A day like today: Bonpland and Humboldt

They were two young people who were just around the age of 30 and yet were considered as two of the great naturalists and scientists of the World at that time. The one was called Aimé Bonpland, French and his partner was Alexander von Humboldt; together they undertook the most important scientific trip; his destiny, was our continent.

There was not a single field of science that would not be investigated as it passed through these lands, of an exoticism unimaginable to the Europe of that time.

In the end, Bonpland and Humboldt made the most exhaustive study of soils, plants, animals, that no one had ever undertaken. Bolívar called them: "The true discoverers of our Continent". And in their efforts to get to know each other better, they came to what at that time was considered the highest mountain in the world: the Chimborazo.

Bonpland and Humboldt, stuck in the clouds, crawling on the edge of bottomless cliffs, in the midst of the blinding snow, defying the deadly cold, climbed step by step to the watchtower of the World.

The two explorers wanted to reach the sky holding on to the icy and sharp cornices, resisting the hurricane winds made of "pins". And they climbed so high, like never before any human being had done it.

It was a day like today, June 23, 1802 and although a few meters were missing to crown its summit, the names of Bonpland and Humboldt, shine with their own light on the peaks of America and science.