Mexico City.- Around 10:30 in the morning of May 17, 2023, for the first time, a Cuban stepped on the roof of the world, the top of Mount Everest. Yandy Nunez33 years old and from Bejucal, was able to materialize the great dream of his life: climb the highest mountain in the world and place the flag of his country there.
This Saturday, May 20, Núñez shared a video where he is seen taking the last steps to ascend Mount Everest, 8848 meters high. Dressed in orange with a special outfit for low temperatures and carrying the national insignia, you will climb the steep snow path.
“From the depths of my heart and with my eyes full of tears of blood, joy, suffering, constant dedication and unconditional resistance, never to give up,” confessed the Cuban who showed the video to his followers. “I’m looking for from my dream, without stopping fighting,” added Yandy, who had previously narrated that he was already back at the base camp: “safe and sound, and dehydrated.”
“Boiled glacier water never tastes the same. Sometimes when you are in situations like these is when you give more value to things that are very common,” said the Cuban mountaineer who conquered the emblematic peak, located in the Himalayas.
Núñez left Reykjavik, Iceland, where he has lived since 2015, on April 3, heading to Nepal to begin the ascent from there and adapt to the altitude. This was not the first time he tried it. He had already done it in 2021, but then he had to give up his dream, when he had climbed approximately 8,848 meters of the mountain, because he caught Covid-19 in the middle of his journey and contracted pneumonia.
Two years later, with his personal savings and some donations, the Cuban tried again and now he could.
a free cuban
While he lived on Yandy Island, he did not even climb Turquino Peak. He discovered that passion later when he arrived in the land of fire and ice, the youngest piece of the planet. It was his wife who encouraged him to climb small mountains and then he got caught up in the adrenaline rush of reaching the top.
The Cuban enlisted in the ranks of the Icelandic Rescue Team in 2017. There he learned rescue routines required for climbing and that are also useful in his work as a tour guide in Iceland.
His first great ascent was precisely in the country that welcomed him. Núñez set out to climb Hvannadalshnúkur, with a height of 2,109.6 meters above sea level, the highest elevation on the European island.
The habanero is known, the first Cuban who climbed the 5642 meters to the top of Mount Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe located in southern Russia near the border with Georgia. Now he is also the first on Everest.
Andy is also one of the Cubans who led the protests in Iceland in July 2021, following the demonstrations in Cuba. The young man openly opposes the dictatorship that governs his country of origin. That is why he has insisted throughout his entire journey that he is not just a Cuban, but “a free Cuban.”
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