The Girlfriends: Spotlight, E13: Silvia Climbs to the Top of the World

Summary

The Girlfriends: Spotlight, Episode 13 – Silvia Climbs to the Top of the World

Host: Anna Sinfield
Guest: Silvia Vasquez-Lavado
Date: February 9, 2026

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Episode Overview

This powerful episode of The Girlfriends: Spotlight features Silvia Vasquez-Lavado, the first Peruvian woman and first openly gay woman to summit Mount Everest and complete the Seven Summits. Host Anna Sinfield skillfully guides listeners through Silvia’s harrowing personal journey, tracing her path from surviving childhood trauma and addiction to leading a group of survivors to Everest and founding Courageous Girls, an organization dedicated to helping young women heal through adventure and community. The episode is an honest exploration of how healing can take both inward and outward journeys, and how embracing vulnerability, community, and challenge can transform trauma into power.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Trauma and Seeking Healing

• Ayahuasca Ceremony as Turning Point ([03:15]–[05:03])

  • Silvia shares her first ayahuasca experience in Peru, which triggers a vision of her younger self, the “little girl in a turquoise suit.”
  • She describes a “spiritual reunion” with this inner child, walking together among giant mountains.
  • Quote:

    “There is this kind of reunion… as we are holding each other… I hear this rumbling and all of a sudden these massive mountains appear out of nowhere.”
    — Silvia Vasquez-Lavado [04:23]

• Childhood Pain and Early Adulthood ([06:10]–[09:27])

  • Silvia recounts enduring sexual abuse between ages 6–10 and growing up amid Peru’s civil war.
  • She speaks of an abusive, old-school father, household violence, and the pressure to be an “angelic” child.
  • “My childhood… was complicated. It was very complex.” — Silvia [06:19]

• First Steps in the U.S.: Identity and Struggle ([07:40]–[09:05])

  • After revealing the abuse to her mother at 15, Silvia receives a scholarship to attend the University of Pennsylvania.
  • Discovering her sexuality, she moves to San Francisco, describes finding “her people,” and begins working in tech.
  • “This is everyday carnival. Just the happiness, the embracement.” — Silvia (on seeing San Francisco Gay Pride) [08:28]

2. Addiction, Ayahuasca, and the Call of the Mountains

• Battling Alcoholism and Rock Bottom ([09:27]–[11:43])

  • Silvia discusses how alcohol helped her numb pain and anxiety tied to her trauma and double life.
  • After a DUI crash and losing her license, true rock bottom hits when her brother finds her passed out and her mother intervenes:

    “She just said, you have to come down to Peru. We’re going to do ayahuasca.” — Silvia [10:57]

• The Vision: Healing through Nature ([12:41]–[13:57])

  • Silvia, skeptical but desperate, joins her mother and father in an ayahuasca ceremony.
  • She experiences an “electricity, almost this completion, like this missing part of my heart was coming together” as she hugs her inner child.
  • The vision of mountains lingers, prompting her to seek meaning in the physical world.

• From Metaphor to Mission: Choosing Everest ([14:15]–[15:17])

  • Initially uninterested in nature, Silvia decides to go to Everest Base Camp to see what she might learn.
  • She jokes about having “no prior trekking experience” and buying all her gear at once (“what do you need? Like everything.” [15:51])
  • The Himalayas provoke a profound shift:

    “If I had been living in a box, somebody had opened up the lid… the size of these mountains… literally made me see my space in this world… being an ant, I think that’s what the plant wanted me to see.” — Silvia [16:25]

3. The Promise & The Power of Community

• A Vow to Everest: To Return and Give Back ([18:27]–[19:01])

  • At Kalipatar, with sunrise over Everest (Chomolungma—“mother of the world”), Silvia promises to return as a mountaineer and “with a social cause.”
  • “Let me come back as a mountaineer, but also let me come back with a social cause as a way to give back.” — Silvia [18:38]

• Loss, Return to Addiction, and Rediscovering Purpose ([22:29]–[24:27])

  • Silvia is derailed by the death of her partner, a move to Switzerland, her mother’s cancer, and a divorce, leading her back to drinking.
  • She remembers her vow and channels grief into an ascent of Aconcagua.
  • On the summit, she places photos of her mother and partner, feeling called to “keep climbing.”

• Founding Courageous Girls: Creating Opportunity for Others ([26:49]–[29:20])

  • Silvia forms Courageous Girls to take survivors of sexual abuse and sex trafficking (from Nepal and the US) to Everest Base Camp.
  • Initial resistance (“It’s not an easy sell!”), but she finds partners in Nepal and, eventually, American participants.
  • “There was this kind of little sisterhood.” — Silvia [29:24]

4. Transformation on the Trail

• Breakthrough in Community ([30:11]–[32:05])

  • The turning point comes in a six-hour group sharing session, where both American and Nepali survivors open up, often through interpreters.
  • “Each of these young women showing me their power of their vulnerability and… teaching me the power in community.” — Silvia [31:41]

• Arriving at Everest Base Camp: Redefining Strength ([32:21]–[33:57])

  • The triumph is less about the destination and more about the realization of their own capability and the power of community.
  • “Sometimes society almost puts these labels or these limits on you… so for them making it to the base, it was powerful because they felt like, wow, I just did this incredible thing.” — Silvia [33:37]

• Full Circle: Becoming the Mother/Mentor ([34:06]–[34:41])

  • Anna highlights how Silvia’s journey came “full circle,” going from wounded child to nurturing mentor—mirroring her ayahuasca vision.
  • “Full circle.” — Silvia [34:39]

5. Climbing Everest: Facing Doubt, Breaking Barriers

• Making the Summit Push ([38:47]–[40:11])

  • Silvia joins an all-male expedition, facing skepticism—“I don’t know if you’re going to last.”
  • Two men drop out early; Silvia credits her journey with the Courageous Girls for giving her the inner strength to keep going.
  • “Regardless… all this bravado, all this noise that we hear, a lot is noise. Wow.” — Silvia [39:31]
  • She reaches the summit on May 19, 2016, becoming the first Peruvian woman to do so.

• Dealing with Fame, Health, and Next Steps ([40:30]–[43:21])

  • Post-Everest, Silvia’s story brings fame in Peru, which contributes to renewed drinking.
  • In 2017, a cycling accident leads to the discovery of a brain tumor, which—while benign—serves as a major wake-up call.
  • In recovery, she quits her tech career to dedicate herself to Courageous Girls and her mission.

• Sobriety, Legacy, and Impact ([43:21]–[44:39])

  • Silvia celebrates seven years of sobriety and reflects on how ayahuasca started her journey.
  • Courageous Girls has now impacted nearly 300 young women and expanded to Peru, addressing education and literacy.
  • In 2025, she summited Everest with an all-women team to honor the 50th anniversary of the first female ascent.

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Memorable Quotes

• On Healing and Reconnection:

  “It is that little girl that I kept trying to destroy with all my drinking. And what the plant was showing me is that. No. That I needed to reconnect to that part of me.”
  — Silvia Vasquez-Lavado [13:21]

• On Perspective and the Natural World:

  “If I had been living on a box, somebody had opened up the lid and next thing is like, holy wow… Being an ant, I think that’s what the plant wanted me to see.”
  — Silvia [16:25]

• On Community and Healing:

  “Each of these young women showing me their power of their vulnerability and what they have overcome and almost teaching me the power in community.”
  — Silvia [31:41]

• On the Importance of Role Models:

  “Now I can proudly say I’m seven years sober… literally following this dream of being of service. And yeah, it all started with the lovely ayahuasca.”
  — Silvia [43:21]

• Anna Sinfield’s Reflection:

  “What I really like about Sylvia’s journey is that it shows how sometimes healing can be a more active decision... not seeing how big your problems are, but standing at the foot of a mountain and realizing that actually you’re pretty small.”
  — Anna Sinfield [44:10]

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Notable Moments & Timestamps

• Vision of Ayahuasca and Inner Child: [03:15]–[05:03]
• Coming Out and Embracing Identity: [08:28]–[09:05]
• Addiction and Mother’s Intervention: [10:57]–[11:43]
• First Experience in the Himalayas: [16:25]–[18:38]
• Epiphany atop Aconcagua: [25:49]–[26:49]
• Courageous Girls’ Group Breakthrough: [30:46]–[32:21]
• First Peruvian Woman to Summit Everest: [40:02]–[40:11]
• Sobriety & Reflection: [43:21]–[43:43]

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Episode Flow / Structure

1. Introduction & Trigger Warning
2. Silvia’s Early Trauma and Survival Tactics
3. Migration, Sexual Identity & Estrangement
4. Addiction, First Rock Bottom, and Turning Point with Ayahuasca
5. Vision Leading to Action: Journey to Everest
6. Personal and Familial Loss, Return to the Mountain
7. Creating Courageous Girls, Realization of Collective Healing
8. Summiting Everest: Breaking Gender and Cultural Barriers
9. Ongoing Challenges: Health, Sobriety, and Finding Mission
10. Legacy, Impact, and Continued Leadership
11. Host’s Reflections on Healing and Community

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Conclusion

This episode offers a deeply moving narrative of bravery, vulnerability, and transformation. Silvia Vasquez-Lavado’s story is one of overcoming childhood abuse and personal demons—not through linear progress, but by revisiting pain, risking new experiences, and giving to others. Her journey up Everest mirrors a journey inward, demonstrating that true healing may require both acceptance of one’s story and bold acts of hope for others. The episode is rich in emotion and practical inspiration, underscoring the importance of community, service, and finding one’s mountain—however it may look.

Transcript

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[Anna Sinfield]

Novel hey Girlfriends. This episode includes mentions of child sexual abuse, addiction and trauma, and includes some strong language. We don't want that to be a surprise. We're also going to be talking about the use of ayahuasca, which contains dmt, which is illegal in most cases in the USA and several other countries. But there's plenty of wonderful stories on our feed if you'd rather skip this one.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

So I go deep into the plant and out of nowhere I see the image of a little girl in a corner, crying.

[Anna Sinfield]

Sylvia is in a large, airy room lit by 100 candles. She's sitting on a white plastic chair with a blanket, taking part in an ayahuasca ceremony for the first time.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

And up to this point in my life, the one thing that I did is that I never looked back to my childhood. I always was so hell bent to even wanted to forget it.

[Anna Sinfield]

As the psychoactive drink takes effect, Sylvia starts to see a vision.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

And so I come across this little girl in the corner wearing a turquoise suit. And I'm like, oh my God, somebody has hurt this little girl. Who is it? And I realize it's me.

[Anna Sinfield]

Sylvia stops noticing the people around her. Even the priestess sitting on a royal purple cushion by the altar fades away. Sylvia's entirely focused on this child.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

And there is this kind of reunion. There is this almost spiritual reunion that is happening inside of me. And then as we are holding each other and I can just grab her hand, I hear this rumbling and all of a sudden these massive mountains appear out of nowhere. You can just hear like. And I remember just looking at it being like, oh God, this is. What the hell? And my little girl is holding my hand. He's like, no, let's go. And we just started walking among mountains.

[Anna Sinfield]

Sylvia arrived at that ayahuasca ceremony, desperate to find a way out of her misery. And here she is being shown a path into the mountains. The message is clear. If she wants to turn her life around, she needs to do something extraordinary. Sylvia had no idea that healing from her lowest traumas would eventually take her to the highest places on earth. But she doesn't reach those highs alone. She brings along that little girl and so many other women too. Foreign I'm Anna Sinfield and from the teams at Novel and iheart podcasts this is the Girlfriend Spotlight, where we tell stories of women winning. Today, Sylvia climbs to the top of the world.

[Narrator/Announcer]

I got you.

[Anna Sinfield]

I got you. Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo grew up in Lima, Peru.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

My childhood, you know, it was complicated. It was very complex. I had to endure sexual abuse as a little girl. And it happened between the ages of 6 to 10 years old. And, you know, on top of that, we were in the midst of a pretty chaotic civil war in my country, so that added a lot of uncertainty. And the relationship between my parents. My father was very old school, very abusive, very violent. And so there was a lot of physical violence in my home. And I just wanted to be obedient. I wanted to be as angelic as I could. And so when the abuser said, you parents want this, you just obey.

[Anna Sinfield]

Sylvia's abuser was someone her parents trusted. And for years, she kept this awful secret to herself. She was 15 when she finally told her mom.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

She was heartbroken. This absolutely tore her. Like, she literally lost the will to live for about four or five months. And it was really tough. And so ultimately, she got up, she got help. She asked if I wanted to get help. And to me, living with that shame was so overwhelming that I'm like, no, no. I'm surviving every day. I don't need help. And actually, what she was advised is for me to potentially leave the country.

[Anna Sinfield]

Peru in the 90s was going through some serious political turmoil. Lots of people were leaving. And Sylvia managed to snag a scholarship to study in the U.S. a fresh start. She headed to the University of Pennsylvania. And arriving in America was a total culture shock.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

I would never forget getting into New York City. New York was, to me, like, oh, wow. I mean, just that I think it put some inspiration in my heart.

[Anna Sinfield]

Sylvia would drive from Pennsylvania to New York to work as a waitress at a relative's restaurant. She was funding her studies but also supporting her family back in Peru. It was a quintessential immigrant experience. But Sylvia also discovered new parts of her identity.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

On my last year in college, I realized I was gay, but I also was ashamed about it because at the time, being a gay person was still looked at like, oh, you know, some cities were more supportive than others. And my older siblings had moved to San Francisco, so I ended up visiting them. And I saw Gay Pride in San Francisco on that first weekend that I landed. And that was it for me. I saw that. I felt, you know, this is everyday carnival. Just the happiness, the embracement.

[Anna Sinfield]

San Francisco became home. Sylvia found her people. She'd come to America and come out and suddenly life felt like one big celebration. This was also right at the time of the dot com boom. And Sylvia started a career in tech. But as her professional life flourished, her personal demons were growing stronger.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

I was already having drinking tendencies. I started tasting alcohol when I was a little girl especially. It was very common in family gatherings, in birthdays. Have a little pisco sour. And the one taste I always had was, was also helped me with numbing, like, in a way that if I would get nervous when I would see my abuser or anything, just drinking a little bit more. And I could feel my brain going like I was struggling with my own identity and my family's acceptance. And so that kind of leading a double life. And I think the hangovers started also adding to that hole, that emotional hole.

[Anna Sinfield]

Sylvia developed a serious drinking problem and things spiraled way out of control.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

I crash into a bus that was parked and I ran away with a car. You know, like the fender collapsed and it still was in like 1am, 2am and I'm still like dragging the fender of the car and just like driving and not thinking anybody's gonna notice until I get caught up. And I got sent to jail.

[Anna Sinfield]

Sylvia was convicted of driving under the influence and lost her license. This was a serious wake up call. But she hadn't yet hit rock bottom. She stopped drinking for about six months before eventually going back to alcohol.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

Real rock bottom was to be found passed out at the entrance of my home by my youngest brother. And of course he called my mother, because my family knew I liked drinking, but they had no idea the extent of my drinking. For my mother to find out, the depth of my drinking just was possibly the bottom. And I had to admit to her that I needed help. And it always brings me a big smile. I mean, my mother was an amazing conservative woman, very caring. And on that conversation, she just said, you have to come down to Peru. We're going to do ayahuasca.

[Anna Sinfield]

We're going to do ayahuasca.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

We are going. It's not going to do you. We are going to do ayahuasca. And I went, like, what?

[Anna Sinfield]

Ayahuasca is a plant based psychedelic drink that indigenous people in South America have been using in healing ceremonies for centuries. It's famous for taking people on these intense spiritual and hallucinogenic journeys that can completely change how they see themselves and their lives. My vegetarian friend once did it and spent the entire time crying on behalf of Battery Farm chickens. She said she really saw life through their eyes. Which was perhaps not the cosmic introspection that she was looking for. And I'm sure Sylvia's heard similar stories, so she was understandably skeptical, but desperate enough to try anything. So she quit her job, flew back to Peru, and prepared to face whatever this ayahuasca experience might reveal.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

I took the leap of faith, did the ayahuasca session with my mother and my father, which that itself. Who in the world does ayahuasca with their parents?

[Anna Sinfield]

With all of your complicated feelings around how to be open with your parents about kind of who you are, to go into an ayahuasca which unravels the very innards of you. That's a bold thing.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

It was, but you don't know any better. And I go into this session just being like, okay, let's see what this plant is gonna show me. And so I take the tea and go deep into the plant.

[Anna Sinfield]

And that's when Sylvia had a profound vision. She saw herself as a child.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

It is that little girl that I kept trying to destroy with all my drinking. And what the plant was showing me is that. No. That I needed to reconnect to that part of me.

[Anna Sinfield]

Sylvia embraced her wounded younger self.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

And as we hugged each other, I could feel this electricity, almost this completion, like this missing part of my heart was coming together.

[Anna Sinfield]

Sylvia saw huge mountains rise up all around her. The child, her younger self took her hand and led her up into the foothills.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

When I get up, I hear my dad completely, like, snoring next to me. I will never forget. I was like, oh, that's my dad snoring. But that vision stayed with me. That was possibly the most profound imagery that I had seen in my life.

[Anna Sinfield]

And when she went back to San Francisco, she kept thinking about those mountains. What did they mean? Were they just some metaphor for the emotional journey that she needed to take or something more literal?

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

Nature never really called anything in me. I was a city person. I was never compelled, okay, let's go on this big hike. It just never really appealed to me. And I went like, you know what? Why don't we turn this into a reality? Why don't I just go and find a mountain and see, like, what am I going to learn? Like, just to prove it wrong. And so. But when I'm like, okay, what mountain? And I figure what I have connected to is this pain that has paralyzed so much of my life, and it's so deep that it only makes sense to go to the only place that would have the tallest mountain in the world. I Figured, well, why don't I go to the base of Mount Everest?

[Anna Sinfield]

Mount Everest. Sylvia booked a trip to Nepal to visit Base Camp.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

That's the tallest mountain in the world. So let me bring this mass of pain to the tallest.

[Anna Sinfield]

Okay?

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

So I decided to take myself there without any prior trekking experience. Just why not?

[Anna Sinfield]

Choosing the tallest mountain is a bold move. With no training experience, how did you start to train for it? Please tell me that you trained for it.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

Well, I cycled a lot.

[Anna Sinfield]

Okay, different thing.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

But different thing. And I run. To be honest, I didn't train. I remember I went with my girlfriend at the time to a sports store and she's like, what do you need? Like, everything. That is how novice I was. But when I started the walk, almost like within the first two hours, just something started shifting. That whole area is quite magical. And so we managed to get to a place called Namche Bazaar on the first day, which usually takes about two to three days when you first start trekking. The next morning, we left to what's gonna be the real start of the Himalayas. And that is possibly the one moment that my life just, you know, turned into a 180 degree and I will never forget just this unobstructed view on a gorgeous day with the sun shining. All of a sudden I was ready to kneel down and just completely bow down to just this gift. It was something so profound. Something had opened up. Like, all of a sudden, if I had been living on a box, somebody had opened up the lid and next thing is like, holy wow. The size of these mountains, just looking at how everything else looked in comparison literally made me see my space in this world. And I went from feeling this human to tiny. Being an ant, I think that's what the plant wanted me to see.

[Anna Sinfield]

Energized by this feeling, Sylvia pushed forward at an incredible pace. She made it to Everest Base Camp in just four days. For context, that usually takes a week and a half. But from there, she couldn't actually see Mount Everest itself. She needed to climb a nearby peak called Kalipatar to get a clear view.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

It is amazing. What as well. Just a small, you know, 500 meter climb can completely just change the landscape and the perspective. So now I had the whole visual of just the mountain, the sun really coming from behind Everest. And it was one of the most magical moments. And at that point, some local Sherpa mentioned to me, oh, by the way, like, we call Mount Everest Chomolugma, which means mother of the world.

[Anna Sinfield]

Standing there on Kalipatar, Looking at Chomolungma, the mother of the world, Sylvia makes a vow that would shape everything she does next.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

Like mother of the world, you have changed my life. This is unreal. I just feel like I want to promise to come back one day and attempt to climb as a way of saying thank you, pay my respects, and this time let me come back prepared. Let me come back as a mountaineer, but also let me come back with a social cause as a way to give back.

[Anna Sinfield]

After the break, Sylvia tries to fulfill that promise, but it's not going to be easy.

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[Anna Sinfield]

When telling stories like this, it's easy to get stuck in a trap of wanting everything to happen in a straight line. Sylvia goes to Everest base camp, has a transformative emotional experience, turns her life around and achieves amazing things. That would be neat, right? But sadly, it's not really how life works. Soon after Sylvia returned from Nepal, her partner, the one she describes as the love of her life, died. It was a lot of grief to process, so when an opportunity came up to move to Switzerland for work, she took it.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

I'm heartbroken, starting all over again. And I because of my grief, I kind of forget about the promise of climbing and I get back into my drinking habits.

[Anna Sinfield]

Sylvia's life was busy. She got married, kept climbing the corporate ladder in tech, and occasionally dabbled in mountaineering. She conquered Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Mount Elbrus in Russia, but she still wrestled with alcohol. And then came more heartbreak.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

My mother gets sick with cancer in Peru. I go back and I end up almost putting my life on hold because of that. She battled for two and a half years and she passed away. And three months later I get divorced. I was in survival mode and I would drink but you know, in a way hidden. And I never really had a chance to deal with grief or deal with even the emotions.

[Anna Sinfield]

Losing her mother, who had always been her anchor, and then watching her marriage fall apart brought Sylvia to another rock bottom. But this time, from the depths of her despair, she remembered Something, a vow she had made on the top of the world in the Himalayas.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

Ah, the mountain. I gotta go back to the mountain. And this time I figured, you know, it was my first Christmas that I was gonna be without. And I felt, you know, the tallest mountain in the Americas, South America is called Aconcagua. And I'm like, why don't I go to do Aconcagua?

[Anna Sinfield]

Aconcagua in Argentina, the tallest mountain in the Americas. It's about 7,000 meters high. That's 23,000ft. And Sylvia set her sights on the summit.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

I was so angry. I was like, this time mad at life. And it's like, you know what? I want to kick the shit out of a. I'm going to go and just kick the rock and like, yeah, it's going to be me and the rock and, like, let's get it on. And so we get up to, like, the last camp before the summit push at about 22,000ft, and I develop a headache. And it's the very first time in altitude that I am developing altitude sickness. And that evening, I have a meltdown in my tent. I started crying and just had to surrender to the emotions. I had to surrender to just the grief. And so all this pain started coming out of my heart.

[Anna Sinfield]

Despite this emotional and physical breakdown, Sylvia pushed on the next day and was actually the only one in her group to reach the top of Aconcagua.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

And so when I got to the summit, I was like, wow. I was able to leave a photo of my mom, was able to leave a photo of my partner who had passed away. And as I started coming down on that evening, out of nowhere, in the middle of my dreams, I get a voice, like a very strong assurance that tells me, sylvia, you have to keep climbing. You made the promise to come back to Everest. Stick with it. It's almost like the mother is waiting. And two, bring other survivors of sexual abuse and sex trafficking with you to the base of Everest so they have a chance to experience what you've experienced. Those two things became so clear in my head.

[Anna Sinfield]

Back in San Francisco, Sylvia started working to make this vision come to life. She called her organization Courageous Girls trying to build it from scratch. While holding down her day job in tech wasn't easy, but Sylvia was all in.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

And so for me, it was very clear that I wanted to bring girls from Nepal and I wanted to bring girls from the US to do this thing bringing survivors to the base.

[Anna Sinfield]

Okay, the idea was pretty revolutionary. Bring together two groups to trek Everest. Survivors of Sex trafficking from Nepal and survivors of sexual abuse from the United States. Through what Sylvia calls some magical coincidences, she found partners in Nepal pretty quickly.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

And I will never forget meeting this group of young women from this organization called Shakti Samoa. I ended up connecting with a group of Nepali mountaineers who were like, okay, yeah, we can work with you. We can help train the girls locally.

[Anna Sinfield]

Finding young women from the US to join the expedition, well, that was a much tougher sell. I mean, think about it. Hey, want to go halfway around the world with a bunch of trauma survivors to climb the highest mountain on earth? It's not exactly an easy sales pitch.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

I think we're quite jaded here. And so it took a lot of convincing because we had a lot of trial and errors with. Especially with American girls, who a group will come, then they will get scared, and then, blah, they'll quit. Then another group will come, they'll get scared, and they'll quit.

[Anna Sinfield]

Eventually, she found a small group of American survivors brave enough to take on this challenge. In 2016, it was finally time to make it happen. Sylvia would lead these young women to Everest base camp, and afterwards, she would attempt her own summit of Mount Everest, fulfilling both parts of her promise to the mountain. Most of the girls she was taking with her had never even left their home countries, let alone hiked in the Himalayas.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

From the get go, we start the hike with the girls, and everybody gets sick. Everybody gets, like, a little bit of altitude, even the Nepali girls. I'm like, really? And so we're struggling, and it's like, oh, God, this is not right. Not only I'm, like, playing mom with all the girls, I'm having to have my own briefings for climbing the mountain after. And the dangers of it, it's so. It is very stressful.

[Anna Sinfield]

What was the interaction like between the Americans and the Nepali girls?

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

I have to tell you, it's almost the reason why TikTok has been so successful. I mean, we might not understand each other, but there was this common language. One of my girls in the US Loved makeup. She had a Nepali counterpart, so they started bonding on makeup. I mean, on every break, it would be the little things that we would be bonding on. There was a sense of camaraderie that was getting developed. There was a sense of the newness of what we were trekking. There was a sense of this very unique place. The American girls had never left the U.S. so this is something like, wow, out of being out of their element. The Nepali girls had never trekked to that area. So to them, there was another sense of newness. And so I felt it was there was this kind of little sisterhood.

[Anna Sinfield]

But Sylvia couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing. She had organized this whole journey hoping these girls would experience the same profound healing she had found in these mountains.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

Even though there was this little connection that kept forging, but it wasn't really coming the way that I thought it would.

[Anna Sinfield]

Then, about three days before reaching Everest base camp, something amazing happened. The group was taking a rest day to adjust to the altitude, and Sylvia called what she thought would be a quick meeting.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

As an executive, I can just easily get together a group of people and ask everybody, all right, let's talk. How's the team doing? Give me your strength, give me your weaknesses. So I called for like a 30 minute meeting and I asked strength witnesses. Nobody answers. Pretty much my idea goes, as one girl starts sharing, like, one of the Nepali girl starts sharing her journey. SHE talks in Nepali. One of my guide trekking friends starts translating. And she almost opens up this circle of literally translating her own journey, her suffering, what being together means for her. And it's almost like the first match lights up and then the next one. Next thing is close to six hours that every young girl in that room opens up to just the hardship and the connection just sitting there. And literally each of these young women showing me their power of their vulnerability and what they have overcome and almost teaching me the power in community. We literally started right after breakfast, and then next thing is dinner time.

[Anna Sinfield]

Wow, that's so beautiful.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

It was this powerful bond that when all the girls left the little room we were in, like there was the side of a mountain. And I just looked and I said, well, this was the healing. It doesn't matter if we make it to the base or not. This is what we needed to come here.

[Anna Sinfield]

It didn't matter. Vasilvia and the young women were energized.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

We all made it to the base. It was just so powerful.

[Anna Sinfield]

And what were the reactions from the girls as they stepped onto base camp for the first time?

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

Sense of, like, almost so unreal. One of them makes me cry because she was saying the names of all her ancestors and she didn't realize it was the tallest mountain in the world. He's like, wait, what? It's like, what mountain do you think we've been climbing? He's like, okay. But just there was a sense of for them to feel what they had achieved on their own, but also in a community. It just felt this nirvana, this sense of heaven. That they have touched, even just seeing the reactions, knowing that they are stronger than what maybe the world told them. I think especially when you suffer through a lot of injustices, especially when you suffer a lot of trauma where you are in a marginalized community. I mean, my Nepali girls were part of the lowest cast, so they always had to endure criticism this and that. My girls in the US had to experience homelessness at one point in their life. So it's like sometimes society almost puts these labels or these limits on you, like, ah, you're never going to accomplish this. You're never going to do that. So for them making it to the base, it was powerful because they felt like, wow, I just did this incredible thing.

[Anna Sinfield]

Powerful.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

So that sense of their own accomplishment was like, I'm watching as a proud mother and just being grateful to witness that.

[Anna Sinfield]

I feel like there's also something to be said for the fact that your ayahuasca vision was you with yourself as a small child, your inner child, walking towards this mountain that you later learn is referred to as the mother mountain. And then when you return, you return in the role of that mother with your child reattached to you, you being a holistic person again who's able to give that love to other women. There's like a. Just a beautiful circle there.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

Full circle.

[Anna Sinfield]

After saying goodbye to the girls, Sylvia stayed behind at base camp to fulfill the second part of her promise to Everest. To attempt to climb all the way to the top.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

I will never forget. I have this, like, boom, close up, look to Everest. Wow. And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm going to climb this.

[Anna Sinfield]

That doesn't feel like a mother.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

Like, wait a minute. I have been talking that one day I'm gonna do this. I have been saying, one day, one day, one day. And here I am on my one day and night. No way. My legs started shaking. I kept looking at myself going like, no way. Oh, my God. What have I signed up to? What am I doing?

[Anna Sinfield]

After the break, Sylvia sets off for the summit.

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[Anna Sinfield]

Sylvia is standing at Everest Base Camp. She's still riding high from her amazing experience with the courageous girls, but now she's facing her own massive challenge. Climbing all the way to the top of Everest.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

I meet up with my expedition team and it turns out that all my fellow climbers are men. So here I go. From being with this kumbaya group of amazing women to a team out of seven men and me, even one of them is like, listen, I'm happy to bring anything that you might want to leave at the top with me, because I don't know if you're going to last. And so there was kind of little support to begin with. And I laughed because coming from the tech world, I was already used to the tech bros. And mountaineering is almost the mountain bros.

[Anna Sinfield]

But then something unexpected happened. The two men who'd been giving Sylvia the most grief, they were the first ones to drop out of the expedition.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

One of them got a pulmonary edema, the other one torn a ribcage. And at the end, it was only three men and me who had the chance to push for the summit. And that was another lesson that regardless, I mean, of all this bravado, all this noise that we hear, a lot is noise. Wow. Now I can clearly say that the journey, walking together with my young women gave me the tools that I needed to endure what came after for me.

[Anna Sinfield]

You did reach the summit.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

I reached the summit May 19, 2016, becoming the first Peruvian woman to do so.

[Anna Sinfield]

That's incredible. Sylvia had fulfilled her promise to the mountain, but her story wasn't over yet. In the years that followed, she kept leading courageous girls expeditions and worked on completing something called the seven summits, climbing the highest peak on each continent.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

I become almost like a national hero in my country, and I'm getting a lot of attention. And the one little guy that wasn't away was my drinking. And after Everest, a lot of the celebration maybe got to me, especially my story exploded in Peru, but it was a little bit too much for me to cope.

[Anna Sinfield]

And life had one more challenge for Sylvia. It happened in 2017, on the anniversary of her Everest summit.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

I was cycling to my work. It was a gorgeous day, and my hair was quite curly. And I'm like, you know what? I don't need a helmet. And as I'm coming down, I live at the top of the hill in San Francisco. I'm going into the city, A truck almost runs me over, and I end up falling into a ditch. And I hit my head so hard without a helmet that I passed out. My brain literally shook. Somebody calls a paramedic, so I get taken to a trauma center. And while I am at the er, you know, once I regain consciousness, I'm like, oh, I'm bleeding, but I gotta go and climb a mountain in two weeks. My last mountain, blah, blah, blah. And I'm being a little bit of a pain.

[Anna Sinfield]

Sylvia was so focused on her mission to climb the next mountain that she wasn't ready for what the medics discovered.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

And ultimately a doctor is like, listen, you're bleeding and we have found a brain tumor in your head, so you're not going anywhere.

[Anna Sinfield]

This diagnosis was exactly the wake up call Sylvia needed.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

And I kick everybody out. I just want to have time for myself. And I have this silence and I feel this moment of gratitude. I take a deep breath and I'm like, okay, God, thank you. You have given me a hell of a life. I've seen the most gorgeous places in the world. I have seen the most magical senses, the most magical sunrises. I have loved, I have lost. I've had, had a hell of a life. And if it's a cancerous tumor, I'm going to quit my job tomorrow. I'm going to spend the rest of my life being in the outdoors, climbing, inspiring young people and finding a way to share my story so that maybe others could learn from it.

[Anna Sinfield]

The tumor wasn't cancerous, but after the surgery and recovery, Sylvia still changed her life. She quit her corporate job to dedicate herself fully to her mission of helping women heal their trauma through the power of the great outdoors. Oh, and she also managed to climb the last of the seven summits, making her the first openly gay woman to conquer the highest peaks on all seven continents.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

Now I can proudly say I'm seven years sober. It's been this powerful journey. I'm launching various projects, so I'm literally, just, literally following this dream of being of service. And yeah, it all started with the lovely ayahuasca.

[Anna Sinfield]

The impact of Sylvia's work with courageous girls has spread in some really beautiful ways. The initiative has involved almost 300 young women across Nepal in leadership and healing programs. And they've also expanded to Peru, where Sylvia is addressing education and literacy gaps in rural Amazon communities. And in 2025, Sylvia climbed Mount Everest with an all women team on the 50th anniversary of the first woman to summit the mountain. Pretty incredible. We spend a lot of time saying healing is rooted in talking about our feelings, and I'm not about to discount that. But what I really like about Sylvia's journey is that it shows how sometimes healing can be a more active decision. I like the idea that sometimes healing can come from not seeing how big your problems are, but standing at the foot of a mountain and realising that actually you're pretty small. We've all gone for one of those sad walks with a friend and felt better at the end of it. So next time I've got a big problem, maybe I'll just hike up every or perhaps just one of London's nice flat parks. If you've enjoyed this conversation, you can find loads more incredible women on our feedback. Do check them out and please do spread the word and tell your friends about us. We want as many people as possible to be part of the Girlfriends gang. Next time on the Girlfriend Spotlight. Visaka sparks a ceasefire.

[Sylvia Vasquez Lovardo]

We said, look, we came to speak to you as mothers and then of course he said that your army have killed our people. Nice ideas, but let's see how we can stop killing and save lives.

[Anna Sinfield]

This season we're supporting the charity Womankind Worldwide. They do amazing work to help women's rights organizations and movements to strengthen and grow. If you'd like to find out more or donate to help them secure equal rights for women and girls across the globe, you can go to womankind.org UK. The Girlfriend Spotlight is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit novel.org the show is hosted by me, Anna Sinfield. This episode was written and produced by Al Shehbani. Our assistant producer is Lucy Carr. Our researcher is Zeana Youssef. The editor is Hannah Marshall. Max o' Brien and Craig Strachan are our executive producers. Production management from Joe Savage, Cherie Houston and Charlotte Wolf. Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson. Music supervision by Jake Otyvich, Nicholas Alexander and Anna Sinfield. Original music composed by Louisa Gerstein and Gemma Freeman. The series artwork was designed by Christina Lemkuhl. Willard Foxton is Creative Director of Development. Special thanks to Katrina Norville, Carrie Lieberman and Will Pearson at iHeart podcasts as well. Well as Karlie Frankel and the whole team at wme.

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