When Turks and Caicos native Mario Rigby landed in Cape Town with nothing but a backpack, a pair of worn-in sneakers, and a dream to walk the length of Africa, he thought maybe he’d made the worst mistake of his life. But actually walking across Africa? That brought peace and a deeper understanding of the power of hospitality, movement, and self discovery.
In this episode of Travel Tales by Afar, Mario shares how walking 7,500 miles permanently changed the way he travels—and lives. Plus, we dive into what sustainable tourism really looks like and the aftermath of reverse culture shock.
Transcript
Aislyn: I’m Aislyn Greene, and this is Travel Tales by Afar. Welcome to season six. We are kicking off our new season with stories that will take you to extraordinary places and introduce you to remarkable people from around the world.
Every week we’re gonna hear stories of life-changing travel, this season, from comedians, astronauts, authors, adventurers, and so many more.
And this first episode of Travel Tales season six, I think, really epitomizes what travel is all about.
Because today I’m talking with Mario Rigby. He is an eco-explorer with travel in his blood. He was born in Turks and Caicos, raised in Germany, and now lives in Canada. He’s also a former professional athlete, and as you’ll soon hear, he’s always been an explorer at heart. But at age 28, he wanted to change his life, so he trained for nine months, sold everything he owned, and embarked on a more than two-year, 7,500-mile walk across Africa.
He started in Cape Town and ended in Cairo. It is not an exaggeration to say that that journey was truly life-changing.
Mario and I spent much of our conversation talking about how that epic sojourn led him to where he is today. We also touched on deeper themes like reverse culture shock, what sustainable tourism really looks like, and the power of movement to untangle your mental knots.
Aislyn: So, Mario, welcome.So nice to have you here.
Mario: Nice to be here. Thank you for having me.
Aislyn: Well, I would love to start, I mean, you’re such an adventurous person, and I’m just curious: Have you been an adventurer since birth, would you say?
Mario: I would say, yeah, I would say it’s even, um, preordained before birth. Because if you look at the Turks and Caicos Islands, it’s a country that has accepted a lot of great explorers from the past. There’s this, uh, American astronaut who’s circumnavigated around the world, and he was the first one to do so from America.
And he dropped into the ocean and they collected him. And that was in Grand Turk. And that’s the island I was born in. And then if you go back even further in time, you know, there’s this controversial, um, you know, this, this, this, this idea that, you know, Christopher Columbus actually landed in Turks and Caicos. It’s between Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas. But of course, at the time, you know, to him, they just looked like a bunch of little island keys.
The island has really a lot of incredible, uh, history. There’ve been histories of, like, you know, slave ships that have landed in Turks and Caicos. And apparently some of my lineage, some of my blood lineage, actually comes from the 190-plus, uh, survivors who actually, uh, came off of that ship.
Aislyn: Oh my gosh.
Mario: Yeah. It’s really incredible, what, what this island has, um, produced in terms of, like, you know, adventures and things like that.
Aislyn: Well, so you have this incredible lineage, and you now are carrying the torch forward. What in your life, like, created that moment where you’re like, This is what I wanna commit to, this is who I wanna be in the world. What was that kind of transformative moment for you?
Mario: Yeah, that’s a good question. I watched, uh, the show called, uh, Black Panther . . .
Aislyn: Yeah.
Mario: . . . which basically, it was a TV show at the time, when I was young. And, you know, it wasn’t a movie, it wasn’t popular. No one really heard about it. It was just, like, me, my brother, um, and a couple of close friends that actually watched it.
And it was on BET, you know, at the time, Black Entertainment Television. And there was this one episode in which T’Challa, the king of Wakanda at the time—this is episode one actually—where he decided to go on a walkabout toward Africa in order to learn about his people.
And that’s the only way that he figured he could learn about becoming a leader. And I really, I deeply thought about this. I sat with this for a number of years, like, almost for a decade. I’m 39 now, so I made that decision when I was 28. I started to really look into, you know, what is really making me happy, what is making me unhappy? And I realized that the things that I was doing in the moment was making me unhappy, right?
So, um, I wanted to build friendships that were genuine and based on things that, you know, I value, like adventure, going out, seeing the world, sustainability, all these different things. And I thought to myself, well, Why don’t we have this, like a coming-of-age journey that, uh, essentially transitions you from childhood to adulthood?
So you can learn about certain things about the world that are fundamental, but at the same time, you learn a lot about yourself: what your limits are and who you truly are. I think you only figure that out when you have pushed yourself, when you’ve challenged yourself and you are facing, you know, yourself in the mirror and going like, Wow, I have to do this.
You know, like when you’re stuck in the middle of the desert, you can’t just quit. You can, but then, you know, that’s the end of you. So, you know, who are you, truly inside? And I think doing these, uh, journeys, I think it’s really important in a lot of Indigenous communities, a lot of tribes and, and old cultures, they really, they really embrace this.
And, um, so to me, I, I looked at this and I thought to myself, Well, since we don’t have one, I’m gonna make, I’m gonna make one up for myself. And that’s where, you know, walking the length of Africa came from.
Aislyn: Wow. That is an amazing story. And I love that it was kind of, the seed was planted when you were young, and then it all seemed to kind of come together.
So when did you decide you wanted to commit to the crossing Africa trip, and how long did it take you to prep for that? Because that’s a huge, seems like a huge undertaking. Maybe it . . . [laughter]
Mario: No, it was, yeah, no, there’s no question about it.
Aislyn: You just opened your front door and walked out one day.
Mario: No, that was my original plan. I didn’t realize how obscenely difficult it would be until I started to do the research and the training for it. So the first training was walking 70 kilometers from Toronto to Hamilton; it’s a nearby city.
Thanks to my friend who actually suggested this, Donna Foster, she basically came up to me and said, “You know what, in my good conscience, I can’t just let you go to Africa without formal training on how to do speed walking.”
And so she was a professional speed-walking coach and decided to spend 5 days out of my 15-day journey to walk from Toronto to Montreal.
Aislyn: OK.
Mario: And that was such a, an important trip for me because it taught me a lot of the fundamentals of what it takes to, to, to walk super-long distances.
So we would put extra weight in my backpack. There were times where, you know, I, I was really suffering hard, like chafing in between the thighs, where it’s bleeding out, and yeah, it was just, like, it just looked like, just oof. It looked really bad.
Aislyn: You were undaunted.
Mario: Exactly, exactly. I was like, OK, if I can get through this . . .
Aislyn: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mario: . . . I can make it to Africa. And then, of course, there was all the research and getting tips. I spoke to a few professional explorers who’ve done some similar things. Levison Wood is, is one of those guys, and he’s actually walked the length of the River Nile from source to finish.
I emailed him, I said, like, “Hey, listen, uh, I’m doing this trip and would really love for you to be someone who can coach me through some of the, the areas that you’ve been through that are very difficult.”
Like, for instance, going through the White Desert was really—yeah, that, that, that was a difficult one. So yeah, there was a lot of preparation, and I feel like, you know, a lot of people say, like, you know, it takes years to train for these kinds of things. But for me, I really love learning new things, and, you know, I think that if you’re really into it, there’s this, like, exponential growth of learning something that you’re extremely passionate about.
So I really crammed five years into nine months. I have never camped before in my life before that. I’ve never carried a backpack, you know, like a backpack that carries gear.
Aislyn: Yeah. Yeah.
Mario: I’ve never had that before in my life. So there was a lot of things that I had to learn, that I wasn’t used to. But because, I think, me being an athlete, a former athlete, professional athlete in track and field, I was able to apply new ways of training and doing things that would cater to my, my walking across Africa.
Aislyn: That makes sense. So you’re nine-months slash five-year preparation, and then finally you land, like, the journey is about to begin. Like, how did you feel in that moment when you’re setting out?
Mario: So when I landed, it was, it’s just ridiculous. It was like, um, like, who does, who’s doing this?
Aislyn: Yeah.
Mario: I’m like, this is like the dumbest thing I’ve probably ever done in my entire life, and I’m gonna regret this tremendously. Yeah. That’s pretty much what was going on in my mind.
But I landed on the day that it was my birthday, November 24. And my mom, she was the one who actually bought my ticket, so she was my first sponsor—one-way ticket to, to, to Cape Town, South Africa. And, you know, just being there was, really inspiring in, in, in the sense that like, African people themselves were motivated, and they were enthusiastic about my journey compared to, you know, the city that I live in and in Toronto where everyone kind of felt pessimistic and, you know, they were like, Hmm, you know, you are gonna die. You’re gonna die. This isn’t the right thing to do. And I was like, OK, well, thanks for all your support, friends.
Aislyn: Yeah.
Mario: Um, but over there, there’s like, you know, people I just met and, you know, strangers, they’ll say, “That’s a crazy thing you’re doing. However, here’s how we can help.”
Aislyn: That’s so cool.
Mario: Like, I’ll tell you a quick story about, um, you know, I stayed in Cape Town for two weeks, and then after two weeks, after acclimatizing and learning more about, you know, South Africa, the, the, the culture, the politics, and all this kind of stuff, the day before I left, I sat out at this restaurant in, in this, like, really beautiful part of Cape Town, and there was these two Mozambicans, and they were talking about the politics of their country in, in Mozambique and they were comparing that to South Africa.
And I was, like, really curious. So I was like, “Hey, can I, you know, can I join your conversation? I really love what you guys are talking about.” And over there, that’s how easy it is. You can just join in on any conversation and you can just interact, and it just feels so natural. It doesn’t feel, like, you know, contrived. So I joined them, and, you know, eventually they said like, “What are you doing here?” And I said, “I’m, I’m walking the length of Africa from Cape Town to Cairo, and tomorrow begins my journey.” And of course, you know, then there’s, like, 30 minutes of them being like, “What? What’s going on? No way.”
You know? And everyone at the restaurant, that it became this, like, spectacle. And I was like, oh boy.
Aislyn: Here we go.
Mario: Yeah, here we go.
But one of the two young boys said, “Can I join you on the first day?”
Aislyn: Oh. Wow.
Mario: And I said, “Oh, OK. That’s interesting. That’s a, you know, a twist.”
Aislyn: Yeah, yeah.
Mario: I didn’t plan this. I didn’t plan this. I was planning to go there by myself and I was quite nervous, to be honest. And the fact that he said that, really, like, uplifted my, like, my spirits, because I don’t know the way to, to get to the, to the very tip. I can figure it out, but it’s easier when there’s a local who knows the way. So I said to him, like, “OK, tomorrow morning, 4 a.m., meet me at the, in front of the hotel, and we’re going to take the train and head down to, to the tip, and then we’ll begin our walk.” And, uh, he said, “OK, I’ll see you tomorrow.” And I, you know, I didn’t believe it.
I was just like, OK, cool.
Aislyn: There’s no way this guy’s gonna show up.
Mario: No way! But at 4 a.m., this guy’s, like, shouting my name from the street.
Aislyn: That’s so cool.
Mario: Yeah, he’s shouting my name from the street, and you know, he was up, ready, chipper, so excited. And, you know, he ended up carrying my backpack for half of the trip. And because of that experience, like, I really felt this energy that, you know, a lot of these people have. They have unlimited energy, which is beautiful.
Aislyn: Cool.
Mario: It’s just something that, you know, that I was missing really. Like, I felt like I was in a culture that was kind of taking away my energy. And over there, it was just kinda, like, giving it to me. And so, the spirit of, hey, anything can happen.
Let’s make this work. And that happened on day one. And so that really, um, pushed me to, to really look at the rest of walking Africa as not just a chore, but as a, a fun experience.
Aislyn: Yeah. And you’re uplifted and supported along the way and encouraged, it sounds like. You had this guide at the very beginning. Especially landing and feeling nervous and maybe a little bit of that negative thinking, like somewhere in the back of your head—for that to just be erased.
Mario: Completely erased. And, and, and yeah, just transitioned from, like, like almost dread to, like, whoa, this is amazing. This is fun to be optimistic and everything’s possible.
Aislyn: Well, I imagine telling the story of those more than two years is like an entire book, basically. But I’m curious, like, did you do the entire kind of journey in one go, or did you fly back to Toronto at any time?
Mario: So I decided to stick on the journey and not leave Africa. And, um, one of the reasons for that was because that, you know, I was way too broke. I don’t know how people, some people who do these things . . .
Aislyn: [laughs] Those flights are. Yeah.
Mario: They go back and forth, and I’m like, “How are you doing that?” Um, you know, there’s, like, $3,000 flights.
But, um, no, I, I stayed the course. That was my commitment. I really had nothing, to be honest. I sold everything. So the only thing I had were the possessions that I had on my backpack, uh, you know, inside my backpack, and my feet, were, were, was my vehicle.
And the only way to make anything of it was to make it to, you know, the end of the line, which was in Cairo, Egypt. So that’s, that’s the only thing that mattered, and that became my life story for two and a half years.
Aislyn: As the kind of years unfolded, as your steps unfolded, what were some of the places, maybe some of the countries, that you really fell in love with?
Mario: Sudan really stood out to me in a way that I didn’t expect. It was my first full Muslim country. In fact, it was, uh, Sharia law. So . . .
Aislyn: Oh yeah. Wow.
Mario: . . . the laws and the rules are incredibly strict, particularly toward women. But, you know, it was so strict that even for myself, I couldn’t wear shorts in public.
An agent literally made me change my pants from shorts to long pants. You know, can’t show no skin. Um, and for women, like, you know, you couldn’t have your hair out in public spaces. I was also stuck in Sudan because the, the border between, um, Ethiopia and Sudan is where I got attacked by these vicious wild slash street dogs who were African dogs.
And two of them came at me, and, um, one of them just attacked me and really took a, a big bite out of my knee. And I didn’t treat it right away because I wanted to walk and continue the journey. And so by the time I made it to, where was it, the capital of, of, of Sudan, I basically was infected.
Aislyn: Oh my God.
Mario: And uh, and so I had to go to the hospital and they treated me there. And basically I had to take these rabies shots, and I think it was something like, you take over, like, almost a dozen shots, but it has to be spread out over a week each. And it had to be at a temperature that was like, I think, like, you know, close to zero or something like that.
And I couldn’t do that while I was walking.
Aislyn: Sure. Yeah.
Mario: And I really, I contemplated, I’m like, oh, now I have to think about bringing a refrigerator. And I’m like, You know what? This is, this is crazy. Let’s just stay and see.
Aislyn: Let’s just pause.
Mario: Yeah. And you know what made it possible for me to pause in Sudan was, again, the insane hospitality of the people there.
I’ve never met kinder people than the Sudanese ever anywhere in the world. They would basically refuse to let you pay for anything. They would refuse to let you get a hotel. It’s always, I’m staying at someone’s compound or in their house, or if they don’t have space, then their friends or the family might have some. And I was there for about three months. It was, it was just incredible. Um, it was also the first place where I did a public talk.
Aislyn: Was that the TEDx?
Mario: Yeah. The TEDx, actually.
Aislyn: Yeah. Yeah.
Mario: So they took me to El-Ubayyid, which was, uh, just outside of the capital of, uh, Sudan. And I ended up doing the, the TEDx talk there.
And again, the energy and, you know, the momentum of the young people there. It is really hopeful to see, to witness, and to be a part of, um, all these young folks who have this creativity. Now with, you know, the advent of, like, you know, um, smartphones and, and internet connectivity, they’re doing so much with so little, and a lot of the skills, actually, that I learned through social media was through a lot of those young, um, folks, because I couldn’t carry a lot with me. Right. I didn’t, I couldn’t carry a gimbal.
So they taught me ways to essentially, you know, be a video editor and to, to be a videographer and a whole team of myself. And they were the ones who taught me a lot of these, uh, precious skills that would then carry on into my career.
Aislyn: Yeah. Wow.
Part of the journey that you mentioned earlier, or that you were a little bit nervous about, and you got some tips on, was the White Desert. So was that before or after the stop for the rabies vaccines?
Mario: So a lot of the journey was . . .
Aislyn: Yeah.
Mario: . . . figured out along the way.
I can’t necessarily go through certain places because of, like, a new war, longer distances, heat waves, the tsunamis, actually.
Aislyn: Wow.
Mario: So I had to find alternative routes that, you know, put me away from danger. And, crossing the White Desert was something that I looked forward to a long time before, but I didn’t know how I was gonna cross. I called up a friend of mine, uh, who I mentioned before, Levison Wood, who had done a similar journey and basically took camels across this White Desert.
Aislyn: Yeah. And how long does it take to cross if you go by camel? Roughly?
Mario: I mean, it depends on where you’re going, but the, the direction that I went is, like, essentially just over a week. So you’re essentially living with nomadic tribes for a week. And the way you do it is you go to a village where these ancient pyramids are in, in northern Sudan.
And then they have a herd of camels, and they basically have nomadic tribes who cross all those camels over to another village where they sell them. So we are talking about a herd of, it could be anything from a few dozen to a few hundred camels. So you’re, you’re moving with this herd and you’re not riding the camel.
This is where all the money goes into, ’cause you’re paying $2,000 USD for a camel, all the money goes into the camel carrying your water, right? Because there’s a lot of water that you need for the week. And then by the time you cross the, the desert, your camel is now worth half the cost because of the weight that it’s lost.
Aislyn: Wow.
Mario: Yeah, but it’s crazy. You, like, there’s no way you would know this.
I had to literally figure it all out as I’m moving. And, you know, just by asking people just for like, you know, “Hey, my friend, uh, tell me how can I get the camel?” And then, you know, 90 percent of them laugh at me or don’t think that, they don’t take me seriously.
Aislyn: Yeah, yeah. [Laughter]
Mario: You know, until someone finally goes like, “Uh, come here. Come here, my friend. Uh, I have a camel for you.”
You know? And then you never even get to see this camel, to be honest. Like, it’s just there to carry your water.
Aislyn: Oh my God.
Mario: Now you have water. That’s all.
Aislyn: Yeah. Hey, you know, you did it. You made it.
Mario: Whatever works.
Aislyn: Whatever works. Yeah, what a cool experience. Is there anything else that you’d like to share? A memorable moment?
Something that you feel like other travelers should experience?
Mario: Yeah. Um, walking Africa is such a romantic and beautiful experience. I say romantic because of the connection you have with yourself and the connection you have with other people and nature. You become integrated into whatever is going around you. And when you’re walking, you can’t necessarily escape it, you just have to be a part of it. So you become like this butterfly in the wind in a way, you know? And, to me, I think that’s, that’s just truly beautiful. Like, there were times where, like for instance, in Mozambique, you know, they, they get bombarded with a lot of things, like typhoons, because it’s right on the coast and monsoon season.
So there’s this one monsoon season where it just poured down, and I thought I was gonna, uh, essentially, you know, suffer from, um, uh, hypothermia, so.
Aislyn: Oh my God.
Mario: Yeah, this is something, like, you don’t really think about, right? Like, it’s just, it’s like surprises. There’s always, like, these weird, random surprises. And you know, as I’m going through there, you know, I’m thinking, Oh man, I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die. And every time you think this, there are people there to somehow rescue you.
Aislyn: Wow.
Mario: So a lot of people say like, oh, you know, you’re, you’re so crazy and brave for, for making it across Africa. And, you know, and yes, of course, there’s definitely a lot of courage that you need.
But it was the African people, really, that that always, um, were there at the right time to help support me.
Aislyn: It sounds like by the end of your journey you did feel some peace, or, I don’t know, alignment. Did you feel like you’d come into yourself in a different way?
Mario: I would say absolutely, while I was in Africa.
Aislyn: Yeah. Yeah.
Mario: And then when you come back, everything goes back to normal. And this is where like kind of deep depression comes in, where it’s like reverse culture shock. Where you, you’re coming from an experience where everything was so beautiful—beauty doesn’t necessarily mean it’s always positive, you know? Beauty, I think to me is, is just like when you’re acting in, in nature’s kind of glory in a way, right?
Aislyn: Mm-hmm.
Mario: And I was a part of that. And then when you come to a civilization that, it’s like constantly trying to fight against that.
Aislyn: Yeah.
Mario: So there’s this, this stress, there’s this pressure, this anxiety that I felt for at least the first two years, coming back from, from Africa.
Aislyn: Wow. You know, I don’t think we talk about that enough in travel, like the returning home you know, especially when you have changed. And I imagine you changed quite a bit during those two, two and a half years. So the reentry and then like you said, the reverse culture shock, realizing this is maybe not what I want for my life.
And then where do you go from there? So how did you cope with that and is that part of why you decided to continue on with these other adventures? ’Cause you’ve done amazing things since then. Like each one could be a book.
Mario: Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. It was difficult. I would say, the first year I really struggled. And then I needed to get on a bike and I’ve never biked more than 20 kilometers before in my life. And then I decided to cycle across North America.
Aislyn: As you do.
Mario: Yes, I do.
I didn’t really train to be honest. I probably should have done some training, now that I look back at all the pain and suffering that I went through. Especially because I started in B.C., in the West Coast, where all the mountains are.
So I started in the Rockies.
Aislyn: Oh my God.
Mario: Yeah. And I, I didn’t know how to, you know, I was like, OK, 2,000 meters, 3,000 meters, 4, you know, whatever—until you start cycling up a huge mountain. You’ll spend a whole day, maybe two days just to get up and then on the way down, it’s literally one of the most dangerous things ’cause you’re, you’re going down at like 80 kilometers an hour. You’re just booking it and one little pebble . . .
Aislyn: Yeah. That is.
Mario: . . . you know, could derail you and you just fall off the mountain and then, you know, nobody knows that, that that’s where you are.
So I had to find new challenges and riding on my bike across North America was an incredible experience. But it also distracted me from the ways that I was feeling. And it was a good outlet really, you know, pushing up that mountain I get, I get to all the emotions, all the, all the feel, the bad feelings that I’ve had. I just put it out into the pedal. I’d used that emotional fuel to drive me across the entire continent essentially, until I had nothing left. And then you’re like, OK, I’m at peace now. You know? Because you, you have a lot of time to think about a lot of issues.
Aislyn: Yeah, yeah, sure.
Mario: You have months. Yeah, exactly.
Months of going through issues and then just pain.
Aislyn: Yeah.
Mario: And then you’re like, you know what? Those issues weren’t that bad.
Aislyn: Yeah. Yeah. Like it’s nothing compared to the pain at the saddle after seven hours.
Mario: Oh my goodness.
Aislyn: I’m training for a long bike ride right now, so I can relate to the, you know, yes.
Mario: Ooh. Oh yeah. Your butt, your butt. It doesn’t like you for the first, uh, few weeks,
Aislyn: That transition, “the butt callous” as I call it. I know that’s not really what it is, but.
Mario: But that’s, they should call it something,
Aislyn: All right, so you were just like, you worked through the issues so did you feel like you had made peace with kind of re-entry and where you were and what you wanted to do next at the end of that cycling journey?
Mario: Yeah, absolutely. Um, doing long journeys like this really, I was saying this a lot while I was in Africa, which is you’re essentially combing through your thoughts, like how you comb through, you know, long kind of dangly hair. There’s a lot of trauma, and then those, those, those traumas are knots in your hair and you’re just trying to get rid, and it hurts, right? To get through that you’re like, ah, it’s painful.
And sometimes, some of the hair has to rip out and some of it, um, you know, if you put enough time and effort and energy into it, you can, uh, loosen it up. And then eventually your hair becomes like, you know, smooth and—obviously I didn’t, I don’t have any hair, but I can use my beard as an example. It becomes untangled, and when it becomes untangled, you really free yourself from all the past traumas that have held you back emotionally, um, intellectually. All the different kinds of ways that you can be held back as a human being. And it’s, it’s a continuing process, right? Like it will be a process until the day you die.
So, yeah, I think that that journey really allowed me to express myself more as a human being. I was able to, you know, love myself, appreciate and uh, accept who I am. And that was something that I had a huge issue with before. And I think every time you, you go through a journey or a challenge, you learn more about yourself, you know, like climbing up mountains.
Aislyn: Yeah.
Mario: Or going camping or just simple small things, and you know, and you bring your friends along with you and they also see, they see themselves growing with, with you in that journey as well. And then that’s an even more beautiful thing ’cause now it’s communal.
Aislyn: Yeah. Yeah. The community part, I think, is important. You know, we aren’t just maybe a solo journey as a way to kind of work through issues, but it’s not the only thing, right? We, we work as a pack.
Mario: Absolutely. Yeah.
Aislyn: Well, I’m curious to know, you said you’re 39 now, is that right? And OK. And you started this shift when you were 28. So how has your philosophy around travel and your approach changed since then? I mean, that’s an 11year journey with a lot of different, you know, untangling.
Mario: Yeah. It, it is. I, I think the way that I see travel is, is the same way I’ve seen travel my whole life. It’s just that now I’m actually able to travel.
Aislyn: Yeah.
Mario: When I was in university, I traveled a lot for, for track and field.
We’d go down to the States. Um, but my real first experience was going to El Salvador and, instead of like all the other, um, athletes on my team who decided to, to stay in the resort. I actually decided to pay for a cab to just take me around everywhere. And this cab driver was this really bizarre guy. Like, he had like NASCAR written on his, on his car. It was like, really, like the windows were tinted. He had like racing stripes, and the guy was like an extraordinary character, like blasting reggae tone. And I was like, of course, of course, I’m the only one who gets this guy.
And he was like, uh, he was, he was a professional surf instructor too, you know, that was his part-time job.
Aislyn: Let’s go.
Mario: Yeah, let’s go. Right? So I was like, oh boy, here we go. And you know, I was young at the time, and this guy really, like, changed my outlook on, on uh, culture and travel.
And he, he introduced me to his, like his family, his home. And he didn’t even really talk much.
He was just like, you know, Hey, this is, uh, I just wanna show you around. These are my favorite places. We ate at his favorite place.
Aislyn: Amazing.
Mario: Right? And that was, that was my first real travel experience. And so for me, I’ve always seen travel where authentic experiences means everything, you know, to be able to learn about a culture, to be able to learn about how that specific part of the world, how they operate differently.
I think it’s so important for everyone to know that there’s not just one way of being. There are multiple ways of being, and that time in El Salvador really taught me that. And that’s kind of what I’ve yearned for my entire life, for the rest of my life. And so for me it’s about, you know, sustainable tourism.
You know, there are so many different ways to travel, so long as you respect the places that you’re going to. And I see, especially now with the influx of, uh, of travel influencers, how many of them are actually not respecting the cultures. They’re going there like, it’s almost like a playground, but you know, these playgrounds aren’t really playgrounds, right? They’re where people live, they’re where Indigenous people live. They’re where, you know, people who have lived there their entire lives, who have a living.
Aislyn: Yeah. It’s so helpful and educational to go out into the world and, you know, you were talking about understanding that there’s different ways of being, and it’s, I feel like it’s like that kind of decentering yourself, realizing that there’s, your way of living and the way that you were raised is not the only way, it’s not the best way.
It’s one way. The flip side of that is the over-tourism, is the kind of people going and consuming rather than having a symbiotic relationship. So it’s really cool that that is part of your message and your platform.
Mario: It, it has to be. Tying back to, you know, Turks and Caicos where I was born, Turks and Caicos is such a small island and sustainable tourism is literally the only way we can survive. And so it’s kind of been ingrained in me to always see things like that, right? Like when we do sport fishing for instance, like bringing, putting the fish back in, you know, into the water and, um, respecting the seasons when we can catch lobsters and things like that, you know, that’s something that we’ve had early on in our culture.
So I feel like sustainability is just something that’s, like, within me. And I think that the next generation of explorers, adventurers really need to hone in on that because I think we won’t have the same kind of experiences.
Aislyn: Yeah. Yeah. OK. So in Turks and Caicos, it sounds like that preservation of certain traditions, or like you said, respecting the environmental limits, for example. Like there are limits. We know that, there are limits.
Mario: There are literal limits. And I think for us in Turks, because we’re so small, um, you know, when things change, they’re very immediate to us. And so I would say that Turks and Caicos is kind of like the microcosm of the world in a way where you can see a lot of things happening and changing in real time, very quickly.
Like when the water warms up a bit. We can see the corals are bleaching quicker. We can see when people are using too, uh, too much sunscreen. That is bad for corals. We can see the corals starting to strip away, being bleached. Then when we enforce rules and laws where people have to use reef-friendly sunscreens, you know, you can start seeing the revitalizations of the coral reef systems, almost immediately.
Like it’s such a incredible place to actually see all these changes happening in real time.
Aislyn: Yeah. Well, I would love to end with, if you can share, what you’re working on now or next, like what is your next Mario adventure?
Mario: Well, so many different plans. Let’s see what actually works out. I can’t really talk too much about it, to be honest. It’s a, like one of those NDA things.
Aislyn: Yeah, yeah.
Mario: But it’s a TV show.
Aislyn: Cool.
Mario: It’s, yeah, the show is about culture, the beauty of the world, and traveling to those different places within the adventure kind of culture, food mindset.
Aislyn: So you said end of, end of year is when that will . . .
Mario: End of the year is when I start. Yeah. And, uh, and of course that’s when I also, I’ll be completing my book. which is about my walk across Africa.
Aislyn: Cool.
Mario: I’m also releasing, uh, if you go on my website, which is www.mariorigby.com, you know, I have a lot of, uh, blogs on all my travels there. So if you visit there, you can actually check out a lot of my adventures and really see the in-depth stories. Early next week, I’ll actually be releasing my, um, my experience when I went to Algeria, living with the nomadic tribes.
I was there for about a month, living uh, with the, um, Tuareg people, which they’ve lived like this for thousands of years, and they have lineages that go way back. And it’s incredible to, to, to witness and, and be a part of, you know, these, these people’s lives. And they’ve, you know, allowed me to stay with them. And I think their story is just incredible. And the visuals that I got from, from, from being there, it’s just out of this world. So I can’t wait to share the, the, the story of that.
Then in between those, I’m just really enjoying my kind of journey, going to places that I’ve always wanted to go to.
Aislyn: That was Mario Rigby. What an inspiring and adventurous guy.
I know that I’m gonna be following his adventures going forward, and you can too on social media. We’ve linked to all of those platforms in the show notes, you can also learn more about his upcoming projects, speaking engagements, and environmental initiatives at mariorigby.com.
Join us next week for episode two, an epic cultural adventure in the Canadian Arctic.
Debbie: Today, women can hunt, and men like Sandy can do throat singing, but it’s still a competition.
Debbie [in interview]: How often do you win, Sandy?
Sandy: Surprisingly, there’s quite a bit. [Laughter]
Debbie: And I’ve got to ask, how do you know who wins?
Janice: The first one who laughs is the loser. [Laughter]
Aislyn: Ready for more Travel Tales? Visit afar.com/podcast and be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok, we’re @afarmedia. If you enjoyed today’s exploration, I hope you’ll come back for more great stories.
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