The expedition started with a 22-hour journey from London to Quito, the capital of Ecuador. Quito is high in the Andes Mountains and at 2800m provided an excellent place to start high altitude acclimatisation. The team spent a week in Quito exploring and climbing some of the peaks near to the city. During this acclimatisation phase they summated two major mountains - Pasoachoa at 4300m, and Guagua Pichincha, an active volcano at 4,675m. In the evenings they worked with a local charity cooking and distributing food to the homeless kids who live on the streets. The cadets made friends with them and one evening they played a football match in the street, cadets from Woodford against street kids from Ecuador. The street kids won!!!

The team left Quito for the larger snow covered mountains of Cayambe and Cotopaxi. They spent 3 days at Cayambe living at over 4700 metres, training on the glacier and again acclimatising to the high altitude. The plan was to summit Cayambe, a snow covered Volcano exactly on the equator. This is the only place on the Equator that has snow. The Summit attempt was due to start at midnight but when the team went to set out there was a full blizzard blowing and they could not leave the hut. Eventually at 4am they made an attempt but just an hour later were forced to return by the terrible weather.

It was then on to the final objective of Cotopaxi. They set up base camp and spent 3 days further training on the mountain before they went for the summit. They moved to the advanced base at 4800m and prepared to set off at midnight. At this stage the weather looked excellent. The team was fit, acclimatised, trained and ready to go for it. At 11pm they got up and prepared to set off. At Midnight, roped together with three on each rope, they set off on the 12-hour climb. For two hours all was going well, then the weather turned, a blizzard blew in and at 5350 metres high there was no choice but to turn back. They arrived back at the base camp disappointed but fully accepting that this is all part of the sport of mountaineering. Some mountains you get to the top of and some you don’t. Still with a week in the Amazon rainforest in front of them, they packed away their mountaineering kit and moved on.

After two days of travelling they arrived at their base in the rainforest. This turned out to be another unique experience. They stayed in a collection of huts on the top of a 100m cliff overlooking the jungle canopy. On the first evening they went on a night trek in the jungle to experience the wildlife and jungle at night. They spent the whole of the next day trekking through dense jungle. At times they were wading up to their chests along rivers in deep gorges. They visited caves full of bats and the day ended with an exciting climb out of the caves.

The last day in the jungle was another new experience, white water rafting. Following a couple of hours of training they set out, six to a raft, to ride over 30 miles of white water rapids on one of the tributaries of the Amazon river. They then drove back to the capital were they spent the last day mountain biking in a cloud forest.

Even though the team did not achieve their main objective of summating Cotopaxi, this did not matter. The overall experience of working as team, mountaineering in the Andes, trekking in the jungle, white water rafting and living and working with the wonderful people of Ecuador made this a true experience of a lifetime. So, where next for the cadets of 241? Planning has started already for the next trip. The team is being formed and it is hoped to take the cadets on another trip of a lifetime in 2006.