Mountains make you stronger

’In the mountains you have to be hard, in the ocean you have to be soft’ – one of the top freedivers in the world told me once in broken Russian accent. I don’t agree. You have to be flexible in both places to survive. The mountains can make you hard, if you don’t watch out. They can also make you stronger. They can prove to you that you are so much stronger than you think, and they give you a different perspective of life. When you have managed to do something difficult it will automatically raise your trust in yourself. It will also be a great memory to use in the future. Whenever you stand in front of something hard you can tell yourself ’I climbed that mountain, I can do this too’…
I left Ecuador with the feeling of strength, even though I didn’t make even half of the summits we tried to climb. I wasn’t there to summit, I was there for my group to summit. And that was what made me stronger – seeing their effort and how well they coped with difficult situations without a word of complaint when hit by hail storms, bad avalanche news and other situations. It’s never so much the place that matters, but who you are with. This group was great! Thank you again for joining me on this adventure.
It was a pioneering trip to Ecuador, and my first time in the country. We were there for mountains, but I’m sure my group will agree that the trip was about so much more than mountains. You learn about things you can’t explain. You learn about life. Here are a few photos from the trip and the beauty of Ecuador:

Another thing I really liked in Ecuador was the dogs. I love dogs! There was lots of dogs and most of them were well taken care of. I wish I could have helped all the wild dogs we saw. But all I did was give them some food from time to time and took photos of them… The first one is a wild wolf-fox-mix I saw in Chimborazo: