, no. Do you know what? I've never, almost never in my life done anything like that. And I know that some people might say they're clumsy. Some people, they do stuff like that all the time. They forget things all the time. They might, I don't know, you know, they break their phone, whatever. I never, ever do that. So this was a colossal error from me and very out of character.
Alun:
[7:11] Of the two of us, I would say, I think I'm more likely. If someone, an actual oracle contacted us and said, or in one week's time, one of you will throw your laptop on the floor and break it, I would assume it was me.
Adam:
[7:25] Yeah. No, I think that's fine. And that's not because you're clumsy by any stretch of the imagination. You're absolutely not. It's just I don't, I'm very, very funny about certain things. You know, I am the sort of person that will go around at the end of the evening before I go to bed and make sure in perfect routine that I've turned off all of the cooker, you know, the hob controls. I go and run my hand across the doors on the fridge just to make sure I've closed it. I press the light switches, even though the...
Alun:
[7:51] Obsessive compulsive disorder, they call it.
Adam:
[7:55] Well, I didn't want to use those words. But I've heard it banded around, sure, throughout my childhood.
Alun:
[8:01] Yeah, I've just got this thing where I have to check that the doors are locked and the oven's off and take pictures of it to make sure that that's the case so I can reaffirm with myself when I leave the house. It's great. I mean, it's part of what makes you a brilliant traveller.
Adam:
[8:13] Yeah, I don't lose any time or sleep on it at all. But obviously the next port of call was phoning you. You said, look, don't worry about it too much. If you can hear the video playing, There's a chance that your hard drive is absolutely fine, a good chance, and you're just going to have to go and get it fixed at a repair shop. It might just need a new screen or maybe there's a disconnected sort of video input cable somewhere. So I went around the houses, made a load of phone calls the following morning. I tried not to cry myself to sleep the night before and not worry about how much it was going to cost me. But anyway, I spoke to some nice guys down at a repair shop in Queenstown. They diagnosed the problem for me but then when they quoted me the price i thought Jesus that's a bit steep maybe i should go somewhere else and i went to see some some punjabi friends of ours over in not literal friends of ours um over at a place called phone zone on an industrial estate and they they sell phones and you know accessories and all this sort of stuff they went mate just leave it here for a couple of hours we'll sort it out for you half the price oh and your phone screen's cracked as well is it i was like yeah they went go on give it oh hang on is it always this slow you need a new battery as well i think and is this your case is it oh you could update that couldn't you oh my goodness no we'll do the whole job for you for a little bit more than the other company we're going to charge you just for your screen how does that sound they saw me coming alan you.
Alun:
[9:31] Got up sold.
Adam:
[9:32] I saw me coming but um they were super nice guys and now it's all fixed less than 48 hours later i've got everything back and it's all working little bit of a coloration change on the screen I would have said but that's a small price to pay.
Alun:
[9:45] Well I'm glad to hear it's all back and I.
Housekeeping and Updates
Alun:
[9:48] Would like to interview you more about how you know.
Alun:
[9:51] That experience how you've learned from it and all of that but I've got an advert to play and more than any other week I would love the listeners to really indulge in what it is that we're offering because it's going to be very helpful when I write an angry email to Spotify about the loss of earnings so here is an advert.
Alun:
[11:20] There we go. What a wonderful thing to go and investigate more, endorsed by Tropology. And if I was a great big Swedish company, I'd be very upset if an email came in saying, my goodness, you shouldn't have taken those episodes down because it's resulted in a great big loss of the old income. My goodness, indeed. So, Adam, I've been teasing for many weeks the fact that I was interested in going to Malapascua to dive with thresher sharks.
Adam:
[11:49] Yeah, so you have, of course you have. Immediately, you're filled with fear because the word thresher, Doesn't sound that intimidating, but the word shark definitely does.
Alun:
[12:02] Well, it's funny you should say that because I know a little bit about sharks. I know that most of them are fine. So I wasn't that fearful of sharks at all, but I was very fearful about getting threshed to any degree. I did not want that in my life. So I had to clear that up right off the bat. I'd not been scuba diving in a very, very long time. So when i arrived on the island i potted around to a bunch of different
dive shops trying to get the best price and all of them said listen you're essentially a risky endeavor at this point is last time you dived was 2017 2018 maybe if you count the ones i didn't log and um you need to take a refresher course and.
Adam:
[12:46] You said no thresher shark.
Alun:
[12:48] Yeah yeah not a refresher shark i've already seen one of those a refresher shark is just like a guy in a shark suit just to make sure you're okay with the idea of the shark before you see the real one slowly introduce you yeah soft entry.
Adam:
[13:03] I like that.
Alun:
[13:04] But that was how i found myself on a boat with a man also called alan which is very confusing when you're under the water he was teaching me how to do all the basic skills clean your mask out and all of that. I tell you what, I was totally fine scuba diving. I remembered it all came back to me. If anything, because of all the jiu-jitsu I've been doing the last six months, I was in such good shape. I barely breathed at all. I came back up with a completely full tank. So I felt very prepared for the actual shark dive the next day.
Adam:
[13:37] It's unbelievable. Bar, of course, means something different in diving to that of the bar in jiu-jitsu. You didn't get those two mixed up, I hope, underwater. Trying to wrestle your guide?
Alun:
[13:49] I got a bit confused about it. Yeah, I had a quick wrestle. I also got confused with the other type of bar. I tried to like drink some alcohol under the water. He was like, no, no, bar is a quantity of oxygen. That was the one thing I needed refreshing on. But once I understood that viscerally, they said, you're okay. We're going to do three dives tomorrow. So I got a good night's sleep, woke up in the morning, 5.30 a.m., got on the boat, mate. Went down deep into the water 20 meters down and looming from the deep a great big silvery fish the likes of which i'd never seen before what a beautiful shark it was a you won't believe it it was a thresher shark came towards me like this and i thought wow that's an animal that can swim around 22 years, miles per hour which is faster than the great white shark oh really it's got a razor-like tail which you can use as a whip to hunt prey it's got great big black eyes and they come straight up to you searching for prey it was majestic actually.
Adam:
[15:09] Now that you said the big black eyes are they quite slim and slender i think i'm imagining the exact thresher sharks.
Alun:
[15:16] You might be picturing the exact one that i saw because i've described it so well yeah.
Adam:
[15:24] That's hilarious but hang on this was on the first dive.
Alun:
[15:27] The very first dive you.
Adam:
[15:28] Basically were able to see one on the very first dive of the day how many meters down were you do you think.
Alun:
[15:32] When you've been refreshed as thoroughly as i was you're ready to see the shark straight away so it was about 20 meters down saw the shark And a strange thing happened to me, mate, where once we'd gone down and I'd equalized and was swimming around, the shark turned up pretty fast. It's like a place where the sharks feed, a feeding station. They're not fed by the humans. It's all ecologically very wild and unmanaged in the best possible way. But they just go there. They're guaranteed to be there because the population's quite high and that's where they eat. So almost straight away, I saw a thresher shark. and then about 15 minutes into the dive I suddenly became cognizant for the first time of how deep I was right and how I was breathing through a tube and how I'd not done that in a while how mental it was and like oh my god I'm like really under the water and I started having, like the kind of panic attack that I associate with.
Alun:
[16:37] I think when I first started diving, this used to happen quite regularly. I started like breathing a little bit heavier and I was like, oh my God, this is mental. As soon as the awestruck nature of it sort of wore off and I became really thinking about it. But I was able to control it quite well and just manage my breathing, be like, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, just enjoy. Saw another shark come and that took me out of it and just got wrapped up in the whole majesty the experience. It was amazing.
Adam:
[17:08] It sounds incredible. It sounds amazing. I totally can relate to what you were saying about the breathing thing, because I remember quite vividly, I don't know when the last time I went diving was, we did talk about this actually, but I think it was probably 2018 in Borneo. And, When you have this breathing apparatus, I mean, most people just know. Maybe they don't even give it any thought, but they just breathe fairly normally through the regulator, I think it's called, isn't it? And I remember having a thought at the beginning of a dive, what happens if I forget how to use it to breathe? And then, you know, you kind of give that thought space and you think, well, hang on, just whatever it is you're doing now, just do that. And it kind of seems like a natural reflex to just breathe so maybe just sort of continue but if you yeah if you let that thought spiral especially 20 meters underwater surrounded by sharks i can imagine that that would be quite a sorry end.
Alun:
[18:07] Well you know breathing manually is quite an anxiety inducing thing anyway we've all had the experience of maybe getting a little bit too drunk or high or you've taken something or you're just having a panic attack and suddenly you become very aware of like your breathing and how to breathe and all that stuff scuba diving is an activity that forces you to breathe manually because you can't hold your breath you have to constantly be breathing while scuba diving so it kind of that in itself i think is quite an anxious experience but my experience scuba diving this time around having not done it in 10 years eight years however long that's quite an interesting thing in and of itself because it it was quite a big measure for me of how much I've changed how much fitter I am now like just my cardio is better and how much easier I was able to control those negative thoughts whereas before I think I was like sometimes crunching through a tank of of oxygen in I mean my shortest ever dive was like 25 minutes but this time around i was like, The dive was always ending whilst I still had plenty of air.
Adam:
[19:22] Yeah, yeah, sure. That's interesting. So I don't, I've never ever come up from a dive because I've run out of air.
Adam's Laptop Disaster
Alun:
[19:28] Yeah.
Adam:
[19:29] But how big was the group? You obviously had a dive guide with you who is a specialist in that area, I assume, part of the dive shop. And then were you with some other people, a buddy?
Alun:
[19:37] Yeah, just two other people. Sort of like a wildlife photographer and another diver who, I think she was a dive master, but we were all just diving together. Um yeah it was really like probably the most exciting diving I've ever done because there was a possibility of another thresher coming at any given moment and there was a lot of interesting kind of macro things you know little corals and little crabs and little wiggly worms and that sort of thing so it was and just to be in that space again having not done it for so long diving is like an invitation to a world which humans are normally not invited. And as such, the animals respond quite differently because they're not evolved to be like, oh, a mammal might come down here and fuck shit up. They've evolved to be like, this is the kingdom of the fish. And by the nature of you being here, you must be one of us. The thresher shark goes up to you inquiring as to whether your food realizes you're not and swims off but the the interaction with that shark is much more is is is on a much more even playing field than being like in the jungle and spotting a a wild monkey and it like knows what to make of you because it's seen humans before and it like.
Alun:
[21:03] Skits off or maybe observes you for a while it's just a different vibe when you're in their world.
Adam:
[21:09] Yeah i also think maybe i'd add to that and you know far more about the, um wild and wilderness and animals than i do and i'm more experienced in that in that field but maybe it's fair to say that when you're underwater and diving with fish they don't think you're prey, Or they don't think you're a predator. It's, you know, whereas I think on land, a lot of things assume you might do them harm, which is why they scurry away or they're very wary of you.
Alun:
[21:38] Yeah. And, you know, there are some things in the ocean which would consider human being prey. And sharks, obviously.
Adam:
[21:44] Yeah. You might not be able to dive with those. You can't pay for three dives, you know, in Malapascua if there's a chance that that happens, I don't think.
Alun:
[21:52] Yeah. Didn't see any whale sharks. Didn't see any tiger sharks. There's another place in the Philippines that you can see whale sharks, Oslob, but they feed the whale sharks and that's why they can guarantee the sightings and that is ecologically quite a controversial thing. There are articles online that you can read written by actual marine biologists that can explain why feeding the whale sharks and having them go there is damaging for the ecology as a whole. But I felt more comfortable going to Malipasca where you can definitely see thresher sharks, but they keep human involvement in their lives and their domain down to a very deliberate minimum.
Adam:
[22:35] Yeah, I think it's got something to do with the migration of the whale sharks up one of the coasts. It disrupts it and therefore you know affects the ecology in in the whole region um but whale sharks are things that i've seen from a boat never swam with unfortunately i would i've swam with sharks but never a thresher shark certainly never a tiger shark my god if i knew there was a chance i was going to meet a tiger shark i'm not sure i would um want to be in the water bull sharks as well obviously gray what great whites um but all three they.
Alun:
[23:06] See a tiger shark there about once a month apparently.
Adam:
[23:09] Right okay okay but the population of.
Alun:
[23:11] Tiger sharks is about, five or six in a much larger area than the population of the whale sharks which is like more like 20 in a much smaller area.
Adam:
[23:22] Are they territorial tiger sharks you know if they sort of stick.
Alun:
[23:25] To their territory yeah.
Adam:
[23:26] Yeah it's weird with fish isn't it because someone said to me once do you think that it's unethical to keep a fish as a pet in a fish tank and i was like well it's such a small area and usually they've got a much larger you know area to swim in and they said well i i don't know whether fish just stick to one reef you know their entire lives and if they do i mean maybe it's not as bad as people think yeah but a bowl is quite smaller than a reef isn't it a bowl is i mean some people you do see them have an aquarium the size of a wall so maybe that's uh slightly better i don't know do.
Alun:
[24:03] You think if if i scuba dive down there got one of the fish put it in a bowl but left the bowl on the ocean.
Adam:
[24:09] Floor it would just stay in the bowl it has.
Alun:
[24:12] Access to the whole ocean but this bowl's quite nice so.
Adam:
[24:15] Yeah just.
Alun:
[24:16] Stay in the bowl this is my reef.
Adam:
[24:19] You go around somebody else's house and they've got like a they've got an aquarium the size of a thresher shark nose to tail oh my mate adam told me that they they stay in the same bit of water all the time so i didn't think it'd be a problem yeah.
Alun:
[24:32] If you do have a fish it's best to keep it in the bathtub because it's largely the best uh water reciprocal in your house so there There we go, mate. I did enjoy the scuba diving very much. As you said to me beforehand, every time you scuba dive, you wish you did more of it. I definitely feel that way. I can't wait to scuba dive again. But when I arrived back on dry land, I had a text from my hostel saying, you've got to leave the island now. Right now. And it wasn't because of any illicit activities I'd been doing. It wasn't because I'd upset them in any way. It wasn't because of all the stories I'd told or any trouble I'd gotten into. The reason was because Typhoon Tino was heading our way and was about to wreak havoc to the extent that Malapascua was going to shut down all ferry crossings the very next day. So my hostel contacted me. They're like, if you have a flight, if you want to go somewhere else, If you don't want to be stuck on Malapascua for the next week, you've got to get out.
Adam:
[25:32] Shit. Oh, dear. And I know you'd already had plans to leave the Philippines at that point, but that lit the blue touch paper. That was a catalyst, was it? Did you think maybe I could hang it out for a week or is it to the point where it's actually dangerous to stay there? It's not just logistical things that it would mess up?
Alun:
[25:47] Both. I mean, it would just be, it's not the place, unless you're scuba diving, you don't want to be on Malapascua for an extended period of time. And I was done with my scuba diving so it was definitely like i was gonna go the next day it just meant that i had to leave that night a bunch of us all just evacuating the island got on this bus it was the most packed bus i'd ever been on it was one of the most uncomfortable bus rides of my traveling career which is saying something because i've been on some fucking buses in my time let me tell you Yeah.
Adam:
[26:20] Wow.
Alun:
[26:20] So we powered out of Malapasqua and then all the way five, six hours in heavy traffic towards Cebu, And it is from Cebu that I'll be taking a flight to Borneo once the typhoon's passed in a couple of days' time.
Adam:
[26:35] Very, very cool. Very cool. Are you in Cebu City itself?
Alun:
[26:40] Yes. Yeah.
Adam:
[26:41] And what are your first impressions of that, if they are your first impressions? Is it pretty seedy still?
Alun:
[26:46] Been here a couple of times before, but right now the weather is terrible and people are preparing for the typhoon, which will come through tonight or tomorrow morning as of recording. And people think there's a small chance it might become a super typhoon, which is really destructive.
Diving with Thresher Sharks
Alun:
[27:02] Shargao, where I just was, will potentially be hit really badly. So my heart goes out to everyone in Shargao and I hope that it just goes and not too much damage is caused.
Adam:
[27:11] Yeah, God. How did you feel in that moment? Were you concerned at all or were you just going through the motions and getting things sorted? What was the feeling in the camp like?
Alun:
[27:20] Yeah, when you get a text like that from your hostel mate, you've just got to... Take your medicine and get gone. So it was very practical, very logistical, as is the case when people are forced to do something a little bit out of the ordinary. People talk and communicate more than they ordinarily would just getting on a ferry and then a bus. So it was quite nice, the community spirit of we've all got to leave Malabasqua and get ourselves to Sabu, which is quite a lovely thing. And I'm glad that we're able to do that. but now all i can be is excited about borneo really i've never been to borneo i have been to both indonesia and malaysia but never to borneo and it's been a long dream of mine to see an orangutan just as you have before me so i'm really looking forward to seeing if i can't get my hands on one of those wild apes yeah.
Adam:
[28:09] Well you know i'll give you a long list of things if you're listening to this at home and you've got some uh advice or any tips for alan in borneo then please do send them in there's a contact form on our website and and i'll you know i'll look forward to hearing all about that mate because uh if there's one place that i've been that you haven't that i think you absolutely adore it probably is borneo.
Alun:
[28:30] That's exciting stuff then i'm stealing myself to go to borneo and as adam mentioned you can head to our website to let me know all about it and there's another thing that you can do on our website it's called tales of a trip head over topologypodcast.com forward slash tales of a trip and you can send us three minutes of your best travel story maybe tell me about the time you were in borneo and you got your hands on a great big orangutan maybe tell me about a time that you've had to change your travel plans because of an act of god a crazy natural disaster any great three minute story over on topologypodcast.com this listener did just that let's listen to it now.
Tales of a Trip:
[29:12] Hi guys, I'm Pafi, a South Carolina backpacker. I spent over six months traveling South America this year and I'll hopefully go back soon. I've collected so many travel stories I had a really hard time choosing the one to tell but I start with a fun story from my time in Peru, specifically in a town named Ollantaytambo in the sacred valley near Cusco. I decided to spend two days there, one night in that town to visit some ruins and soak up the vibes of the place which was very cute and colorful. However, it happened to be one of the big festivities of that town, so I ended up dancing with strangers on a main square for most of the night. And on the second day, I finally got to visit the first rune, and later on my way to the second one, I got lost in the small alleys, since Google Maps would keep directing me to a street that didn't exist, and the locals' instructions were even more confusing, although I'm fluent in Spanish.
Tales of a Trip:
[30:02] So while I was there, wandering around the alleys, I started hearing music, and soon a parade of young, dressed-up Peruvians passed by. And while I was filming them, one of them dragged me into the parade and I had no option but to follow the fun. And I ended up spending seven hours with that parade group, going between different houses, tents and yards scattered across the town and trying to understand what we were actually celebrating.
Tales of a Trip:
[30:27] And when entering each of the houses, they would perform a dance. They had their own live band, actually. And in turn, they would receive food and beer from the hosts. We would usually stay some 20 to 30 minutes at each place and it got better progressively because at some point everyone was pretty drunk obviously and it was hilarious because many guys would be wearing skirts masks and wigs and many girls were dressed like men and all of this time I was the only foreigner which I obviously loved and I truly felt like a special guest they would even want me to join in their dances but I didn't know the choreography and what's even better is the amount of proposals I received on that day. The guys would try to steal me from each other. It was so funny. And in the end, they performed their show on the main square and finished up entering the church, where I finally understood what we were celebrating, el señor de Choquequilca, the saint of their town. I got to see how they all kneeled down in front of a picture of the señor, one by one, being beaten up by their fellows with a whip for being too drunk, having been late to rehearsals and other sins I didn't quite understand. And the tricky part in the end was leaving all of this because they wouldn't want to let me go. But it was getting a bit too intense and, well, as a solo female traveler, you gotta know how to help yourself. So I said goodbye to the group, escaped, although some of them were trying to follow me, and I got on the first van to Cusco that same night. So yeah, that's being said, guys, if you want to follow along more of my travel stories, feel free to check out my Instagram. It's at puffytrend.
Alun:
[31:54] Yeah, Paffy, at Paffy Trend on Instagram there. Thank you so much for sending in the message. Displaying quite a high level of traveler awareness, not only in knowing when to call it quits and get yourself safe as a solo female traveler, but also just exploring and having an idea that, you know, understanding isn't necessary all the time for experience. You can learn by doing, just embracing the chaos and seeking deeper understanding by just getting involved.
Adam:
[32:26] Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely amazing experience. Thanks very much for sending it in, Paffy. It does make me think immediately of a time when I was in Bohol in the Philippines, funnily enough, and I got invited to kind of this town square where there was this huge dance, like a community kind of village dance, Zumba class type thing. And I was too self-conscious and afraid really too nervous to get involved and that plagues me to this day so what an amazing yeah like you say embrace of what's happening getting stuck in not worrying about it too much and having well such a wonderful experience that you've called up on the show and it's one of your greatest travel stories I do regret those times when I haven't I haven't put myself forward like that.
Alun:
[33:08] Yeah I always promote this idea of an ornithological approach to travel meaning as a bird watcher observe but don't judge but sometimes I think that can be interpreted as having too much of a passive role like you're just observing you're not inserting yourself into the narrative and getting involved but I think what Pathy shows there is that part of that part of the being a good traveler, you can like get into the narrative and enjoy the festivities and like have an impact on everyone's day as I'm sure Paffy did there but also had an awareness of like okay I don't necessarily understand what's going here like I'll figure that out I'll observe I'll see I'll be an ornithologist I'll like assess the situation and then once I understand and I've had my feel of a good time i've like had that travel experience to the maximal impact it can have then it's time for me to be like okay it's time to leave so i just think it was really good travel yeah.
Adam:
[34:07] It sounds like and you know i'm sure there's more to that story it could it could have gone into far more detail but i mean um it sounds like it was all good and none of the bad i mean what an amazing time um have you been to that place in peru or do you remember it being like that in peru did Did you get involved in any festivities while you were there?
Alun:
[34:25] I've been to Cusco, but I was very much in Peru just to, I mean, I was very set on the ancient world at that point in my life. So I was seeing mummies, I was observing ancient geoglyphs. I was going to Machu Picchu. I've been to Cusco and I was very set on a very specific type of trip. So I did absolutely no drinking. And absolutely no festivals of any kind.
Adam:
[34:53] That is amazing. I mean, I wish I was there. Peru is a country that I should go to, really. And that's inspired me to get there maybe sooner than I otherwise would.
Alun:
[35:02] South America in general, Adam, I often think of it as the biggest hole in your travel map.
Typhoon Tino Approaches
Alun:
[35:09] Whereas Russia, the stands, Japan, Korea are for me. South America is for you. we have to rectify it in the coming years you the listening audience will be there as we do as we go on more travel adventures every week on a tuesday if you want to hear more from us this week you've got to go to patreon.com forward slash topology podcast where you can hear an extra 15 minutes that takes place after the ever controversial theme music has ended for now though we'll see you all next time.
Adam:
[35:38] We’ll see you there. Bye-bye.
