Alexander Hernandez Recaps His Miles in Mickey's Shoes

Alexander Hernandez

Amazon 5000 Documentary Casting Video Submission

 

Meet Alexander Hernandez, your not so typical banker and financial adviser. Take a good look at this clean cut business man, he just spent 2 weeks trekking along brutal terrain in South America with Amazon 5000 Expedition Team Leader, Mickey Grosman. 

From his first video submission to his extreme fundraising tactics it was clear, Alex was daring (watch Alex's fundraising challenge HERE ). He had a sense of adventure instilled in him. More than this, he had a real passion for the cause and supporting Mickey's mission to Reignite the Fight Against Cancer.

Read below in Alex's own words as he describes the two weeks he spent with Mickey on the Amazon 5000 Expedition. His experience of going from the urban jungle in the city into the wild in the jungle.

  MY AMAZON EXPEDITION BY ALEXANDER HERNANDEZ

Sometimes it is darkest before the dawn, or in this case cold and "wettest" just before the successful warm and dry.  You will not give up, even though you will be tested by pain.  You will not turn back, even though you get lost.  You will only persevere.  You will pass through with the blessing from the jungle and forest.  You will succeed not because of your strength’s but because sometimes people have no other choice.  Your desire and want can be enough.  I believe in my friends and I have no doubt about your strengths (I witnessed them first hand).   Think warm and happy thoughts, tighten the ankle a little bit more, cut the bush a little lower, and take an extra long step.

 It still feels a little like a movie.   You know the feeling when you come out of that suspenseful movie that kept you on the edge of  your seat for the full two hours.  Then you hit the real world and  you are relieved.  The movie screen world is intense  but your glad that you can breath a little more controlled now and your blood pressure seems to be dropping after you walk out of the theater.  Then you recount with your friends or family those Hollywood moments that took your breath away.  I can look back on my experience in the Amazon and it almost seems like a movie.  It almost feels like my real life experience was a 14 day long movie theater that played out the best and worst of a protagonists role.    It almost seems like those moments of danger and terror are a long gone movie moment that is now behind me.  Yet sometimes I relive them and remember that I was really there.  I remember that I was in real danger.  I remember that my health and life were constantly at risk.   Yet oddly enough I am grateful for it.

I traveled to the Amazon, June 6^th of 2012.  That day was actually turning out to be one of the more beautiful summer days in Orlando, Florida.  I awoke early in the morning, kissed my wife and kids goodbye and made the 3 hour drive to Miami to depart on the 3:00pm LAN Airline trip to Quito, Ecuador.  My initial destination before the dark.

The plane ride was uneventful.  Like most plane rides should be.  I arrived at the capital of Ecuador sometime after 8:00pm.  I was greeted at the airport by two of the local travel guides that delivered me quickly to my  hotel.  The hotel left much to be desired.  The entrance looked more like an abandoned house.  The toilet had no seat or cover.  The bed looked more like my shag carpet from the 70’s, but with a 2010 expiration date and way passed its life cycle.  I believe the last person to sleep in it was a mountain man because he had left part of his beard on the pillow.  I was told to be ready by 6:00am to be picked up for the start of my expedition.

I made myself as comfortable as possible on top of the sheets and went to bed.  The sleep was intermittent as a couple fought in the room next to me and the other three surrounding rooms coordinated a party.  I was sure I heard a gun shot in the middle of the night, but hoped that it was a table being tipped over at the party. 

That morning I decided to put a positive attitude forward no matter what the experience.  I put on my favorite Mickey Mouse socks.  These socks have a colorful design of our infamous Mickey Mouse swinging a golf club dressed to the “tee” in his golf apparel.  I strapped on my jungle boots that were purchased on sale, grabbed my 70 lb backpack of gear and headed thru the door.  I was picked up by the same two local travel guides.  The hailed a cab and drove me about 2 hours to the west and dropped me off at the expedition checkpoint.  My journey really begins.

A little sleepy from the exhaustive night and trip, I nevertheless embraced the moment.  I was going to do this for something greater then me.  I was going to do this for all the people that contributed money to this cause.  I was going to do it for all those people that are fighting cancer and all those friends and families that we have lost.  It was to show the world that some of those things that we perceive as impossible are in fact possible.  They just require a whole lot of guts, hard work, dedication, and sacrifice.  I wanted to do this so my children and my children’s children one day will see this and say:  we can do great things for others and ourselves.  We can do the impossible.  

I was dropped off that morning in a little town called Nono.  This was to be my starting point and also a checkpoint for the expedition.  At the checkpoint I was asked to unpack all of my belongings so they can view my gear and make sure that I am fully equipped.  “You never know when we can stop and check your items again“, said Mickey.  In an accent so thick I had to ask a native Indian to repeat what he was saying.  They placed everything in my bag, strapped it on me and started to move.  I of course paraded around showing everyone my Mickey Mouse socks to  kind of ease the tension.  A tension that immediately started when I told them that I worked at a bank.  I could interpret the look on their face.  It was the “oh no” look.  The “oh no”  here is another one.  “Oh  no” another pain in our midst and failure waiting to happen.  The look didn’t deter me, but my tension breaking Mickey Mouse socks later turn out to be my biggest burden. 

We started walking right after that down a dirt road.  We continued walking down the dirt road.  Past small make shift bridges and beautiful woods.  We kept walking past more woods and now small mountains.  We continued walking, now up bigger mountains and about 1 hour into it, I started to develop blisters.  Darn those socks.   

We didn’t seem to stop walking.  We walked past plants, wildlife, bushes, and even lunch.  I could not however walk past my blisters.  They were now with me for the length of my expedition.  That ice breaker and joke was backfiring big time.  I finally got the courage to mention to the expedition leader, Mickey that I had blisters.  Mickey had everyone stop.  He was going to inspect my feet.  That is when one of the many first tests of pain began.  The remedy consisted of four parts.  First checking to see if the blister was ruptured or needed rupturing. Second after the rupturing was the dousing of my blisters with iodine.  Not the cute small square swab you get at the hospital but the10% Iodine bottle that flows maliciously through your pours, cuts, scrapes, and irritated skin.  The third part would not typically be classified as a part of the treatment, but believe me it was needed.  The third part of the treatment was my jumping, kicking, screaming in an attempt to diffuse away the pain radiating up each leg.  Some call it a breather.  I like to call it an integral part of any healing process.  The final part just as painful and was a preview to later pains to come that night .  The wrapping.  Mickey then tightly wrapped each one of my feet in gray duct tape.    I was a soldier in the making.   

A soldier for a cause.   A soldier with gray feet that continually shot aching pains up my spine.  A warrior for a cause that very well may not be the warrior he thought he was and all of this only a couple of hours into what turned out to be a 20 mile walk on my first day of my 14 day commitment.  What had I gotten myself into.  Could I really do this for all those people that believed in me.  Could I really do this for a child with cancer.  I began to question myself.  I began to question everything.