2023-09-03 00:03:49
Tests that border on the impossible. An “extreme” ‘reality’ that cannot be equaled to any survival format and in which the adrenaline is not only experienced by the contestants, but also by the program team and, especially, by the presenters. This is how Raquel Sánchez Silva and Julian Iantzi describe ‘El Conquistador’, the extreme survival space that after 19 seasons on EiTB, the Basque regional television, arrives this September on La 1, being one of the great bets of public television for its new season. They say that it is not easy to record in the idyllic Natural Park of Los Haitises, a conglomerate of paradisiacal islands in the Dominican Republic where not only do you have to endure extreme temperatures and suffocating humidity, but you also have to live with animals and insects that are rarely seen on a television set.
But during the recordings, in which more than 250 people work, none of it seems to matter to them. “When I get a ray of sun, bugs bite me or I see someone crying on the ground, it is the place where I feel best,” says the veteran Sánchez Silva, although the first time in a format in which the intensity of the adventure “is the same after 20 days of recording” and they are not “or cousins” to other survival programs in which she has also been a presenter.
He acknowledges that on this occasion, when he is once again in charge of an adventure program after several years leading other types of productions, he had a time to adapt, although it did not last long. “The first test we did, I went out, sat down and thought, am I going to be able to stand this?” But now, she assures her, she physically finds herself “more powerful than ever”, something that she also wants to reflect with her wardrobe by not wanting to be “the raquel of other adventures dressed differently.” She is now a “very warrior, very weathered and apocalyptic tough woman” look.
Related News
Something similar to what happens to the 33 contestants. It is getting out of the comfort zone and the environment where it is recorded that generates a sensation that is not experienced, according to the presenters, in any other program. “It’s called helplessness. It is nature that accompanies you, so there is something internal that rebels against all that discomfort. A situation, even so, that Iantzi has been dealing with for 18 editions. Argentina, Chile or Colombia. Six countries in eleven years, although no season has been the same, except as far as tests are concerned. They remain the same and just as “hard” even having now transferred the format to TVE. But despite the time that he has been involved in the adventure, he does not get tired. «When they ask me if I don’t get bored of doing ‘El Conquis’ I tell them, what is your office like?». And it is that he is a fan of the “extreme”, so when asked if he considers himself brave or unconscious, he does not waste a second in answering with a laugh: “Both, although my wife would say unconscious.”
Iantzi says that doing the tests “makes him very horny.” However, during the recordings they have not done it, although he reveals that he has jumped from the springboard with a 19-meter drop into the sea from which the contestants have to jump to start their adventure. “He impresses, but the brave is the one who overcomes fear.” That is, for Iantzi, the ‘Conquis spirit’.
The truth of the evidence
Even so, both have visited all the recording locations, including the three camps -hell, poor or rich- in which the contestants are based on whether they win the tests or not. It is the fact of spending the adventure as comfortable as possible that makes them go for everything, even if they have not eaten for days. “They come fighting to eat and we, as presenters, have to control situations that because of how they compete, it seems that they are going to pass over you and you will not be able to stand up.” That’s when they can’t take it anymore, that’s when the contestants uncover themselves and bring out their rude side. “To value paradise you have to take a little walk through hell,” continues Sánchez.
And before the jump to TVE, they do not feel vertigo. They consider it not a television phenomenon but a social one, where in the Basque Country families gather to watch it. “At the national level it will be the same, even more so considering that it is just as hard and intense.” In addition, it has the same premise and the secret that makes it hook: the truth of some tests among which there are, they reveal, one that no one has ever overcome. «We will see if they succeed now…».
Be that as it may, being in ‘El Conquistador’ is seen as “a gift” for people who want to discover their physical and mental limits. And they, as part of the adventure, also take “teachings” and take advantage of the three weeks of recordings to “disconnect from the world, do a kind of mental cleaning” in which they see people pushing themselves to the limit. All organized into three teams: “Supermen, superwomen and a third with participants who stand out for qualities other than physical.” It is what makes them different, because “the strong one who does not go with his head does not win.” And there are always surprises and changes of opinion about who will get the “conquering flag”. “You never know what’s going to happen.” It is “the greatness of ‘El Conquis'”.
#crying #ground #place #feel #extreme