A woman inspired by Indiana Jones has traveled her journey through thick and thin (ice) and brings her to being our QUEEN SHEVA of this Wednesday. The one and only: Andrea Cardona.

Andrea Cardona was the first woman from Central America and the Caribbean to reach the highest peak on the earth, Mount Everest. Andrea is a Guatemalan adventurer who started training in 2007 as a mountaineer and challenged herself to climb 8,848 meters to the top of THE *effin* EVEREST. A feat she accomplished on May 2010.

Andrea’s childhood was filled with camping adventures and climbing volcanoes in Guatemala, which led her to study Tourism Economics in Italy, a job at hotel chain, first in Sardinia and then in New York. Her desk job at the marketing department of the hotel made her realize that she missed going on adventures and being surrounded by nature. It was then, when she saved enough money to travel for 6 months around Asia. A life-changing journey in which she re discovered who she really was and brought her to Everest’s base camp.

Climbing Everest is no easy task, and Andrea knew it. She realized that she wanted to reach the highest peak on earth and was basically starting from zero, she had zero experience in trekking and climbing mountains. Also, she was prone to always being cold (friolenta, you know), had suffered asthma in her childhood and did not have they money for that kind of expedition. Did you know that climbing Everest can cost around $70k!?. Being a persistent person, she took the challenge very seriously, committed 100% to her training, and traveled around the globe for 3 years training and climbing 14  “easier” mountains like Island Peak in Nepal (6,160mt) and Chimborazo in Ecuador (6,310 mt).

One of the key factors that influenced Andrea’s decision to defy the odds, was the statistics (*numbers given by Andrea of the research she did on 2007) behind the conquest of Everest:

  • Around 10,000 people have attempted to climb Everest.
  • 3,400 made it to the top, with 10% failing to come back to base camp alive
  • And just 7% of the 3,400 were women.

 

Plus! She realized she would be the first woman from the region of Central America and the Caribbean to reach the top. For Andrea, feminism and the power of women have been a big part in her life. And it was because she was a firm believer in feminism, she did not let naysayers stop her from reaching her dreams and the top of the world.

 

After reaching the top of Everest, and coming back safely, she became the first Latin American Person (human being, not just female) to complete the Adventurers Grand Slam and the First Latin American Woman to complete de 7 Summit and the Three Poles Challenge.

In 2014, she was on her latest adventure: climb from the summit of Everest to the summit of Lhotse in less than 24hrs. A challenge known as Summit to Summit, was done for the first time in 2011, and in 2014, Andrea was about to be the first woman to do it when an avalanche killed 16 sherpas and all expeditions were cancelled. Andrea is one lucky human being, when she was back at the base of Everest in 2015, an earthquake struck Nepal killing thousands around the country.

Today, a published writer and a sought out inspirational speaker, you can find her traveling around Guatemala and leading adventurers to the summit of Guatemala’s volcanoes.
Her strength, physical and emotional, her perseverance and her positive attitude make her an amazing human being and our QUEEN SHEVA of today.