Travel Tips From Around the World, with Alberto Rey

Alberto Rey (00:00): Okay.

Tom Rosenbauer (00:02): Well, my guest today is Alberto Ray and, uh, Alberto is a, has a number of, uh, job titles or a number of things that, that he does, uh, maybe first and foremost in my mind, or if it's endorsed guide for many years, how many years Alberto?

Alberto Rey (00:22): ⁓ Almost 25

Tom Rosenbauer (00:25): almost 25 years fishing the Great Lakes tributaries for migratory fish and ⁓ a retired college professor, art professor, and currently an artist and writer and a very talented potter. Every time we have salad at home, we have an Alberto Ray, a beautiful brook trout bowl. ⁓ And you also run a kids program.

Alberto Rey (00:54): Yep, yep, every week we've been doing that for I think almost 30 years.

Tom Rosenbauer (01:01): Yeah, wow. So, Alberto's a man of many talents. I'm very jealous. And especially of his artistic abilities. But ⁓ you recently took a long ⁓ fishing excursion, not quite around the world, but pretty close. ⁓ And you had some good advice for people. ⁓ the travel, whether they're traveling, you know, just on the other side of the country or whether they're going to other side of the world. ⁓ Tell people a little bit about your about your trip and where it took you.

Alberto Rey (01:39): Yeah, so we, ⁓ my wife and I wanted to celebrate ⁓ our retirement, although she decided to keep working. ⁓ And we ended up going, spent five months and we did travel around the world. So we hit every continent except Antarctica. And we, my wife doesn't fish, although she likes to be in boats and stuff. So we had to split the trip up kind of fishing and non-fishing things.

Tom Rosenbauer (01:48): Yeah

Alberto Rey (02:09): So we did go to 14 different countries and I fished 29 different bodies of water. ⁓ we kind of broke up the trip between being out in nature for half the trip and then being in the cities for the other half. And then in the cities we'd go to museums and esco sites and just different things. So we kind of broke it up that way. ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (02:17): Wow.

Alberto Rey (02:39): It was ⁓ a great trip. We really didn't know what was going to happen. in half the trip, we really didn't plan until we were on the road. So we really didn't know. It was kind of loosey goosey type of thing. And it wasn't until we were three months into a five month trip that we realized that we decided where we were going to leave.

Tom Rosenbauer (02:51): Hmm.

Alberto Rey (03:07): to go back home and what day we were gonna leave. we were kinda, you know, kinda seeing how things, we gave ourselves six months and we ended up lasting five months. So it was pretty good trip. I I hope to do it again maybe another year or two.

Tom Rosenbauer (03:24): huh. Wow. So tell me, tell me before we, before we get, tell me a little bit about the places you fished and then tell me the, the best place for a combination of angling and not ang non angling travelers that you found.

Alberto Rey (03:41): Yeah. All right, so we fished, I'll give you the whole trip real quick. So we went to the Galapagos, then we went to Chile, Argentina, then we flew to New Zealand, then we went to Fiji, Australia, Tasmania, Singapore, Japan, Spain, Morocco, Italy, Slovenia, back to Italy. Switzerland and then we left from France. So it was pretty epic. ⁓ So the best place to fish with ⁓ the first place that comes to mind. Wow, there's actually quite a few places. ⁓ Yeah, Japan. Japan was nice because you had the city and then you could do some tenkara fishing and some streams. then I found out too late that they have Taiman in the big island of Japan. was a hodaika. They have Japanese Taiman, which I didn't realize. There's a lot of places I want to go back to.

Tom Rosenbauer (04:33): You can name a few. Hmm. Yeah.

Alberto Rey (05:00): ⁓ that I found ⁓ locations, destinations that I didn't know before I got there. ⁓ Fiji, Fiji was pretty cool. You could go to the beach and lay out and snorkel and then you could fish for, know, GTs and they fish off the reefs for whatever, you know, came about. Let's see. ⁓ As you know, Patagonia is just incredibly beautiful. Not only do you have good fishing, but great hikes. We actually went whitewater rafting in the Rio Baker. ⁓ So that was pretty cool. And then we went to the Patagonia National Park and hiked around there. So yeah, that's just incredibly beautiful there and as you know, great fishing as well.

Tom Rosenbauer (05:48): I know the spot. Yeah, yeah. So you you've learned some things, both kind of practical, pragmatic and more philosophical in regard to expectations about about travel, you want to discuss some of those some of those things you're learned?

Alberto Rey (06:18): Sure, yeah, you know, you plan a trip, you think that, all right, I'm gonna get there and the fishing's just gonna be off the hook. And ⁓ I realize that the idea that you're gonna have a ⁓ lights out day, it's kind of unrealistic. mean, as a guide, you really only have a few, and you think about the whole season,

Tom Rosenbauer (06:30): Yeah.

Alberto Rey (06:47): You only have a few days that everything comes together. Water conditions, number of fish migrating in, ⁓ water temperature, and everything's right on. mean, that happens very few. That's not to say that it's not good fishing. It's just that it's not epic. So the idea that you're going to travel across the world and hit this fishery

Tom Rosenbauer (07:08): Yeah.

Alberto Rey (07:16): for one week and that everything is going to be spot on is a little unrealistic. So, you I had this expectation. that the quality of fishing was directly proportional to the amount of distance I traveled. And that was not the case. ⁓ So, I mean, I did have great days and I've had memorable experiences, but I think you just have to expect that some days are just gonna be average, some days are gonna be okay, some days are not gonna be good at all. But you're there for the whole thing, you know, the...

Tom Rosenbauer (07:34): Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Alberto Rey (07:56): So that's why I think when you pick a place, you want to go to somewhere that's beautiful. If you're not going to catch fish, or you're not catching fish, at least there's kind of like a spiritual journey that you're in this magnificent place, and you're just absorbing everything around you. And then the other thing is the people, the people that you're with, whether it's a guide or the people back at the lodge. I mean, there's places... There's one guy that we met, ⁓ Juan Antonio, in this little town in the Pyrenees. I would go back tomorrow to go to this place that this guy owned and he was a chef that we fell in love with this guy. I'd go back tomorrow just to see him and have his food and not fish. I mean, that's how important that relationship was and the people that you meet, so.

Tom Rosenbauer (08:54): Was that in Arends? Oh, okay. Yeah, with Salvo Linus. Yeah, he is an amazing human being. My wife and I took that trip last September and yeah, he's just an amazing guy.

Alberto Rey (08:55): Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, was, you I still think about him and I mean, just kind of very laid back guy, but his food was incredible. And just his generosity was something that makes you want to be better, you know, just by being around him.

Tom Rosenbauer (09:20): Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and the passion he has for sharing his creations with everyone.

Alberto Rey (09:35): Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think other places, other lodges had, you know, people who were memorable. But if I think of one person, that would be the guy that I would think about.

Tom Rosenbauer (09:45): Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ All right, let's talk about some more pragmatic ⁓ aspects of traveling and fishing, like carrying your gear. What tips do you have for carrying rods, carrying reels?

Alberto Rey (10:04): Yeah. So this is what we did was ⁓ super simple. I know you like going simple as well. ⁓ But, ⁓ you know, I don't care too much about gear. You know, I can fish with a stick on a line and that'd be fine with me. So when we packed for this trip, ⁓ we used, I just took two reels and two rods. a six-weight and an eight-weight, six-piece clear water. And if you take them out of the tube, they fit perfectly in a carry-on. So on this trip that we went on, we only took a backpack and a carry-on. We didn't check any baggage. No. And that was five months. So what we did is every place we went to, we would just get laundry service and just have it all done.

Tom Rosenbauer (10:38): Wow. Wow. Mm-hmm. Wow, you're kidding me. For five months? huh.

Alberto Rey (11:06): It was one of the smartest things we did because we never had to get in line to check in our bags, which sometimes were huge lines. Never had to worry about waiting to pick up your luggage. Never had to worry about losing your luggage. And ⁓ all what we carried, and I think we probably carried too much, was two rods, two reels.

Tom Rosenbauer (11:17): Yeah.

Alberto Rey (11:33): one box of flies, salt water on one side and fresh water on the other. it was just your basic stuff, know, some dark, for fresh water, some, you know, like different colored wooly buggers, some nymphs, beaded nymphs, a few dry flies, a few hoppers, and that was it. And then for the wet side, a few gotchas, a few chartreuse streamers, a few darker streamers.

Tom Rosenbauer (11:38): Whoa, I could never do that.

Alberto Rey (12:04): ⁓ Maybe a couple crab patterns, other crab patterns. And that was it.

Tom Rosenbauer (12:11): Both floating lines, both floating lines, I assume. Okay.

Alberto Rey (12:14): Yes, yeah. what we did, no waders or boots. No waders or boots. we, every place we went to had waders and boots that you can use. I mean, they were grungy and they were beat up, but you know, who cares? So, ⁓ and it was fine. And that's what we did at pretty much every place that we went to. ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (12:21): Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. So you had to borrow them when you Ha

Alberto Rey (12:42): that was part of the criteria was that they needed to have ⁓ waders boots. And actually we used their gear as well. And one of the things I like to do on these trips is I like to use the gear that the guides have because you get to learn a lot about different rods, how they set it up, the reels that they use, tippets. I learned a lot about, I picked up some good tips on tippet. ⁓ just how they do their rigs and how they put it on the cars and all that stuff. ⁓ it's kind of like you're kind of walking into this situation, you're given a rod you've never used and set up, and it's kind of fun to kind of figure that out and use it. ⁓ you have to be kind of flexible. I kind of enjoy that. So it wasn't a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Rosenbauer (13:38): Tell me, tell me what before before we go any further, tell me what you learned about tippets from guides because.

Alberto Rey (13:45): ⁓ It was just that there was this one, this guide ⁓ in Spain that was using, I think it was, 4X tippet that was the diameter of 4X, but it had the weight of 3X. Now, I know that doesn't seem like a big deal, but, and I was thinking back home, because that's what I use when I steelhead fishing and guiding, is I used a lot of 3X because of the weight of the fish. 3X ends up being about seven pounds, eight pounds, seven pounds usually. So the idea that I could go with a 4X diameter and get the same weight, they could hold the same weight was something that, and that's, so I still use that. Now, you know that, every company has their own diameters and their own stuff. But that was kind of ⁓ the main thing I picked up. But the one thing that I found interesting was you go across the world and for freshwater fishing, everybody uses pretty much the same flies. You have mayflies, caddis, lot of ⁓ similar patterns. So apart from the huge beetles that they have in Patagonia, ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (15:01): Yeah. Yeah.

Alberto Rey (15:12): Everything else is, you can transfer it anywhere.

Tom Rosenbauer (15:16): You could go around the world with parachute Adams and pheasant tails, probably.

Alberto Rey (15:20): Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So that was kind of nice. ⁓ So, wise, just a few shirts, couple pants. ⁓ Half of my gear was sketchbooks, a computer, couple cameras, a GoPro and a Sony RX10. A small backup. ⁓ Huff camera, ⁓ card readers, sketchbooks, watercolor books, art supplies. So that was about half my gear. So I could have easily gone with even less clothing. Backpack and carry on.

Tom Rosenbauer (16:02): Wow, and you put all of this in a backpack. Hmm.

Alberto Rey (16:11): Yeah, and it was, again, it was more than enough. And then we always picked up some, you know, souvenirs here and there that we were able to stuff in there.

Tom Rosenbauer (16:20): Mm-hmm.

Alberto Rey (16:21): So it worked out pretty well.

Tom Rosenbauer (16:25): What other lessons did you learn about traveling?

Alberto Rey (16:29): ⁓ Well, one of the things that was a little frustrating was that I'd get to these fisheries and you'd start fishing and ⁓ then you'd find out that like in Japan we went to this small little stream called the Fu River and I was talking to the guide and he says, you know, we have tamen here. And I was like, why? What are you talking about? Tamen in Japan? He goes, yeah, we got this ⁓ island that has Japanese Taiman. I was like, so I gotta come back for that. And then I was in North Island of New Zealand with, I think it's ⁓ Ollie, who's I think African guide of the year. He works with Chris Jolly. And he says, you know, I've been investigating these mountains in the North Island that. really hard to get to you either have to helicopter in or you have to hike all day and he says nobody fishes it then you have these huge mount huge brown trout up there it's all right I got to come back for that I didn't have time and then we were in ⁓ ⁓ Fiji and I tried to do a lot of research beforehand because I there wasn't any guides in Fiji and we were staying in the outer islands of the ⁓ Isawa Islands, so You know, there's not much going on and ⁓ I'm walking to beach one day and I see this couple and so I strike up this conversation I find out that this guy and his wife

Tom Rosenbauer (17:47): Mm-hmm.

Alberto Rey (18:11): this guy lives on this island all his life and he's a fly fishing guide. And I'm like, what? I said, he says, yeah, you we have big pods of GTs here. I'm like, well, you know, I'm here for another few days. He says, well, I'm leaving. I'm flying to Canada tomorrow. My wife is Canadian. ⁓ So that's one thing I got to go back for. And ⁓ it's kind of like this, ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (18:33): No Mm-hmm.

Alberto Rey (18:41): ⁓ It's a fishery that nobody knows about. Well, maybe until now. But ⁓ it's neat to kind of discover these little things that not too many people know about. And then I took this train through the Bernini Express, through the Swiss Alps. It's just incredibly beautiful. And you see all these streams. And ⁓ then I started to do research after that and the idea of going back to the Swiss Alps and fishing these streams. So there's just a lot of places that I'd like to go back now that, you you go there and you kind of do this kind of exploratory trip and then you find out that there's other places that are even more, well, even more interesting that way you originally had expected. Yeah, there's a lot more water to explore.

Tom Rosenbauer (19:48): How about ⁓ navigating airports, language issues?

Alberto Rey (19:55): You know, it's surprising that, you know, we had, I think we went on 24 different flights. We stayed in 48 different locations. And we had one cancellation that whole time. And things went pretty well. I mean, when we look back, I think logistically, it was... ⁓ I mean, there was a lot to deal with, we, again, since we only, you know, ⁓ organized half the trip when we were beforehand, we more or less, I pretty much organized all the fishing areas first. And then I said, I gave it to my wife and I said, all right, I got my half that I want to do. You can fill it in with whatever you want to do.

Tom Rosenbauer (20:50): Hehehehehe

Alberto Rey (20:54): And then that's when we went to, you know, a bunch of, we went to like Morocco, which I thought was wonderful. I'd like to go back there and actually fish up there. ⁓ So it was a lot of, you know, you have to just like anything, you take it one step at a time. You don't want to think about all the logistics. ⁓ So you just do it little by little. ⁓ There was a lot of times that, you know, we were making reservations like a week before to get somewhere. Like the last third of the trip, we did pretty much all while we were on a trip. So it wasn't like all figured out beforehand. And since we really didn't know when we were coming back, it kind of gives you a sense of freedom that, you know, if you're late or if your flight's late or whatever the case is, it's not a big deal. It's not like, you know, it's a work, it's a job or anything. You can just say, so I'll stay here another day or two.

Tom Rosenbauer (21:53): Mm-hmm.

Alberto Rey (21:53): You know, so it's, you know, every airline has different restrictions. think the only, like Fiji Airlines was the only airline that weighed your baggage. You know, when some airlines say it can't be more than so many pounds, nobody really checks that. Yeah, precaria. Nobody really checks it. ⁓ But Fiji Airlines did.

Tom Rosenbauer (22:14): for carry on. Yeah. Mm.

Alberto Rey (22:22): And like mine was like way, way overweight. And they said, well, I said, you know, I'm happy to pay. And they said, well, it's not that it's just, just too much. ⁓ because I had all the sketchbooks and all the, you know, the computer and all this. And they said, ⁓ I said, you know, I really don't have any other option. You know, I don't have another bag. I have to catch a display. And luckily they were, all right, go ahead.

Tom Rosenbauer (22:35): Ha ha ha.

Alberto Rey (22:51): Yeah, well, you go. So they were really nice about that. But that was the only airline that really checked ⁓ weight.

Tom Rosenbauer (22:55): huh. So you had no problem whatsoever carrying flies and rods on the plane with you. Do you think you would have had trouble if you had four-piece rods?

Alberto Rey (23:05): No. No. Uhhhh You mean if you had it on the outside of the bag?

Tom Rosenbauer (23:18): Yeah, I mean, did you were they both? Were they both six piece rods that you took clear water six pieces?

Alberto Rey (23:20): or carried on separately. Yeah. Yeah. And those just fit just perfectly inside those carry-ons.

Tom Rosenbauer (23:30): Yeah, they probably don't even notice you're carrying a fishing rod, right? ⁓

Alberto Rey (23:32): Exactly. Yeah. So that was one of the reasons, a little planning that I did beforehand, because I wanted to fit everything inside. didn't want anything hanging on the outside. ⁓ And everything fits. So, ⁓ and if you have it inside your luggage, I had some of the, I think it's kind of like, somewhat like a hard shell outside ⁓ carry on, then you don't have to really. carry a tube because it's all protected inside anyhow.

Tom Rosenbauer (24:04): Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty amazing at rods without tubes. can, they just don't seem to break. I put mine in duffel bags all the time and, or carry it alls and.

Alberto Rey (24:13): No, Yeah, and if you kind of like rubber band and cloth, you know, they're pretty, pretty sturdy. ⁓ So I think, yeah, those, I think going back to those places would be, it's just a lot of water. I mean, I'm hoping to, my son's in Nepal right now in the Peace Corps and we're hoping to go to Mongolia or Bhutan in the fall and then next year go back to Patagonia, ⁓ Argentina and Chile. ⁓ But yeah, there's just a lot of water, as you know.

Tom Rosenbauer (24:59): There's a lot of water in the United States that I wanna visit. And you know, you can apply that same philosophy because I should know better. But when I plan, let's say I'm going two hours away, or three or four hours away fishing somewhere, like I'm coming to fish with you, I expect it's gonna be lights out too, you know, even though I know better.

Alberto Rey (25:02): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Rosenbauer (25:26): The anticipation or that expectation is invariably greater than what you experience.

Alberto Rey (25:34): Yeah. You know, one time we were in Carnes, know, C-A-I-R-N-S in Australia. We had gone there to go to the Great Barrier Reef. But, you know, I told my wife, you know, I'd like to do a little fishing while I'm here. So I called somebody and they put me in touch with the guy and he said, you know what, we've had rain every day for the last month. Everything is blown out.

Tom Rosenbauer (25:44): Huh? ⁓ Huh?

Alberto Rey (26:03): He said, the only thing we can do is we can go do a little saltwater fishing, but it's gonna be two and a half hour drive from here. I said, all right, let's do it. So he got his skiff and we went to Hitchinbrook Channel, which is the southern part of ⁓ the Great Barrier Reef. And the Great Barrier Reef, thought was like a little reef. No, it's huge. It's like hundreds of miles. So we went into this just unbelievably picturesque ⁓ area and we went for barramundi, ⁓ which are huge. mean, if you can imagine a bass, but just like the size of your arm. ⁓ And we went out there and it was beautiful. And within the first 10 minutes, ⁓ had this huge barramundi hit and had them on for a couple of minutes and it popped. And I was like, wow, this is gonna be great. 10 minutes, I'm into this, nothing for like three, four hours. And then we ended up catching two right towards the end of the day. But you're kind of fishing like you would for like bass, anything with any structure, ⁓ any debris in the water, ⁓ trees and branches, that type of thing you'd fish too.

Tom Rosenbauer (27:08): Heh. hahahaha ⁓ huh.

Alberto Rey (27:31): And my wife was with me and ⁓ she again, she likes to be on a boat. She's, ⁓ she, you know, sails or she was a sailor and that type of thing. So she likes being, and she was like, do you do this all the time? And I go, yeah, this is, it says you've been casting for hours, hundreds of casts and you still haven't caught a fish. I go, this is how it is. And ⁓ so she was surprised that, you know,

Tom Rosenbauer (27:54): Ha ha ha.

Alberto Rey (28:01): how much effort it takes to sometimes just catch a fish.

Tom Rosenbauer (28:06): Well, that's an interesting concept is the Plan B or Plan C. Did you have any other experiences where you expected to do something and then you had to pivot?

Alberto Rey (28:19): Well, there was one time we were in Argentina and we started fishing and it was like a monsoon. It was like wind, heavy rain, and I was with my son at the time. And we were still using top flies, top water flies, like those foam sandwich flies that were just massive. And... ⁓ And my son and I would just look at each other and we were just laughing. It was just so much fun being in the rain under these conditions that just, you know, was just terrible conditions. But the water was fine. And so we just kept, you know, fishing and casting into the wind and all this stuff. And we were catching fish after fish. mean, nice sized fish. And we're taking these top water flies. I'm not sure how they even saw it with all the, know, the rain on the water.

Tom Rosenbauer (28:59): Huh?

Alberto Rey (29:17): If they found it, they were all over it. And it was, and the next day, everything was blown. So we couldn't fish. But they took us on a, like a bird safari. So we just walked there, you know, we went in the car and just looked at all the different types of birds and different, you know, kind of ⁓ stags and other animals. So that ended up being kind of like a nice surprise, not expected, but you know, that, ⁓ First of all, you have to fish through all conditions because you never know ⁓ what's going to happen. you know, there's something about fishing in the rain, it just makes me feel like a little kid, like, you know, I shouldn't be out here. This is, you know, this is crazy. ⁓ That I just really enjoy. And again, the fish don't care. So ⁓ that was one of the more memorable or parts of a trip that, know, fishing through bad conditions. You know, I've had that here, I mean, and we're still heading and it's like a blizzard and it's, you know, 20 degrees and windy and you're just chilled to the bone. But for some reason, the fish don't care. So they're just, as long as they, it's surprising how warm you get when you have a fish on the line. You never seem to care too much how cold it is outside.

Tom Rosenbauer (30:42): Yeah, boy, it warms you up quick, doesn't it? Well, being a steelhead guy, you're used to kind of extreme weather, you probably, you're conditioned to fishing in those conditions.

Alberto Rey (30:54): Yeah, that's probably true. Yeah, yeah. but yeah, it's kind of, I'm trying to think of any other. ⁓ Situations. You know, one of the things that's kind of interesting is ⁓ for a while there, it's kind of funny, but ⁓ I think I was going through this streak of ⁓ fishing on water that was usually like really good. And, know, they'd put me, you know, out on the water and, you know, I can cast enough, good enough. And ⁓ the guides would say, I don't get it. You're getting flies where it needs to be and everything, but the fish were just not hitting. And they were just puzzled. And I'm like, you just got to go with it. can't, you you could be, you know, you can piss and moan about it, but it's not going to help you. So you just kind of keep doing what the guide tells you and hopefully something will break. But there was a few days.

Tom Rosenbauer (31:48): Mm-hmm.

Alberto Rey (32:07): different locations that you started to think, man, maybe I don't know what I'm doing. Maybe I don't know how to cast. Yeah, kind of like, wow, this is humbling.

Tom Rosenbauer (32:12): I have those days all the time, Alberto. Yeah. Yeah. I hear you, I hear you. feel like you've been doing this for decades and decades and do I really know what I'm doing?

Alberto Rey (32:31): Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's pretty funny.

Tom Rosenbauer (32:37): Well, it's great. know, it sounds like, I mean, it sounds like you have such a great attitude being able to being able to be out in the rain, miserable conditions and laughing with your son and, rolling with the ⁓ rolling with all the changes and plans. And, ⁓ I think that's something that, ⁓ something that all of us should bear in mind when we're traveling that it's not going to be lights out. You're in a new place.

Alberto Rey (33:02): What's... Yeah, so much of it is out of your... Yeah. So much of it is out of your control. Yeah.

Tom Rosenbauer (33:08): You're meeting great people. Yeah, yeah.

Alberto Rey (33:13): You know, one thing that's, know, when we started this trip, we figured that some things were gonna happen that, you know, that we weren't in control of, but there was gonna be something that changed the way you looked at things. Kind of like some insight. And for us, it happened like two and a half months into the trip. We were in Singapore. And we had been traveling, you we had hit probably eight countries, seven countries. And we were just like super saturated with experiences. we, you we had gone to, you know, if you can imagine going to all these countries and going all these locations and fishing all these places and, and we got to the point that we lost all touch, connection with our lives back home. I couldn't remember my phone number. I couldn't remember my address.

Tom Rosenbauer (34:14): Mm-hmm.

Alberto Rey (34:19): We were like this little, it was my wife and I, we were just like this little bubble going through the world. you couldn't, you know, I couldn't remember, was that Melbourne, when that happened? Was that, you know, Santiago? Was that ⁓ this river? it that, you know, it was just so much that it was almost like numbing. Like you were just overwhelmed with all these things that

Tom Rosenbauer (34:25): Hmm?

Alberto Rey (34:49): you just were living day to day, you had lost all connection with the past. That's something that I've never felt. And I've always kind of, you you go on a trip and you're still connected to your life back home. This is kind of like an excursion for a week or two weeks or three weeks, but you're always connected. You still have this connection back home. This is the first time that we felt like we had, you know, we could have stayed and, you know.

Tom Rosenbauer (34:57): Hmm.

Alberto Rey (35:18): someplace and never really felt like we had to go home. That's never happened to me before or since. ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (35:26): Mmm. it's probably a very healthy thing mentally, right? Refreshing.

Alberto Rey (35:32): Yeah, it was a little scary at first because you were like, what, you know, am I losing my mind here? I, you know, getting Alzheimer's? And, know, I just have no memory of the past. It's all like a super saturated state. But it was, you know, it was pretty special. The one thing I would say is, you I'm hoping at first it was going to be the trip of a lifetime. We weren't going to do this again. But as soon as we were done with it, we were like,

Tom Rosenbauer (35:34): Ha Heh heh heh. huh. Wow. Huh.

Alberto Rey (36:01): you know, that wasn't that hard. We can do this again. So we're gonna wait another year or two. ⁓ And then I think we're gonna hit all, most like three quarters would be all different destinations. And then there's a couple of places we'd like to go back to. ⁓ But yeah, I'd love to do it again.

Tom Rosenbauer (36:26): Wow, well I'm envious. It sounds like an amazing... I'm still working, Alberto. I'm not retired yet.

Alberto Rey (36:30): you could do it, Tom, you could do it. You could take some time off. This is all work related for you.

Tom Rosenbauer (36:40): Yeah, yeah true

Alberto Rey (36:42): Yeah, you could, you know, there's orvus lodges all over the world. You could be hopping from lodge to lodge.

Tom Rosenbauer (36:48): Yeah. Yeah, I like where I live though. I'd miss it pretty quickly.

Alberto Rey (36:54): Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's, well, yeah, it would be tough. Yeah, I mean, I enjoyed it when we got back, but you know, it took a few months to just make sense of it all. Try to get a perspective on it. I tried to do, I did an article on it, but even then it was hard to, I mean, it's been, you know, it took about a year, I think, just to.

Tom Rosenbauer (37:11): Mm-hmm.

Alberto Rey (37:25): kind of get a perspective on it. And every once in a while, ⁓ we think back, like you're on your phone, you look through all these pictures, and you're like, yeah, we were there, know, just, you know, last year or whatever. It's kind of interesting.

Tom Rosenbauer (37:43): Now you have some of this information on your website,

Alberto Rey (37:48): Yeah, so if you go to my website, is albertorey.com, under art projects, there's a, for every project, every project I do, I set up a website. So if you go to my website, which is the archive of all the other websites, and you go to art projects, you'll see a link to Atlas. which is the last project I've been working on, which is, I did a series of about 120 paintings. And it has a website and it has all the places we went to, our itinerary, my data of what was the best, like best priority plus lounge. worst landing strip, best hotel, worst hotel. It was kind of a fun little top 10 list.

Tom Rosenbauer (38:48): Hmm. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, I'm sure that would be useful to some people who are planning on going to some of these destinations.

Alberto Rey (39:04): Yeah, yeah, I mean, they can always contact me too if they have any questions. You know, I got this camera. I have a friend of mine who worked for, works for National Geographic and I said, you know, I want a camera, a good camera I can use for articles, but I don't want to take a bunch of lenses with me. And he says, well, you want to get this, the Sony RX10 IV. It has a 40 to 600 range millimeter lens.

Tom Rosenbauer (39:36): Mm-hmm.

Alberto Rey (39:43): So you can get from wide angle to like super zoom. Yeah.

Tom Rosenbauer (39:47): Can ⁓

Alberto Rey (39:52): yeah. So that's a camera I'd recommend.

Tom Rosenbauer (39:58): Uh-huh, okay, good. Yeah, I've never used one of those. ⁓ I do shoot Sonys and I have a what ⁓ is it, RX100, it's not my favorite camera.

Alberto Rey (40:17): Yeah, I use this one a lot. It was really good. It was like everything I needed all in one camera.

Tom Rosenbauer (40:22): huh. Yeah. Great. Yeah, I'll have to look into that. Alright Alberto, well thank you for sharing your tips with us.

Alberto Rey (40:36): my pleasure.

Tom Rosenbauer (40:39): A fascinating trip. I'm sure that people will want to go in and look at that stuff on your website. And ⁓ I want to thank you for taking the time and being such a great friend all these years. Really appreciate it. All right. I will talk to you soon.

Alberto Rey (40:53): it's my pleasure, Tom. It's my pleasure. All right, thank you, Tom.