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Climbing Aconcagua, the Summit of the Americas

By Stephen Kurczy

Aconcagua is the tallest peak in the Western Hemisphere and a meeting place for people from around the world.

Mila Marlina is the unlikeliest of mountaineers. At 4’9” and 82 pounds, she is about the size of a large backpack. The 42-year-old is from coastal Indonesia, where the climate is tropical and the culture doesn’t encourage a wife and mother to disappear for weeks into the mountains.

Yet this season, Marlina was one of thousands of climbers from around the world to travel to Aconcagua, the tallest summit in the Western Hemisphere, located in Argentina near the Andean border with Chile. For Marlina, accomplishing this feat also meant missing her older daughter’s 14th birthday in late...

Read this article on the Americas Quarterly website. | Subscribe to AQ.

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