If I say that I started hiking when I was almost 60 years old, it would be a lie with a lot of truth. A lie because, between my fresh 19 and 20, I allowed myself to follow the (then much more rustic than today) four-day route of the Inca Trail, from Cuzco to Machu Pichu, in Peru, and to take a 78 km walk between the south do Corumbau and Porto Seguro, in the south of Bahia. At that time, in the mid-1970s, backpacks were unresolved messes, there were no proper clothes or shoes in Brazil — but the lower backs were so young that they didn’t even care about these details.
Due to these hustles of life, tight schedules and crazy schedules, I only took up the taste for the habit of kicking my legs by accident, after finishing a race in São Silvestre, in December 2014, four decades later. Not in the mood for marathons, I was still analyzing the possibilities when a friend suggested joining a group that would do the Camino de Santiago, in Spain. I’ve already told this story here. The fact is that I took a liking to the thing and, since then, I have always tried to go one step further, even if sometimes I only get to the nearest mall and other times I go through the Amazon rainforest. It’s all part.
On my trips, I always try to keep a journal of the journey. I often write by hand, paper and pencil in the old fashioned way and, at the first opportunity to connect, I throw everything on the cloud and social networks, showing that alone. Among the friends who follow me, all around the same age group, the vast majority follows the reports from their comfortable sofa and swears that they wouldn’t have any conditions to do any of that. It’s just not like that, there’s a bit of exaggeration there. And to prove that we, young people for a long time, as a friend says, are able to enjoy the best that nature has to offer, the blog was to listen to people who know what I’m talking about.
People like Cesário Simões, 69, resident of Anitápolis, in Greater Florianópolis (SC), who have among his oldest memories of seeing his mother walking along the beachfront in Santos (SP). “We also had a piece of land that was pure bush, in Ribeirão Pires, and when we went there, I loved walking through all that”, says the retired systems analyst. As a teenager, he went looking for deserted beaches (they were many, believe me, before Rio-Santos was clogged with condominiums and its beaches, with tourists). It was even possible to practice naturism, but don’t say I told you, okay?
Among his favorite trails, Simões mentions the Índio trail, which leaves very close to the house where he currently lives, a place with a breathtaking view. “I end up doing less than I would like, because the pandemic got in the way of everything and the Covid that I got forced me to go slower, the fatigue was very great for a long time”, he explains. Even so, he lost count of how many times he has traveled the Indian: “Ah, at least 20 times”, he guesses. And he can’t wait to rejoin the group of friends that the pandemic has isolated.
What drives Simões to go deep into the bush, anyway? “It always brings many benefits, starting with the psychological”, he says. “When someone looks at you, at a certain age, and comments that that trail is not very light, it has some difficulty, but you insist, go there and manage to do it, you feel very well, it is an incredible experience from which you come back with a lot of physical fatigue, but feeling alive. Only those who do it understand”, he summarizes.
But if endorphins fill us with optimism, it is also important to reserve a corner of the backpack for a good dose of prudence. Communications consultant and journalist Gladston Holanda, 71, forms along the lines of those trying to balance common sense with the will to go further.
“I started hiking very late, about 15 years ago, I didn’t know how good it could be”, says the Pernambuco based in São Paulo who, before the pandemic, assiduously participated in a group from Rio de Janeiro that every Sunday met at the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, in the southern part of the capital of Rio de Janeiro, to continue on a walk through the Tijuca Forest. His love for the bush grew so much that he decided to take a risk alone, without a guide, on one of the trails in Itatiaia National Park. “It was stupid,” he confesses, albeit without much conviction. The chosen trail provided for three hours to go and another one to return and, theoretically, did not present a high level of difficulty. “But then, after two silly falls that fortunately didn’t lead to anything serious, I thought I might have broken a leg and there would be no one to help, because even the cell phone didn’t work there”, he recalls. Mental note: if you don’t know very well where you are going, always look for a guide. And please listen to what he has to say!
“Well, with age, we have to think twice before risking this kind of thing, in adolescence we have the blessing of ignorance and irresponsibility”, evaluates Holanda, amid a good laugh.
For him, as for Simões, the activity is almost like therapy. “It’s very good, it seems to clean everything”, he emphasizes, with a detail: “For me, the best feeling is always during the return, it’s that feeling of ‘I did it’, without the tension of the unknown, of doubts about whether will work or not, especially when I don’t know the place”. And he compares the end of a good trail to the parachute jump he did a few years ago. “When jumping, it’s tense, you think of a thousand things that might not work out, but when you get to the ground, you already want to do it again”, he says.
That’s it, we always want more. And we are fully aware that time is less and less.
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