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Andrés Cruz: Summit for a Cause |
This man will climb the highest mountain in Europe while raising money for 157 single mothers and teenagers. He will keep register of his journey on a blog in Conexión Colombia. Plus, you will be able to help him.
By Gabriela Sáenz
Andrés Cruz is a very enthusiastic young Colombian. He is 35, married, has a son, works in real estate, and lives abroad. Like many other Colombians who have left the country, he feels he left his soul in Colombia. This yearning led him to embark in an adventure only few can accomplish. He is going to climb the highest mountain in Europe in order to raise 8.500 dollars which will help Fundación Juan Felipe Gómez Escobar’s income generation project for single mothers and teenagers in Cartagena, as part of ‘Summit for a cause’, a campaign backed by Conexión Colombia.
Plus, he will share his experience with the readers of Conexión Colombia through a blog which he will write both in English and Spanish.
Ever since he was a restless and curious child, Andrés began to practice mountaineering with his father. He remembers how they would walk from their house, located in northern Bogotá all the way to the San Rafael reservoir, on the other side of the eastern mountains. Even though he he was making a huge physical effort, he also felt completely detached from the world and felt at peace, which is why mountaineering became his main hobby for a few years. When he entered the Universidad de Los Andes as an industrial engineering student he joined the Mountaineering Society, and when he got married, he convinced his wife to go on a mountaineering trip to the Himalayas in Nepal.
Even though he loved mountaineering, the fast pace of modern life led him away from his great passion. Once he finished his university studies he was hired by the oiling company Shell, which relocated him to the Netherlands and then to London. Once he got settled in the British capital he decided to start his own business. He moved away from corporate life and founded his own real estate company. At this point he realized that reality can be radically changed from one moment to the next, and that there is more than one way to look at life.
Thus came ‘Summit for a cause’, a campaign which seeks to raise donations through networks of friends and fellow mountaineers, and in which reaching the top of the mountain is just an excuse to make a call for solidarity. Cruz will join an expedition what will climb Mt. Elbrus.
His idea was to go back to his passion in order to help other people change their realities. He is convinced that all 157 single mothers and teenagers he will be helping will teach their children the value of work. That is why he feels that his plan is not a work of charity, but a project with long-term goals which will provide the tools they need in order to make their livelihoods.
This is a double challenge for Cruz: to climb Mt. Elbrus, taking his body to a physical extreme, and to help those who lacked the opportunities he had.
But, like every challenge, this has not been an easy enterprise. He had to get back into shape after years of leading a sedentary lifestyle, and for that he adopted a very demanding physical regime. Three days a week, he would run up and down five flights of stairs. Two days a week, he swam one kilometer. On the sixth day he would lift weights.
Yet all this training became threatened when a tragic encounter with small bollard at a train station threatened to end it all. The result was a broken toe and the fear of having thrown away months of training, not to mention the hopes and dreams of 157 teenage mothers and their children.
Fortunately, it was just a scare. His doctor assured him that, if he promises to be very careful during the climb and follows certain instructions such as lying down with his leg high, he will be able to climb all of Mt. Elbrus’ 5.642 meters.
Suffice it to say, it is not an easy task to climb the highest mountain in Europe, much less with a broken toe. Mt. Elbrus is located between Russia and Georgia, where low temperatures can be extreme. He will leave London for Moscow in four weeks, and from there he will travel to Mineralnye Vody, where he will begin his journey. This will last for approximately two weeks. During this time, he will write a blog for Conexión Colombia, in which he will narrate his experiences, thoughts and ideas.
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