"Good morning from Peru", smiles Itay Alon on Monday this week during the Zoom call.
"It's eight in the morning here, but I've been up for five hours because I had to make some phone calls to clients in Israel. The children are still sleeping. When they wake up, they'll eat breakfast and then study a little with their mother. Then they'll go for a walk."
Early in the morning, in Peru life seems to have stopped.
On one side the Amazon.
Blue-gray water in the light of the first sun that has not yet come out of hiding.
On the other side is a classic South American street - cracked pavement, typical colorful houses and an ancient motorcycle parked on the old road.
For almost five months the Alon family from Herzliya - Itai, Adi, Elad and Rotem - has been traveling across the continent, on a trip that will last a year.
Fulfillment of an old dream.
The Alon family in the Amazon, photo: family album
In a series of videos and photos that they uploaded to social networks, the family members recorded themselves walking in the middle of a spectacular jungle, the children holding tiny crocodiles.
Itai (52) uploads everything to the Internet, with an emphasis on the social network "Dreamz", where he first expressed his dream of going on the big trip.
"Anyone can do it, all you need is courage," he explains.
Until the trip, he was a successful advertising and marketing person, and was involved, among other things, in the development of computer games.
Today, among the wild landscapes of South America, he makes a living as a user experience expert for online businesses.
He started as a visual designer, and in 2001 he and Naaman Chen opened an online game development company, PEOPLE2, which became a hit ("We made games for Coca Cola, Tnuva, Nestlé, all the biggest companies. It was a wild time").
In 2007, after they sold about 50 percent of control to the late Lipit Greenberg, he became involved as creative vice president at the Jipit company.
In 2008, he was recruited to an advertising and digital company, and later became its CEO. That same year, he met Adi Barzilai (43), his partner, then the owner of a company for viral videos and for the past decade, until the trip, a reporter for the financial website BizPortal. Together they gave birth to Elad ( 11) and Rotem (5). "We are both light bloomers.
We started the family unit late," Atay smiles in the Zoom call.
Operation Tzuk Eitan in 2014 is responsible for the big change in his perception.
"Two months in the reserves made me think about my future and the future of the branch. It encouraged me to take a break to think. I served in the past in Givat, and in the reserves in a liaison unit to the authority of the Home Front Command (YKLAR).
These are reservists who show up at the municipality during an emergency and help the mayors in their liaison with the IDF. I was stationed at Givat Brenner, and on a rock with them I felt that I was finally doing something good, compared to the world of advertising that beautifies reality and makes the truth unreal. Suddenly I felt that I was giving and not Just taking. When I came back, I knew immediately that I was leaving the job."
In the next stage of his resume, he was one of the founders of the music venture "Fair-Play" and also a start-up called "Effective Markets", which works to predict in advance the success of products and their suitability for the target audience before they go on the market.
At the same time, he established an independent business, which he operates to this day, and within which he provides "app user experience" services.
Fulfillment of a dream.
The Alon family in the Amazon, photo: family album
At the end of 2019, he arrived in New York to open an office for "Effective Markets", but there the corona epidemic caught him, along with his family.
"We decided not to risk it and return home. We rented a house in Herzliya, we tried to continue the company's activities remotely, but because the main activity is in the USA - it was very difficult.
Because of the corona virus, things didn't go the way we wanted."
About three years ago, the entrepreneur Yuval Manzoura approached him with an idea to establish "Dreams" - a social network that defines itself as "the first social platform in the world for sharing dreams and mutual help to fulfill them".
This is a network that encourages its users to fulfill their dreams, from adopting a cat or going on a trip, to aspiring to make millions or land on Mars.
Using the network, which is active in Israel and can be downloaded free of charge on a cell phone in the app stores, you can upload a short video with a description of the relevant dream.
The network guides and encourages the surfers to share successes and failures on the way to realizing the dream, and makes it possible to receive responses from other surfers and to use the wisdom of the masses on the way to realizing the goal.
Itay had no idea that the network developed by Shaked would lead him to fulfill his own dream.
"I wanted to test the system, so I brought up my dream, about wanting to travel in the East. I didn't know if I was really going to do it, I just threw up in the air. It happened during the closures, and I felt like I was at the bottom of a pit.
"People cheered me on and offered helpful suggestions, and it inspired me to keep updating everyone on what was happening. I received reactions, encouragement and support, and it kept my dream alive. Something in the group, in the feeling of 'togetherness', doesn't let the dream dissolve. It pushed me forward I knew that the surfers were waiting for an update from me, and I saw that the milestone that stuck me was buying a ticket.
"So I made a decision with a bang, sat down at the computer and bought tickets. Immediately afterwards I marked the milestone with a flag, as confirmation. In the evening I told Adi that I bought the tickets. At first she was angry with me for acting without consulting her, but quickly realized that once we have a destination - from there everything It will work out."
Catch crocodiles at night
Itai, Elad and Rotem refuse to stop their soccer game, even though the tropical rain is hitting Taiba, a very popular beach town in Brazil.
The three take off their shirts and continue running on the grass with the ball, soaked to the bone.
From the side, from a hiding place from the rain, Mother Adi recorded them, frolicking among the small brown huts and the tall palm trees.
Disconnected from everything.
The Alon family in the Amazon, photo: family album
Elad and Rotem opened a joint Instagram account under the title "brown_brothers_travel", referring to their relatively brown skin color.
They document there their various pastimes in the tropical country.
In one of the photos, Elad is photographed with a wide smile under a waterfall, holding a small crocodile in both hands.
In another photo, Rotem is seen playing an improvised flute he made from a branch he found in the heart of the jungles surrounding the Amazon.
He is then recorded holding a green toad, with an intrigued look on his face.
Itay: "Before the trip, we had to go through a process. Leave our rented house in Herzliya and disconnect from our friends and families. At first, the children did not want to travel. They were afraid. Elad, the eldest, did not want to leave his friends in the fifth grade. We made it clear to the children that we were not staying in Herzliya, because The cost of living, so in any case you have to say goodbye."
We put all our belongings up for second hand sale and got rid of the apartment."
The first stop abroad was Portugal. While Adi and the children enjoyed the feeling of freedom, Itai continued his work all the time. "It may seem like I'm just hanging out and having fun, but I'm also working," he said at one of the stops on the way to northern Portugal and from there to Brazil, during a family break for ice cream.
"It's very difficult. I deal with aesthetic matters, so I need a good corner for the laptop, which is well lit. I move every three days, and sometimes the Wi-Fi doesn't work properly. Little by little I'm learning how to equip myself, how to organize the corner So that it works properly. I took a large, heavy computer screen with me because that's what I need. On the one hand, I have a view of the jungle, which is amazing, but on the other hand, I won't lie - there are falls."
After a few weeks, the family continued to Brazil.
Wearing corona masks, they reached their first destination - a magical B&B in Tayba.
A brown wooden hut, surrounded by grass and palm trees, between which hang hammocks in a variety of colors.
Tropical trees sprout through Itay's window.
He himself is not wearing a shirt, due to the tremendous humidity.
The next destination on the journey was the city of Manaus, the capital of the Amazon.
"We entered the jungle for a week, with a local guide. At first the children did not want to hear about touching butterflies. They were afraid of the very concept of the Amazon, a place where there is more water than land and you move from place to place in tiny fishing boats.
The mother, Adi, in Brazil.
"Losing fear in the face of nature",
"We went out at night to catch alligators and piranha fish, and suddenly we realized that it is possible to live perfectly with nature. You don't really hear about piranha fish attacking people, it only happens in movies. The children slowly lost their fear of wild nature, they started touching and petting piranha fish. Develop toughness against them.
"Regarding their studies, if they leave the country for a limited time and report it, the parent is responsible for passing on the material to his children and filling in gaps for them. In three hours a day, more or less, we cover their core subjects perfectly. We use the study books that are in the class's curriculum , and also enrich the knowledge of English on a tablet computer."
The family members walked through the big green trees, with the guide leveling their way with a large machete.
Fearless Elad bit a worm he found, Itai posed for a photo with huge leaves he picked up from the floor, and Rotem blasphemed a branch he discovered.
"Crazy, what courage does your child have to eat a worm", the surfers responded to the video that I uploaded to social networks.
"You teach the children survival," wrote one surfer, and Ithi replied to him: "I can't believe we've been here for a month, living in the jungle and seeing new animals every day. The insects here are amazing in size, it's a lesson in connecting with nature."
We are considering continuing the journey.
The Alon family in the Amazon,
Now, five months from the start of the trip, they are in Peru.
Bird sounds are clearly heard in the zoom call we are having.
Itay hastens to clarify that there are also challenges along the way, and that one should not make the mistake of thinking that this is an easy decision.
"To get from Brazil to Peru we got on a boat, with 70 other people. We were told at the beginning that the journey would last eight hours - and at the end of the voyage it lasted 18 hours. That's how it is here, time passes differently. This is indeed the definition of living the dream, but you have to know that not everything is rosy You have to love the challenges."
Last weekend I received a surprising call from Israel.
"They called from the reserves in KLR, said there was an operation called 'Dawn' and asked if I could report.
The head of the council also called to ask if I was coming.
I informed them that I had been abroad for five months, and less could come. I felt a little strange staying abroad during a military operation.
On the one hand you don't live the alarms and concerns, but on the other hand you fear and worry about the family in Israel.
I tried to keep up-to-date all the time, hours and hours, and it wasn't easy."
Now the family members do not rule out the possibility of continuing the journey even at the end of the official year.
"It is very difficult to plan in advance because everything changes all the time. We have Portuguese citizenship, which we received a year ago as descendants of deportees, so maybe we will buy a house in Portugal or Brazil and maybe return to Israel. I have no idea what will happen."
In the meantime, Itay continues to update the users of "Dreamz", and receives feedback and support messages on the way to the next goal.
"It works. Two weeks ago, when I was in the Amazon, they turned on our satellite router for half an hour, and even though I was hungry and tired, I ran to upload a video in which I tell about another step I took. There is something amazing in being able to show that your dream is now reality.
"Anyone can realize a dream like mine. It mainly depends on overcoming fear. On our trip I met quite a few families, each of them completely different. There are teachers, high-tech people, people who are afraid of animals and people who love animals, people without money and those with money. In the end, everyone put their fears aside and did it."
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