February 23, 2012 2:41 PM EST
This has been carnival week in Brasil, a major five days holliday, from saturday to ash-wedsneday. So I took my adventure gadgets: backpack, boots, gps, flashlight, folder, canteel, sportswatch, hat, etc. (they do make you feel like a real adventurer, don't they?) and went to a little riverbank house I have on Rio Preto da Eva (amazon hinterland), with the intention to use a kayak in order to explore the source of an igarape (affluent of the river) on the neighborhood. Well, I'm talking about a rainforest river in the the middle of the rain season, so it's pretty respectable, being next to a mile wide, and i really don't know the extension of its tributary streams, but in this time of the year they can be very long and are navigable by small boats. So I wake up early in the morning, eat a healthy breakfast (coffee, milk, bread, tapioca bread, eggs, cheese and tucuma) and embark alone on my exploration. I cross the Rio Preto (a one mile crossing) in a spot just ahead the house, then paddle on for a quarter of mile more and enter the mouth of the igarape.
At this point I’m feeling a little like Sir Richard Burton , about to begin the search for the source of Nile. It´s 7:40 AM now and everything is quiet: no birds, no wind, the water still like a mirror, and above all, a sweet unsettling scent of some unknown flower. Now I don´t mind scary sounds very much, but the silence makes me uneasy. I go ahead and the stream tightens as I proceed into the igarape, the shadows of the trees bending over me as I paddle slowly upriver. I’m not very tired, but I’m sweating a lot, so I take a pause to drink a sip. When I relax I notice my left shoulder aches and I feel a burning sensation in the left side of my breasts, just below my heart.
Now, I’m not saying I’m a hypochondriac, but I suffer from high blood pressure and I do happen to be a bit over conscious about my heart condition. So, despite having taken my pills regularly over breakfast, I’m getting a little worried. I make a stop just to be sure everything is all right, and to assess the sources of the pain and the burn. Well, the pain in the left shoulder is no mystery – it kind of makes sense considering I’m dealing with a overweight, sedentary, 47 years body who has just paddled almost three miles - but the burn.... now, that is worrying! So I wait, I exercise my arms, I inhale and exhale, I press my breast and abdomen, I cough, I make a complete check up on myself, and finally, relief...! I discover the source of the burning sensation is more about the luxurious breakfast I had, than about my poor sick heart. Well, we all know the cure for that, so I searched for a strip of sand on the margins and took care of business. Of course, after that, everything became a little anticlimactic, so I decided to go back, having failed, as I kind of expected, my original intent, and yet I felt some pride on the thought that, somehow, I had left my mark on the place.
Now, why do I do those stupid things? Well, I’m a male and we’re entitled to do that sort of thing once in a while, because of the testosterone stuff and all. It’s like those ill tempered women with their mysterious cycles (I’m not just being prejudiced, I happen to know some women who use those excuses). But I’m also painfully aware that I’m just a urban, over civilized, a little neurotic sort of guy, mostly harmless, who has not the fiber to seek real danger just for kicks or even for some higher value.
The point being I have read a lot of comments on two of the hottest discussions on the forum section :“What time and place do you call home?” and “Would you be your character if you ended up in the game?”, posted by people who wish they were living in a more adventurous time, or who claim they would be killing dragons if they were miraculously transported into the Skyrim universe. Now we know there´s enough dangers and villains in this time and this universe for a lifetime of adventure, and I´d like to know what real adventure have you lived. In what dangerous situation have you entered willingly?
