On March 29, 2024, I took a Flight from the hot airport of the Americas, in Santo Domingo, and headed to Panama. I flew from Panama to Quito, the capital of EcuadorThe goal was to spend a few days in the country, gaining altitude and training before traveling to Kathmandu. My biggest weakness is altitude and I live at sea level. If I don’t acclimatizedI risked getting altitude sickness, nausea, migraine… That’s why I went for a week to Ecuador: to reach five thousand meters, prepare my body, create more red blood cells and be ready for the mountain.
I traveled there with my partner and we were received by some friends and my Travel companion, the person who was going to go up with me to the EverestWe stayed at Carolina and Frank’s house, some old people friends mountaineers with those who had already scaling a lot. From there we began to make elevation gains gradually.
I continued with discomfort on the back, so We adapt All the plans of escalation. Every time we went out to train, I didn’t carry a backpack. I couldn’t walk with any weight. It’s funny: I was a few days away from traveling to Kathmandu and I couldn’t even carry water. Where have you seen a mountaineer who can’t take care of his backpack? I look at the photos of Ecuador and everyone shows up carrying my luggage.
My adventure partner and friend
It was never in my head to go alone. Everest. That would not have been a decision responsibleI knew I had to go with someone experienced. A person of full trust to whom I could entrust my life if necessary. Everestas I said before, does not forgive. For this reason it is very important to have an ally in that mountain.
Mine was Paul Guerra: my guide and great friend. He had a long experience as a guide to mountain. I didn’t have the Everest On his list of summits, however, he had climbed Aconcagua many times, mountain highest mountain in America. It is located in Argentina, in the Andes, and has a height of 6,961 meters… A difficult challenge. In addition, with it there had already been scaling many summits and we had full trust. He was going to accompany me to the mountain highest point on the planet, one of the most dangerous places on earth, and he was going to help me document it all in photos and video. To be honest, Paul was vital in keeping me calm, confident that I had the ability to do it. He pushed me when he needed to, sometimes a little more than I would have liked, but I know he did it with the full intention of achieving the goal.
Together with Paul, my partner and my friendswe went to Rucu Pichincha, a mountain 4,784 meters above sea level, to walk along the “death route”. We also went to Cayambe and Illinza. We always slept in sheltersThe idea was to avoid headaches, to feel good and to adapt to the altitude. On one of those days, we went to a lake on the Illinza route and it started to snow. So, on the way there we saw pure black earth and, on the way back, we saw everything white, full of snow. It was a nice and good preparation.
I started calling mountaineers to ask for tips
During my stay in EcuadorI was recovering from my back ailments, but they would still accompany me for a few more weeks. There, together with my guide Paul Guerra and my friends mountaineerswe did training to gain altitude. When we returned from the excursions, I sat at home and contacted different people to ask tipsBefore an adventure I always look for tactics that can help me along the way, so I started calling experienced climbers.
I contacted Rafa Jaime, a Mexican mountaineer friend who is blind, and we talked about some important things I needed to keep in mind. Then I exchanged messages with Viridiana Alvarez, a Mexican who holds the record for climbing the three highest mountains in the shortest time. I also spoke with Karl Eglof, an Ecuadorian-Swiss mountaineer with a lot of experience. experience in the mountain. I also wrote to some friends that they had already scaling he EverestI spent my free time looking for tips “Your throat hurts a lot, especially when you have the oxygen mask on. Always eat a mint,” one of them told me. “When you are in Nepal, always drink bottled water, otherwise you can get sick and it is horrible,” another warned me. “Buy some gloves that are made of full leather,” one told me very accurately. He even told me the brand, and it was a purchase that I was very grateful for later. All those tips that I collected from EcuadorI wrote them down and applied them in my adventure. I feel that this helped me a lot during the trip.
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A story of Thais Herrera as told to journalist Miguel Caireta Serra.
