The idea was simple: Go to Angola help rural communities, and climb some rocks.
Last fall pro climber Alex Honnold and his climbing partner Stacy Bare set out for the country's bustling capital and traveled to secluded mountainsides. They found adventure.
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Honnold is known for free soloing some of the world's most famous routes. That means by himself, without a rope. He's also set several speed records. When not on the rock, his foundation works on sustainability projects.
Years ago Bare had worked in Angola helping clear landmines before he started climbing. The country is recovering from a bloody civil war that spanned 27 years and left behind millions of unexploded mines.
Remembering how beautiful the rock formations there, he convinced Honnold to return with him last fall and see what they would find. Bare, who experienced PTSD after serving in Iraq, has said that climbing saved his life. Vice Sports filmed their trip.
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The duo visited a landmine demolition site, where they watched Halo Trust, a landmine clearance company, safely detonate a bunch that had been discovered. Millions of active landmines remain scattered throughout the country. Through the Honnold Foundation they helped set up a demonstration solar power project in a rural village in an effort to replace deadly kerosene lamps. Kids danced under a solar-powered LED bulb.
They also explored the country's mostly secluded rock formations, including an enormous crack that Honnold free soloed. "The appeal of soloing is the high consequence," he mused. "You can't mess up."
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Angola frequently reminded them where they were. While hiking to a towering rock in Pedras Negras, they spotted anti-tank landmines. In some places they needed to use a machete to clear a path. Once they arrived and began to climb, everything seemed fine. Then, while hanging out on a ledge chatting, Honnold suddenly became violently ill.
Turns out he probably just had food poisoning rather than malaria, but it was enough to slow him down for a day. Then he was back, full of good-natured energy. Honnold capped off the trip by scaling the Epic Sana Hotel in Angola's capital - without ropes - in front of a large crowd.
Watch "Crack Climbs & Land Mines" here:
The guys were aware during their complex trip that rock climbing in Angola remains fairly unusual. Near a roadside route called Pedra Escrita, a village showed up to watch. "You kind of realize as well how absurd it is to go rock climbing," Bare admitted. "We're looking for the hardest way up. That's a really privileged perspective."
The world's 14 "eight-thousanders" -- mountains taller than 8,000 meters (26,247 feet) -- are all located in Asia. On one hand, they really beautify a horizon, but on the other they present a fierce, at times fatal, challenge to mountain climbers. Beauty can, indeed, be deadly. Here's the "baby" of the bunch, Shishapangma in Tibet, peaking at 8,027 meters (26,335 feet).
This is Gasherbrum II (we'll have another Gasherbrum coming up shortly), on the border of Pakistan and China. It's 8,035 meters up in the sky (26,361 feet) and is sometimes known as K4. These mountaineers are near the summit.
On the left side of this picture we see the sheer mass of Broad Peak, the 12th highest mountain on the planet at 8,047 meters or 26,394 feet above sea level.
As promised, here's another Gasherbrum: Gasherbrum I. (Gasherbrum, translated from the Tibetan language Balti, means "beautiful mountain.") It also goes by the name of K5, lives along the China-Pakistan border and is 8,080 meters (26,444 ft) high.
The Himalayan mountain range Annapurna, in Nepal, is seen here from Pkhara, about 124 miles (200 kilometers) west of Kathmandu. Annapurna is considered one of the most dangerous for climbers; first crested in 1950, it has since been climbed by more than 100 people but taken 53 lives along the way.
This somewhat unsettling photo was taken in 1931 by mountaineers at a base camp on Pakistan's Nanga Parbat, the ninth-tallest eight-thousander at 8,126 meters (26,660 feet). The area captured in the picture is known as the Nanga Wall.
Eighth-tallest of the eight-thousanders is Nepal's Manaslu, at 8,163 meters (26,781 feet).
The Dhaulagiri mountain range in the Himalayas sports a rather volcanic look in this picture, with the sun brushing its top. But Nepal's 8,167-meter (26,795-foot) monster is of course quite chilly on top. Dhaulagiri's south face is considered by mountaineers to be a next-to-impossible climb, and no one has ever topped the mountain from that side.
Clouds hover over snow-covered Cho Oyu mountain in Tibet. The sixth-tallest mountain stands 8,201 meters tall (26,906 feet), and the "Mountain Goddess" (in Tibetan translation) is considered one of less-challenging climbs among the eight-thousanders (if you don't consider climbing ANY mountain a challenge, that is!).
Next in the eight-thousander club is Makalu, the fifth-highest mountain in the world, looming on the border between Nepal and China. It's 8,463 meters (27,766 feet) tall and is another tough climb, with 22 deaths tallied against its 206 successful climbs.
Standing 8,516 meters tall (27,940 feet), Lhotse, fourth-tallest, rests on the border of Nepal and Tibet. It was first climbed in 1956.
Kangchenjunga, in Nepal, is the world's third-tallest mountain, edging Lhotse by just 71 meters, standing 8,587 meters tall (28,169 feet). It's a prominent mark on the horizon in Darjeeling, the tea-growing region.
K2, the second-tallest mountain on the planet, is 8,611 meters up in the clouds (28,251 feet) along the China-Pakistan border. Climbers know it for its incredibly difficult ascent routes; in 2008, an ice fall on the treacherous slopes took the lives of 11 climbers.
And now we reach the Big Daddy in the worldwide mountains club. That, of course, would be Mount Everest. Its name alone is synonymous with challenging feats, as climbing it continues to this day to be a dicey endeavor, though it draws people year after year to attempt the ascent. And what a climb: Mount Everest stands 8,848 meters tall (29,029 feet). It was famously crested for the first time in 1953 by New Zealand climber Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay.