DAVID ALEMANNI

How I started...

I sit in a canoe at the age of 5 and at 9 my father takes me on my first rapids. I start in the competitive world, but with poor results, I realise it is not for me.

I still go canoeing, while I dedicate myself to other outdoor, mountain and water sports.

The beginning...

At the age of 20, I rediscovered the joy of going on the river without a stopwatch, but simply experiencing it in all its wonders. It's the boom of high-course canoeing and, above all, the birth of rafting. It's love at first sight.

The change...

I abandoned my studies in the then 'Information Science'.

My curiosity to get to know new places and to immerse myself in cultures other than my own, drives me to travel, working as a rafting and kayaking guide in the rivers of 5 continents, following the rhythm of the seasons.

The evolution...

I start coordinating and organising river expeditions for beginners and experts, taking people to explore some of the most spectacular places on the planet.

From rivers through the Andes and Patagonia, to the Amazon rainforest, the turbulent waters of the Grand Canyon and the majestic Zambezi in Africa. From the remote Fitzroy in the Kimberley in the Australian outback, to the Franklin in Tasmania.

Today, among my favourite places, I find my second home in the waters that descend from the great 8000 metre Himalayas, in India and especially in Nepal.

My commitment to rescue from the beginning until today

Being a pioneer does not mean being good, but simply going by successive approximations. We were all canoeists, we knew the river well, but we had no idea how to safely accompany inexperienced people. We often made mistakes, overturned, got stuck,...rope throws were the order of the day.

To add to our inexperience, a large proportion of our shipments took place in inhospitable terrain, harsh climates. We faced the monsoon in the Himalayan rivers, great floods in tropical rivers, melting glaciers and snowfields in the Alps and the great rains of the Andes.

 Sometimes we were good and sometimes we were lucky, but at the end of each adventure we felt grateful to have gained one more experience.

Teaching...

Knowledge is a gift that should not be kept as a collector's treasure, but should be shared.

Everything I learnt was thanks to someone or something that explained it to me, made me understand. Passing it on is not only a pleasure but also an ethical duty, a return favour for the future.

Einstein said: "If you can't explain it to a six-year-old, it means you haven't understood it well enough."

And that is what I have always tried to do, to tell in a simple way what I have learnt and continue to learn.