Joséphine Jammaers

Summary

The Journey On Podcast with Warwick Schiller
Episode: Joséphine Jammaers
Date: November 28, 2025

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Episode Overview
In this captivating episode, Warwick Schiller is joined by adventurer, psychologist, and horsewoman Joséphine Jammaers. The conversation dives deep into Joséphine's unconventional path—her transformative journeys with horses across continents, the philosophy of "living your dream," and harnessing the power of nature and adventure for personal growth. Joséphine shares tales from endurance races, nomadic expeditions, and her innovative work as an outdoor psychologist, revealing profound lessons learned in the wild and how these experiences connect to self-development and horsemanship.

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Main Discussion Themes

1. Joséphine’s Unique Path: Outdoor Psychology & Adventure

• Current Role & Philosophy [04:10]

  • Joséphine introduces herself as an outdoor psychologist who takes therapy outside, regardless of the weather, maximizing the healing effects of nature and movement.
  • She facilitates individual sessions and leads adventure-based psychological retreats, often in the mountains, using nature as a catalyst for real change.
    • “I take the advantages of nature and adventure as a catalyst for change. That's what I do now... I love to see myself as an adventurer.” [04:10–05:00]

• Work with Companies [08:00]

  • Offers team-building and leadership training to companies, often incorporating horses.
  • Provides talks on the intersection between adventure and entrepreneurship.

• Equine-Assisted Therapy with Stallions [10:35]

  • Describes her work at a Belgian farm using stallions—intact male horses—as co-trainers in leadership and team workshops.
    • “It's also one of the only places in Western Europe where stallions live together and are kept stallion, because for us, it serves as a metaphor...We are the ones who need to learn how to balance strict boundaries and asking for respect on the one hand, and on the other hand, just the empathy and the love and the connection and balancing those poles inside ourselves to be able to work with the stallions in a safe and respectful way.” [14:10–14:52]
  • Warwick expresses amazement at the use of stallions for therapy work:
    • “I've never heard of anybody doing equine assisted therapy with stallions. That is super cool.” [14:52]

2. World Expedition: Mountains, Horses, and Human Connection

• Long-Distance Expedition [16:40]

  • Post-pandemic, Joséphine and her partner Cornel set out from Belgium on a tandem bike, carrying climbing and trekking gear across Europe, the Balkans, and into Greece.
  • Switched from cycling to sailing in Greece, undertook trekking, and later hitchhiked through Iran and Central Asia.

• Rock Climbing as Presence and Fear Work [19:19]

  • Discusses rock climbing as a practice in presence, immersion in nature, and as a tool to confront and work with fear, equating the process to personal growth.
    • “Freedom really starts to exist where trust becomes greater than fear. And in rock climbing, I can really feel that shift.” [21:59]

• Profound Manifestation Story: The Water Bottle in Iran [37:11–45:10]

  • Shares a day in Iran when, after verbalizing needs (water, face cream, ride, dolphins, nail cutter) with her partner, each request unexplainably manifested.
    • “People say the trail provides, right?...We were just talking about it, how we would just drink small bits and then continue. And then suddenly while we were walking on the beach there we found, like, it was...a huge bottle of water. Like 2 liter, 2 liter bottle of water...and it was completely sealed.” [38:54]
  • Warwick relates this to his own experiences of “manifesting” on trail—highlighting a recurring theme of trusting the journey.

3. Kyrgyzstan: Traveling Across Mountains with Stallions [53:14–67:12]

• The Logistics: Markets, Stallions, Survival

  • Upon reaching Kyrgyzstan, they meet a French expert via the Long Riders’ Guild who mentors them in horse care and navigation.
  • Purchased horses (all stallions, as per Kyrgyz custom), navigated local horse markets, and learned to adapt quickly.
  • Horse training is eclectic: going from bitless riding to riding with just a rope after months together.

• Cultural Insights

  • Details about living among and learning from Kyrgyz nomads and their deep connection to the land.
  • Shared hardships and hospitality—sheep herders, yurts, language barriers, but always a sense of community and resilience.

4. Gaucho Derby in Patagonia [81:51–101:58]

• Preparation and Motivation

  • Inspired by a fellow traveler, Joséphine applied for the Gaucho Derby (an extreme multi-horse race in Patagonia) from Kyrgyzstan, banking on her adventure and horsemanship instead of formal competition skills.

• Racing Solo—“A bold experiment” [82:12]

  • Chose to ride the entire race almost entirely alone as a conscious experiment in self-reliance, discomfort management, and decision-making:
    • “It was kind of an experiment for me to ride it alone...I like to make my own decisions and to flow on my own energy.” [83:05]

• Critical Moment: Plateau of Death Incident

  • Joséphine gets her horse stuck in a rock bog in a dangerous part of the Derby, experiencing intense fear and feeling profound responsibility for her horse.
    • “At that moment, I was just, I want to get this horse out safely. I felt so bad about myself, and I was so much confronted with my ego in a way.” [95:21]
  • Collaborating riders and event staff organize a rescue; her horse miraculously breaks free unharmed after a moment of calm.
    • “He gave in to the situation. And then...he just lifted his head and he got life again in his eyes. I could see it. And he made one big movement, and he jumped out.” [98:25]

• Solo Endurance: The Double-Edged Sword

  • Contrasts the mental aspects of riding alone versus in a group—the absence of a “complaint spiral” and the deeper self-trust and presence required.
    • “When you complain, you're just complaining to other people, and when there's no one to complain to, you just stop complaining...It's a different feeling.” [104:39]

5. Philosophy, Personal Growth, and Upbringing

• Living by ‘Must’ Not ‘Should’ [27:55]

  • Joséphine reflects on the importance of choosing the life one must live, despite societal expectations and “shoulds.”
    • “It's so easy to choose for I should...It's way harder to choose for the things you feel you must do...the reward is huge when you choose must.” [27:13]

• Childhood & Inspiration

  • The loss of her mother at a young age and a father who said “don’t dream your life, live your dream” were seminal influences.
    • “A major piece of it is that I lost my mom when we were really young...I believe that it made me very aware of the fact that life will end one day at a very young age. And this in combination with having a father who says...don’t dream your life. Live your dream.” [107:01]

• On Purpose and Advice

  • Purpose: “To reconnect people with nature and by doing so with themselves. Because we are our nature, we cannot see ourselves as separate from nature.” [113:10]
  • Advice for future psychologists (and all walk-of-life): “You do you. People will want you in the end for the way you are...I tried to take myself out of my own personality, but I really couldn’t stay true to myself without that part of myself. So now I'm just a very enthusiastic psychologist. But that's what people are choosing me for now. So, please, you do you.” [115:52]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On fear and freedom:
  “Freedom really starts to exist where trust becomes greater than fear.”
  — Joséphine Jammaers [21:59]

• On authenticity:
  “You do you. People will want you in the end for the way you are...that is what makes you special.”
  — Joséphine Jammaers [115:52]

• On upbringing:
  “Don’t dream your life. Live your dream.”
  — Joséphine’s father (repeated by Joséphine) [107:01, 109:18]

• On manifestation and trusting the journey:
  “It also gives a lot of trust. The trail will provide when you need it...when you trust the trail.”
  — Warwick Schiller & Joséphine Jammaers [45:27–45:32]

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Key Timestamps

• 04:10 – Joséphine describes her role as an outdoor psychologist
• 10:35 – Using stallions for equine-assisted leadership training
• 16:40 – The start of her world journey by bicycle
• 19:36 – Rock climbing and working with fear
• 37:11 – Manifesting needs in Iran (the “water bottle day” story)
• 53:14 – Kyrgyzstan: Searching for and buying stallions
• 81:51 – Return to Europe, prepping for the Gaucho Derby
• 83:05 – Deciding to ride the Gaucho Derby alone
• 89:42 – Incident in the “Plateau of Death”: horse stuck in a bog
• 113:10 – Joséphine’s lifelong purpose and career advice

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Where to Find Joséphine

• Instagram: @josephinejammaers / @outdoorpsychology
• Website: outdoorpsychology.be
• Email: [e-mail]

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Summary
This episode is a rich tapestry of adventure, self-discovery, and the powerful lessons learned from living close to nature and pushing beyond comfort. Joséphine's stories—from mountainous trails in Kyrgyzstan to the rock bogs of Patagonia—are both inspiration and practical metaphor for personal growth, resilience, and the courage to live authentically. Anyone seeking to better understand the connection between challenge, trust, and personal transformation—whether horseperson or adventurer—will find deep insight and actionable wisdom in this conversation.

Transcript

[Cornelia]

Journey on Magic lies within the trails we ride.

[Warwick Schiller]

You're listening to the Journey On Podcast with Warwick Schiller. Warrick is a horseman, trainer, international clinician and author who helps empower horse people from all over the world with the skills, knowledge and mindsets needed to create trusting partnerships with their horses. Warrick offers a free seven day trial to his comprehensive online video library that includes hundreds of full length training videos and several home Study [e-mail] shiller.com.

G' day everyone. Welcome back to the Journey On Podcast. I'm your host, Warwick Schiller and it's my absolute pleasure this week to introduce you guys to my guest, Josephine Jamirs. And I met Josephine at the Gaucho Derby in Patagonia and I knew when I met her, I'm like, I have to get this girl on the podcast one day. But let me read you Josephine's bio and then I'll tell you a bit more about Josephine. But Josephine is an outdoor psychologist, lifelong horsewoman and adventurer who feels most at home far from the beaten path. She has crossed the mountains of Kyrgyzstan with stallions and competed in the Gaucho Derby in Patagonia, the world's toughest multi horse endurance race, where she earned the Spirit Award for her resilience and positivity in extreme conditions. After two years of living almost entirely outdoors, traveling on foot, by bicycle, sailboat, pack, raft and horseback, she developed a profound understanding of how nature and adventure shapes the mind, builds resilience and sparks personal growth. With years of experience as a trainer, speaker and practitioner, she blends scientific insights with lived wilderness experience. She now leads outdoor psychology, inspiring individuals and organizations to step outside and far beyond their comfort zone, using nature and adventure as a catalyst for change. And that's the short version of Josephine, but I remember, so I met her at the Gaucho Derby and I remember one night we were having dinner and we're sitting at these big long, you know, big long tables with benches beside them sort of thing. And I was talking to her and she, I said to her, I want what you're having. And so Josephine's a vegetarian and she was eating the vegetarian selection and we're having dinner. I said, I want what you're having. And she pushed her plate over to me and she said, here you go. I said, I don't mean the food, whatever is that makes you you. Because she has this, she has this light that shines out of her. She's just an absolutely amazing human. And I knew this is way before we even went on the Gaucho Derby. This is the start camp that one day I would like to get her on the podcast. And we camped together the first night in the Gaucho Derby. And some of the stories she told me then, which she will repeat here in this podcast, made me really realize I've got to get her. Anyway, I've been trying to get Josephine for probably since I got back from the Gaucho Derby, so a year and a half now and we finally managed to get the time together and it was so good to catch up with her again. She's such an amazing human and I'm so glad she got to share her stories with me for you guys to hear. So without any further ado, here's my conversation with the amazing Josephine Jamirs. Josephine J. Welcome to the Journey on podcast.

[Cornelia]

Thank you so much, Warwick. Thanks for having me.

[Warwick Schiller]

Oh, I'm so excited. This, you know, I've been wanting to catch up with you ever since the Gaucho Derby because on the Gaucho Derby, I thought, wow, this is a pretty exceptional human being. And yeah, wanted to, wanted to get some of the stories out of you to share with our, our listeners. But why don't we start out, why don't you tell everybody what you are currently doing and then we're going to figure out how you got to be doing such amazing things.

[Josephine Jamirs]

All right, let's do that. So I'm a psychologist, an outdoor psychologist, which means I take my people outside every session, nice weather or not, just to have the positive benefits of nature and being in movements as a surplus on the, on the therapy. Right. And I do this for individuals and companies and I really love my job. So let's say I take the advantages of nature and adventure as a catalyst for change. That's what I do now. And besides that, I'm, I love to see myself as an adventurer. So every year I try to do at least one big expedition and still.

[Cornelia]

Dreaming about wild new things coming up.

[Warwick Schiller]

Wow. And I guess that when I met you in the Gaucho Derby, that was one of your, was that one of your yearly expeditions?

[Cornelia]

Yes, for sure. That was a, that was one of those.

[Josephine Jamirs]

A remarkable one, I could say.

[Warwick Schiller]

But, you know, the rest of us, we flew to Argentina and did the Gaucho Derby and went home. You were, weren't you down there, like doing. Weren't you backpacking around down there anyway?

[Josephine Jamirs]

True. Yeah. Like, we flew there, I think it was like two months before already because I wanted to meet Patagonia first and we, my partner And I, we like to, we always like to travel and.

[Cornelia]

We like to skip the Belgian winter. So we try to do the expectations in winter on the other side of the world, you to have summer over there.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And then because I needed to prepare for the Gocho Derby, I, I got in touch with a Gochel and we had the chance of really like living with him, working with him.

[Cornelia]

We were out there trying to find.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And catch cows for hours a day. So that was a great, great, great preparation to the Gocho Derby.

[Warwick Schiller]

Was it down in a similar area where the, where the race was?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Well, it was really close to Puerto Natales, so it was on the Sicilian side of Patagonia.

[Warwick Schiller]

Okay. But it's not like you're up in, you know, Buenos Aires where it's totally different.

[Cornelia]

No, I was really, really close already.

[Warwick Schiller]

Really? So tell me more about, I'd like to know more about your outdoor psychology. Do you just do that in Belgium?

[Josephine Jamirs]

I do that in Belgium, but also I take people into the mountains, which.

[Cornelia]

We don't have in Belgium. Right.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So this summer I will lead a group of people in the Alps in France and Italy just to like, it's like we have a full week out there and we, it's like a mini, mini expedition you could say. Right. So we have our tents with us, we have our own food with us. And then we are with like say eight people just making a huge hike. And during that hike, I'm also there as a psychologist, so people have one to ones with me. But also we have concluding sessions in the evening, like kind of a reflection and we start the day with a, with setting, an intention and also like kind of a little bit of psycho.

[Cornelia]

Education, but then in a, in a.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Really nice and interesting and experience based way.

[Cornelia]

That's what we do there really.

[Warwick Schiller]

And a group like that, are they from say a company? Because you said you work with companies. Are they from a company or. These people don't know each other?

[Josephine Jamirs]

No, these people don't know each other. I would love to do it with companies though.

[Cornelia]

You're bringing me on ideas here, give me some ideas.

[Warwick Schiller]

And so how do these people find you?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Well, mostly they find me through Instagram or just like those are sometimes people that already know me as a psychologist or sometimes people that I have been in a training with. Because that's another part of what I do is also I give training to companies in subjects like team cohesion, leadership, communication styles and so on. So that's also a way of people come to get to know me.

[Warwick Schiller]

You see Right. Do you get. Do you imagine you'd work with the human resources part of the companies? Yeah, pretty in depth with that. Do you?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Exactly, exactly. And what I also do is like giving talks sometimes about the adventures and the link between adventure and entrepreneurship, things like that. So that's another way where I meet people like that.

[Warwick Schiller]

Where do you find your entrepreneurs?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Well, good question. So far they find me, I guess.

[Warwick Schiller]

Okay.

[Josephine Jamirs]

But yeah, it's. That's a really good question. Well, there's another part. I'm combining a lot of things, Warwick. So I'm an outdoor psychologist, right. But so in this outdoor psychology, I do these trainings, I do otter psychology sessions and I do these hike and heels in which I bring people into the mountains or just into the forests for a week. But then there's an other part where I'm a trainer for. It's called Kron and I work on freelance base over there. And in Keron we give training to companies and teams with the help of horses. And you have to picture.

[Warwick Schiller]

Sorry, where. Where is this?

[Cornelia]

Yeah, so this is.

[Josephine Jamirs]

It's also Belgium. It's in Belgium. Yeah.

[Warwick Schiller]

Oh, oh, sorry. Okay. Yeah, yeah, no, you said a word there. I wasn't sure if that was a country or.

[Cornelia]

Yeah, no, that's right. That's really a Belgium.

[Josephine Jamirs]

That's just the name of the company and.

[Warwick Schiller]

Oh, okay.

[Josephine Jamirs]

It's. That's just really amazing because it's also really experience based learning. But here we learn about leadership, for instance, from the horses. So we ask people to do different things with those horses, trying to lead them and so on.

[Cornelia]

And then, you know, Right. Horses give very clear feedback. They're very clear mirror.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So people get confronted with their own styles and themselves and that's a great opening to start the training. So horses really serve as co trainers there. So that's another way where I get in touch with the company lives and entrepreneurs and so on.

[Warwick Schiller]

It's interesting. You just said a sentence there, made me think. I have a friend from Holland and she says, she has a saying. She says your horse confronts you with you.

[Josephine Jamirs]

It's so true.

[Cornelia]

I do recognize that.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Really, because very often we see when we work with teams and there's a. The leader of the team is also there.

[Warwick Schiller]

Right.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Then often we see that he's like, I'll go first, you know, like, I have to prove myself here.

[Cornelia]

I will take the leads also here.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Right. But then it's really funny to see because when the leadership is not authentic because I don't know, maybe he feels fear or he feels a lot of pressure because others are watching and so on. The horses react to that immediately and they're.

[Cornelia]

They're not moving one foot and then you see the confrontation already started within himself.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Right. Or herself. And, yeah, it just. I love to see what they do. They. I couldn't give a better training than the ones I give with horses because they are. They are a huge, huge help. A huge surplus on me as a psychologist, for sure.

[Warwick Schiller]

Right. So that place, what do those horses do when you're not doing the therapy.

[Josephine Jamirs]

With these people, then? They live in herds. So we keep them as naturally as possible, and they live on acres and acres of land together just to make sure that they are really safe to work with people, because if there would be a frustration buildup, they stop the session and they go back to their mates. And also just to be sure that they keep on mirroring the behavior of us as naturally as possible. Right. That's what they do when they're not in training.

[Warwick Schiller]

Right. So when you're. When you're not. So are these. Whose horses are these?

[Josephine Jamirs]

These horses are from Philip, he's my colleague in Karum. And they own. It's like a castle farm. It's like a huge farm, very ancient farm. And they own this place. And so we have an amazing location in which we can give these trainings.

[Warwick Schiller]

So the horses are only used for equine assisted therapy?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes, sometimes we ride them. Like, I started a couple of the stallions there. It's also one of the only places in Western Europe where stallions live together and are kept stallion, because for us, it serves as a metaphor. Right. Like, maybe you will laugh now, but.

[Cornelia]

I really mean it.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Like, sometimes it's easier to just castrates.

[Cornelia]

Our co workers in a way.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Right. Take away their strength and so on. So we really don't want to castrate.

[Cornelia]

Our horses because we don't want to.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Castrate our horses and leave them and their strengths, but also because to us, it serves as a metaphor. Like, we are the ones who need to learn how to balance strict boundaries and asking for respect on the one hand, and on the other hand, just the empathy and the love and the connection and balancing those poles inside ourselves to be able to work with the stallions in a safe and respectful way.

[Warwick Schiller]

Well, I've never heard of anybody doing equine assisted therapy with stallions. That is super cool, you know, and it's funny. It's funny. Stallions, you know, people tend to treat stallions or they separate them. You know, they treat them a Certain way. Because they have these ideas that this is how stallions act.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

But it's all the separation and the projection of what you think they're going to do that causes it. So we had three of our horses here were stallions and living in a herd with four geldings as well. So we had seven of them hanging out together, and you wouldn't know which one were the stallions.

[Josephine Jamirs]

All right.

[Warwick Schiller]

You know, you just go out there and they just all hang out and they come up and say hi and whatever, but they don't. They didn't have those. All those behaviors people think are stains. And you were talking about a metaphor. It's like. It's almost like a metaphor for life, isn't it? Like, whatever expectations you project on things is the response you're gonna kind of get back from them. You know what I mean? But that's fascinating. I. Okay, so far, I've had one big wow moment, is like I said, I've never heard anybody using stallions for equine assisted therapy. Okay, so I've got to ask you about stallions. I gotta ask you about stallions because before. Sometime before the gaucho derby, when you. When you. You've got to send in a little bit of a bio or whatever, and one of the things on your bio said you took a group of stains across the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Is that right?

[Cornelia]

Yeah, it's tr.

[Josephine Jamirs]

It was part of.

[Warwick Schiller]

Tell me that story.

[Josephine Jamirs]

All right. It's a long one.

[Cornelia]

Are you ready?

[Warwick Schiller]

Good. It's a long podcast, and this is going to be a great story.

[Cornelia]

All right, let's go.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So right after Covid, I wanted to do a world journey, like already before, but then was the moment when Cornel, my partner, was also ready for it. Right. And he asked me, like, okay, let's start on a bicycle. I just want to start right from our home. Just start cycling. And I was like, okay, we can do that.

[Cornelia]

But I was not really into cycling.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And I wanted to go far. So then I said, all right, we'll start out on the bicycle, but we'll make a deal. Like, the moment we reach the countries where people still live. No, medically, then we stop cycling and we shift to horses. So he was like, yeah, yeah, we'll do that. That's fine. Because he thought, we'll never make it that far.

[Cornelia]

Right.

[Josephine Jamirs]

But so he started.

[Warwick Schiller]

Before you go any further.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah.

[Warwick Schiller]

Was he a bicycle guy?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Well, he was a bicycle guy. As in. No, not really the typical bicycle guy, but he just loved the idea of going on your own power, like. Like human powers. Just starting on your bicycle, on a road that you did thousands of times in your life, and then you would just never stop. You would just continue, like, beyond that road, beyond the village, further and further. And that was a. To him, that was a very romantic idea of traveling also. We were right.

[Warwick Schiller]

So he's not a bicycle.

[Josephine Jamirs]

We couldn't fly.

[Warwick Schiller]

Oh, okay. Yeah. So he's not a bicycle guy. Is he a horse guy?

[Cornelia]

Nope.

[Warwick Schiller]

No. Okay, good story. Gets better. Okay, continue.

[Cornelia]

All right, so you guys are going.

[Warwick Schiller]

To leave Belgium on your bicycles?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Exactly. And then we cycled all through Europe. It was an amazing journey. We had a tandem bicycle, Warwick.

[Cornelia]

So he was cycling in front and I in the back, which was a big learning for me, because I like to be in the front.

[Warwick Schiller]

Right.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And then we cycled. We also carried our climbing gear with us, like, and our big backpacks to be able to do trekkings in the mountains as well. So an amazing journey. Until.

[Warwick Schiller]

When you did the trekkings in the mountain. Sorry, yeah, I'm going to get into all the details here.

[Cornelia]

Go for it.

[Warwick Schiller]

When you did the tracking in the mountain, did you carry the. Did you carry the. The tandem bicycle with you?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Well, no. Then we went to ask people, like, can we leave our bicycle here for a couple of weeks? And we could. And then we did the trekking and we went back there and.

[Warwick Schiller]

Tell me, you said something about climbing gears. So are you a rock climber?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah, we like to do some rock climbing.

[Cornelia]

Yeah.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah. Like, I'm not a. Not a really good one, huh? I just like doing it. So when we have the chance.

[Warwick Schiller]

So what do you like. What do you like about rock climbing?

[Josephine Jamirs]

A hell of a lot, but one of the things I really love about it, and I'm sure we'll talk about that later, but it's like, it invites you to be really present and to be immersed in nature.

[Cornelia]

And those two things are two things.

[Josephine Jamirs]

That I would say define me and define what I think is really important in my life. So I can combine those two. But there's another thing, and it is also the. It's one of the moments where I can really experience fear. And to me, fear is a state of mind. And I like to work on my mind, right. To keep on developing and so on. So I like it when the feeling arises, the feeling of fear arises, and I feel the fear. I can look at it, I can observe it, I can assess it, and then I can decide to do it anyway. And this moment Brings you, makes. Makes you feel really alive and really present in the moment. That's another thing I like about rock.

[Cornelia]

Climbing and what it teaches me.

[Warwick Schiller]

We were going to get to some questions later. One of the questions you chose is what is your relationship like with fear? So that, that would be your answer there.

[Josephine Jamirs]

It would be a big part of it, I guess. Yes. Yeah.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yes. The thing for me I love, I haven't done much rock climbing, but the bit I have done is like you said, you have to be present. I mean, you can go for a hike and be in your head. Yes, I can ride a horse and be in my head. I can drive a car and be in my head. I can ride a bicycle and be in my head. When you're rock climbing, there's just you and the rock and there's the, there's also the fear, but there's also that. I find that like the physical challenge of it adds a great deal to it. But yeah, I can see how you would love rock climbing. Yes, I'd love, I'd actually like to do more of it. You know, it's almost got to be a, A team.

[Josephine Jamirs]

That's very true.

[Warwick Schiller]

But I've done it, I've done it with my son quite a bit. We actually had a, we actually had a rock climbing wall in our barn in our other place.

[Josephine Jamirs]

No way.

[Warwick Schiller]

We built a. Yeah, we built a little wall just to, to play around on. But yeah, the little bit I've done, it's like it's one of those, you, you're in the moment, aren't you?

[Josephine Jamirs]

That's so true. Yes. And I really believe that what you say now, it's kind of a team sport. Right. So trust is very important in the rock climbing because someone else is belaying you. And I guess that freedom really starts to exist where trust becomes greater than fear. And in rock climbing, I can really feel that shift.

[Warwick Schiller]

I'm sorry, I'm writing that down.

[Cornelia]

Please go ahead.

[Warwick Schiller]

Freedom exists where trust. What did you say?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Greater than fear.

[Warwick Schiller]

Wow, that's awesome. Yeah. And it's not just trusting the person belaying you, it's also trusting the gear that someone else has placed.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

In the rock. And the first time I ever did a multi pitch with my son and he said, oh, we're just going to tie off here and just, just lean back and have a relax. Do you think I could lean back and relax? Like my ass cheeks were clamped so tight and you just get, you get tired of clamping, you know what I mean? But, but After a while, you learn to, you know, learn to trust the gear. But I feel like that, that process of learning to trust the gear is. Is like what you were talking about, that you're scared of it. But you, you go, okay, I am going to lean back. I'm. Oh, yeah. Okay. I can put a little bit of pressure on it. Oh, I can let my feet dangle, you know?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes, yes. Like that.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah. That depth below you, like the distance between you and the ground below you, it magnifies the fear. So it's. You know, my wife and I have done ice baths for quite a few years now, and the ice bath is kind of the same sort of thing to where your body rejects it as much as it does jumping out of a plane or any of those sorts of things. And you get to have that internal conflict like you're going to get in there. No, I'm not. Yes, you are. No, I'm not. You know, so it's kind of the same thing. You would have at least beginning to rock climb. I think once you get over, you know, those sorts of things.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes. Yeah. You get more trust in your abilities as well. Of course. But I do. I do recognize the thing you're saying completely.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah, you get more trust in your abilities, which means you get more trust in who?

[Josephine Jamirs]

In yourself as well.

[Warwick Schiller]

In you. I am. I gotta read out something right here. So I saw this the other day and I actually put it as my screensaver as a reminder for myself. And it says, once you accept that you're actually an interesting and cool person, your inner world shifts. Your brain stops overvaluing other people's approval and starts noticing your own subtle brilliance. You realize curiosity about yourself is as satisfying as curiosity about the world. Your quirks stop being weird flaws and start being signals of your complexity and depth. Your mood stabilizes because you no longer outsource your happiness to others reactions. You catch yourself thinking, I'm enough as I am. And it's revolutionary. You start noticing patterns in your mind, understanding why you react the way you do. And that awareness brings peace. You laugh at your own contradictions instead of punishing yourself for them. And the moment you fully accept yourself, the world stops feeling like a series of judgments. It becomes a playground where you are fully, unapologetically alive.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Wow.

[Warwick Schiller]

And it sounds like you're in that playground.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah, I do recognize it when you read it out loud. I think it makes me think about. People are often asking me, like, how can. How do you live the way you live? Or yeah, how. How can you make those decisions. It seems that you're always just really doing you, you know, And I can totally relate to that because I feel that we, like every day, in small moments, we come on this crossroads of should and must, they call them. And I can see it very often and it's so easy to choose for I should, like, right, I should do this or that, or I should start buying a house now, or I should think about children now, or I should, whatever, I should find a 9 to 5 job. I should, I should, I should. And it's way harder to choose for the things you feel you must do.

[Cornelia]

Like the things you really feel in.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Your gut and you feel really deep in your heart and you feel that really resonates with you. But the rewards is huge when you choose must. And I believe that for being able.

[Cornelia]

To choose must, if you do understand.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Me, it's very important that you look at yourself as just an interesting being and someone you like to be with. Because if not, you're not. You don't, you don't believe that you have the right to choose for your must. And you think you have to choose for the shoots all the time.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yes. Yes. And so, yeah, that comes back to, yeah, having more, you know, having self respect and. Yeah. Anyway, so we got talking about rock climbing. That's what led us down that, that little path right there. So you guys did a bit of rock climbing on your, on your bicycle trip. So give us an itinerary. You start in Belgium. Which way did you go?

[Cornelia]

Yeah.

[Warwick Schiller]

So you went through all through Europe?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Well, we went a small part into the Netherlands and then Germany down to France and then we continued downwards. So we took Corsica and Sardinia with us. Corsica to do the. It's a J20. It's like a beautiful trekking route all the way through the islands. And then in Sardinia we went rock climbing and then we went on the boat to Croatia and then we did all the Balkan countries and then we ended up in Greece. And in Greece we met a friend of my father's who has a very small wooden sailing boat over there. And there we stopped cycling and we started learning how to sail and we could.

[Warwick Schiller]

We met some, started learning how to sail on this trip. So. So let me back up here. So you went through Croatia, then you went like down the coast, like Bosnia, Herzegova, Montenegro.

[Josephine Jamirs]

True.

[Warwick Schiller]

Albania.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah, yes, completely. Which was beautiful.

[Warwick Schiller]

Which side of Greece were you sailing on?

[Josephine Jamirs]

It was close to Thessaloniki. There you have. On the map. It's like you have three kind of toes.

[Cornelia]

Let's say they call it.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And one of those toes we were.

[Cornelia]

On, but I don't remember.

[Warwick Schiller]

So you're in that. On the. So you're on the east side on the Aegean Sea. Okay. Okay, gotcha. Okay, so you're learning to sail.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes. Which was amazing because.

[Warwick Schiller]

How long a boat was it? How you say, how long. How big a boat was it?

[Josephine Jamirs]

It was a really small one. Really small. I think it was like six meters. Is that possible? Something like that, yeah.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah. Okay. And my son had a sailboat when he lived in Hawaii, and it was. It was 23ft. So I was trying to figure out. So yours is about 20ft. So.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Okay.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah. Somewhat similar, maybe.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes, I think something like that. And it was a. It was a wooden boat. And this friend of my father, he told us, like, okay, if you guys fix the boat a little bit and you paint it and so on, then I will teach you how to sail. And then when I'm gone, you can have it for as long as you want.

[Cornelia]

So we spent a week with him learning how to sail.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And after that, we kept on living in that boat for a couple of weeks, and we sailed a little bit all around until the weather got worse. It started raining a lot in Greece. And then we met some German people who were on their way back to Germany, and they said, oh, we can take your tandem bicycle if you like. Then it's already closer back to Belgium. And we decided to say yes to it, and we started hitchhiking to Turkey and then into Iran, which was beautiful. I never. I was never in a country where.

[Cornelia]

People were.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So willing to take you in, feed you. We couldn't even.

[Warwick Schiller]

Which. Sorry, which country is this?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Iran. Iran. How do you pronounce it?

[Warwick Schiller]

Okay, yeah, yeah.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

So, okay, so let's. Let's back up here a little bit, because the. The first night of the gaucho derby, we ended up camping at the same place. You know, the. The race was still a little bit bunched up, and in the first two legs of the gaucho derby, there was no camping in between. There's no water in between vet checks. So you had either camp at the first vet check or if you could make it to the second one, you had to camp there. And we ended up at the. Oh, sorry, not the first vet check.

[Josephine Jamirs]

It was a second.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah, it was second vet check. And we're all camped there for the night. And so we all had our tents in the. In the leeward side of this little building so the wind didn't Blow us away. And so we all got to sit around and have a chat, and we got chatting then. And you told me that you'd hitchhiked through Iran.

[Cornelia]

Yeah, that was part of the journey.

[Warwick Schiller]

And when you told me you'd hitchhike through Iran, right then I thought, at some point in time, I gotta get this girl on the podcast.

[Cornelia]

No way.

[Warwick Schiller]

I mean, hitchhiked through Iran. Okay, so tell me. Tell us about Iran. Because, you know, I think the perspective most people have of things in the Middle east is just the news, and the news is bullshit, really. Tell me about hitchhiking through Iran.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Well, where should I start? I think to get a really good.

[Cornelia]

Idea.

[Josephine Jamirs]

It'S important to know that in the previous countries, we almost always slept in our tent, right? So outdoors we find it a spot. Sometimes in Europe, we hide it because you cannot do wild camping. And we slept there. In Iran, it was just impossible. It was impossible to camp because every time you saw someone, you met someone, they were just inviting you home every time. So almost every night we. We slept with people in their homes where they made room for us. Sometimes really poor people who just made room in. In their own living room or in their own bedroom to have us stay the night there. Then they. They would feed us amazing food, like, Iran has delicious food. And then in the morning, they would give us. They would make us a huge lunch to take away. And they. They always explain to us like, this is part of our belief, right? We, like, you are like pilgrims, and we just really want to make you make a beautiful part of your journey and make sure that you can continue it. Just, that's just what we do. For them, it wasn't strange or special at all. And that. But for me, that really defines Iran. I honestly never felt unease there or felt afraid over there. Never. Only one time. And that was because of the police. It was one time where I was just walking alone towards a bakery and two policemen came up to me, like, quite strict, where is your passport?

[Cornelia]

And show.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Shows your passport and so on. But then it's only government or police. Like, the people over there are 180% the opposite. And most of the times also the police is just. Just kind and nice and they ask.

[Cornelia]

For your Instagram instead of your passport. So.

[Warwick Schiller]

Really?

[Cornelia]

Yeah.

[Warwick Schiller]

You know, isn't that because I talked about the news that we get about Iran? Mostly. Mostly we get the perspective of the government in the news, not the perspective of the people. And I had a couple on the podcast last year from Australia, and he was a special Forces soldier who was catching bomb makers in Iraq, I think, and his partner, she has a. A master's in social work and a master's in terrorism.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Interesting.

[Warwick Schiller]

The most interesting combination of. Of degrees I've ever heard. But they've spent a lot of time in the Middle east, and I asked them the same thing, and their stories were the same.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Of the people, really.

[Warwick Schiller]

You know, of the people.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah, they. You meet them and they. They tell you, like, please go tell in your country that we are not terrorists. We are like, we are just loving human beings like you. We want just our children to be safe and happy, and we want the same things.

[Cornelia]

We.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Love to spread love. Not violence or anything like that. And it's really the. The image we're getting through by the news, but it's not at all the reality of the people living there. Not at all.

[Warwick Schiller]

Right. You know that first night on the gaucho derby, when we camped together, you told me a crazy story about a bottle of water. Was that in around.

[Cornelia]

Oh, my God. You want me to tell this on the podcast?

[Warwick Schiller]

Hell, yes. We're all about this stuff.

[Josephine Jamirs]

It was.

[Warwick Schiller]

This is about manifesting, isn't it?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah, it was crazy.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah. Okay, well, we. I did a whole podcast, one episode of the podcast on manifesting, so you can certainly tell this story.

[Cornelia]

All right, let's go there.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Well, that was a really crazy story. It's one of the craziest I have, I guess, from traveling. But people say the trail provides, right? Or the journey provides. And we were in Iran and it's. I have to think back to where it started exactly. We were in, do you know, Hormuz? It's like a small island side of Iran. And we were there and we decided we would walk around the island. We started doing that, but we didn't bring enough water. That's where it started. And we told each other, like, oh, shit, I don't know whether we'll have enough. We were talking about it, how we would just drink small bits and then continue. And then suddenly while we were walking on the beach there we found, like, it was. It came sweeping from the sea, really, like a huge bottle of water.

[Cornelia]

Like 2 liter, 2 liter bottle of water.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And it was completely sealed so we.

[Cornelia]

Could really drink it.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And this was the first time we thought, like, huh, what?

[Cornelia]

We were just talking about it and it's happening. Unbelievable.

[Josephine Jamirs]

But so we were just like, okay, great. It's great. And then we continued our journey. And then I was talking with God, like, oh, I'm, you know, I'M really.

[Cornelia]

Grateful for this water.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And then I was. He told me, like, you have again this, this reddish. I don't know the name in English, but like, I had some reddish dots on my cheeks. I get it when I get a lot of sun in my face. It's like a little allergic reaction. I get these kind of like a rash. Yes, Rash. It's a rash, exactly.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And he told me, I can see you're getting that again. And I was joking with him and I said, like, oh, yeah, I. I should have some cream for my face.

[Cornelia]

But, you know, if you're in the wild, so I don't have it here. And then you won't believe it, but like two minutes later, we were looking.

[Josephine Jamirs]

For shells on the beach and I found this mask for your face. It's like a hydrating mask.

[Cornelia]

And it was closed, sealed and on the beach. And I went, like, no way. I mean, come on.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And that's how the day just kept on going. It was really crazy. Like, we went to a dirt road and we thought, like, this will be.

[Cornelia]

A boring piece of road, so it would be really nice to hitchhike it.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And Koch told me, yeah, but this is a place where no cars will ever come.

[Cornelia]

Two seconds later, one car just stopped.

[Josephine Jamirs]

There, said like, oh, guys, do you want to join us? We're driving to a really nice restaurant. They drove us there. It was a restaurant we would never have found because it was just with a lady at home, you know. So we ate there together and then they dropped us back off. We continued walking, stopped on a beach. I said, I can't even believe it myself when I'm telling it again. You know, this is how crazy it was. And then we were.

[Cornelia]

Cornel said to me, like, I remember this, like, what a crazy day it was.

[Josephine Jamirs]

He said, like, the only thing that.

[Cornelia]

Is still missing is just seeing dolphins, right? And there it happens, just dolphins just.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Playing in the sea.

[Cornelia]

Just right on spot where we were sitting.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Like there was. You have to imagine there was no one, right? We were all by ourselves, just walking the length of the island. And then, then we were. It was mind blowing. So at that moment, we looked at each other and we were like, is.

[Cornelia]

This getting almost scary? You know, is this. Can this even be real?

[Josephine Jamirs]

But I'm. To be honest, I'm really happy that he was with me there, because if not, I really think I would just.

[Cornelia]

Think I was getting a little bit.

[Warwick Schiller]

Right?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah.

[Warwick Schiller]

Heat stroke or something else. So this was all the same day. The water, the mask, the hitchhiking to the rest, the lady's house, and the.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Dolphins all the same day. And then something really crazy happened.

[Cornelia]

That was the thing I remember me telling you.

[Josephine Jamirs]

I remember that I told you this part. I didn't even tell people because I.

[Cornelia]

Thought, like, no one will believe it.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Right? So this was the moment where we. From that beach, we started walking inland again, trying to find a good spot to camp, right? And it was quite desert, like, but in the distance, I saw a couple of palm trees. And I thought, like, okay, let's go there. Maybe we can camp there. And we did. We found a great spot. We put our tent there. And I was just sitting, leaning against one of those palm trees. And then we were joking about the day, like, how crazy was this? And can it even be real? And so on and so on.

[Cornelia]

And then I told Cornell.

[Josephine Jamirs]

But then I was. I was really choking, you know, I was. I said to him, oh, you know, my nails are becoming really long. The only thing I know still needs is a. Is a nail cutter.

[Cornelia]

A nail cutter. And then we forgot about what I.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Said, and we were just talking and making food and so on, and I. I stood up to get. Grab something in the tent, and I turned around, and in one of those.

[Cornelia]

Things, the.

[Josephine Jamirs]

You know how. How a palm tree is built. Yeah.

[Warwick Schiller]

The palm fronds grow out.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

So the palm fronds grow out? Yes.

[Josephine Jamirs]

In one of those.

[Cornelia]

You won't believe it, but there was a nail cutter.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And I said to Koch, no way. You put it there. I. I don't believe it. I don't believe you. And then he said, like, he. He was. He. He didn't know what to say. And he said, like, no, because if you knew, I. I didn't cross you. You've seen it. I didn't. I. I didn't come that way of.

[Cornelia]

The, of the tents. He stayed on the other side of the tent. So he was like, no, no, I swear I didn't do that. And that was the end of that day.

[Josephine Jamirs]

But that was. That was to me, like, I still know that I'm telling it.

[Cornelia]

I cannot believe that he didn't do it, but I know he couldn't have.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Done it because I was with him all the time, right?

[Cornelia]

But it was just a crazy day.

[Josephine Jamirs]

But it is a crazy example of something that happens a lot, right? Especially when we're out there traveling. And it. It also gives a lot of trust. Like, the trail will provide when you need it.

[Cornelia]

I really believe it.

[Warwick Schiller]

I think when you trust the trail.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes, yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

You know, it's almost. You're talking about fear before. It's almost like the absence of fear allows it's. I don't know, it's almost like. I don't know where you are on quantum physics and quantum mechanics or whatever, but it's almost like there are an endless amount of realities all happening at the same time, all slightly different. And when you. When you do things where you trust instead of fear, you kind of skip channels to it. Oh, now we're in this reality.

[Cornelia]

Yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

And when you. And these are the outcomes. And if you go to fear, you skip and like, now you're in this reality and these are the outcomes.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

You know, that's kind of what I believe happens because I've had some experiences to where like. Yeah, it's funny you talking about manifesting and you told me that story the first night of the Gaucho Derby. So the next morning, I don't know if you left before us or after us, but I was with Kansas and Nico and maybe Todd, I can't remember, but we're riding along and Nico told us this afterwards, but we're riding along, going to the next vet check where you cross that river. And then the vet checks right there. And when we're riding along, Nico thought to himself, you know, the hobbles, they. The hobbles they gave him, the tongue of the bucket was all bent and they didn't work very well.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah.

[Warwick Schiller]

And Nico was riding along and he thought to himself, these hobbles, I've got a shit. I need to get some new hobbles.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah.

[Warwick Schiller]

And about 10 strides after that, he looked down and someone had dropped their hobbles on the ground. And there's a brand new pair of hobbles.

[Josephine Jamirs]

No way.

[Warwick Schiller]

Laying there on the ground. And he just. It was, you know, 30 seconds after he thought, I need to get some new hobbles because these ones are shit. This, I mean, pair of hubbles laying in the middle of Patagonia.

[Cornelia]

It doesn't even surprise me. It's like.

[Josephine Jamirs]

I do. Yeah, it's. I know, I know. It happens all the time. It's crazy.

[Warwick Schiller]

And not long after that, I found a. A little dry bag someone had dropped, but it was all perished, which means I didn't get dropped on this Gaucho Derby. It got dropped the two years before on the Gaucho Derby and opened it up and I don't know what the universe was trying to tell me, but was a lady's bag because it had birth control medication in. Had. Oh, Some moisturizing stuff anyway. But there was some stuff I could pillage out of it, you know, like there was. I took the whole lot with me, but I, you know, but the stuff I could use, and some of it was sealed, like the stuff that you found. So, so that, that day of yours in Iran when you had the, the water bottle and the hydrating mask and the food and the dolphins and the nail clippers, is. Is that like, is that like the peak of those experiences or have you had other ones, like, were similar?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Well, I guess that was the peak of those experiences. As in things you can really not explain. Right? Yeah, for sure that.

[Cornelia]

That was the peak of those experiences.

[Josephine Jamirs]

But I did experience.

[Warwick Schiller]

Tell me.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah, tell me. Sorry, go ahead.

[Warwick Schiller]

Sorry. I was gonna say, how did you. Like some, some people could have those experiences and then think, oh, it's going to happen tomorrow and the next day and the next day. And when it doesn't, they could be disappointed. How did you, how did you go forward from there? Did you go forward with. With gratitude for what had happened or did you go forward with the idea that why isn't it happening? So I have this thing I call a reverse bucket list. You know people have bucket lists.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

And their bucket list, they have this list of things that they want to do. But I feel like if you don't meet the things on your bucket list, you can be disappointed. I don't have a bucket list. I have what's called a reverse bucket list. And when something bucket worthy happens, I just add it to the list. And so then you don't ever live in regret or disappointment. You're only living in gratitude for. For what happened. And I'm guessing that's kind of how you went forward from that crazy day.

[Josephine Jamirs]

True, true. I think, by the way, I heard you talking about it in a previous podcast of yours and I just love the idea.

[Cornelia]

I've even written it down for myself.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Like, I think it's a. It's a beautiful idea to have a reversed one. And I believe that gratitude is essential for living a happy life and a fulfilled life. So, yeah, it's a big part of my life. Even practicing gratitude, I tend to start the day with it. Start the day early and start the day with writing three small things I'm grateful for. And same happened there. I was just completely amazed by what happened. And I was very open for those things that they could keep on happening, but I was not expecting them to happen.

[Cornelia]

They were way too extraordinary to expect them to happen.

[Warwick Schiller]

And I love this I love this nature in there. Because the, you know, the water bottle, that's not. That's manufactured plastic. You know what I mean?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

And the nail clippers are manufactured metal, and so is the eye mask. But the dolphins showing up, that is so cool.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So crazy. Yeah. It was really the shame.

[Warwick Schiller]

Why is the area known for dolphins? Like, why did Corneille say, well, all we need now is dolphins? Like, why not? Why not? I don't know. I don't know why the dolphins, the area.

[Josephine Jamirs]

I don't.

[Cornelia]

We didn't know whether it was known for dolphins or not.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And sometimes I think maybe it happens the other way around. Right. Maybe when you're so tuned in into nature and you're living so close to nature, maybe you just feel things coming in another way on another level.

[Cornelia]

You know what I mean? And maybe he said that without really.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Thinking about it, but he could already sense the dolphins were close by.

[Cornelia]

I don't know if.

[Josephine Jamirs]

If I would ask him, he would.

[Cornelia]

Say, no, I was just making it up in my. In my head, of course, but maybe it works that way.

[Warwick Schiller]

Where did that. Yeah, like, he might say, I was just making it up my head.

[Josephine Jamirs]

But.

[Warwick Schiller]

But where does that thought come from?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah.

[Warwick Schiller]

You know, why wasn't it a cold bottle of beer or, you know, a turtle, a bald eagle? I don't know. You know, like. Yeah, why dolphins?

[Josephine Jamirs]

No way.

[Warwick Schiller]

Super cool. Okay, so you're in Iran. Where do you guys. Where do you guys go next?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Well, from Iran, we wanted to go through Turkmenistan, but Turkmenistan was still locked, so we couldn't continue over land and we had to fly there. So we flew into Kyrgyzstan, and that's where we came into the nomadic tribe area.

[Warwick Schiller]

Right.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So that was the moment I said, like, okay, you promised, so now it's time for horses.

[Warwick Schiller]

Oh, wow. And Kyrgyzstan is very mountainous, isn't it?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes, it's wonderful, really. Such vast landscapes, wide open spaces. I. I really admire the place.

[Cornelia]

So there we.

[Warwick Schiller]

And so how. So you fly there. Do you just walk out the front of the airport and say, hey, I'd like to meet some nomads? I mean, so what do you. What do you do? Like, you fly there, then. Then how do you manifest the next step?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Well, I was already. When we were in Iran, I was already making up my mind about this horse plan. Right. And do you know the. The long riders guilds?

[Warwick Schiller]

Yes.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Well, I contacted them, and they told me there was a French lady living in Kyrgyzstan who was living from when she was 15 years old and that she knew a great deal about traveling with horses and we would have to meet her. So we got into contact with her and she said, like, you're welcome to my house. So she welcomed us in. She. She teached us everything we needed to know, like from hoof trimming to, like, injecting antibiotics, things like that. But also she showed us these old maps from Soviet Union times that we could find in Bishkek, like in the. In the main city. And she said, go find them because you will need those maps. There is no application which is already showing the details as in those maps. So we got those big Soviet maps from years ago, and we started planning our routes. And then she also told us, when you buy a horse here, you have to find them on the markets, but you have to watch out because people will try to trick you. So make sure you're checking the skin, you're checking in the mouth of the horses, because people will tell you they're six years old, and then in reality.

[Cornelia]

They'Re like two years old or 26. Yeah, exactly.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So, yeah, we learned. We learned a great deal from her.

[Cornelia]

And then we went to the markets to find horses.

[Warwick Schiller]

So you go to the market to buy a couple horses?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

How's all that go down?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah, like we. We bought two horses on the market. And on the market in Kyrgyzstan, you buy stallions because to make a long ride through the mountains, you don't want to have mares because at night other herds of horses will pass by with stallions. So that's not perfect. And it's like they often. They do not make geldings from their stallions because they are real men and.

[Cornelia]

They can ride real stallions.

[Josephine Jamirs]

It's really a. A big thing in Kyrgyzstan. They, yeah, the men are just. Just want their horses to keep on being stallions. So we decided to buy two stallions. That's what we did. And we got tricked anyway because we, we had. One of them was really fine, was a good horse, and was the horse I kept on riding with all the months we were there. But the other horse was sedated, and we didn't realize it back then. So I. He was perfectly fine because he still seemed a little bit tempered, just not too much. And I did a. But if you buy horses there, you do like a small test, right? You have like three minutes and then all kind of other people are watching. And then you start, you say, like, okay, I give €700. And someone else will say, oh, I'll make it 800, and you will say, no, 900. And then you. Right.

[Warwick Schiller]

Oh, so it's like an auction. Okay.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes, it's like that. And then you try to shake the hand of the seller as soon as you can. And then you have the horse.

[Warwick Schiller]

Oh, they make the deal.

[Cornelia]

Then you make the deal.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes. So I told Koch, I don't think this horse is the perfect horse, because in fact, we were looking for small mountain horses, right? And this was a huge horse, tempered. We were looking for very quiet horses. But Go was in love. He just said, like, no, it's my horse. I can feel it. I really want this horse. So we ended up buying it, and then we went back to the place where we were volunteering back then, because we were volunteering on a farm so we could work there for a month, have our horses there, and get them trained and ready for the journey. But then one day after the markets, we saw that the second horse was just wild. He was, like, running around all day long. He didn't take one moment to just eat. And we needed horses that were really at ease and that would take all the time they had to eat and rest, Right?

[Cornelia]

Because we were going to do a.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Lot of kilometers each day with them, and we wanted them to be rested as much. As much as they could. And with this horse, like, I worked with him, he was very tempered, but fine. I rode him, but he just never took rest. When he could rest, when there was a mare, like, far away, like 50 meters from him, 100 meters from him, he would already be so much agitated that he. He would just keep on running circles. So then we decided, okay, this won't be Comet, because he should be the horse from Cornell. But Cor didn't have a lot of horseback riding experience, right? So he. It was too short of a time to make him adapt to this horse. And then we decided we would change with the neighbor because the neighbor had a horse who was a little bit older, but a really kind horse who always pulls a carriage. Carriage. Do you say it like that?

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Carriage. Yeah.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And so we changed horses because he was like, oh, then I have a young.

[Cornelia]

Horse full of temper. And we were like, perfect. Then we have a gentle horse for Cornell.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So then we had two stallions, and we started our journey with those two stallions.

[Cornelia]

And.

[Josephine Jamirs]

At one point during the journey, one of the two horses got injured. It was. He stepped in a. It was a small creek, and instead of stepping over it, he stepped with one of the hind legs in the creek, but right next to a very sharp stone, so it cut at his leg. His hind leg, it was quite deep. And thanks to Helene, the French lady, we could find a veterinary close to where we were and he could pick us up a whole different story. But that's when we bought our third horse because then we thought, okay, then we have one horse for the luggage and he doesn't need to carry much, and then two other horses to, to be riding on. And then we had our.

[Warwick Schiller]

Okay, I have to, I have to stop there for a second. When you said one horse for the luggage, I was just thinking, so for the gaucho derby, okay, we've, we've got all these specialized, you know, gear to go on the horse, whatever you've been having a hiking backpack. Are you still just got hyping hiking backpacks? And my next question is, are you riding while wearing the backpack or do you somehow attach it to the horse?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah, strong question, Warwick, because what we did there is. I think we even left our backpacks with Yelen, with the French lady. And we had some saddlebags tailor made because they're. We couldn't find saddlebags or something like that from, from good quality. So we bought the material on the market and then we asked someone who could sue to. To make it for us. So we, we made a drawing for him and we told him able to close it completely because we would be in heavy rains and so on, and.

[Cornelia]

He, he made them for us. I still have them here with me now. I couldn't say goodbye to them.

[Warwick Schiller]

You didn't take them on the gacha, Debbie, did you?

[Cornelia]

No, because they were way too bombastic and too heavy to be carrying there.

[Warwick Schiller]

I think everybody should use the word bombastic more. I think all you guys listening to this, try to include the word bombastic in your convers day and see what reaction you get. I love that word. Okay, so you got your saddlebags. Okay, so now you got a third horse.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah. Yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

So he's your pack horse.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah. Well, we made Cho. So the second, the kind, very easygoing horse. We made him the pack horse. And then the new horse was the horse for Cornell and he fell in love with that horse. It was really amazing to see because he didn't have a lot of horseback riding experience before, but with that horse he learned a lot. Really a lot. Because we were riding the other two horses without bits, Right?

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And we were getting along fine. And then with that third horse, I went to do a test ride with him and the, the guys selling him were saying, like, he's the fastest, the fastest horse you've. You've ever known. You will love him. And I loved him, but he was really fast. He didn't know. He didn't have the idea of just, okay, people jumping on my back and I can step.

[Cornelia]

No, he thought he had to run immediately. Right.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Because he was trained that way as well. Horses there, when you jump on, they have to go and go. Go get the sheep or whatever.

[Warwick Schiller]

Just a little bit like. A little bit like the gaucho horses to wear a lot of those, you get on, they won't stand still.

[Josephine Jamirs]

They just go, yes, yeah, exactly. And here it was the same. But then the. The guy selling this horse, he told us, you're crazy to ride those horses without a bit. If you try it with this horse, you will lose him immediately. Don't do that. So we were like, okay, fine. We'll ride him just the way he is. You taught him right. But Cornell noticed that this horse was constantly shaking his head, and it was so cute.

[Cornelia]

That moment, I really fell in love.

[Josephine Jamirs]

With him again, because one moment he said, just wait a little with the horses here. I have to do something. We were just riding out of the village where we bought this. This horse, and I was like, okay, fine. I see you in a minute. And he came back just with a halter on, but without the bit. I was like, huh? What did you do? And he was like, I threw it away.

[Warwick Schiller]

He threw the bit away?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah, I threw it away. I can. I can see that. He. He doesn't like it, so I threw it away.

[Cornelia]

I'll try it this way, and if I don't succeed, I walk next to him. So, yeah, I was like, all right, we'll just go slow, and we. We will find a way to understand each other.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And it worked. So it was really nice in the end, to be honest, I didn't even had a halter on my horse anymore. You really form a pack after one month, two months of. Of traveling together, then I just. I had a rope around his neck to give directions, and that was all we needed.

[Warwick Schiller]

A stallion riding through the mountains of Kyrgyzstan crossing.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Marriage, even. Yeah.

[Warwick Schiller]

Really?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah.

[Warwick Schiller]

Well, you. You were really. This is right before the Gacha Derby, wasn't it?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah, I.

[Warwick Schiller]

Not long before.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah, I think it was one year before.

[Warwick Schiller]

So how many months did you ride those horses?

[Josephine Jamirs]

It was about three months that we were in those mountains with those horses.

[Cornelia]

Wow.

[Warwick Schiller]

And where. So you were going. So did you start in Bishkek?

[Josephine Jamirs]

We started close to Izykul. It's like the huge lake in Kyrgyzstan.

[Warwick Schiller]

Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Is it cool? Okay. You started there. Which direction did you go? Then?

[Josephine Jamirs]

We went direction Sunkul in Suncool is where we ended. But we made like a. Like a big loop. Like in total, we did about in between 600 and 700 km. I don't know how many miles that is.

[Warwick Schiller]

And that was three months is what you said. Sorry.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah. Also we lost some time because of the injury of choro. We spent two weeks where we were just living in our tents with our horses in. In. On a big field in the mountains to give him enough rest before we continued our journey. But also that was a really. We really tried to embrace it, embrace the waiting. And we build it like. We even build it like a. An oven in which we could make.

[Cornelia]

A little fire and make our own.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Bread, things like that. We. We made friends with the shepherds.

[Cornelia]

We drank tea with them every day.

[Josephine Jamirs]

We.

[Cornelia]

So we had a small holiday in our big journey over there.

[Warwick Schiller]

Wow. But I bet the, you know, just like in Iran, the. The people you meet in countries like that would be a big highlight.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

Even. I mean, this scenery must have been absolutely spectacular. But can you tell me about some of the people you met?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah, sure. Often we didn't have a common language to speak in, so Kore and me, we learned a couple of Russian words. A lot of curious people could also speak Russian. It's their second language. For us it's English. For them it's Russian. And then they told us, they taught us some Kyrgyz words, like just the word for rain, for example, or the word for snow, things like that, so we could communicate with just small words. But they always tried to find a way to understand every time. When we met nomads along the way, because some we went days without seeing anyone, right? And then when we saw someone, they took all the time they had to drink tea with us.

[Cornelia]

It's always tea, always tea.

[Josephine Jamirs]

If you weren't careful, they would slaughter.

[Cornelia]

Sheep for you just because you were.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Like an honored guest to them and they wanted to welcome you in that way. And they. Yeah, they. How should I explain? They just live really close to the land. And they. Very often. Because, to be honest, I was a vegetarian when I arrived there. I'm still a vegetarian, but there I took a break because very often they had only rice and they had their sheep and they invited you to eat with them. And I didn't want to be the Western Europe chick who said, like, oh, no, thank you.

[Cornelia]

I'm not eating meat.

[Josephine Jamirs]

They don't even understand. Right. If I would say that they ask me, so how do you survive in winter? They have no notion of living far away from the land. You know what I mean?

[Warwick Schiller]

Yes. Yeah.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So it's very pure life, but also a very harsh one. To give you an example, when we were staying there on that field in the mountains, we had a shepherd living very close by, and he had sheep, but also sheep from other people he took care of. And he had dogs, but there was one dog, it was like a very nice, cute dog, but he had bitten and killed a sheep. And then in a reaction to that, he had his other dog, Staffords, attack the. The small dog to teach him a lesson. But like, in a. In a terrible way. I didn't see the ending because I couldn't look at it, but to him it was just, no, he did something where it was wrong and now it's over. I don't care what the other dog does to this one. Right. If he kills him, he kills him. If he doesn't, then he can get the second chance. But I cannot lose a sheep. I have lost one, I cannot lose two. So it's also a very harsh environment. Sometimes.

[Warwick Schiller]

The. These shepherds, they live in yurts.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah, I just. I just. A little Google on Kyrgyzstan and. Oh, my God, the scenery is beautiful. It's amazing.

[Josephine Jamirs]

It's a very upcoming country for tourism. Yeah, it's. It's so beautiful, really.

[Warwick Schiller]

So when I was in Mongolia a few years ago, those nomads, they live in yurts, they call them gurs in Mongolia, they are seasonal nomads. So they move like once every three months sort of thing. Are these guys very similar?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes, it's similar.

[Cornelia]

They do.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So in winter, lots of them go back to their villages, and in summer, they go up to the summer pastures and they follow the grass. Really?

[Warwick Schiller]

And there are only sheep.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Mostly. We saw sheep.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah. And so, okay, so you've done this three months of riding in the mountains with your. With your stallions. What was the next part of your journey?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Well, it was there in Kyrgyzstan that I met a girl who told me about the Gocho Derby. And so it's a funny story because before I knew about the Mongol Derby, I read a book from a. It was a girl from. From the Netherlands, and she did the Mongol Derby. I remember me reading it when I was 12 years old and thinking, like, imagine, you could do something like that, right? But not even thinking that I could do something like that one day. But then meeting this girl and hearing that the Mongol Derby was now not only going through in Mongolia, but now they had a version in Patagonia that made.

[Cornelia]

Whoa. That made me really think impossibilities, because.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Patagonia was on my list for a long time. I cannot say why, really. Maybe because of the feeling of the end of the world, in a way, or the scenery, the pictures, the movies you've seen from it. Also the Gochu culture, the horses, of course. And then those two things came together, and that made me really motivated to try to just try to get selected. And we were in Kyrgyzstan back then, and I told Cornelia, maybe you should make a movie of me while I'm cantering with one of our horses. Because I knew it was one part of the selection procedure, right. That you had to send in some movies of you with different horses. And then he told me, like, what a crazy idea. I mean, you can read, right? There is written on this website, is written. You have. You need so much competition experience. And, yeah, I. I don't even remember what the criteria were, but I was not fitting in.

[Cornelia]

Not at all.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And so I just said, yeah, okay, but I can try from a different angle. You know, I don't have competition experience, but I do have a lot of experience training young horses and traveling with horses. It's different. I. I am used to living in nature, so maybe they will think, oh, she can be an interesting profile.

[Cornelia]

And he was like, yeah, sure, you go ahead. I know when you have something in your head, I won't talk it out. So.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So let's just try. So that was the moment, the first time I had Internet.

[Cornelia]

I remember I went up a hill.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And I had some.

[Cornelia]

A little bit of reception, and I just texted.

[Josephine Jamirs]

I just made like a small CV curriculum vita, you know, and a small motivation letter, and I texted them. So that happened then. And we sold the horses to this Helene, to this French lady, which was amazing, because now they're still living together, and the horses are now working with her in tourist season for two months. She does weekly rides with tourists. And all the other months, they're living together in a herd altogether with other horses.

[Cornelia]

Yes. So sometimes she's still sending pictures to us.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So I love it. But then it was time for us to continue. So then we flew into India because, yeah, it was really interesting, this country, because we met a girl also in Kyrgyzstan, who knew a veterinary from Germany who lived in India in. It was with. In Rajasthan with the Raika people. And they're still really living together with camels. Living together, herding them, drinking their milk, eating their meat. And so on, and we thought that would be really interesting. So we flew in there to Delhi and then we took public transports and so on all the way to Rajasthan and we met her there and we could stay. So we lived together for a couple of days with those nomads over there. And then we. I have to think back, it seems like a long time ago, but then we continued, we went to, to the Himalayas as well, did some trackings over there. And then, oh yes, I do remember. Then we continued into Thailand and in Thailand we went for our diving licenses also to explore like the underwater world. We thought like, oh, that's an all new world opening up. And so we spent some weeks there, but then we knew, yeah, if we want to continue our journey and we did as much as we could over land, we will need a boat, right? So in Thailand we, we printed all these papers with like crew looking for.

[Cornelia]

Boats and then we put it on there.

[Josephine Jamirs]

We know how to sail, but we are beginners. But we can help with this and this and this. And then we found a couple who had bought a boat in Thailand and they would be sailing it back to Australia and we could join them. So we joined them and we went with them. But then when we were in Malaysia, the boat broke down and the people decided, we're going to sell the boat. We're sick of it. The, the lady from the couple, she didn't really like the sailing and she felt really afraid on the water. So they decided they would sail the boat. And by way the. At that moment, I got the last video call with the Derby crew, the Coacheville Derby crew. And I got the message that I was selected for the Goshel Derby. So back then we were like, okay, so in less than a year we.

[Cornelia]

Need to be on the other side of the world.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So maybe this is a good time.

[Cornelia]

To fly back to Germany where our.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Bicycle was, cycle to Belgium and then work for a couple of months in Belgium, try to find sponsorship, try to prepare for the race and then go to Argentina. That's how it happened.

[Warwick Schiller]

Wow, that's crazy. How long were you sailing from Thailand to Malaysia? How long were you.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Well, in the end, I think we were only on the boat for six, seven days. It was, yeah, not a long, which was fortunate in the end because I got really seasick.

[Cornelia]

So I was just laying down all the time. I was really.

[Warwick Schiller]

That's not a good feeling.

[Cornelia]

Yeah, that's not a good feeling.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So to me it wasn't the worst idea that the sailing would be stop.

[Cornelia]

And we would do something else.

[Warwick Schiller]

So you went back to. You went back to Germany, then you got on your tandem bicycle and bicycled back to. To Belgium. And that was about a year before the Gacha, Debbie?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah, I think it was. Yeah, it was about a year before. A little less, maybe, but.

[Warwick Schiller]

Okay. But when you guys. When I met you at this, like, you know, in town for the Gaucho Derby, you and Corneille had already been down. You went down there for a couple of months beforehand. That's right.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes, that's right.

[Warwick Schiller]

Okay. You told me that before. Yep. So you rode the. I think you were the only person who rode the Gaucho Derby pretty much alone the whole time. How. So? Was that your plan to do that?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah, in a way. I was just really curious to how it would feel, because all my previous adventures, or most of them I did together with Cornell and the moments when we were reading the map and I would say, I think it's to the right.

[Cornelia]

But he knew it wasn't.

[Josephine Jamirs]

That was always.

[Cornelia]

He could say, look again, you know, or.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Or we could always discuss things, or, you know, it's in the small things, really. Like, if I couldn't lift my saddlebag because I was carrying so much food, he would lift it for me. So I was just really curious, like, how will I cope with discomforts and with those. All those challenges alone? So it was kind of an experiment.

[Cornelia]

For me to write it alone.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And also, maybe sometimes I'm a little bit of an einselganger in that sense that I like to make my own decisions and to flow on my own energy. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So maybe it's bold.

[Warwick Schiller]

So how did you. How did you do that? Because, like, on the Gaucho Derby, people tend to ride in groups, and they tend to follow whoever knows where they're going. How did you. Did you tell people, actually, I'd like to be alone? Or did you just ride off in a different direction?

[Cornelia]

No. Yeah, I rode off in a different.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Direction from the start, really. Which was a hard thing to do, to be honest. It was harder than I thought, because before I studied the map, and I knew that if from the start you would go straight, then you would have to slow down a lot to cross the river, because the contour lines were really close together there on the map. So you would have to go steep down.

[Cornelia]

You remember?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Right.

[Cornelia]

I see you nodding to cross the.

[Josephine Jamirs]

River and then go steep back up. And I saw on the map that if I would keep on the right a little longer Then I wouldn't have to slow pace because there, the high. The contour lines were further from each other. And so I knew it. The river would be easier to cross over there. But because we had this moss start. All right, we started all together. All horses went in the same direction. And I was like, huh?

[Cornelia]

They all go straight.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So from the first moment, I was.

[Cornelia]

Challenged to follow my own path in a way.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And I thought, like, no, I made this. I already made this decision. I studied the map. I know how to go. I just have to trust and have to believe in myself. And from that. But from that first moment, I already asked my horse to go right, and he went.

[Cornelia]

So I was really happy.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And we did that. And by doing that, we won a lot of. We won a lot of distance, which we lost. Again, the moment that I thought, okay, it's this direction, and I wanted to just go straight, so I opened the gate. Gates I shouldn't have opened because the. The road went around and.

[Warwick Schiller]

Is this the. Is this where we all got on the wrong side of the fence after that horse, that first vet check?

[Josephine Jamirs]

No, it was before even. It was before that first vet check. I could see the vet check in the distance already. And then. But I opened that gate, and by going through, I realized, no, because the vehicles must get to that vet check, so they must have followed the other side. So then I tried to close that gate again, but it was really hard to get it closed on my own. And then.

[Cornelia]

Then the other writers started coming, and then, of course, they all passed because they saw, ah, she took the wrong turn, right? And I was like, oh, there I have my first stubborn id.

[Warwick Schiller]

I was gonna say it couldn't have worked out very well for you because we, you know, we all ended up camping at the same place the first night. And we were all. At the end. We were all last. The first.

[Cornelia]

Yes, true, true.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So it was it. It happened first.

[Cornelia]

It happened there, and then again. It happens where you're talking about now.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So after the first Fred check, we had this. We were on the wrong side of the fence, and there I got confronted with myself again because people were coming back. Two people, I think it was. Was it Olivier?

[Cornelia]

I don't. I don't remember.

[Warwick Schiller]

And yeah, no, it was Olivier.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah, he told me there is no fence. So it was really kind of him.

[Cornelia]

To tell me there was no fence.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And I thought, no, but maybe they didn't continue long enough to find the fence.

[Warwick Schiller]

I did exactly the same thing. I had an extra piece in there, you know, so Olivier is a French pharmacist.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

And so they were going up that big hill. They come back down the hill, and he says, that's. There's no gate up there. You're gonna go back. And I'm thinking, what would a French pharmacist know, basically, is what I thought. You know what I mean? And the other thing. The other reason I didn't go back is because there were people in front of Olivier.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah.

[Warwick Schiller]

That didn't come back down the hill.

[Cornelia]

True.

[Warwick Schiller]

But what they did was they circled around and came back down again, you know, a big ravine, out of sight. So they. I was thinking, well, there's people in front of us who haven't come back, so obviously they can get through. But they were no longer in front of us. But they didn't come back down the fence. They circled back around. So. Yeah. But I ignored poor Olivier and paid the price.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Same.

[Cornelia]

Same for me. That's why we ended up together.

[Josephine Jamirs]

We had a good chat, though.

[Warwick Schiller]

We did have a good chat. So there was a part of the race for. For you that. And if anybody's listened to my podcast about the Gocher Derby, I probably mentioned this, but, you know, there was a part of the race called the Plateau of Death, and for the most part, the race is one of the challenges navigational. You get. You get GPS points you got to go to. But this Plateau of Death, it's so dangerous that they give you what is called a breadcrumb, which means there's a line on your gps, and you're basically just trying to keep yourself on that line. And partway through the Plateau of Death, we got a text that said that one of the riders has an emergency, and if anybody's in the vicinity, get there as soon as you can. And it was you. And so we all went off the breadcrumb and went charging through this nasty, nasty terrain. And we all kind of arrived at you at all the same time, even though we came from different directions. So Dan and Elliot and Will and Katie, they were on the. They were still on the trail. We. There was four of us. We cut across, and we all met there at the same time. But your horse had got stuck in a rock bog, and I never really got the full story. So how long were you stuck in the rock bog and how deep was your stuck?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Well, I guess we were only really in there for about 10 minutes, but it felt like hours, I can tell you. So what happened was the day before, I don't know whether you remember, but they told us if you get at the big boulder before the big rock on the creek. Yes, exactly. I don't remember what it was before 3pm or 4pm Then you can continue to the next vet check and if you don't, then you have to camp there. So I got there by that time. I continued, I thought I just go to the next vet check and I will stay there.

[Cornelia]

But that didn't happen.

[Josephine Jamirs]

What happens was that I already. So I really stuck to this broadcrump because they told us before, right, don't go more left or more right, just stay on there. But the horse that I drew at the previous horse station was kind of like a racehorse. Not. He was. He wasn't used to the mountains. They told us that before, like there were. There was a shortage of horses, so they needed to select some horses who weren't from the area. And I got one of those. And so the moment he came in this bog area and you have to imagine, it's like you see rocks all over the place. It seems like a solid piece of land, but then when the horse steps on it, they sink in just a tiny bit. The moment we got on those parts, he started panicking also, we were alone, right? He didn't have a horse mate in front or behind him. So he started tripling like on the same, on the same spots. And that made him sink in deeper every time. So we already had some experiences like that that night. So I texted to hq, text like, okay, look, I'm going to be too late in the vet check because I have these troubles. I accept my penalty also if it's disqualification, I just want my horse to be safe there. And they texted me back, you will never make it to the vet check in time before dark. So you have to emergency camp or you have to go back, back to the rock. But I didn't dare to go back.

[Cornelia]

To be honest, because I knew the.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Terrain I had already crossed and it was not safe at all with my horse. So I thought, okay, let's emergency camp. But it's the Valley of death, you.

[Cornelia]

Know, so it's like all around you.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Just rock stones, no grass at all. And so I found a very small creek with a tiny bit of grass around, but not enough for my horse, of course, for a full night. But I didn't really have much choice over there. So I decided to camp there. And I couldn't even get one piquette. We say tent peg in the ground. So I tied my tents to big rocks and so on. But there was huge winds that night. And it's one of my tent poles got really bended badly. I had to get up, like, every hour because my horse went very far with his hobbles, because he wanted to find more grass, of course.

[Cornelia]

So I had to bring him back.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Every time, things like that. So we had a tough night. And then the morning after, I started my GPS and I couldn't see contour lines on my gps. So I was like, this is a great start. But I kind of knew where I needed to go. So I closed the GPS again, started it again, and I had the contour lines again. So I thought, okay, we'll be fine. We'll be fine. We just stay on this breadcrumb, right?

[Cornelia]

We will be fine on this breadcrumb. I hold on to it so tightly.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And then I think we weren't even on our way for half an hour, and we had, again, this sinking in. He got really scared, was tripping at one spot again and again and again, and he sunk deeper and deeper and deeper, and I couldn't get him out anymore. It was every step I did, he sunk deeper into the ground until he was, like, up to his belly. He was in the mud, and I couldn't get him out anymore. And I really saw the panic in.

[Cornelia]

His eyes, and I'm sure he saw the same in my eyes.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So that was the moment I thought, okay, my race is over. This is where it stops. And I just have to calm him down, and I have to get emergency help here as soon as I can. So again, I texted hq. I said, okay, I'm in a really bad situation. My horse is stuck. I cannot get him out. When I try to, I'm only getting him deeper in because he. Then it starts.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah, panicking.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah, panicking again. And please come help. I realize my race is over. That's fine. I deal with consequences. And they texted me back, and they said, you get 20 minutes. You get 20 minutes to get him out. If not, we'll send help and helicopter in. So then. But I was like, for me, it was totally fine that the race would end there. At that moment. At that moment, I was just, I want to get this horse out safely. I felt so bad about myself, and I was so much confronted with my ego in a way. I thought, like, I mean, these horses are not asking for this stupid race, you know, like, it's all about an experience I want to have and something wild I want to do. And so I was really questioning myself there. But then very soon, it shifted. Like, I thought, okay, I can cry. Now I can yell at the mountains.

[Cornelia]

It won't bring me anywhere.

[Josephine Jamirs]

I have to focus on the things that I can influence. Right. So I just put it off my down jacket, took my emergency blankets underneath him, all. All kind of things that would keep him warm because it was really cold up there at that moment, and it was a bad wind. I put everything underneath him. I put it off the saddle, which.

[Cornelia]

Was really hard because I couldn't really.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Get it from underneath him easily.

[Warwick Schiller]

Right. The girth underneath him was stuck in the mud.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah. So if you guys listening here, I don't know if we fully explained what this rock bog looks like, but it's. It's really desolate, very rocky land. But the. It just looks like really rocky ground, but underneath it is basically quicksand. So this horse, you know, and you can't tell, it looks like totally solid ground to walk across, but then sometimes you can, and sometimes you can't. But this horse has basically hit quicksand. So he sunk down to his belly, and that ground is damp and it's cold, and so his whole bottom of his belly is laying on that cold ground, which means he could get hypothermic pretty easily. So you're, like, shoving your blankets and stuff underneath between his belly and that cold ground.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes, true. And then very suddenly, I don't really know what happened. He was just at ease. He was just laying there. And I mean, at ease as in he wasn't panicking anymore, and he. He gave in to the situation. And then maybe it was 10 minutes later, he just lifted his head and he got life again in his eyes. I could see it. And he made one big movement, and he jumped out of. He. He could. It was like you could hear it.

[Cornelia]

Like, you know, like.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes. And he pulled himself out of it with one massive jump. And he was just standing there shivering a bit.

[Cornelia]

I was shivering a bit. And we looked at each other like, oh, my God.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Thank God. I was so grateful that he was okay. He didn't have one small scratch. And that's where I waited for you guys. I knew riders were on the way, so I waited there for one half hour, two hours. And that's when I saw you.

[Cornelia]

I was so happy to see a living soul.

[Warwick Schiller]

You know, I think Dean James was the first person to get to you.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah.

[Warwick Schiller]

And dan had his GoPro on. And when we got to the finish line, we went up, and Rich, the photographer guy, said, I've got a computer. You can look at your footage. The first thing we went to was try to find that. Well, Dan, what he didn't realize with his GoPro, I don't think he'd used it enough to where if you press it to start it, but if you press it again, it goes from video.

[Josephine Jamirs]

To photo the way.

[Warwick Schiller]

And so he. A lot of stuff he thought he videoed, he didn't get anything but a little photo. And so he had a photo of, you know, five minutes before he got to you. But because he said to me, he said that was pretty emotional.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes. It was like. Yeah. So happy to see.

[Cornelia]

We were to see.

[Josephine Jamirs]

He was really emotional to see that I was fine. And I was really emotional to see that he. He came to help and he was like running towards me. Like riders were so amazing to me, at least. Yeah. Really?

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah. After hearing your story of how all that went down, I can't imagine. Because that's a. Just a nasty, desolate looking place right there.

[Cornelia]

Yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

And not to be stuck. Stuck there with your horse stuck to his belly in that alone in that area. That had to be quite the moment.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah. But also, even at that moment, I realized we do have a lot of help available. Right. To make a comparison with Kyrgyzstan there, if something happened to us, most of the times there was no cell service.

[Cornelia]

We had no.

[Josephine Jamirs]

We couldn't just press an emergency button. So there in Patagonia, at least I.

[Cornelia]

Knew I will be helped.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah.

[Cornelia]

We will get out here alive, both of us.

[Josephine Jamirs]

But it was emotional for sure. Yeah. I felt very alone in the first.

[Warwick Schiller]

Moments, I bet, just riding that whole race alone. And people have said, would you ever do the. The Gacha Derby again? I'm like, nah, I wouldn't do it again. And they. What, they said what, you didn't like it? I said, no. I think a big part of the experience is the unknowns, like say the fences or whatever, you know, the things you don't plan for that. Those little bits of frustration that just. Just add up and add up and add up. Yeah. You know, allow you to have those big breakthroughs. But a minute ago I was thinking, oh, I could do the Gaucho Derby again. It would be a totally different experience if I did it alone.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes, true.

[Warwick Schiller]

That would be a totally different experience.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

Doing it. Doing it alone.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah. And I really think in. Of course, in. In some ways it's harder because also you have to make decisions alone and you doubt yourself a lot of times and sometimes you make decisions that you regret afterwards, things like that, and you have to deal with it alone as well. But on the other Hand. There was also an ease in doing it alone, I think, because you don't have the group dynamics of, like, for instance, the moment I woke up with a lot of pain.

[Cornelia]

Because sometimes you wake up in pain, right? And you have to go again on that horse.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And right before the Gocho Derby, when I was training with this Gocho, I had my ligaments torn in my knee and my ankle, so I was still rehabilitating, you know what I mean? And so I. I sometimes was in. In quite some pain. But then also, you can only complain to yourself, so you don't complain a lot. You're just focused on the things that.

[Cornelia]

Need to be done.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And I think in a group, it's way more easy to start complaining, and then you start complaining, and then the others complain back to you, and then you can get in this spiral of negativity way more easy than when you're alone.

[Warwick Schiller]

Maybe that's the second time I've heard that. I listened to a podcast by a guy named Tim Ferriss with, you know who. Tim Ferriss.

[Cornelia]

Yeah, I know him.

[Warwick Schiller]

Okay. So he had Boyd Varti on his podcast. So Boyd Varti is a South African guy, has a wildlife safari in South Africa.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Okay.

[Warwick Schiller]

But Boyd once spent 30 days living in a tree. Like, it was almost like of a past and a meditation thing. But he built this platform up in this tree, and he would climb down, and he's a tracker, so he would track animals during the day. Spent this 30 days in this tree. But at one point in time, he did something and whacked his head really hard on the tree or something, whatever. And he said he started, like, cussing and carrying on, and then he realized there's no one to hear that. And he said it was. He said, you realize that when you complain, you're just complaining to other people, and when there's no one to complain to, you just stop complaining. Yeah, it's a different feeling, you know, it's a. And I was just thinking that doing the Gaucho Derby alone would be a lot of alone time. Like a bit of a pass on a retreat sort of a thing. And so now I'm like, maybe I would do it again. I'd just do it alone.

[Cornelia]

Oh, you go for it, Warwick.

[Josephine Jamirs]

I will be cheering you on.

[Warwick Schiller]

You've heard about that other race, the passive tears, haven't you?

[Josephine Jamirs]

The new one? I did.

[Cornelia]

Are you thinking about it?

[Warwick Schiller]

It's all. I was thinking about it. But, you know, it's a month and a half later than the Gaucho Derby. So not only is it centered on the Plateau of Death, it's also. So the first year they had, it was the middle of March, and that's when they had to helicopter four or five people off a mountain with hypothermia. So they moved the race back to the end of January, beginning of February, because of the weather. So that new race, not only is it only the Plateau of Death, it is only the Plateau of Death about. And. And it's possibly blizzard.

[Josephine Jamirs]

All right.

[Warwick Schiller]

Conditions.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Wow.

[Warwick Schiller]

So I. I had thought about signing up for it, but then I'm like, I'm not quite sure. I had signed up for one in South Africa. Had you heard about that one? The Bush Bowl?

[Josephine Jamirs]

I did. I think I heard about it from you.

[Warwick Schiller]

Oh, yeah. Well, they can. They canceled it because they had an outbreak of African horse sickness. But that was going to be like the Gaucho Derby, but then in the bush in Africa. Wow. Yes.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Oh, would be amazing as well if.

[Warwick Schiller]

They do run that one. I think I would. I would. I would like to do that one. Okay. So this is the journey on podcasts, and usually what I do is I meet really interesting people like you who have a perspective on life, and I unravel from the beginning how you got to that perspective. We didn't get to any of that because your adventure stories are. Your adventure stories are too good. But you did say that as a child, you thought you heard about the Mongol Derby when you were 12, and you're like, oh, I'd like to do that. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

[Cornelia]

Oh.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Well, I wanted to be a world traveler.

[Warwick Schiller]

There you go.

[Cornelia]

Yes. That's for sure.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And, yeah, world traveler, horse whisperer, things.

[Cornelia]

All things like that.

[Josephine Jamirs]

But I think if you want to get to why I do the things I do and what kind of things happened in my childhood that brought me there. I think a major piece of it is that I lost my mom when we were really young. I was about 5, 6 years old and my sister about 12 years old. And I believe that it made me very aware of the fact that life will end one day at a very young age. And this in combination with having a father who says, the moment you're dreaming, like, I was a daydreamer, really. And often when I was dreaming, he said, like, child, don't dream your life. Live your dream. So I was really like this. The story of my mom in combination with my father, who encouraged us to. To think impossibilities I think that made me make the choices I made, maybe. Yeah. And that also, to me, it helped me. If I wanted to become a world traveler, my father would say, yeah, go, become one. And he wouldn't say, it's not possible. Think about something else. And I'm really, really grateful for that. That we learned from a young age to think impossibilities instead of. Yeah. How do you say it?

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah, that's really interesting. You know, like, you know, people on the podcast, I usually try to figure out, how did you. How did you get to view the world the way you view? And sometimes people really had to undo some of the conditioning from their family, and sometimes people's families were the inspiration or, you know, part of the catalyst for it. So that's. That's interesting, the questions that you chose one of them. You chose. What is your favorite quote? It's not that quote from your father, is it?

[Josephine Jamirs]

It is.

[Warwick Schiller]

Is it? When you said that, I'm like, wow, that's a quote right there.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah, totally. Because, you know, it really has a huge impact on my life still now. Like, I wasn't really inspired by my father to do the big adventures I did because he doesn't really feel anything for adventure. But even now, I can be dreaming about, like, now my new wild ID is to. I would like, Warwick. I would like. I'm dreaming about doing a long ride on every continent. A long ride means 1,000 miles, right? And then he doesn't understand that. He thinks, like, wow, all the. All that discomfort and uncertain conditions and so on. Why would you like to do that? But. But he's not saying that. What he's saying is, you know, if you can find sponsorship to do it, and if you can figure out the logistics, you go for it. When you will look back on your life in a couple of years, you will only regret the things you didn't do. You won't regret the things you tried.

[Cornelia]

So you go and try.

[Josephine Jamirs]

So that's. It really impacts my life up until now.

[Warwick Schiller]

Did you ever listen to a podcast I did with a Brazilian guy named Felipe?

[Cornelia]

No.

[Warwick Schiller]

So he. He rode from. He's done three long rides, but his first one was from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to Brazil.

[Josephine Jamirs]

I know him.

[Warwick Schiller]

So can it through, you know, like, so through United States, through Central America, all the way down to Brazil. Then he did a second one from Brazil to Tierra de Fuego at the bottom of Argentina.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Amazing.

[Warwick Schiller]

And then he did a third one. He started in Fairbanks, Alaska, and he went to Calgary, Alberta. So he's Basically ridden from Fairbanks, Alaska to the bottom tip of South America.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Wow. Yes.

[Cornelia]

My heart is jumping when you say things like that.

[Warwick Schiller]

But what's interesting is your energy and his energy is very, very similar. It's very open hearted, excited. Yeah, all those things. Okay, I'm going to ask you your questions now. The ones you haven't. I haven't asked you. They haven't come up. What's an unusual habit you have or something out of the ordinary that you particularly enjoy?

[Josephine Jamirs]

Well, is this habit. We call it Miracle Morning.

[Cornelia]

Have you heard from it?

[Warwick Schiller]

No, I'm writing it to stand.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Well, it just means that I like to get up really early, like when most others are still in bed sleeping. And then I spend that first hour of my day totally on me.

[Cornelia]

You know, like.

[Josephine Jamirs]

I go for a run or I do yoga, or I go for a long walk and then I make some tea and I write in my diary and I write my intentions for the day and I take five to 10 minutes for a small meditation. And in, in that way, it's a habit I have and that it's really important to me because it feels like I start with a kind of a head start. Right. And it's. That's something I really enjoy and I believe it. It truly helps to set your intentions right for the day and, and live by them. Yeah, perfect.

[Warwick Schiller]

The next question was, what do you feel your true purpose is.

[Josephine Jamirs]

For now? I could say, and I think it will stay that way. It's my purpose to reconnect people with nature and by doing so with themselves. Because we are our nature, we cannot see ourselves as separate from nature. And I also believe that when we spend more time in nature, we also want to take care for that nature. And that's something I really want to contribute to.

[Warwick Schiller]

So good. What advice do you have for others about to enter your occupation? And before you answer that, you have to.

[Cornelia]

My occupation is.

[Warwick Schiller]

Exactly where's your occupation?

[Josephine Jamirs]

All right, so I'm an outdoor psychologist. I'm a psychologist and my advice would be. But not only for people going into psychology, really going into any field is. It might be cliche, but it's just you do you people will want you in the end for the way you are and just the way you are. It what is what makes you special and it's what, what you can contribute to the world. I really believe in that. To give you an example, when I started as a psychologist, I had this idea of psychology like you have to.

[Cornelia]

Sit in a couch and the other person as well, and Then you have.

[Josephine Jamirs]

To Talk for about 50 minutes with each other. And that's how you do it, right? So I started doing that, and I got severe headaches from doing my job. I loved my job. I really loved it. But by being indoors all day and listening very focused to people all day long, I got these headaches. And then I decided to stop doing it that way, and I totally transformed it. And in the beginning, it was just for me. I started to take my people outside. We went for a walk to do the session. The result was that my headaches were over, but also my people were very much more focused on problem solving. They already made their homework the same day they were put it into movement, like, literally and figuratively. And I made my complete business out of it. So just by doing me, you know.

[Warwick Schiller]

It sounds like that thing that I read out to you before, that's a screensaver.

[Josephine Jamirs]

I thought about that as well also. Another thing that makes me think about that is when I was younger, sometimes I got the feedback and I do understand, like, okay, you're in a very serious profession, all right? And you are very enthusiastic, and all.

[Cornelia]

Your emotions are readable on your face and.

[Josephine Jamirs]

And you're laughing a lot, so you should work on that. And then I tried, but I really.

[Cornelia]

I couldn't stay true to myself without.

[Josephine Jamirs]

That part of myself. So now I'm just a very enthusiastic psychologist. But that's what people are choosing me for now. So, please, you, do you. I really profoundly believe in the power of that.

[Warwick Schiller]

So how do people find out more about you? Do you have social media, Instagram, website, all those sorts of things?

[Josephine Jamirs]

I do. They can find me just by my name on Instagram, Josephine Jamaica or at Outdoor Psychology. There they can also find me. And if they want to contact me, they can just use my email address. So it's Josephineutdoorpsychology.be.be.

[Warwick Schiller]

And do you have a website?

[Josephine Jamirs]

I do. It's outdoorpsychology be as well.

[Warwick Schiller]

Okay, perfect. Awesome. Well, I love what you're doing in the world. You know, when I met you in Argentina at the gaucho derby, I was kind of drawn to your. Just your vibrant energy. So it's been so good to catch up with you and hear more of your stories.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Yeah. I'm really happy to see you again, Warwick, to be able to.

[Cornelia]

Chat with you.

[Josephine Jamirs]

Really. I want to hear all about you as well.

[Cornelia]

To be honest, I will have to.

[Warwick Schiller]

Do that off the podcast. Okay, well, thank you so much for joining me and for you guys at home, thanks for joining us and we will catch you on the next episode of the Journey on Podcast.

Thanks for being a part of the Journey on Podcast with Warwick Schiller. Warwick has over 850 full length training videos on his online video [e-mail] Be sure to follow Warrick on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram to see his latest training advice and insights.