Esteban Gast, host of the podcast, "Comedians Conquering Climate Change" kicks off season three of AFAR's podcast, Travel Tales, with his story about a recent trip to Colombia, where his family is from.
If you want to hear more from Esteban, you can find him on his website estebangast.com or on social media @realestebangast
Read more here: https://rebrand.ly/39gl7tx
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If you want to hear more from Esteban, you can find him on his website estebangast.com or on social media @realestebangast
Read more here: https://rebrand.ly/39gl7tx
Find more episodes of Travel Tales at https://www.afar.com/traveltales
Learn more about our advertising partner, Marriot Bonvoy at https://www.marriottbonvoy.com/chasecards.
CONNECT WITH AFAR
Afar.com is a digital and print magazine that publishes travel tips, guides, news, and stories: https://www.afar.com
Get updates on the latest articles, travel news, and more from AFAR by signing up for the AFAR newsletter: https://afar.com/newsletters
Follow AFAR on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AfarMedia
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TravelTranscript
00:00 Ulrike is the name of a famous short story by author Jorge Luis Borges.
00:10 The main character is a Colombian professor.
00:12 At one point, this professor is asked, "What does it mean to be Colombian?"
00:18 The professor thinks, and then, after a little while, he says, "I don't know.
00:23 It is an act of faith."
00:30 I'm Aislinn Green, and this is Travel Tales by Afar.
00:34 In every episode, we hear about a trip that changed someone's life.
00:38 And in this season, we're actually sending people—writers, comedians, playwrights—out
00:44 into the world to explore life's big questions.
00:47 Given that pretty much everyone we know is traveling these days, it only makes sense,
00:51 right?
00:52 In fact, I am fresh off of a train trip through eastern Canada, which was actually inspired
00:57 by a Travel Tales episode from 2020.
00:59 We'll link to it in our show notes.
01:02 I ate bagels in Montreal, cycled through Quebec City, and toured Nova Scotia, delivered to
01:08 each place by a train staffed by the loveliest of Canadians.
01:13 Let's get back to what you heard at the top of the episode.
01:24 Today's storyteller is comedian and entertainer Esteban Gast.
01:28 And the question of what it means to be Colombian is something that he has wrestled with over
01:32 the years.
01:33 See, Esteban grew up in the United States, but his extended family lives in Colombia.
01:39 He's visited the country over the years, of course, but his relationship with the place
01:43 and his family always felt a little distant and complicated.
01:47 So, on his most recent trip this last spring, he decided to try and answer that question
01:53 once and for all.
01:55 It was, as you can imagine, a bit of a leap of faith.
02:07 Afar Travel Tales is brought to you by the Marriott Bomboy Boundless card.
02:11 Let these stories from the road inspire you to set out on your next adventure with a fresh
02:15 perspective and a deeper appreciation for the good that travel brings.
02:19 When you're ready for the thrill of new horizons, get the card that opens the door to extraordinary
02:24 destinations and unforgettable experiences.
02:28 Expand your world.
02:29 Go boundless.
02:30 Learn more at marriottbomboy.com/chasecards.
02:32 It's a hot summer day.
02:49 It's humid.
02:50 It's over 90 degrees.
02:52 And I'm standing in a plaza in Cartagena, Colombia.
02:55 You know when it's so hot and humid, you're like, "I didn't even know the back of my knees
03:00 could get sweaty."
03:02 Just me?
03:04 Anyways, Cartagena is a coastal city on the Caribbean Sea that was founded in 1533.
03:11 And of course, many different indigenous people lived here long before that.
03:16 Some historians believe humans have been here for as long as 6,000 years.
03:21 So it's a city with some history.
03:24 Like capital H. History.
03:29 To me, it feels like a museum come to life.
03:33 And as a fan of the Night at the Museum trilogy, that's right, there's three of those movies.
03:37 Shout out Night at the Museum fam.
03:41 I love cities that feel like museums.
03:45 Cartagena is very Spanish colonial in its architecture.
03:49 It's a bigger city with almost one million in its metropolitan area.
03:53 A giant wall envelops the whole downtown.
03:57 The old city.
03:59 There are fortresses everywhere.
04:02 It's got these colonial homes with big doors and beautiful courtyards.
04:07 There are colorful flowers hanging on every balcony.
04:11 And some of these places, houses, museums, offices, oh, they've got some great doors.
04:19 Cartagena has great door game.
04:22 Like, they are really showing off their doors.
04:26 There are these giant wooden doors with artistic heavy metal clasps.
04:32 Some of the clasps are shaped like iguanas.
04:35 Some of the doors are so big that horses could walk into the homes.
04:39 I'm going to be looking for some horse-sized doors for my next apartment.
04:44 Streets are beautiful here.
04:46 There are balconies on buildings and in narrow streets, it almost feels like you could jump
04:51 from one balcony to another.
04:54 If you've ever been to New Orleans and like thrown a beer to your neighbor on the balcony
04:58 across the street, yeah, it's just like that.
05:03 The city is so historic and beautiful that UNESCO designated Cartagena as a World Heritage
05:09 Site.
05:11 It's like UNESCO walked the blocks I'm walking and was like, "Yup, we gotta preserve this."
05:18 Speaking of tourism, this isn't some quiet town where people speak in whispers to not
05:24 wake the very, very old ghosts.
05:28 People also come here to party.
05:31 It's a coastal town, so Cartagena makes for a perfect vacation spot, and people all over
05:36 the world come here.
05:38 While I'm here, I heard all sorts of languages, not just the sing-song of Colombian Spanish
05:44 that I'm used to.
05:45 "Ay, qué rico verte."
05:49 As I walk around the city, I make my way to a plaza that feels familiar.
05:54 It's the Plaza San Pedro Claver, or St. Peter Claver, for those who didn't take Spanish
06:00 class.
06:02 He's the patron saint of human rights.
06:05 I learned this fact from a plaque near his sculpture in the plaza.
06:10 It's really easy to learn about the city's history.
06:13 Cartagena makes it convenient.
06:15 There are plaques in every square that tell you all about the city's past and its culture.
06:22 There are descriptions of buildings.
06:24 They answer questions like, "Who lived here?"
06:27 "What did they do for work?"
06:28 "Their zodiac sign, their age of their first kiss?"
06:32 Okay, not all those questions, but they give you a lot of history and context that allows
06:37 you to build a larger story of what this city means.
06:41 Okay, so there's me.
06:44 A Colombian-American dude standing in the plaza wondering how this city, how this country,
06:50 fits into my story.
06:53 This isn't my first time in this plaza.
06:55 I've been to this exact plaza before, like, a bunch of times.
07:00 I've come to this plaza as a sweaty and smelly eight-year-old.
07:05 I remember it was really hot and there was no shade and I was begging my parents for
07:09 ice cream.
07:12 I've come to this plaza as a bored and apathetic 18-year-old.
07:16 I remember rolling my eyes at my parents and wanting to go back to my iPod Nano until we
07:22 got ice cream.
07:24 And now, here I am again at 31, visiting for the first time without my parents, which means
07:33 unlimited ice cream.
07:36 And as I look around, the question I keep asking myself is, "Am I allowed to be here
07:42 all by myself?
07:43 Like, just speaking Spanish and exploring the city?"
07:47 Like, yes, I am allowed, but am I allowed allowed?
07:57 Let me give you some context.
07:59 I've been coming to Colombia my whole life, but always with my mom and dad.
08:04 My parents were born in Bogota, it's a 45-minute flight from Cartagena, and immigrated to the
08:10 U.S. in the mid-80s so they could go to grad school.
08:14 As my dad was working on his PhD, my parents had my brother and I and we did a typical
08:19 kids of immigrants schedule.
08:21 Summers were in Colombia.
08:23 We would spend time at my uncle and aunt's houses and we would sometimes go to my tĂo
08:27 Koke's house in Cartagena.
08:30 I would get poked fun at for my Americanized Spanish.
08:33 Yo soy Colombiano, I swear.
08:36 And get called gringo.
08:38 We would walk around Bogota and walk around Cartagena and we would eat in plazas and the
08:43 adults would sit at the table and drink and laugh and I would try to climb the big bronze
08:49 Botero sculpture.
08:51 It's one of the only sculptures of a not-religious person, so it felt less sacrilegious to climb.
08:57 Then I would return to the U.S. for the fall, winter, spring.
09:02 We lived in Puerto Rico for a little bit, then outside Chicago for most of my childhood.
09:07 Spanish was spoken at home and English everywhere else.
09:11 We would Skype our extended family and I would hear stories of my family and see pictures
09:16 of them, but I didn't know them too well.
09:20 Sometimes it was almost like my Colombian cousins were people I knew more through photos
09:24 than real life.
09:26 But mostly I tried to live a stereotypical American life, whatever that means.
09:32 I think that's the thing.
09:35 I didn't know what it meant, so I was like, "What's American?
09:38 Let me do that."
09:39 So I watched football and went to Super Bowl parties and ate hot dogs and was like, "Oh,
09:47 I am totally crushing this American thing."
09:50 Eventually, I got summer jobs back in the States or fought back against my parents enough,
09:56 so I stopped going to Colombia every summer.
10:00 I was like, "Why would I go to Colombia when I could stay here and eat hot dogs and
10:06 wear jean shorts and be a normal American youth?"
10:11 My connection to Colombia sometimes felt like childhood nostalgia, like, "Remember when
10:15 we all had beanie babies?
10:18 Remember when I was really connected to Colombia?"
10:22 With this trip to Colombia, the one I'm on, in this plaza, I was going to Bogota as well.
10:28 Bogota is where my cousin Camilo is, and Camilo rocks, and I love him.
10:34 And I also wanted to ask him a few questions specifically about my Colombian-ness.
10:39 You've known me since I was a baby.
10:44 Are there times that maybe you've been like, "Wow, he's doing this," or, "He's in it,"
10:47 or whatever that is?
10:48 I think so, because, of course, when you were little, you were the, of course, for me, the
10:54 American cousin, and you didn't speak as much Spanish.
10:57 You're a few words, and, of course, you were very American for me.
11:02 But then over the years, as you were coming back a little bit older as a teenager, then
11:07 20-year-old, whatever, of course, you look more Colombian, and you also make—that's
11:13 beautiful.
11:14 You make an effort to speak like a Colombian, and at a family party, you will try to dance
11:20 like a Colombian and try to drink like a Colombian, if you can handle it.
11:25 Yes, of course.
11:27 That's really nice.
11:28 Over the years, how the perspective has changed.
11:32 Maybe I was telling you sometime about how I saw you when I was a kid.
11:36 When we were little, I saw you with a little bit of envy because you lived in this awesome
11:43 country, you know, the American dream, and you had access to all these toys, wonderful
11:48 toys, Toys R Us.
11:49 You had a Toys R Us probably like 100 years away.
11:53 And that in Colombia was—Colombia opened commercially to globalization in the '90s.
11:59 So I remember when we could only buy Colombian things in Colombia, and then after many years,
12:04 you could import things.
12:06 But when I visited, America was like the dreamland.
12:10 And then a little later in my life, when I was like an adolescent, of course, a teenager,
12:15 and I started going to parties and, you know, enjoying more, like being a Colombian and
12:20 getting into my culture, like growing up to my Colombian paws, I think I fell for you
12:30 because I thought you were missing out.
12:33 And then when you were coming back, you were trying to be more Colombian, but you actually
12:37 weren't.
12:38 Like, I mean, it took an effort.
12:40 It wasn't so natural, even though you're Colombian and the same family, the same genes,
12:45 and you do speak Spanish.
12:46 For example, I have a lot of foreign cousins who don't, and they get frustrated.
12:51 You do it very well.
12:53 So yeah, that's how it's changed my perspective of you guys, your brother, you, but also how
12:59 I saw you, like, evolving into a more Colombian American.
13:06 That's my cousin Camilo.
13:08 He's always been one of my heroes.
13:10 Here's something that I hate to admit, but I have to because I've got this mic in front
13:14 of me and I must speak all my secrets into it.
13:18 I've known Camilo my whole life, and this is the first time we've talked about this,
13:23 about connection to culture, to family, to ourselves.
13:27 I guess it's better late than never.
13:30 Shout out podcasts, forcing you to have a good conversation.
13:34 For a few years, Camilo thought the US was a dreamland.
13:38 For me, it didn't always feel that way.
13:43 In seventh grade, I gave a presentation on Colombia to my class.
13:47 Okay, let me get in character.
13:49 It's 2007.
13:50 I like emo rock.
13:52 I have a crush on a girl named Allie, and we will date for six months and never kiss
14:00 and barely hold hands.
14:02 It's pretty serious.
14:05 I give the presentation and I finish it and a kid raises his hand.
14:10 So is your family part of a cartel?
14:14 The class laughs and the teacher says nothing.
14:19 I learned a pretty big lesson that day.
14:22 Don't talk about Colombia to mean middle schoolers.
14:26 I know you, dear listener, do not need this clarification, but let me just give you one
14:30 statistic that I think needs to be shared.
14:33 The conflict in Colombia has been dark and long.
14:37 Yes, yet in a country of almost 51 million people, the number of people actually fighting
14:42 against the cartels, including the entire country's own national army, never surpassed
14:48 200,000.
14:50 51 million people, never more than 200,000 actively involved.
14:57 Good.
14:59 I asked Camilo about this thing that I think about a lot, that in the US I'm constantly
15:04 fighting the media narrative of what it means to be Colombian.
15:08 That part of my reaction to being Colombian in the US in the 90s and 2000s is to not really
15:13 tell anyone where I'm from because people often have the same jokes, the same questions,
15:19 the same looks.
15:21 Did he, a Colombian living in Colombia, feel the same way?
15:26 I think we have in common a little bit.
15:29 The thing that we got to know Colombia a little bit later in life, like we were kids.
15:35 Even though I lived here through that and I did have to watch the news every night,
15:40 maybe you get numb about it a little bit.
15:43 But then when you grow up and you start reading the history and looking at it from different
15:48 angles and you read a book or see a documentary on the reality of Colombia, I think you have
15:54 to make an effort to do that.
15:56 It doesn't come on its own that you get a better knowledge of your country.
16:01 You have to make an effort to do it.
16:03 I think that we have that in common because I like that very much about you, that you
16:08 try to be Colombian.
16:09 You make an effort to be Colombian and you've come to Colombia many times and you know many
16:13 parts of Colombia.
16:14 You've traveled around and taken buses to I don't know which town, many hours away from
16:19 Bogota.
16:20 And yeah, that's a choice and that's an awesome choice because it makes you really Colombian.
16:26 And also the more you know, as you know, the more you love.
16:30 So I think that's awesome.
16:33 You've been learning to love Colombia.
16:35 Yeah, and that's great.
16:38 Has this episode of Afar Travel Tales already got you planning your next adventure?
17:01 We hope that hearing these firsthand stories of life-changing trips will make you think
17:05 about not just where you want to go, but why you want to go.
17:11 Whether you're seeking a new state of mind or the opportunity to immerse yourself in
17:16 a different culture, let the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card take you to a place where you
17:20 can look deeper, listen closer, and care more.
17:25 Because when we explore with passion and purpose, we create a deeper connection between ourselves
17:31 and the world.
17:33 And your world, go boundless.
17:35 Learn more at marriottbonvoy.com/chasecards.
17:56 My grandmother died in 2000.
17:58 I was nine years old.
18:00 One of the things that I think about was when I started reflecting on my relationship with
18:04 our grandmother.
18:06 So I'm curious, how would you describe Ita?
18:09 Did you call her Ita?
18:10 No, I call her Abuelita.
18:13 Wow.
18:14 Yes.
18:15 Just normal word for grandma.
18:18 Yeah.
18:19 Yes, Abuelita was for us.
18:21 It's funny because we didn't have like a loving nickname for her.
18:26 Abuelita is just like the normal.
18:28 Of course, it's little Abuela, Abuelita.
18:33 When we got the news, my family and I bought a plane ticket and we flew the almost eight-hour
18:37 flight from Chicago to Colombia.
18:44 I remember sitting in a small church in Bogota, the capital city.
18:48 It's this stone church that has been there forever.
18:51 You can see each individual stone that make up the walls.
18:56 And these are big stones, like the smallest ones are the size of my head.
19:01 It's just a few blocks from my Uncle Koke's house.
19:04 It's also a few blocks from the daycare of my tĂa Mili and cousin Vinaron.
19:09 It's the type of church where the priest is like, "Hey kid, your ankle was hurting you,
19:12 yeah?
19:13 How's it feel?
19:14 Hey, Mr. Haircut, looking good.
19:17 How's your aunt?
19:18 I know she was sick.
19:19 I'm praying for her."
19:21 The priest has these friendly exchanges with just about everyone.
19:25 Not me, of course.
19:27 I'm the gringo cousin.
19:30 Right this church for my grandmother's funeral.
19:33 This was the church that she went to.
19:35 Her name is Isabel CuĂdez Camacho.
19:39 I called her Ita, which is short for Abuelita.
19:43 I guess Camilo just called her Abuela.
19:46 After the service, my cousins and family all sit in a living room and drink whiskey and
19:51 share stories of my grandmother.
19:54 And I, listen.
19:57 I tried to think, but I really had no stories about her.
20:00 I wasn't quite sure how I fit into her life.
20:04 Was there anything she did that you thought, "Oh, that's where I get that from," or, "That's
20:08 where your dad gets that from?"
20:10 Like did she do anything that you're like, "Oh, that's a CuĂdez."
20:13 Yeah, probably, yeah.
20:15 Let me think about it.
20:17 I think she was very, her humor was a little bit black.
20:22 Yeah.
20:23 That's like a trait, I think, of the family.
20:28 But also she was like a socialite.
20:33 That's also, I think, a little bit of a trait we have.
20:35 Nowadays, she would have been great for PR.
20:40 She had a lot of friends and she loved hanging out with friends and calling friends.
20:44 She knew everything and all the newest gossip.
20:47 But I think that social skills were, I think, we inherited that a little bit.
20:55 So yes, I remember sitting at my grandmother's funeral thinking, "I don't really know what
21:00 to say about her.
21:02 I don't really know her too well."
21:05 Then I thought about my mom, who was so close to her mother.
21:10 They lived together until my mom got married, only to move 3,000 miles away from her in
21:16 her 30s.
21:18 3,000 miles in those days is a lot.
21:21 We're talking pre-FaceTime 3,000 miles.
21:27 There are distances we choose and those we can't.
21:30 My mom decided to live in the USA, a distance from Colombia that we can't control too much.
21:37 However, she didn't want the locational distance to mean emotional distance.
21:42 We did the novena and we ate ajiaco and listened to Carlos Vives because we were already dealing
21:48 with one distance and my mom couldn't bear another.
21:53 I think there's a lot of things that ground us, that pull our feet back to earth.
22:00 It can be the recognition of my parents' sacrifices.
22:03 "Oh, I'm sad I don't fit in."
22:07 My mom was far away from her mom for the last 15 years of her life.
22:13 The humility to understand that someone's view of the country you're from is informed
22:17 by what they know, often by the things they don't know.
22:22 Or that if we look even a little bit, our ancestors show up every day in who we are.
22:30 I was just telling Misha, my girlfriend, something I love about you is you haven't met a stranger.
22:34 Camila walks in and is like, "Ah, how are you?"
22:38 You know, "Mira, besi hermano."
22:40 All these different things.
22:44 You go in and you're like, "How are you really with every single person?"
22:48 Is that kind of her?
22:49 It's like a quick social ability?
22:53 I think she was really kind and she worked many years for a foundation doing therapy,
23:01 physical therapy to little kids who were orphans from the police.
23:07 So she had this social fiber.
23:11 My grandmother lives on in my mom's creativity and charisma, in Uncle Coca's kindness, Uncle
23:18 Juan Manuel's music, and Uncle Alvaro's mischievous humor.
23:24 She was young, she went to live to Brussels to learn piano and whatnot.
23:31 And at that time, it was 1920s or 1930s, that was really weird for Colombia.
23:37 My grandmother lives on in Camila, someone who has had to accept himself, publicly state
23:43 who he is in a Catholic and conservative country.
23:47 Someone whose decision in certain parts of Colombia may be seen as really weird for Colombia.
23:53 When he was 27, Camilo came out as gay.
23:56 I asked him how he accepted a part of himself that society told him to reject.
24:02 You know, I came out of the closet when I was 27.
24:04 And up until that moment when I was 27, I lived in a bubble.
24:08 I actually went to law school and I was this terribly boring lawyer with a tie and suit
24:14 all the time and my hair was short.
24:17 Now it's really long, thank God.
24:19 Thank God-ess.
24:20 And, yeah, I saw Colombia from a privileged position.
24:26 So many things that were maybe screamed by a lot of communities in Colombia about inequality,
24:34 about, you know, the hardships in Colombia, I was a little bit deaf to them.
24:40 I was a little bit numb.
24:43 The little thread that connects you to that society that you've always lived in, that
24:48 you grew up in, they start like breaking and you don't feel as connected.
24:52 So you got to start looking for connections, of course.
24:56 And digging in your nature, in my case, or your culture or your parents' culture, in
25:01 your case, of course, it gives you hope to belong again to a new group of people that
25:10 can hug you and give you strength.
25:13 And that's really nice.
25:15 It's really powerful.
25:16 Do you feel like you belong now in Colombian culture?
25:20 I think I belong, yes, much more now than before.
25:25 Totally.
25:27 I was just part of a small group of people who thought everything in Colombia was okay.
25:36 How is it that so many people leave Colombia to go to America?
25:40 We're doing okay here is what I would think.
25:44 I lived very comfortably here, so I didn't challenge the status quo.
25:49 And yes, like, gripping those threads, that connected me to the bubble and being able
25:55 to search for Colombian-ness in all of its diversity.
26:02 Colombia is absolutely diverse.
26:04 It's incredible.
26:05 And so we have all this wealth in diversity that it's many times just looked over.
26:14 But if you look at it, of course, you feel more Colombian, more connected, belonging
26:17 more to the country as a whole, not just the tiny elite in Bogota, you know.
26:25 Turns out we all struggle with belonging.
26:28 And the process of belonging is difficult and forward and backwards, but it can also
26:33 be as simple as recontextualizing the connections we have.
26:39 When I look back on moments where I felt distance, where I felt isolated, where I felt alone,
26:44 I realized that in almost every situation, I was connected all along.
26:52 Connected to people going through similar things, connected to ancestors who walk alongside
26:58 me and whose fingerprints are on everything that I do, connected by accidentally visiting
27:06 San Pedro de Claver's Plaza, a place I'd been to so many times before.
27:14 We're all on a journey to better accept who we are and where we come from.
27:19 And sometimes a literal journey helps, like a walk, car, or plane journey.
27:27 This trip to Colombia actually happened because I went to a Colombian friend's wedding.
27:32 Not a family friend, a real Colombian friend I made as an adult.
27:37 This is a big deal, people!
27:41 My friends Isaac and Gummy got married, and I hosted their wedding in Spanish and English,
27:47 and I only made like a few Spanish mistakes.
27:51 Congratulations to the newlyweds!
27:55 This trip was really big for me.
27:57 I visited my extended family, that's people like Gamilo who you've been hearing from,
28:02 and my uncles and aunts I've mentioned.
28:05 It's also one of the first visits I've made without my mom and dad.
28:10 This was my first meaningful trip to Colombia I've made with no family at all.
28:14 Just my girlfriend and I exploring the city and finding out what this city means to us.
28:20 I know, it's a little silly, and I feel like a literal little kid.
28:25 Okay, I'm 31, and it's the first time going to the country I'm from without my parents.
28:32 But I'm finally exploring who I am and where I come from with no parent chaperones.
28:38 And no parents means it's time to party!
28:42 And you know, like, learn about Colombian history and who I am and...
28:48 And I keep coming back to this one story.
28:52 San Pedro Claver.
28:53 You know, the guy we met at the very beginning.
28:56 Patron saint of human rights, we're in his plaza.
29:00 So San Pedro Claver passed away in 1654 in Cartagena, and the city officials who previously
29:07 hated him, they thought he was a nuisance for his advocacy for slaves, those same people
29:13 ordered a public funeral with pomp and ceremony.
29:19 People came and celebrated his life.
29:22 Even those people who for so long rejected him.
29:27 This reminds me that nothing is set in stone.
29:30 That the things we reject, people, ideas, culture, we might someday celebrate and embrace.
29:39 People can change, huh?
29:45 If you want to hear more from Esteban, you can find him on his website, EstebanGas.com,
29:51 or on social media @RealEstebanGas.
29:54 We'll share links in our show notes.
29:57 Esteban also travels to perform stand up, so watch for him in a town near you.
30:02 And he travels for fun.
30:03 Soon he'll be hiking the Camino de Santiago with his parents, and he's going to Pakistan
30:08 with his girlfriend Misha, who you met in the episode.
30:11 And yes, of course, he'll be returning to Colombia with all of the lessons of this past
30:16 trip.
30:17 Ready for more travel stories?
30:26 Visit us online at afar.com/traveltales and be sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter.
30:32 We're @AfarMedia.
30:34 If you enjoyed today's adventure, we hope you'll come back in two weeks for more great
30:38 stories.
30:39 Subscribing makes this easy.
30:41 You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.
30:46 And be sure to rate and review us.
30:47 It helps other travelers find the show.
30:50 This has been Travel Tales, a production of Afar Media and Boom Integrated.
30:55 Our podcast is produced by Aisling Green, Adrienne Glover, and Robin Lai.
31:00 Post-production was by John Marshall Media staff, Jen Grossman, and Clint Rhodes.
31:05 Music composition by Alan Koreshia.
31:07 And a special thanks to Irene Wang and Angela Johnston.
31:12 I'm Aisling Green.
31:13 You are traveling as much as I possibly can host.
31:16 I am so happy to be on the road again.
31:19 As we explore the world this year, remember that travel begins the moment we walk out
31:24 our front door.
31:26 Everyone has a travel tale.
31:28 What's yours?
31:29 [MUSIC PLAYING]
31:31 [Music]