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Where those flags are on the horizon...
that's Barretos, that's the rodeo grounds.
It's like a mirage!
I can't believe we're here!
A-ha!
Oh, thank you!
Ah!
Oh, man...
I can't believe we made it!
Oh, thank you.
Thank you, thank you.
Thank you.
There is a common phrase in our world that goes,
"The dog may be man's best friend,
"but the horse helped write history."
Everything we have today and we enjoy in modern society
was built on the back of a horse.
They were the first animals brought to the New World
to plough our fields, to go to war for us,
to carry us to the West and find new fertile lands.
And according to both fossil records and oral traditions,
horses were also an active part of Indigenous culture
across the Americas even before settlers arrived.
I've lived so intensely beside these majestic animals.
Travelling, eating with them, sleeping next to them,
living great adventures next to them.
And the horse has been in my life...
since I was born.
My name is Filipe because it means "a friend of horses,"
and I was on top of a horse before I could walk.
My earliest memory of a horse is a near tragedy.
I'm seven years old, I'm on a big, grey mare;
My dad had put me in an equestrian program
to learn how to jump.
The coach had taken us out on a field to gallop the horses,
and I lost the grey mare.
And she was just galloping,
galloping, galloping.
I remember at that moment,
being on that runaway horse, I was so scared,
but at the same time, the adrenaline I felt,
I kinda wished that mare would just keep running forever.
I was born in a small town
called Espírito Santo do Pinhal in Saão Paulo, Brazil.
I grew up on a small farm.
My first horse was called Marto Lipe.
We couldn't ride the thing because it was a wild horse;
It was absolutely crazy,
but I remember that just to look at it and be around it,
you know, it just made me so happy.
When I was nine years old,
my life changed dramatically.
My parents moved to Canada.
I remember when my dad told me "So, we're moving to Canada!"
I was like...
I didn't even know what Canada was!
I look back at that moment of my life
where at nine I moved countries...
It was the first moment that I had to face real adversity.
The horse completely left my life
for the first few years that we were here.
We just didn't have the means.
When I was a little kid, I was the most scared child
on the face of the earth,
and when my dad turned the lights off in my room,
I would cry.
I was afraid of the dark,
I thought the boogeyman was under my bed.
My dad would come into my room;
He would tell me the story of Aimé Tschiffely,
a Swiss school teacher who in 1925
rode horseback from Buenos Aires, Argentina,
all the way to the United States.
He would use that story to show me
that Tschiffely wasn't afraid.
Tschiffely crossed the Americas with his horses Mancha and Gato.
He climbed the highest mountains,
swam rivers full of crocodiles.
And I remember just imagining what it would be like to cross
all these countries on horseback,
and it just became my life's dream.
There's this innate want and desire in me to wander.
Ultimately, every cell in my body
was telling me to get on that horse and ride home.
It just got stronger and stronger the older I got.
A long rider is an individual that rides
a thousand miles or more in a journey.
Oscar Wilde is a long rider.
Marco Polo. Charles Darwin.
And there's an international organization called
The Long Riders Guild
that shares all these stories of people who have
jumped into the saddle
and ridden off into the unknown.
The Long Riders Guild was the world's first
international association of equestrian explorers.
It has members in 48 countries.
More than 100 of the long riders are fellows
of the World Geographical Society
because of the extraordinary journeys that they made.
I've answered emails for more than 20 years from people
in every country from Albania to Yemen.
What's important to note is that when people are confronted
with the reality,
not the romance, of equestrian travel,
then they're forced to see
how difficult and potentially dangerous and hard it is.
That's why 95 percent of the people
who have ever written me never set off.
To prepare for this journey,
I spent two years in a war room.
I had to lose weight; I had to build my core.
Make contacts, draw the route,
reading as much literature as I could.
Just convincing that a 20-something-year-old kid
who had no previous experience long riding
could pull off one of the longest
and most arduous rides of the 21st century.
To be honest with you, when Filipe came to me
and told me he was gonna do Canada to Brazil,
I didn't believe.
I said, "Wow, he's gonna say that,
"but after one month or two,
"trying to get everything together,
"he's gonna just forget about it."
Like, what are you leaving in Calgary?
I'm not leaving anything in Calgary.
You're not?
No. Everything I'm taking now,
I'm gonna take with me on the trip.
Emma and I, we met in university.
She always encouraged me to take risks,
even though it meant that, you know,
I wasn't going to see her while I was training for my ride.
My plan is to ride from Calgary, Canada,
to my family's home
in Espírito Santo do Pinhal, Brazil.
Right now the weather is warm,
but winter is going to creep up on us very quickly,
and I have got to make it to Mexico by then,
or the whole journey is screwed.
My dad is thinking about riding with me through Mexico,
and my mom may come out at some point in Latin America.
But for the most part, I'll be going alone.
Crossing the Panama Canal will be a major issue,
but I know that by the time we get there, we'll figure it out.
Then I ride through Colombia, and make it to Brazil.
At our pace,
I think it's gonna take about two years to get home.
We're at the Greyhound bus station in Toronto.
I should be getting on the bus at 12:15 and going to Saskatoon.
I get to Saskatoon for 5 o'clock in the morning tomorrow.
Filipe was facing two major obstacles,
tactical and political.
Even though Filipe had an intense equestrian background
and was a skilled rider,
he did not know anything about horseback packing,
pack horses, or pack saddles.
So I contacted Canadian long rider Stan Walchuk,
who is the expert in that topic,
and Stan not only offered to mentor Filipe,
he invited him to come to British Colombia,
where he took him under his wing and taught him
everything about horse packing.
My background is different from a lot of horse people
in that I've been able to learn
from lots of different people over the years.
And I've taken ideas and been with many different people
and tried to collect them all,
and look at what works and doesn't work.
Take these, walk up to the horse...
Just kinda clip on,
clip it on there.
Walk it around.
Pull really hard on the front corner.
What will happen is that the horse will maybe struggle a bit.
It will just stand there because it knows
that rope is the absolute boss.
Then I started making lists, everything I needed,
from the horses, paperwork,
saddle, pack saddle,
horseshoes, equipment,
tent, a one-burner oven...
Everything. The planning was tremendous.
I didn't have the budget to undertake this journey,
so during the planning stage, I sent out hundreds of emails.
I sent letters, called different ranchers,
until finally two ranchers in Montana
agreed to give me Frenchie and Bruiser for the journey.
This is my man Frenchie over here,
and Bruiser on the other side.
Now, Frenchie's been okay.
He's been pretty good, but he's really nervous about everything,
so we're trying to take things really slowly with him.
I started working on the horses
with putting the pack saddle on Frenchie
and putting some weight on it and getting him used to it.
At one point he completely freaked out, started bucking,
and I lost a hold of the rope,
and then he scared Bruiser,
and Bruiser started bucking and threw me off.
I got a huge slit in my pants, I think my finger's broken,
rope burn...
So I'm a little freaked out. I don't have that much time.
Leaving from Calgary put me on top of Montana,
Wyoming, Colorado, horse country.
A lot less people in population,
which makes the ride a lot easier.
The Calgary Stampede is Canada's largest rodeo,
and it's internationally renowned in Western culture.
I was lucky they agreed to give me a send-off
to begin my journey south.
It is 10:40 right now,
and we leave in 20 minutes.
So it's crunch time.
Crunch, crunch.
I've been training for this moment since I was a little kid,
since the first time I heard the story of Aimé Tschiffely,
riding from Buenos Aires to New York.
It's been, you know, a crazy year.
Just getting people to believe that this could happen,
just to be here for me is already a huge win.
To be with these beautiful horses
and living my dream.
You know, I think more people need to not be scared to
do what they love and follow their dreams,
'cause we're in a society today where everyone's so scared
to do things, to think outside the box, and it's really sad.
You gotta go for what you believe,
because when you do, it's like...
what I'm feeling right now,
there's no other feeling like this, you know?
And my mom is very worried, obviously.
She's a mother, so...
she said she's gonna have to take some sedatives
for the next two years to try to sleep at night.
But it just feels right, you know?
We're a family that we move on instinct, we move on feeling,
and if it felt wrong, I wouldn't do it.
I'm gonna go soon, alright?
I'm gonna be worried about you.
I'm okay. I'm gonna be fine.
We're gonna talk, okay? I'm gonna be fine.
Don't be worried about me.
You know I'm gonna figure it out, right?
Although she knew that this was gonna
drive me away from her, it was gonna drive us apart,
she never told me not to do it,
which now, looking back, how selfless is that?
I love you.
I'll see you soon, okay? Don't be sad.
I felt like I had a bowling ball
lodged in my throat.
I was just swallowing... swallowing the fear back.
I was very scared.
Very scared.
Every equestrian journey is different.
During my solo ride across Northern Pakistan,
I was kidnapped, tortured,
falsely imprisoned,
and nearly died of hepatitis.
In contrast,
the British explorers who tried to reach the South Pole in 1911,
their horses were eaten by Orca whales.
Of course, there's always the traditional challenges
of mountains, jungles, swamps,
disease-carrying insects,
carnivorous beasts,
and very dangerous human beings.
It was a million degrees.
I'm already thinking,
"Why did I decide to leave in July?"
No shade, we're next to this road,
and all of a sudden I realized I forgot to bring water.
Are you kidding me?
Are you the guy who's riding to South America?
Yeah!
Well, good luck, man!
I travelled three kilometres an hour,
30 kilometres a day.
You know, that's the max you can ride a day for these horses,
so you're always in the middle of nowhere.
So usually you just knock on a door and ask for help.
Like, who does that these days, you know what I mean?
And I knocked on these people's door,
and they came out and they were like,
"... Yes?" and I have two horses with me, I'm like,
"Oh, hi, my name is Filipe,
"I'm riding horses from Canada to Brazil,
"and I was wondering if I could spend the night here?"
And they were like...
So I just set up camp in their field.
I wake up and Bruiser
had bit Frenchie's back right where the pack sits.
I couldn't put the pack on because if I put the pack on
it was gonna start rubbing it
and it was gonna create a wound
and it was gonna slowly become worse and worse.
But I had no choice; I had to pack him.
I could notice the discomfort.
I take the pack saddle off and sure enough,
it had rubbed the wound and now it was inflated.
If I keep going like this, it's only gonna get worse.
I'm gonna have to stop a car
and see if someone can take the pack to the next town,
and then I'll just figure it out when I get there.
I heard about you through my mom
when I was going to the Stampede,
that you were going to Brazil on a horse,
and I'm a horse-lover myself, so yeah,
just this one day you were passing through the reserve
and I seen you and I thought I'd help you.
Right now I'm dispatching for the Blood Tribe police.
I'm actually just waiting to go to Depot,
and then I'll come back and be a police officer on the reserve,
you know, where I can help my own people.
I'd like to give you this for your travels
so you'll always be protected.
Sharlee took me to meet one of the Blood Tribe's elders.
She gave me some sweet grass
so I could burn and protect me
because I was very nervous to cross the American border.
She saw that I was nervous, she's like,
"Alright, you burn it,
"you smother yourself with the smoke,
"and you pray to your God
"and ask for your God to protect you."
When we first came to Canada,
my dad had a work permit
and he renewed that work permit for eight years.
On year number eight, the work permit got denied,
and we were asked to leave Canada in 15 days.
We went to this immigration centre,
we talked to them through a Plexiglas window,
and just the way this woman, like, talked to us,
it was like we had... stolen or killed.
Just treated us like garbage.
And I remember at one point, like, I was just bawling,
and this woman did not blink an eye.
Like, it was just almost like that Plexiglas
had her in another world
where hearts and compassion doesn't exist.
So my dad, in a panic, hired a lawyer,
got some bad advice,
and the lawyer told him to apply for humanitarian reasons
so that we could remain here.
That took two years,
in which time I started university,
and after my first year of university,
we got a letter saying,
"Denied.
"You have 15 days to leave the country again."
Well, with my immigration history,
and the fact that I'm a Brazilian kid
riding two horses,
I was so nervous coming up to the US border.
It ended up being the easiest border
of the entire trip.
We've just arrived in the US,
I'm on my way to bad Montana,
and it's just extremely hot.
It's so hot.
I've been walking for, like, maybe 10 miles,
to give the horses a break.
Oh, it's the first shade I've found,
and it feels good to be here.
Once we entered Montana,
we found ourselves in the worst drought
the US had had in a generation.
Come on, buddy, please.
And that made my life and the horses' life just hell.
So here's a stream behind me that was once flowing
with water, and today it's just bone-dry.
You can even walk right in it and walk right under the bridge.
And this is real sad because a lot of farmers
depend on these creeks to farm and to water their crops.
Finding water for these animals
became such a huge problem.
You only eat after your horses have eaten.
You only drink after they've had something to drink.
And you only rest when your horses are resting and happy.
So, we rested for a couple days
at Copper Spring Ranch,
which is Bruiser's original home,
before I made my way through the bad country of Yellowstone.
- It's hot. - Bacon and eggs at 5:30.
In Tschiffely's Ride,
there is a beautiful black and white photo
of him crossing a suspension bridge with Gato in Bolivia.
It was the first time where I was like,
"Holy shit, I'm doing this."
Here I was, feeling the bridge sway,
you know, hearing the river underneath us.
Wow!
That's a nice view.
You could just see how strong these animals are.
Sometimes, like, we couldn't even climb up the mountain;
We'd be holding on their tails
and they'd be pulling us up.
On our last river crossing in Yellowstone,
Frenchie ended up hurting his stifle really bad,
which forced us to haul the horses back
to Copper Spring Ranch
so we could figure out what to do next.
Frenchie was the Dwayne Johnson of the group.
Super strong, that horse is so good-looking,
but at the same time, he was just a mess.
He loved to eat; He would fart all the time;
He snored while he slept.
He was the comedic relief.
So, Copper Spring Ranch,
they're gonna lend me two other horses
so I can take them on the trip and continue
while these guys rest up and get better.
I knew all along that was gonna be one of the hardest parts
of this trip, was my horses' health,
especially going through mountains
like we did in Yellowstone.
But luckily I can give them the time off
and not push them and hurt them even more.
That's the most important part.
After travelling for weeks with these horses,
it was very disheartening to have to train new horses...
and worse, leave one of my kids, Frenchie, behind.
What you have to remember is
that horses are natural nomads.
Wild horses travel
20, 30, 40 miles a day
in search of grass and water.
So, when you take a horse and you take a human,
like Frenchie and Filipe,
and you put them together,
and you aim them in the same direction every day,
a new herd ethic develops.
So, in exchange for transportation,
the horse gives unquestioning loyalty and love.
Filipe's emotional bond with his horses
is so deep that it's affected his life forever.
Kids ask me all the time,
"How do you go to the bathroom?",
"What do you carry in your pack saddle?",
and "How do you shower?"
Of course I tell them I don't shower,
at which point they all wanna sign up
and go with me on this journey.
Woo!
In Wyoming I got this really cool experience
as a cowboy to work in a cattle ranch.
And before I left,
the rancher Maryl was like, "You know what?
"A trip like yours could really use a third horse."
His name is Texas.
A really nice rancher here in Wyoming
has offered to donate him so I can have three horses
and alternate which one I ride, which one I pack,
so one horse is always getting a break every day.
It's an amazing offer, and we'll see how he does.
When I was crossing from Southern Wyoming into Colorado,
I crossed this huge mountain.
I was by myself for five days.
When I came down from that mountain,
I came to a town called Savery.
You know those sci-fi movies
where you come back to Earth and everyone's gone?
That's what it felt like.
Riding around this town, there was no one.
And then the sign literally said,
"Savery, population: 25."
I met this elderly fellow.
He was a very lonely man, you could tell very quickly,
living by himself.
His name was Sam.
My dad was born here.
I was born in Dickson, four miles away.
Took me 78 years to go 4 miles;
That's not very good mileage.
The only thing he said to me, Sam, was,
"Whatever you do,
"you don't ride across the million-dollar highway."
But the problem is that we needed to get south quick
because of the winter.
The winter in northern US could have stopped the trip.
In the morning, the horses' buckets were freezing.
It got to the point where, a couple weeks later,
the only thing I could do
was cross the million-dollar highway.
I go to the tourists' office
to ask what they think the best time to do it is.
She's like, "No, no, no, you can't, it's too dangerous!"
Like, "The turns are too tight; There's no guardrail."
I was like, "No, no, I'm not trailing them, I'm riding them."
She's like, "You're what?!"
It's 4 o'clock in the morning,
we're just outside of Ouray,
about to get on the million-dollar highway
headed over to Silverton.
It's gonna be a very scary part of the trip:
11,000 feet, very narrow roads,
and a lot of cars.
So that's why we're leaving so early.
Let's go. Come on.
We start in pitch black.
And all I can see is that there's a huge drop to my right,
but I can't see how far it goes.
Then when the sun starts coming up,
I actually see what's around me,
and it's just so scary.
It's literally just like a drop.
There's a rock face here, and abyss here,
so if my horses get scared, they're gonna run for the abyss
and I need to jump off and try to survive.
We start climbing.
It's so quiet and so cold.
There's very few cars, but every time a car goes by,
we're just like holding our breath,
and the horses are okay.
I finally got over the million-dollar highway pass,
but the Colorado winter was quickly creeping up on me.
We're like at seven, eight thousand feet here,
so we're still in the high country
and they're calling for snow tonight.
I'm just excited to get off this mountain.
It's freezing.
Gonna give the horses something to eat now.
After three more days of riding through these mountains,
I was able to get to lower ground where it warmed up.
I remember from my backpacking days
that there was a website called Couchsurfing.
And sure enough, there was a guy there
from Southern Colorado called Peter Lisker.
I messaged him, he messaged me back right away;
He's like, "Yeah, for sure, you can stay at my house."
Really nice fellow.
I think he only wore Hawaiian shirts.
Before I left his house, I noticed that he was like...
kinda weird?
My sister Naomi was beautiful.
She was intelligent, witty,
very strong-willed,
and she loved horses.
She passed away in March.
This is pretty much what I've got left of her.
She would be thrilled to be going for one last ride.
So, this is Naomi.
I'm gonna take her on one last ride,
and hopefully she'll be able to make it all the way
to Brazil with me.
Gonna put her in the pack saddle,
and I should be sharing this journey with her
because she was very passionate about horses,
so we have something in common.
To Naomi, I'll just say,
"Happy trails, and until we meet again."
The life of a lonely long rider.
Being alone, it's kinda like
having a little pebble in your boot.
You're not gonna get down.
You're tired, you're gonna keep riding,
and that pebble starts to grow,
and it's all you can think about.
Now you're playing with it, and you're moving it around.
And the pebble becomes a boulder.
And the pain is there, but you're trying to hide it
with other things, but you can't stop thinking about the pebble.
Loneliness is like that.
It just engulfs you.
The deepest scars I have in my soul
came from all that time that I spent alone.
Whoa, whoa!
It's the perfect recipe for craziness.
We need fucking water!
You have to literally live it...
Fuck!
...and feel that solitude
pressing against your skin,
and that's the only way that you can really understand
what impact being out there by yourself
for such long periods of time can have
on a human being, on a long rider.
Another big lesson from this trip
is that life is meant to be shared.
It could be the most beautiful, colourful,
epic sunset in the world,
but when you're eating your ramen noodles,
sitting on top of your panniers by yourself,
it just doesn't seem as colourful
as when you're sharing it with someone.
Riding from Bernalillo out of Albuquerque today.
I got Emma with me.
How's it going back there?
It's awesome!
So, having Emma come out to meet me in New Mexico
was amazing.
Emma, what happened this morning with you and Texas here?
Got on the horse,
started to walk away out of the driveway,
and got bucked off.
She's officially a cowgirl now.
I'm proud of you.
You stayed on really... oh, I was so scared when I saw.
And luckily, I was able to get Frenchie back
after his month of resting.
It was a beautiful day.
Came to a locked gate on the trail we were following,
and because it was gonna take so long to go back,
I started looking for alternatives,
and I saw this field that would take me back to the trail,
so I thought, "Hey, I could just ride across."
It had some tall weeds on it.
A few metres into this field...
Fuck!
Bruiser's stuck in a big hole behind me.
I'm gonna try and get him out.
I... I didn't see this.
The grass is really deep.
He freaked out and tried to turn around,
but it all happened so quickly.
Come on, buddy.
- Careful! - Come on!
Ready?
One, two, three.
Come on, buddy.
Come on, come on!
Come on, Bruiser, come on.
Come on!
Fuck!
My heart was trying to punch its way
out of my ribcage, you know?
Come on, buddy! Come on, come on, Bruiser!
- Come on, buddy! - Come on!
You're okay, buddy.
You're okay. Gonna get you out of here.
I managed to wiggle him around,
took the saddle off to lighten up the load,
I dug the ditch a little bit, and then I jumped out and said,
"Alright, Bruiser, I'm gonna count to three,
"and on three, you jump out of there."
Oh, yes!
Luckily, he was okay.
Didn't hurt himself, miraculously.
Well, he was riding down the bar ditch going through 85
and I passed him when I was going to work that morning,
and then when I come back that evening
I stopped and talked to him.
We passed another man right up the road here a while ago
on a bicycle.
I didn't stop to talk to him.
He didn't have a horse!
We didn't have anything in common to talk about.
We're in the middle of nowhere in Texas,
and all of a sudden, I see hanging
on this barbed wire fence,
there's all these laminated pages with photos on them.
We meet Neta, an animal rights advocate.
She tells me that a couple days earlier she saw me riding,
pulled out her camera, and takes this beautiful photo.
We met and she showed me the photograph
and told me the story about the wall.
He was in a feedlot
and the investigator said he kept watching
for his owner to come back and get him.
And then he ended up killed by.
And that's the Wall of Hope,
which she started to tell the story of how horses
can have an impact and change people's lives.
More than 90,000 horses already this year have been taken down
to Mexico for slaughter,
but the problem is that the manner
in which these horses are transported
and handled are very inhumane.
It makes me sad that I'm, you know,
riding the same way that these thousands of horses
are being taken to be slaughtered in Mexico.
But this is a really cool initiative
so people remember them.
Are you excited to go home for a little while?
Excited, no.
But, you know, you have a two-year journey,
so I have all kinds of time to meet you again.
Today is kind of a happy day,
but also a little bit of sadness.
I'm saying goodbye to Texas.
He's just not as big or strong as Frenchie and Bruiser,
so I'm trading him out for a new horse, a mustang.
He's a native American wild horse,
which is even cooler for me
because there's just so much history there.
I'm so happy to have Dude.
When Tschiffely went on his ride, he took two Criollos,
the wild horses of South America.
He would say how important that was,
that these horses had that wild instinct,
how important it was for their survival.
When Canadians and Americans would tell me,
"You're gonna cross Mexico on a horse?
"You're gonna die," I would ask them,
"Have you ever been to Mexico?"
And each time, they replied no.
But then, as I got into the southern part of the US,
every Mexican family I met,
they told me I was gonna be killed in Mexico.
I was forced to wait at the border at a cattle stockyard
where the slaughter horses stay before entering Mexico.
My horses did not feel comfortable there
the entire time.
It was as if they could smell the fear.
You can only legally take two horses into Mexico.
Dude was actually ridden across by a kid named Jesus.
I put him into Jesus's hand,
and he took the horse in 15 minutes
and he's like, "Yup! Dude is in Mexico!"
And then the other two horses, because they were going legally,
it's paperwork, it's the vet, and you call, you do this,
you do that...
After two weeks, I finally got the horses into Mexico
and my dad was waiting for me on the other side in Ojinaga.
Day one in Mexico!
We're headed towards Jimenez.
We'll probably be there... I don't even know, ten days,
seven days. Only God knows.
My dad was gonna ride with me
through the northern part of Mexico.
- How you feeling? - I feel good.
First day, not too tired.
And, I don't know,
let's see by the end of the week,
I can tell you better.
This was my dad's dream way before it was my own.
My dad learned of the story of Aimé Tschiffely
when he was a young kid.
In a way, I was living the dream for the both of us.
Right now, I'm just missing my shower.
I'd love to have a shower now and get a nice bath,
but that's how it is.
Crossing the Chihuahua desert,
that's where 90 percent of the drugs that go from
South America through that corridor in Central America
and Mexico into the US and Canada,
so it's a very dangerous place.
On the first day we're riding in Mexico,
we were interrogated by the police.
"Oh my God, I'm so sorry, we're riding horses to Brazil!"
"What's in the pack saddle?" We tell them.
They calmed down. They were horsemen themselves.
I heard a couple of them talking, like,
which horse they liked better.
They let us go.
At night time, we were pitching our tent
in the middle of nowhere.
We didn't know if this was a route that
the drug traffickers were gonna be coming through;
We didn't know if someone was gonna take us hostage...
or kill us.
My dad and I had a long talk about how we cannot accept
any help from anyone that's working with the drug traffic.
My dad makes it very clear that's the number one rule.
That afternoon, we get to a little village.
It's like -3 outside,
and this guy's got a house with heaters in it.
The number one rule went straight out the window.
We slept at his house.
My dad's gone ahead to see if we can find a place,
if there's a ranch or something up there.
It was really late, and I was tired,
and I left the panniers inside where I put the horses.
Alright, going to sleep.
Hope for the best.
When I woke up in the morning and unzipped my tent,
Frenchie had knocked over the panniers
with Naomi's ashes.
And now he was eating Naomi's ashes, and I'm like,
"Oh my God."
I get Frenchie off the ashes, put the ashes back,
say a "Hail Mary," apologize to Naomi.
We, as sons, we have a hard time with our fathers.
I think because we're so similar to them.
My dad and I were in the middle of this desert,
and one day we're talking about Palominos.
One guy said Palomino was just a colour,
the other guy said Palomino was a colour and a breed,
and we had this, like, tempestuous fight.
Like, it all blew up
and we didn't talk to each other all day.
It's crazy how when you're suffering so much
and you're out there and there's so much unknown,
how something so little and minute
as a horse or a breed can become
this epic battle.
No one celebrated the journey like the Mexicans.
Every town we rode into, people just started showing up.
Some days we'd have five people riding with us.
Some days seven.
And one day, we had a thousand horsemen and women
saddle their horses and ride with us.
To see that many animals,
that many horse people together...
May God our father
and the holy spirit watch over you.
It's funny, here they turned my trip into
a trip for peace, and I understand it
because the people are so desperate for it,
and they need some hope.
And if I can give them a little bit, then that's cool.
It's just amazing. I don't even know what to say.
I can't say thank you enough for the cabalgantes
here from Rio Grande,
gave us these really nice shirts,
and have welcomed us like family here.
It's been like that all over Mexico.
It's so nice.
Today, I am feeling that I have 100 pounds
over my shoulders.
My dad was a champion.
At his age, to become a long rider, you know,
he rode more than 1,000 miles consecutively.
It was amazing.
My dad is very religious.
He had cancer, and he truly believes
that it was his prayers that cured him.
It was very important for him to finish the journey
at the Basilica of Guadalupe to thank her.
He thanked the saints for keeping us safe,
and asked her to continue to watch over me,
as I had more than half of the journey still ahead.
I guess once he was with me
and he saw what the journey was,
he realized how dangerous it was for his son
and that I may not make it to Brazil.
When people think about what I do, it becomes romantic.
It's a guy on a horse galloping through the jungle
or in the woods, in the mountain tops, and the birds...
There were so many close calls.
It's the worst! Fuck.
There was points where I was riding these horses
on roads where if stuck out my arm
those trucks would have hit me.
Holy fuck.
Aimé Tschiffely gets to Texas,
and he shuts the trip down because of the car traffic.
A car actually almost hits one of his horses
and he gets so aggravated and so scared of the traffic
in 1928 at this point,
he says, "No, no, I'm pulling the plug.
"I'm trailing the rest of the way."
I'm just so happy I came out of that alive.
Thank you, baby Jesus.
Wow.
Southern Mexico,
that's when the suffering got real.
Torrential downpour right now.
Luckily, I found a restaurant here
that let me tie the horses up and put my tent...
Alright, so...
today was possibly
the worst day of my life.
One second is all it takes.
Oh, God...
I was inside the restaurant,
talking to the people who ran the place,
and all of a sudden the guy I was talking to said,
"Hey, man..." he said,
"Your horse is going on the road."
And I turned around and I saw Frenchie
walking around on the highway,
and I ran out of the door and I ran towards him,
and before I could even get close,
I saw a car,
I saw a truck...
Frenchie's just been hit by a car.
It's the worst moment of the trip so far.
He fell on top of the hood,
and then fell on the ground.
There were sparks from his shoes...
the crunching of the hood...
the sound of the car braking...
him scrambling getting back up, and then he ran towards traffic,
and there was tractor trailers coming.
And I ran after him, and I didn't want to...
I didn't know what to do.
I almost got hit by a truck.
And then the guy that hit him wanted to charge me
for the damage. He wanted so much money.
And he wanted to call the cops.
Luckily, I had just met these charros,
and they gave me their number literally like 15 minutes
before this all happened.
And I called them,
and they came and helped me with their trailer.
They brought me to their ranch, the vet checked Frenchie out,
stitched his lip, which was cut.
His back leg looks pretty bad.
I don't know what's gonna happen now.
Hopefully he'll be okay.
Wow.
I spent one month with Frenchie,
treating him, feeding him.
He was very scared.
This was a very important moment of the trip where I learned
that you need to be on top of your horses
all day every day.
When I left Canada, I was an atheist.
I saw the bad side of religion, you know?
I felt that religion started wars;
I felt that religion separated people.
But I tell you what, my friend.
When you think you're gonna die
or you think your animals are gonna die,
or your kids...
you pray.
And today I believe in God.
I don't know what it is, who it is.
I do feel like now going through everything I went through,
there has to be something bigger.
There has to be something out there.
The Long Riders Guild maintains
the world's strictest code of equestrian ethics,
and Filipe is an excellent example
of how a long rider
maintains his ethics.
He always put the welfare of his horses
before his own ego.
Frenchie gets very curious
when you start eating in front of him.
Tomorrow, if all goes well,
we'll be going into Guatemala
and hopefully breaking through this next barrier,
which is going through Central America.
Hopefully it's gonna give us some life, give me some life,
because right now it's a little bit of a mental struggle.
For sure, it's tough.
Based on my experience with Mexico
and speaking to different people,
I knew it was going to be impossible to cross the borders
through Central America legally.
There are viruses that exist, let's say, in Brazil,
that don't exist here.
So, in order for those viruses not to spread across borders,
there are a lot of requirements and laws and quarantine
and exams that need to be done,
every time you cross a border with a horse.
And a lot of these countries don't even have regulations
when you get to the border.
They don't have a form to give you.
You're a guy with three horses
and they see that as an opportunity.
So I started crossing all of the borders illegally.
They have literally the border, and then right next to it
they have this little path where they cross cocaine,
weapons, whatever you want.
At the first border of Mexico/Guatemala
I gave the horses to a guy,
walked over with my boots and my spurs
and horse hairs all over me to the actual border.
The guy stamped my passport, didn't ask anything.
I went like 50 metres down,
my horses came out of the jungle,
and I continued on.
The first town I got to, La Libertad,
this guy's like, "Hey! Come, there's been an accident."
There was a rooster and a chicken
in the middle of the road.
There was a guy bleeding to death.
Spectators here talking as if they're watching a soccer game.
And then I couldn't piece it together, I'm like,
"Why is there a rooster and a chicken
"in the middle of the road?"
And then when I asked him, he's like,
"He stole that chicken and that rooster.
"That's why they killed him."
And you start to understand what a life is worth
in Central America.
In Latin America, they tend to use corn to feed horses
because it's cheaper than buying feed.
But you have to slowly build it up to them;
You can't just go there one day and give them corn,
like this rancher did in northern Guatemala.
Alright, so right now I'm really worried.
Bruiser hasn't gone to the bathroom all day.
He's wanting to lay down.
I've had to get him up like three times already.
So he could be collicking.
I think he's collicking, I don't know.
Colic happens when a horse eats something
differently, very quickly, or when they don't have water.
I'm starting to get really worried.
This is a serious problem.
Because horses can't vomit,
they start to build up these gases in their stomach.
If their tummy hurts, they'll start to roll
until the point where they can't take it.
I hate to think about it,
but a lot of horses have died from colic.
So I called the vet clinic and they said
they have some medication there.
I'm gonna go over there and buy it.
A few minutes after, thank God,
he went to the bathroom. I was getting so worried.
Good job, buddy.
Bruiser is just this beautiful,
slick, 007 of the group.
Super smart. A horse fit for a king.
That horse understood me so well.
You just didn't have to tell him, he just read your mind.
And he was just so beautiful.
He moved so elegantly.
In southern Guatemala, I was put in touch with
the boss of the region
to get safe passage into Honduras.
When I started the track here, I started filming,
and a kid came up to me and was like, I don't know,
17 years old; He's like, "Be careful, man,
"don't film a lot here because the DEA has been coming in here
"to look for a really big boss of the narcotráficu
"and people might think that you're a spy
"or you're filming for them."
So he said, "If someone asks what you're doing,
"just tell them you're a singer."
And I'm like, "What if they ask me to sing?"
"Are you nuts? I'll get shot on the spot!"
It's impossible to ride.
It's so hard to get up this fucking mountain.
We finally get to the village where
my very powerful host was waiting for me.
He lived in a mansion, but it was really hard to film
because I did not feel safe.
He was drinking a beer and he tossed me a can,
and I grabbed it and he goes, "Llegaste,"
- and I couldn't even talk. - I was like...
And I looked at the beer, it was a blue can,
and it was called Salva Vida.
"Life saver."
He had his own zoo.
And along with his men...
They rode with me and kept me safe
through northern Honduras.
Very few people get the opportunity
to break bread with cartel members.
You know, your skin colour may change, your bank account,
your religion, your nationality,
the colour of your flag.
But when you sit with these people in their home
and you eat with them, you realize
they just want to love and be loved.
Humanity is good at its core.
And that's, I think, the most special part about this journey.
I'm staying at this house
and the wife of the husband is this like
drop-dead gorgeous blonde that's very flirtatious.
And I get back from the horses one day,
and she was there by herself, so she says,
"What are you doing?" I'm like, "Nothing."
She's like, "Do you wanna have dinner with me?"
I'm like, "Sure, let's have dinner!"
And we have dinner, nothing happens,
and a couple hours later, this is a Sunday night,
I'm talking over Skype with my family,
and all of a sudden out of nowhere I hear...
I started looking around the room.
What can I put in front of the door?
If I jump out the window, will I survive?
Two hours after the police rode in...
They talked to him, and then they left.
She was alive. He didn't kill her.
Alright, just entered Nicaragua.
Feels crazy to be here.
I wish I could have filmed the process.
I had to pay so much money.
It was insane, took me like four hours.
It sucks.
I honestly hate every border I get to, it's the worst.
But... Nicaragua, woo!
Today's a very special day,
I get to see my mom after two years.
I miss her a lot, and she really wants to ride,
but she has no experience so it's gonna be hilarious.
I'll never forget waiting at the airport for her
just brought so much love and happiness to me.
So, we get on the horses...
The first thing she's like, "This is how slow we travel?"
I'm so tired.
It's so hot.
And I'm here because of you.
So, my mom thought I was galloping through the Americas.
How long has it been?
Four hours?
It's been like two hours.
She's like, "Filipe, I need to get off this horse."
I'm like, "No, you can't get off now or we're not gonna make it."
I push her through the last few kilometres;
She just like melts on the ground dying.
I'm like, "Hey, that's only the first day.
- "We got a week to go." - Sorry, Filipe.
That's it for me.
One day.
My horses had personalities
that were larger than life.
Dude was a little surfer dude;
He looked like a California beach bum,
bleach-blonde mane.
But he was also the police of the horses.
When I'd put them out in a pasture with other animals,
he would kinda stand apart.
Frenchie and Bruiser would be glued to each other,
and Dude would be just off in the distance,
and he would not let anyone get near Frenchie and Bruiser.
So, the horses were just grazing,
and Dude fell in a big hole.
Got his leg caught, cut himself really bad.
I was getting him out; It took me like half an hour
to get him out; I thought he was gonna break his leg.
He was struggling so much.
Dude fell into this old cattle guard.
He was pulling back so much he got his front hoof caught in it,
and he was pulling back so hard to try to get it out
that I thought he was just gonna break his leg clean off.
And I'm trying to calm him down, trying to calm him down,
and all of a sudden, he just got up and I got up with him.
I didn't know if he had broken something.
And I thought to myself,
"Please, there has to be some sort of higher power
"that can help us."
Sure enough, the universe sent me these two kids on a bike
that had been fishing.
In 30 minutes, we're loading the horse up on the truck,
and we were able to take care of him
and bring him back to health.
Tschiffely, Manche, Gato,
I definitely prayed to them in the tough moments.
They were this greater being that followed me throughout
the entire experience, and they changed my life.
That's all I can say.
Like, that book "Tschiffely's Ride"
changed my life.
Emma's come back to ride with me,
and it's gonna be an awesome time.
I'm so excited to have her out here.
How are we doing? We're doing good.
Tired, sweaty...
but still alive!
We were riding by monkeys
hopping from tree to tree.
Exotic birds.
We're so close to the Pacific Ocean.
First time these horses will ever see it...
it's right there.
There we go, first time these guys
walk on the Pacific Ocean. Frenchie got a little scared.
Huge moment right now, huge moment for us.
Alright, just arriving at the border with Panama.
Took the bus just to make sure I know exactly
what I need to cross the border because
I don't wanna be stuck here for six hours.
Gonna go check it out now and then ride the horses here
hopefully in one or two days.
When I used to read "Tschiffely's Ride,"
Panama was always huge because when he was coming north,
he had to load his horses on a boat,
to cross from Colombia into Panama.
Found the office, and thank God I came early
because they have no idea what to do right now.
When I got there, there was this guy,
spitting out rice as he told me
what I couldn't do and what I could do
and showing me these papers
and telling me to look at the website,
and not being very helpful at all.
They want to charge me $250 per horse.
It's a joke.
I waited all day for the vet here yesterday.
He never showed up.
They're gonna have to stay here in quarantine at the border
for seven days, and that's gonna mean we're gonna spend Christmas
right here at the border, under this tree.
It's gonna be the worst Christmas of my life.
I was running around everywhere.
I had to pay $300; Then I had to pay $100.
Then I had to run and get a green form;
Then I had to get a yellow form; Then I had to get this form.
What I found out is that in order to import a horse
into Panama, that animal had to spend six months or longer
in the country from where you're exporting it from.
It was like someone pulled the ground from underneath me.
It's like, "What am I gonna do?"
Now I just got a new price, and it is...
$12,000.
I absolutely hate borders.
I hate bureaucracy.
I hate stupid rules and regulations
that mean nothing.
At first we were gonna go to Colombia.
Then all of a sudden, the ministry of agriculture
in Brazil notifies me that there is a virus
and if the horses touch foot in Colombia or Venezuela,
they now can't enter Brazil.
The horses are not leaving Costa Rica.
Again.
We've been stuck for three months now,
and I really thought that today was gonna be the day,
but it's not.
So we gotta keep trying, I guess.
For the first time I was like,
"Is the trip over?"
A horse has never been sent from Costa Rica to Peru.
Boats don't take horses anymore in this part of the world.
So we have to talk to the president
of the ministry of agriculture in Brazil
to call the president of the ministry of agriculture in Peru
to open up a window for the first time.
Every border I got to wanted to make me quit.
Fuck!
It's just so hard to...
to have to think about leaving my horses here.
They've worked so hard to...
...to get us this far, you know, and...
The amount of like cocaine and marijuana that cross
these borders every day...
The amount of illegal things that go on every day,
I've seen it.
I've travelled through the little, little paths
beside the border where drugs are cross,
where women are crossed illegally,
where whatever you want you can get.
And everyone turns a blind eye and officials are paid off
and politicians steal more money,
but when you're trying to do something right,
you get all your tests done,
you hire the vet, you pay $16,000 to do something right,
you know, you have everything you need, they just, like...
Border guards are, by nature, hostile.
They are an extenuation of the ancient Roman prejudice
that anyone mounted was an uncivilized barbarian.
And Filipe's journey across the international borders
as he went south became increasingly hard, hostile,
and dangerous, because the bureaucrats
that were in charge of the borders
were intent on keeping him out.
Alright, so it's just after 10 o'clock in the morning,
it's 10:13,
and I have a message from the authorities of Brazil.
Please, baby Jesus, please God, please universe,
make it be good news.
Woo! Aah!
We got it, we got it!
Fuck! Yeah!
Woo!
Oh...
Thank you.
We finally managed to get the horses
on an Avianca flight to Peru.
Alright, boys, you ready to fly?
You ready to fly?
No problem, eh, Frenchie?
I love you guys!
Hey!
What's up?
Oh!
So, after a few days of quarantine,
they finally let us leave
and we were able to ride through Peru.
After one year eight months on the road,
we are officially in Peru.
In South America.
I can't even begin to express how amazing it feels.
Riding in Peru!
Currently on the coast in Lima.
Have to get to the Bolivian border,
and then somehow to the Brazilian border.
It's nice that we at least get to enjoy this
and the horses are resting in a nice ranch,
so everyone is recharging before the final stretch to Brazil.
Not so good.
Bumpy ride.
Unfortunately, Frenchie, Bruiser, and Dude
only had a certain number of days to transit through Peru.
We ended up having to trailer them
all the way to the Bolivian border.
So, after another mountain of paperwork
and South American bureaucracy,
we finally made it to La Paz with the horses
and were able to continue our ride.
Can't believe it. Just outside of La Paz.
It's been an insane road to get here,
but somehow, some way,
we managed to get to the last country we'll cross.
From the Andes, we rode southeast
to the Brazilian border town of Corumbá,
Mato Grosso do Sul.
Today is one of the most important days
of the entire trip.
After one year and 11 months on the road,
we finally get to Brazil.
Adios, Bolivia!
Stepping on Brazilian soil,
so many emotions.
I can't believe it, we're here.
More than 14,000 kilometres away from Calgary,
and we're here in Brazil.
My parents drove up.
Before my dad even stopped his truck,
my little sister runs out
and gives me the biggest hug ever.
It was almost three years that I hadn't seen her.
It was a big moment of deja vu, because in the hard moments,
when the bullets were flying, when the horses were hurt,
I would take myself to my parents' embrace and to Brazil.
And I think that's kind of why I got there as well,
because I was able to visualize it so much
that one day it just happened.
I spent three months riding through Brazil,
getting stopped on the road...
Like, I could barely ride
because it meant so much for the Brazilian people.
We just came to a really small, small,
little pueblo here in Brazil,
and Alex just gave me this to scare the jaguars away.
I will never forget the way my country
welcomed me back home.
I'm very blessed to have amazing parents.
They never cut my wings.
Where those flags are on the horizon...
that's Barretos, that's the rodeo grounds.
It's like a mirage!
I can't believe we're here!
A-ha!
Oh, thank you!
Ah!
Oh, man!
I can't believe we made it!
It was dark outside.
There was a helicopter hovering over us.
Frenchie obviously did not like the helicopter.
And I was just so nervous.
We get to the back of the arena,
and then this guy just goes...
"Filipe Leite, the horseman of the Americas!"
Being a long rider,
it's someone that has a deep passion for horses,
that loves nature and wants to be connected
to the natural world.
It's someone that wants to understand humanity at its core.
It's someone that doesn't ride a horse for competition,
to win prizes or ribbons or money.
I love those horses so much, you know?
My kids, Frenchie, Bruiser, and Dude...
...we just became so close on this journey.
And they were just like my kids.
Like, that's the only way to explain.
We went through so much,
and to be there with them,
after everything we had been through,
and for them to be so healthy...
I'll never forget that.
I got up to the stage.
My mom was there with my dad.
The people that had been important to me,
and I felt so alive at that moment,
and I just thanked everyone that helped me.
And then they took me to go see my statue.
I'm like, "What?"
Oh my God!
I don't deserve this.
Oh my God!
No, this is...
I'm 27 years old,
and I'm looking up at Bruiser's head
and then me on top, more than five metres tall.
Oh my God, this is insane.
...in their own unique ways.
Our next guest's journey to Brazil
is nothing short of amazing.
Filipe and Bruiser!
We're incredibly impressed by you
and what you've been able to accomplish,
but how about giving the horse some credit?
Exactly, exactly!
This is Bruiser, one of the three heroes
that walked 8,000 miles from Canada to Brazil.
It's insane.
They're warriors.
Going up that mountain, it was like they knew.
My dad built them a house, built them stalls, and...
I promised him when I met them, I said, "Listen boys,
"we're gonna go to war here, but we're gonna make it,
"and I'm gonna give you guys the best retirement
"a horse could ever ask for."
I walked them out to the pasture.
Little Dude...
My little mustang.
And now you're free to be a little mustang again.
Eh? Good job.
I love you so much, buddy.
Thank you so much.
You're the best horse in the world.
I know you know that.
And I wouldn't have gotten here without you.
Frenchie, I know we got off to a rocky beginning.
You almost killed me.
But I wouldn't have done this without you,
with all your spirit, all your heart.
And I love you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
And I still had Naomi's ashes.
She went the entire way from Craig, Colorado, to Brazil.
There were so many moments where I thought I was gonna die
or the horses were gonna die, and somehow, some way,
we came out the other side alive.
I really started to believe that this woman was there
to protect us.
She was my guardian angel.
I asked her to continue to watch out for the horses
and keep them safe.
And that's when my life fell apart.
You've spent 803 days chasing kilometres with horses,
and then all of a sudden, you're back to your house,
you're back to real life,
you're cut off from the herd.
I had symptoms of PTSD.
I started experiencing anxiety and depression,
couldn't sleep at night, recurring nightmares.
Emma broke up with me.
In this mess that I was in, like a lot of people,
I turned to the bottle and started drinking.
And one night I made the mistake of getting in my truck,
and nearly died.
For 6,000 years,
brave men and women have been swinging into the saddle
and setting off in search of adventure and freedom.
Sadly, in the last 50 years,
the world has turned into a mediocrity by travel machines.
Filipe represents the end of the age of Tschiffely.
Filipe's journey
provides us with the message of hope.
Yes, we have hostile borders,
but what we see in Filipe is a beacon.
He had the courage to overcome discouragement.
He then confronted and overcame
every kind of obstacle the Americas could throw at him.
And what he proves is that the mounted argonauts of the past
are still with us.
The horse ultimately has made me a better human being.
The horse is one of the biggest mammals, yet it's so calm.
And there are studies that prove that that energy,
it transcends to people
that spend a lot of time around horses.
You end up being a calmer being.
And horses today help people with mental problems;
They help people with addiction.
I am an example of what the horse can do.
The horse pulled me out of a depression.
The horse was my therapy.
In 2019, I started the final portion of my ride
from Alaska to Calgary on two wild horses,
with Clara by my side.
When I started the journey,
I was leaving Canada
and returning to what I thought was my home, Brazil.
The fact of the matter is that when I arrived in Brazil,
I realized I couldn't be further from home.
And today, when you ask me what home signifies to me,
it has a name, and it's "Clara."
You know, very few people will get to spend
as much time as I did with the same horses,
and out of all of the lessons I learned from them,
I think the most important one was the simplest:
Take that first step.