Walk To The World Cup Interview

If you haven’t heard about the boys walking to the world cup in Brazil, where have you been? Travelling 1966 kilometres by foot from Argentina to Brazil, Adam, Pete, Dave and Ben (plus Jefferson, their beloved new dog), have seen and experienced South America all in the name of football, to raise money for a water well in Brazil. We caught up with them during their journey to find out more about what it’s been like to walk to the world cup.

Hi, how are you?
Adam: A bit tired but we’re on our rest day today.

We can’t wait to hear about everything you’ve been getting up to. How did you come up with the idea to walk to the world cup?
A: We were all living in Sydney and we were in our favourite local having one too many beers and got onto talking about going to the world cup as none of us have ever been to one before. We decided that we could potentially walk there and then we bought the URL walktotheworldcup.com, and woke up in the morning thinking “did we buy a…” We didn’t do anything with it for about three months and then Pete started looking at the route and whether it would be possible. It just kind of grew from there and I think the turning point where it was like, “Oh shit we’ve got to do this” is when it got a full page piece in the Metro.

Why did you choose to walk from Argentina? We know that you can’t physically walk on foot straight from Australia, but why Argentina?
A: It was the route of the whole idea – 1966 kilometres. We looked at the map and we all wanted to originally go from Santiago to Chile, but that would involve going over the Andes. A place which we’d all heard a lot about and wanted to see was Mendoza because of the wine and the beautiful women – it’s just an incredible place. Then we got an email off a lady in Mendoza who had a language school and she said she’d happily put us up in a house for free. We wanted to go through three of the mad passionate countries in the world, which are obviously Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.

What cities have you been through so far?
A: We started in Mendoza and walked towards Buenos Aires, but unfortunately the route we were walking down was very rural; on one day we got completely lost and it was raining cats and dogs. Dave got hyperthermia and we had to walk down a live train line for about 3kms. We headed to Rio Cuarto and took a quieter road, from there we went to Buenos Aires and then we took a ferry over to Colonia Del Sacramento, which is in Uruguay.

What has been your favourite city so far?
A: All of the big ones really, I mean they’re all brilliant. The highlight for me and probably all of the other boys as well is the small place we walked through in Argentina, and we were taken in by the local football team. In comparison to the Western world, they have little, there’s no comparison. It’s always people with the least that are willing to give the most and the generosity we were shown all the way through the journey was very humbling.

Do you have a favourite bar you’ve been to?
A: Yeah, we went to a tiny little hippie commune place where there wasn’t any electricity or running water called Cabo Polonia. It’s like stepping back in time to a sand dune kind of fishing village, there was a bar there which was just basically a bamboo shack with fishing nets on the roof and it was surrounded by cactuses and bushes.

Can you tell us about one of your best moments that you’ve had while travelling?
A: One quite funny one was when we were in Buenos Aires and Nike sent us the full England kit. We stripped off completely into our full English kits and had a kick about and piss take with a Maradona look-alike.
Pete: Probably when Jefferson came, there was one day when we were having a rest day and Ben was writing a journalistic piece, we were taken by a guy who had a big truck to a vineyard, and we were sitting in this idyllic paradise, little lakeside sampling wine, and Jefferson, the dog we found, was wearing an England shirt and absolutely stinking.

The dog is still with you now?
A: Yeah, he’s become a big part of the team and so we’re looking to re-home him in Brazil. He wears an England shirt.

You’re doing this walk to raise money for charity as well. Have you raised your £20,000?
A: We had an event happen in the UK which raised maybe four or five and we’ve still got the walk to the world cup, we’re confident that we’ll make at least 14,000 and then we’ll have to go back and do some events and raise the final five. We will definitely have it raised by the end of the year. The water well has already started being built so there’s a lot of pressure on us to actually deliver.

Why did you choose to support J De V Arts Care?
A: A good friend of ours is the woman who runs the charity, she’s originally Brazilian. First and foremost, we wanted to do something for a Brazilian charity because the whole idea is to give something back to Brazil and do something for the locals. It was just a perfect fit because it’s a small charity and it’s completely dedicated to real Brazilian people; the people in small communities in the North. As we ran the idea to Santa, the lady who runs the charity, she was absolutely over the moon and really wanted to work together.

Speaking of Brazil, do you guys actually have tickets to the World Cup?
A: We’ve got tickets to England versus Italy so on the 8th of June we arrive in Porto Alegre and that’s where the walk finishes. We’ve got tickets provided by the FA, they were very hard to get a hold of but they gave us priority which was really good. Then we’ve also got tickets to England vs Costa Rica. The only one we’re missing is Uruguay, but we’re going to somehow try and get a ticket.

Do you have your accommodation sorted for when you get there?
A: Yeah, off the back of some of our Brazilian TV since the coverage, we’ve had some amazing emails off people that we are going to be visiting, offering us accommodation. We’re pretty much covered; we’ve met quite a few Brazilians in hostels who have also offered us houses.

Have you had any trouble crossing borders?
A: No, we only crossed on the ferry. Well actually, we did have some trouble; myself and Dave overstayed our visa by four days. We thought we’d just have to pay a fine at the ferry terminal, but because it was the weekend we didn’t have enough time to go and pay so we had to spend an extra weekend in Buenos Aires and catch up with the boys after the weekend.

Are you wary about crossing the border in Brazil?
A: It’s getting the dog over the border, yeah, we’ll be fine but we need to get Jefferson over.

Apart from Jefferson, who else has joined the walk?
A: Well it started with three of us, me, Dave and Pete then our friend Ben joined us in Buenos Aires, and he will be walking the last two thirds of it. In Argentina we had a guy called Adrian whose uncle put us up for the night, and he came and walked through the desert with us. We did call out to people to come and join us but no one’s up for it I don’t think. They know how gruelling it would be.

How many kms have you walked so far?
A: 12,000kms.

How do you find Wi-Fi?
A: We’ve had some pretty comical moments. There’s one where me and Adam were camping, we were walking on what was practically a dirt track back from the petrol station on the main motorway where we went to get Wi-Fi. We’d given up, it’d started to rain and there was thunder and lightening, we looked at our phones and found a Wi-Fi connection and guessed the password – it was just the same name twice. I’m putting that on my CV: ‘I have guessed a Wi-Fi password.’

What did you do today?
A & P: Went for a swim in the sea, which was quite nice but a bit cold, then made a delicious light lunch. We went for a walk and listened to some new music. We usually just try and explore the places we are in whilst also being productive on social media, lining up interviews and doing as much as we can to generate donations and awareness for the charity.

It sounds like you’re really going to miss Jefferson when you finish.
A: Ah don’t. I’m very scared about saying goodbye.

When you finish are you all heading straight back home? Do you have anything else planned for after the World Cup?
A: I’ve got a job interview in Rio to work in the Olympics, but if that doesn’t come up I’ll just head back to Sydney – my job is still there for me. I really fancy working in the Olympics, but another summer in Sydney wouldn’t be too bad.

You can donate to the Walk To The World Cup and help the boys finish their journey here: www.justgiving.com/WalkToTheWorldCup-JdeV

Images courtesy of David Bewick