Magazine Ventures and Action September 2003
Of nerd and crazy, everybody has a little
When some expert of the wide adventure everything to live your dreams, a lot of people find strange. Now, if somebody that doesn't practice sports, never camped and nor knows exactly to arrange a backpack makes that, there is who says that the shirt of force is the only solution
By Carine Portela
You are a nerd and there is not as denying. It is wild animal in the computer science, works with that since understands each other for people, the day passes I find out in front of the computer and all your friends are same to you - some are just chubbier and others use deep glasses of bottles.
Prestes to complete 30 years, you already know how they will be the next 10 years of your life: among keyboards, monitors and hairy problems to solve. Your name is known at the market and, besides two stores, you have hundreds of satisfied customers.
Nothing will change until you to retire, to begin to take advantage of the life and to spend the money that accumulated. Unless... you decide to play everything for the high.
You have a crack and abandons the respectable and promising career that built during almost two decades. Why? Because your name is Dan Robson and one day you decided that wanted more of the vid the.
Your mother cries, your friends say that you went mad but, actually, now yes you settled down. And it informs: I will go the coast Brazilian inteirinho by foot. Until next year, galley "!. When it returns, it amends: " Now I will be inside two months alone of a cave. We see her thereabout..."
Your expeditions are a success, but it is still a little for you. When all thought the danger had passed, you show that entered in that to be. Up to 2012, your calendar is already programmed, and it includes to travel Transamazônica - or what remained of her - of bike, to complete the turn of South America, and to cross such different as inhospitable areas, like Alaska and Saara. Yes, you are an authentic hunter of adventures.
Does /you venture and Action: When you child was, was she interested in adventure?
Dan Robson: I didn't have any interest for that. Nor sports I practiced. In the physical education class, I was always the goalkeeper in the soccer game, because it was only for that. It is later, with 14 years, I already began to study computer science. In that time that didn't exist nor Windows, for you to have an idea.
AA: is it later the computer science it turned your profession?
Dan: it is, because I like to create. At that time nothing didn't exist in the computer science, I had to develop everything, always to create new things, to use the creativity a lot. That attracted me a lot.
AA: were you Then happy?
Dan: it was, I always liked to work with that. 18 hours it passed, on average, in front of the computer, but I arrived at two whole days to pass. And I liked, because it was always a new challenge. It is also had the financial part. With 18 years, I won what today it would be equivalent to R$ 10 thousand.
AA: Like you did notice that was not more that what the one wanted of the life?
Dan: it was in the end of 99, December 27. I was eating lunch, for varying, in front of the computer. There it ended the force and I continued there. Does /you know when that black screen is in the monitor of the computer? Then, almost sees a mirror, né? And I began looking me and I spoke: it " Pulls, I will have a birthday 30 next year. And the one what will I make of my life? Will I continue in the computer science? My life finds out it was like this, it was already not fun anymore, because doesn't have more any challenge..." And it was then that I began to look a Guide of Beaches Four Wheels. I began to see those beaches, some little that I already knew. As it was final of year, I could diffuse entirely January for doing a trip, to know the whole coast of São Paulo, for instance. But there the idea went growing in my head... And if I do more? And if I travel two states, or three...
AA: were You, actually, planning your vacations?
Dan: In beginning it was, but I slept with that in the head and, one day, I woke up thinking about doing truth adventure, because knew that some people made that. Only that I didn't know anybody that did, nor company, anything of the middle. In the middle in that I lived together only had those dear fats, of glasses, that only spoke in computer. Did I begin to imagine my life of there to two, 10 years, would exactly that be? It is not that I didn't want to be " normal ", but I always had a thing interns of wanting to have pleasure to live. Then that idea of the vacations lasted three days, at the most, later it turned fixed idea and I decided that will travel the whole Brazilian coast to foot. And in same January I came undone of my customers and I began to look for partnerships.
AA: How does a sedentary one decide that will make size physical effort?
Dan: I Always liked to walk on foot. My father lives in Ipiranga, and me in São Bernardo. Of my house to the one of him are 15 km, but sees and moves I went back to foot home, of the anything, without having programmed. Because when I walked, had time to think, got to meet. Then I was thinking if I would get to do a larger thing. /you went to only do the bills: if I walked 15 km in two and a half hours, I would get to complete the course in one year, walking 30 km a day. But it is logical that I went to workout, I was one year removing rust me in the academy. But the great challenge was not that.
AA: AND which was?
Dan: I discovered that to survive of the adventure it is the great challenge. It imagines you to release the computer science, with a good wage, for surviving of that. In all the companies that I tried partnership, did they ask: " THE ONE what you made previously in the adventure "? " Anything, I am analyst of systems " [laughters]. It is there I heard that I won't get, that was impossible. When I began the project, only who believed in me was to Foot in the Trail, Sollo and Curtlo, mainly. Of rest, I was alone.
AA: But which was your project exactly?
Dan: If I will stop working with computer science, had to do my profession of the adventure. My vision was not only to walk on foot as a mochileiro, but to look for some usefulness for that. Did I begin to look for an ideal for the project: the one what could useful be, since I would go by foot of Chuí to Oiapoque? To do some research type, for instance. Then I made a partnership with the area of fitoterapia of the Universidade São Marcos and I classified the medicinal herbs found along the road. I knew that in many places to the seashore drugstores don't exist, then the riverine population cultivates many plants for they be used as medicine. Ours, has medicine for everything same, Brazil is a true drugstore to open sky.
AA: didn't You have any experience in adventure, as it was to turn alone?
Dan: of course to do an adventure of those has to have a lot of tricks, but I learned in the race. /you imagines that I had never camped in the life. When I set up the backpack, she had 35 kg, full of tranqueiras. I took fin, rope for rapel etc. I went learning everything little by little, how to walk, how to set up camp... But the principal was to learn as it turns me. I was competent in arranging lodging fisherman home. I talked with them and caught information on the herbs of the place, but that chat was already a solemnity-invitation. Half of my trip I was accommodated with them, that are super kind.
AA: Which the largest elegance than you faced?
Dan: I was making a rising on regional legends. That in the second day of trip, going to the Beach of the Casino, in Rio Grande do Sul. There a fisherman spoke to me that for there didn't have " anything nor nobody, only a legend of a such of Big " Foot. He said that the bug attacked and I was with that in the head. Good, after 40 km walking without stopping, I decided to set up camp. When I gave for me, it was surrounded of footprints enormous, larger than my boot 44. There I remembered the history, and I began to hear very high screams. I didn't think about anything, the fright took care of me, I caught the backpack and I began to run. After one hour, I broke into the door of a hut for taking shelter of the monster. Still terrified and with fear that he was located for the smell, I closed inside of the sack of sleeping and I was there to the day dawn, in an infernal heat, with the perspiration dripping. For summarizing, I lost my food in the foray, I was 24 hours without eating and I only survived because I ate grass. Then, I discovered that the Big Foot, actually, was alone a monkey monkey. I deserve [laughters]...
AA: In that and in other moments, didn't you think about giving up?
Dan: On that hour I thought, but the only inhabited place was a light, and I asked for the sergeant that lives there as I did to leave. He said that the truck of the Navy passed once a month, and had after three days ago. If I wanted to wait... Then I didn't pass for more any elegance, but I only had conviction that will finish when I arrived in Bahia, the half of the road. There, it seems that was a mark. Until there I could give up, one more step forward, they would be 4 thousand km and some meters, and I would have to continue for the rest of the life. I was not only deciding on the rest of the trip, but about my life finds out. I was seated in the guide, that sun splitting, those old mules passing. Then I thought: " If I return for São Paulo, I will be same those load donkeys, in that it goes and it comes. Is it that what I want of my life? With certainty not ". Then I followed the much most confident trip.
AA: In the one what did that first adventure change your form of seeing the world?
Dan: I didn't see the world. For me he was that tiny world of the monitor. Nothing else than that. In the great cities the people live in that foray, you have to battle for oh for to have and to maintain some thing, the people don't talk. In that trip I discovered that is very a little that you need to be happy, that the happiness can come in ways very different from the which we are accustomed, and it is that that I look for with the adventure.
AA: As the idea appeared of being inside two months of a cave?
Dan: In beginning, I wanted to be 17 days. When I discovered that the Brazilian record was of 21 days, I decided to stay two months. The only problem was that the caves have several visitation rules. But as the one that I look for in my work it is exactly to have a scientific foundation, I decided to look for partnerships with people that liked my permanence there, for some reason.
AA: AND who liked?
Dan: the Brazilian Society of Speleology (SBE), that wanted to do a study on the environmental impact generated by the man in the caves. Besides they were them that chose where I will be [in the Caverna Alambari of Top, in Petar, in São Paulo]. Then, besides testing my limits, I made that research with apparels of impact measurement; a study about the alterations of the human body during the total absence of light; another of equipments and to a psychological one, accompanied by the Universidade São Marcos.
AA: Which the main physical changes why you passed?
Dan: Lá, mine day by day was to the light of candles, then, when I leave, the world had an only color: yellow. And how it was very accustomed to head's flashlight, didn't have more lateral vision, only saw what was in front of me. I was long one week to return to the normal. The sense of smell and the audition already returned super sharpened. And as there inside is very humid, my hair that was long, it returned full of flaws. The paddings went falling, because he went deteriorating even. The beard, besides being immense, created dandruff. Unassuming that I lost eight kg usually feeding and without doing physical exercises. In the end, it already felt pains to breathe, but I didn't count for anybody.
AA: As it was the psychological fight what did you live there inside?
Dan: THE psychologist spoke that there I had an alteration, not that I arrived the a state of madness, but in an abnormal state. I already think different [laughters]... There it was me with me same, I had to be talking alone, had to face, in that absolute solitude, all my fears, my mistakes. The great problem nor it was so much the will of leaving of the cave, because had grating, padlock, and needed rope to leave. But it was to endure even. Did have moments in what I woke up crying, desperate, and at the same time it was me controlling: does it " Calm Dan, where does that agony " come from?
AA: besides the solitude, what was worse inside of the cave?
Dan: THE food, because I always had to invent some thing, and it was always terrible. For beginning that I could not play detergent inside of the river, then I always cooked in the same pot, and later it only cleaned the remains of food with water boiling. One day I made a rice with lentils and it was very bad. For trying to alleviate, I played a raw egg inside. /you was worse, but I could not throw away, then, I caught jam, I sliced, I played inside, and I swallowed everything.
AA: did You take some there inside fright?
Dan: In the first month I had fear of everything, nor left the hut right. When it went in the river, it seemed an astronaut, with flashlight, it veils, matches and carbureteira, for not being even without light. In the second month I was so accustomed that only went with a small lantern in the head. Exactly on that day I saw an otter. When I stooped down, she got scared and it came for top of me. I jumped for back and I beat the hand in the head. The flashlight fell in the water and me I was without light. Is it now? For where am I going? Despair. Then I passed the hand and it was everything clay, there I made a hill and I began to play, and I went playing, until hearing a different sound, that is when had beating in the hut. I went walking and playing, until meeting.
AA: in your projects, you are always alone. Which your relationship with the solitude?
Dan: I like the solitude. I always came me alone. When I had a birthday 11, my father gave me a cake of money. It imagines that if I won R$ 50 of allowance, he gave me R$ 1.000. And spoke: " starting from today, that money is for you to buy everything that you to need. I am not going you to give one more money in the life ". There I thought it was game, and I spent everything in less than one month. When I went to ask more for him, he said that was serious. There I went to arrange employment and ever since I always came me alone. Until today, I work alone, I make the project, the contact with the companies, the popularization with the media, everything.
AA: does Already give to win money with the adventure?
Dan: not Yet, I am tying. But I am showing for the companies that to apply in me is worthwhile. Therefore my idea is to have a reason, objectives, not only to place the backpack in the backs and to leave making madness thereabout. I say for my mother that has more adventurers than pagodeiros, then we have more to have some thing the.
AA: That the secret is?
Dan: In the adventure, a lot of people are supermen. A lot of name people said: " That Zé Pours it won't last one week ". They speak that who does adventure is the maximum, but any one does. The secret is alone the determination, the willpower. I learned at the cave that to give up is very easy, but doesn't have grace.
AA: do You have some dream that didn't still enter in the calendar?
Dan: My last dream is to climb Everest with 80 years. I admire who climbs the life finds out, but the one that I traced for my life is alone to retire climbing me, not to go for the mountain before that. And that will be my last project.
AA: AND your next project?
Dan: When the people are reading that interview, I will already be in him. September 10 I am going to Acre and, of there, I proceed for bike Transamazônica. I eat I already crossed Brazil of south to north, now I will cross from west to east. It is an interesting project because Transamazônica was built there is more than 30 years, and they say that in many places the highway doesn't exist plus, long spaces that the forest involved, and it is that that I will discover. I will return without hurry, but I received an invitation of Adventure Sports Fair to give a lecture, then I return before November 16.
AA: Almost three years after releasing everything, which the rewards of your daring?
Dan: Many. To discover new things, mainly. Here in São Paulo it is always normal. If you discover some new thing, only if it goes a new car or some beautiful woman that passed in the street, nothing else. In the adventure not, you know sensations that the money doesn't buy. I always say a thing: we don't choose how will be born nor as will die. The only that we choose it is how will live. And the one that I chose for my life is difficult, but it is worthwhile a lot

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