Road to Brazil...Stadium Delay...Visa Delay...Perdido!

We started our fundraising a year ago today, climbing Ben Nevis, which makes it hard to comprehend the impact a decision we made in November 2012 is now influencing our lives and decisions as we sit waiting in Newcastle.

We spoke last night about how proud we were of what we had achieved given limited resources, a target of £10,000 to support us and no experience on how to start the "Newcastle to Brazil" journey. We started with a year in Brazil from January, but if truth be known since we decided in 2012 Brazil has been a major part of our lives whether that was fundraising, partying, with friends and in sport. We've both developed as people and made new friends along the way. It does become difficult to say goodbye or see you soon after spending time with people, but we've learnt to deal with that and soon that will be us. You realise the people who care about you and those who are interested in the idea behind our story. Luckily we've made some good friends to help us settle into Brazil.

We've had our fair share of media interest which is brilliant, maybe it might inspire people to take a step in the direction they would like. We can draw our inspiration from the people who are able to raise £40,000+ for charities like Tiny Lives and Childrens Heart Foundation. It is all inspirational!

We came up with the idea of a Brazil Day and yesterday we held our 10th at Star of the Sea Primary school. We raised about £600, but with it being a last minute decision we didn't know what to expect. I had personally forgotten what the experience was like, not only for us delivering, but for the pupils and students from International House Newcastle. They are literally celebrities for the day with children swarming around them to get an autograph and ask questions about their country. For us it is nice to see the young people enjoy the day taking part in different activities that seems to be catching the imagination of the schools as they are now recommending it to others!

Our VISA is still in limbo as we wait for it to be processed which is proving difficult especially as we both finished work in expectation to go. They say that happiness is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them. So we should have left on 29th January, but instead on the 7th February we had 455 children engaged in a Brazil Day. Positivity!

We have heard about the stadium situation in Curitiba and hope that by the 18th February they have came to a safe decision. Whether they hold World Cup games or not we couldn't really have a Project Curitiba and not be based in the city. Unfortunately if they can't hold the games then maybe we can come up with a solution, we've already came up with random ideas before and it has turned out to be quite good. 10 Brazil Days and 3894 pupils engaged.

It's been a fantastic year for us, a pleasure to meet all the people we have and hopefully we've left a lasting memory of Newcastle for you to remember.

The waiting game continues for us and Curitiba. Ate logo!

Ben Nevis

Since deciding Brazil was going to be how we spent 2014 we came up with some fundraising ideas to help us reach our target. Michael decided that Ben Nevis (the highest mountain in the British Isles) would be ideal because "we might as well try the hardest" and we set a date of 9 February 2013. Now we do not go mountain walking that often despite living close to the Lake District, never mind attempting Ben Nevis, so to decide to tackle it during the winter was quite possibly the worst thing we could have done. A quick search and temperatures would be around -5 degrees, 90% chance of snow and wind chill could mean temperatures plummeting to around -20 degrees. We decided we could not do this alone so we got some friends involved in our personal challenge for support and also they could help by fundraising for us.

We ended up with a team of 5 who ranged from did a bit of mountain walking to complete novice who did not own walking boots. One of the group would be raising money towards her own project through University so it became a joint challenge. We left Newcastle on the Friday with all the kit we would require and after 5 1/2 hours we reached our hostel in Glen Nevis (just outside of Fort William). We got settled in, visited the only pub within walking distance and had our last supper. Prior to leaving we had both had a couple of jokes or comments along the lines of 'are you stupid?' and 'do you know how dangerous it is?' so we thought it might lighten the mood. Throughout the meal it reminded us of a scene from the film 'Wrong Turn' as the menu seemed to be expanding the longer we remained with a late addition of minute steaks. Perhaps that was the last group ho attempted the challenge?!

We got back to the hostel and one of the team members set his alarm for 6am so he could have a look early on as he would be the group leader. Now we probably could have done with checking when the sun would rise because when 6am came around it was pitch black...great start. This also after a 2.30am wake up by someone smashing the windows closed because it was freezing. We got up around 7am, got ready and then made our way to get some breakfast. We explained to the lady at the pub what we were doing and then she looked like we had told her one of Michael's jokes. She wished us look because we would need it as visibility was poor just 100m up. We started the challenge at 9am after some debate about our #NewcastletoBrazil banner before delegating who would carry it on the way up.

Ben Nevis took us 7 and 1/2 hours to complete, however the truth is there were a couple of points were I thought the risk might be too great. Would it be worthwhile to risk people injuring themselves for £2? The main risk was at the half way point as we attempted to cross a waterfall which had frozen over and if one of the team was to slip or fall they would fall about 200m (probably to their death). We had a discussion about safety just as the only girl in our group tried to make her way over the waterfall. It was quite interesting as when she nearly made it to the edge she slipped, but managed to grip to the snow instead of sliding down the mountain. We all managed to scramble across and then we reached the zig zags where the climb began to get steep which caused issues for the calf muscles. As we got to about 900m the problems with visibility began as we could only see about 20m around us and then had to follow the stones and the bearings we got off a random German man called Herzig.

The summit was freezing, probably because we had stopped walking, but also we were 4409ft above sea level. We were joined by another group of about 10 before getting a couple of photographs we needed as evidence and some food. We also had a chat about the 'toilet' which one of the group thought was quite a cool addition after a hard incline, but in actual fact this was the observatory so when we explained she felt a little embarrassed and thankfully did not use it as a toilet. There was also a moment of brilliance as one of the other group rang someone to explain he was the highest man in the British Isles, only for one of the Polish guys from our hostel to jump above him mid conversation #FURIOUS. We followed the other group down which saved a little time as we literally slid down the mountain to reach the last zig zag before struggling to climb down the other 700m. Everytime we had a little break our legs would continue to shake as the wear and tear on our knees began to take its toll. We reached the bottom and went straight to the hostel to tell Jeremy that we had completed the challenge. We then got into our room before collapsing to the floor although the smell was quite appalling.

The evening was spent in Fort William for some food and then a couple of beers in the hostel to celebrate our achievement. We even managed to get hold of a new alarm system that woke the group up wth 82 text messages and a phone call about kebabs. It all makes the trip! All equipment was packed up and then set off back to Newcastle the next morning. Thankfully I had brought a pillow which meant it was a bit easier to drive back as my legs were still aching from the climb. A selection of photographs are below, but we have more on our Facebook page. Our final amount once all the money is collected will be £1500 which is a good start with more events coming up soon. A huge thank you to those that have supported us so far and those who made the effort to complete the challenge with us. Everything is appreciated! If you would like to donate you can at www.justgiving.com/projectcuritiba

Ben Nevis

We hope everyone had a brilliant NYE. On Saturday 9th February we will be climbing Ben Nevis to raise money towards Brazil. The money will be to provide disadvantaged young people from the favelas education and sport. In Brazil they only attend school for half a day or in some cases not at all which can lead to problems with crime. Ben Nevis will be tough as it is the highest mountain in the British Isles and it is likely to be -5 degrees when we are going. So if you would like to sponsor us you can via http://www.justgiving.com/projectcuritiba or telling your friends about it will be a big help. Just to give you an idea £2.50 will provide an hour of activity and £18.50 will provide a full day. If you are a business or company and sponsor us £100 for our corporate package you are providing a full week of either sport or English lessons for disadvantaged young people in Curitiba!