One final climb

By Keith Senior

As I write this we have one final climb up to Christ the Redeemer.

I’m a little bit envious that I never got to do the full challenge and get stuck into the European leg, but saying that I’m happy I got the chance to have the experience in Brazil over the last 3 weeks.

From arriving in Recife and meeting some of the gang for the 1st time it has been a rollercoaster experience, which I knew would be the case.

From having done similar types of challenges I understand the trials and tribulations that are involved, the only difference is I have never done a challenge like this in terms of time scale, I tip my hat to the rest that did the full 6 weeks as 3 weeks away from home was definitely a massive challenge in itself for me.

Seeing Brazil as we have and actually experiancing most of the favelas and cultures was what I wanted to do, never being to brazil this was an opportunity I could not turn down from a selfish point of view, but also raising some valuable funds for some great charities gives it that added special touch.

The poverty is mainly in the north of Brazil and as you work down more to Rio you start to see the difference in lifestyles, one thing I must say no matter how poor some of the people were they still had pride in where they lived, to see some of the locals living in what we would call a garden shed, sweeping up leaves outside on the mud paths leading to their homes made you appreciate what you have, but on the other side of things how they still had a smile on their face and looked after what they did actually have.

One of the saddest things for me was the state of some of the animals in the poorer regions, having a dog myself and seeing a lot of strays living on the streets, some in very poor condition did actually bring a tear to my eye, I even gave up my food at times to feed them, I will definitely be giving my boy Dutch a massive cuddle when I get home.

Most of the days consisted of the same dirt track roads, long distance roads with nothing to see for miles on end except fields, trees and the odd horse,dog or bird, pot holes and speed bumps have been the bane of my life over here, if the road wasn’t as smooth as a baby bum then it was the worst case scenario of massive speed bumps and huge pot holes you could get lost in.

The traffic has been a lot better than what I expected, the locals are used to a lot of locals riding round on these old rust bikes in flip flops riding with their heels, making it look so easy as we are on the proper road bikes, clipped to our pedals to make it a little easier makes you realise just how easy some things are if you put your mind to it.

At the beginning conversations tend to be a little more informative as new people came in and started to find out a little bit about each other, as the weeks went on more and more crap started to get spoken just to get rid of the silence or pass the boredom of just staring at tarmac or the wheel in front of you, if I tried to explain some of them you wouldn’t have a clue what I was going on about, they were just that random.

There have been hiccups along the way as you can imagine, the biggest one was the road that was planned for most of our route to Rio, the BR 101, after doing some more research was known as the highway of Death, so as you can imagine after our first venture on this road and nearly getting taken out by numerous trucks, cars and busses travelling at top speeds a different alternative need to be found.

Tension and arguing was always going to be an issue, when a group of people doing a difficult challenge come together there is always going to be a clash of personalities and arguments along the way, its natural when fatigue and hunger sets in. I’m happy to say I never snapped but I guarantee you I was close to grabbing a few by the neck and throttling them, if you don’t know me i’m a guy that likes the simple things in life, a walk with my dog and keep myself to myself so coming into an environment where it can get frustrating at times was always going to be hard, but things like this are meant to be challenging, we started this as a team, and we will finish as a team, unless something drastic goes wrong tomorrow and somebody flips ha.

The best part of most challenges are the beginning, the end, then the time you get home and reflect on what an achievement it has been.

There have been plenty of highs and lows and has been an awesome experience meeting some great people and sharing this experience with them, one that I wont ever forget.

A big thank you from me to everyone that has been involved, and most of all a big thank you to everyone back home who has supported us, followed our journey and especially for the kind donations that have been gratefully received.

Its been emotional, but I wouldn’t change it for anything.

Bob on