Silvia Vásquez-Lavado in conversation with Joel Samper

Cartagena 2025, Saturday 1 February 2025

The guest at this event is a pioneer with great achievements. She was the first Peruvian woman to reach the summit of the world’s highest mountain, Sagarmatha (Mount Everest), and to climb the six highest peaks on the other continents. She is also the first openly LGTBI+ person to reach the seven summits. Silvia Vásquez-Lavado tells her story in the book In the Shadow of the Mountain, which also deals with a past of trauma and excess, and of childhood abuse. It reveals how an ayahuasca ceremony helped her to connect to the mountains, and how she undertakes her expeditions, together with other victims of sexual abuse, as part of the Courageous Girls project, founded in 2014. She will talk to Joel Samper about her activism, her memories and about the film that is currently being made.