We can be heroes: the inspiring people we met around the world in 2024 – part one

Cecilia Llusco climbs an ice wall in her pollera, a traditional Latin American skirt worn over layers of petticoats. Photograph: Claudia Morales/The Guardian

The Bolivian mountaineer who scaled new heights

Nine years ago, Cecilia Llusco was one of 11 Indigenous women who made it to the summit of the 6,088 metre-high Huayna Potosí in Bolivia. They called themselves the cholitas escaladoras (the climbing cholitas) and went on to scale many more peaks in Bolivia and across South America. Their name comes from chola, once a pejorative term for Indigenous Aymara women.