00:00Crocodiles, gorillas, hippos, forest elephants, malaria, dengue fever, river blindness,
00:06the diseases are rife and the animals are big. There's no way I'm not coming back with a parasite.
00:18I think it was age 16 that I was kind of like, I would love to just travel around,
00:23see the different opportunities, you know, because I'm a young lad from Old Colwyn,
00:27North Wales, no one really goes to Old Colwyn. So I was just like, there has to be a lot
00:32of
00:32opportunities out there. And then I set off at age 19. And I would say that the real catalyst of
00:37what I do today was realizing that I'm on a shoestring budget, you know, in Cambodia,
00:43sulking on the Mekong riverbank, whining to my friend saying we're spending way too much money
00:48and we're just tourists. We are just tourists. We're sharing the same photos, stories and experiences
00:53as everyone else. How do we do something different? And I recommended, you know,
00:57let's just get a bicycle and cycle the entire length of Cambodia and Vietnam. And I was just like,
01:02this is insane. You know, and after that, it kind of then started to grow and grow.
01:07I was trekking the Himalayas illegally. I was crossing borders by the jungle illegally from Thailand to
01:13Myanmar. I learned how to survive in the jungle with the Burmese hill drive. So it was all very
01:17foolhardy and reckless looking back now. And then settling down pretty much as a scuba diving instructor and a
01:22Muay Thai fighter in Thailand before I was just like, this life is getting a little bit repetitive.
01:27And I was just like, right, I need adventure in my life again.
01:34Not only is it the Congo Basin that I'm planning for, it's ultimately six very extreme expeditions
01:42in six very different environments. The 700 kilometer sort of Sangha River to the Congo River.
01:47I mean, you know, the Congo is the world's most dangerous and deadly jungle for a reason.
01:51It's like the diseases are rife and the animals are big. You've got things from crocodiles to hippos,
01:58forest elephants, gorillas, snakes and spiders. You've got the different diseases out there as
02:05well. Malaria, dengue fever. You've got the parasites, which is a big concern. There's no
02:09way I'm not coming back with a parasite. And then you've got a thing called river blindness as well,
02:15which I did not know of. There's a lot of details that we've got to plan for. And you've got
02:21to sort
02:21out visas, permits, being really difficult, especially because the UK foreign office is
02:26advising against all travel to these regions. You've got to make sure that you've got all of the right
02:31pills and vaccines and medical kit and evacuation and insurance. There's definitely the fear of
02:37anything can happen. It is an adventure and I feel that I've got what it takes to bring us all
02:44back.
02:44So when we finish, I mean, that'll be, yeah, you know, big celebrations. And then I think
02:49Moussaka, I believe it's got a place where we can pick up a coffee.
