Rodrigo Almeida
Brazilian Nuts' Fundraising Page
Fundraising for Oxfam Trailwalker
Story
Thank you for visiting our fundraising page.
Yes, we did it. And we have plenty of blisters to prove! We whinged, moaned and cursed but at the end we walked 100km in impressive 26h44min59s non-stop through the night to Brighton. Only 288 teams (out of 502 who set off in Petersfield) crossed the finish line and we are quite proud of our achievement as, according to the organisers, our time is the new event record in the category "fastest slightly overweight Brazilians in their early thirties with a strange attraction for lycra (but only some of them!)". Actually, we could've cut down the time by 15min but, keeping a Brazilian tradition, we were late for the big day.
But we didn't walk the equivalent of almost 2.5 marathons (and a complete ascent of Ben Nevis!) just because we like to punish our feet for not being good enough to play football professionally. We did it to raise money for Oxfam and The Gurkha Welfare Trust.
So please help us beat our fundraising target by making a donation through this page. It is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to sponsor us: Trailwalker will receive your money faster and, if you are a UK taxpayer, an extra 28% in tax will be added to your gift at no cost to you.
What will your donations do? £6 can pay for an amazing 100 school dinners for children, encouraging them to go to school to learn to read and write - some food for thought! / £12 buys two dozen chickens (isn't that a KFC family bucket?) / £35 can buy a solar powered water pump and filter system to bring clean and safe drinking water to some of the most remote places on the planet where needed.
Oxfam is a development, relief and campaigning organisation dedicated to finding lasting solutions to poverty and suffering around the world. The Gurkha Welfare Trust was set up in 1969 to relieve hardship and distress among Gurkha ex-servicemen of the British Army and their dependents in Nepal – one of the poorest countries in the world. The Trust’s work now also includes assistance with medical aid, education and aid to communities in which the Gurkhas live. Money raised through Trailwalker funds education projects across Nepal.
Many thanks for your support.
Alessandro, Lalo, Marcus and Rodrigo
Team Brazilian Nuts
Meet the team
Alessandro: as expected, our fittest and most experienced team member found the challenge way too easy to his liking. He actually offered to stuff his rucksack with the other members' entire supply of water, food and phone books just to make the walk a bit "more fun". His words of encouragement such as "next year we'll finish in half the time" or "who wants to go for a leisurely 20km jog by the beach once we get to Brighton?" still echo in our ears. Unfortunately.
Eduardo 'Lalo' Schmidek: an optimistic by nature, always looking at the bright side. The long jokes he specially selected to crack during the walk were formidable. As they went on for about 2 hours each, we would have walked 10km by the time he got to the end. But then we would've forgotten the beginning so not really much fun.
Marcus Voltis Bulach: we thought we had lost him when he went on for 30min without trying to produce a pun or changing his socks (he has very impressive sweating skills). It was even more concerning when he turned down a pint of cold beer at the end claiming "it would go straight to my head". Luckily he recovered his senses quickly and created a new robot dance with his stiff limbs.
Rodrigo: proved to be the Ronaldo of walking (i.e., overweight with a dodgy knee and close to retirement). His main motivation during the walk was the free food and drinks offered by the Gurkhas in each checkpoint. Towards the end, he was mostly seen accepting paracetamol at the Red Cross tents which, combined with an overdose of jelly babies, pushed him through the finish line. By far the leader in blisters and moaning during the walk, he is already making plans for next year (to the other members' agony!).
Renata & Juliana: generally very mean to us, they would beat us with a walking stick if we turned up late or poorly dressed to our dates (I mean, checkpoints) and threaten not to feed us if we didn't say they looked fabulous every time we met. Well, not really. Lalo and Marcus couldn't have come with a better contribution to the group if they tried. Excellent and reliable at all times, we just wouldn't have made it without them. We just knew we were in safe pairs of hands (including free massages!)