Andrea Cardona

Andrea Cardona is a Guatemalan mountaineer, the first Central American woman and the Caribbean to reach the world's highest peak on Mount Everest, 8,848 metres (29,029 ft) above sea level, and the first Latin American to complete the Adventurers Grand Slam.

Early life

Andrea Melissa Cardona Morfín was born in Guatemala City on June 19, 1982.

At age 18, inclined to engage in the Tourism Industry, she applied for a scholarship at the University of Genoa in Italy and four years later graduated from Tourism Economics. She later worked for a hotel chain in Sardinia and then in New York, performing desk job in the marketing area.

With a global knowledge base in the tourist branch, Andrea applied for a job as a guide, which found in a Brazilian tour operator based in Asia. After making seven trekking to the base camp of Mount Everest and discovering an innate passion for mountaineering, proposed challenge herself as being "the first Central American woman to climb the highest peaks on earth"