Friday night and all day Saturday, people all across Atlanta completed wacky and bold challenges in the name of llamas. Cotopaxi, a B corporation with a passion for adventure and doing good, hosted an event called the Questival.There are many Questivals across the country, but this one was hosted in Georgia Tech’s backyard: Atlanta.

I was lucky enough to be on a team with four other girls from the Catholic Center. There was one other team from the Catholic Center as well.

At 6 o’clock Friday night, my team piled into my car and we drove to Grant Park for the check-in festival. There hundreds of people in costumes and neon and all with Cotopaxi packs milled around the park eating from food trucks, playing games, looking for trash (because one of the challenges was to find 20 pieces of trash- Cotopaxi knows how to clean up after itself), and dancing to music. At 7 the challenges opened and the fun began. We then had 24 hours to complete as many challenges as possible. The challenges fell in a variety of categories: adventure/quirky, camping & survival, checkpoint challenges (that we had to complete at a specific time and place), community & cultural, festival (to be completed at the check-in festival), food, hiking & travel, service & environment, social media, sport & fitness, and surprise (which were released periodically throughout the event.

Here are my favorite challenges from each category:

Adventure/ Quirky:

“Find and photograph a Maine license plate. The real thing not a photo or any other facsimile.”

So this may not seem like an exciting challenge, but Maine license plates are really hard to find when you’re as far south as Atlanta. However, when we were driving on the interstate we passed a slow-moving truck with a Maine plate. Everyone in the car started yelling for me to slow down, but I couldn’t hold up traffic. Eventually I went into the far right lane and started going the minimum speed allowed. Yes, 40 MPH on the interstate… finally the truck catches back up and moves over a lane to pass, but then it moves over another lane. I try to get behind it and somehow get slightly ahead of it in the lane to the right of the truck. I then merge to the lane left of the truck, and finally, after lots of yelling and hard work, we get behind the truck and snag a picture of its license plate. That poor driver probably thought we were insane!

Camping & Survival:

“Watch a sunrise. Take a break and enjoy the moment.”

We actually were able to camp with the other team from the catholic center in the backyard of one of the guy’s lakehouse. The entire camping experience was amazing: star gazing, cooking sausages over the fire, jumping into the lake, but my favorite part was relaxing a moment amongst the craziness of the competition to sit and watch the sunrise. Another girl and I sat on the edge of the lake, watched the clouds move across the sky and the sun’s colorful rays glimmer across the water, and prayed to the God who made all of it: the sun, the waves, the clouds, the stars, us. It was amazing.

Checkpoint Challenges:

"I solemnly swear that I am up to good. I understand that with great power comes great responsibility. I don't have much to say, but always remember, you is kind, you is smart, you is important."

We had to make a pledge to do good, and we made one with a bunch of movie quotes!

Community & Cultural:

“Recreate your favorite “The Walking Dead”” scene at an authentic location from the popular television series”

We went to the Walking Dead House Friday night as one of our first challenges and just had fun. It was a quirky challenge where I pretended to be a zombie.

Festival:

“Eat something from one of the check-in party food vendors and take a quick pic.”

We actually crossed off two challenges here, after waiting line for what felt like forever I finally got a quesadilla from one of the food trucks at the festival which Stephanie proceeded to feed to me… with her elbows. The quesadilla was quite tasty actually.

Food:

“Bake a cake, and put candles on it. Find a stranger and sing “Happy Saturday To You” to them”

I really enjoyed all of the food challenges (partly because I love food), but this was one of my favorites. We didn’t have time to actually bake a cake, and previous challenges had required us to make cookies and pancakes, so I took a pancake, but icing on the top and then put a cookie on top of that. I iced the cookie and put a pancake on top, iced the pancake, and then put another pancake on top. I continued this process until I had two cookies and about seven pancakes iced and stacked on top of eachother. I then iced the sides and decorated my “cake” with sprinkles and candles. Finally we found a stranger sitting in front of her sorority house and sang to her! Don’t worry, we warned her that it wasn’t actually cake (she ate it anyways).

Hiking & Travel:

“Car karaoke as a team to your favorite song.”

We didn’t do many hiking and travel challenges, but this one was super fun, since we were already jamming during our many drives around Atlanta.

Service & Environment:

“Give flowers to a stranger you see on the street.”

I think this was my overall favorite challenge. The woman’s face lit up into one of the most beautiful smiles I have seen. This is such an amazing lesson of the impact we can have through random acts of kindness.

Social Media:

A lot of these challenges were marketing for Cotopaxi, but it was still fun to share what we were doing with the social media sphere!

Sport & Fitness:

“Jump into a natural body of water where allowed with your clothes on”

We jumped into the lake at sunrise, and it was so cold! Natalie and I leap-frogged our way into the lake. It was very fun, but sort of felt like a Polar Plunge at the same time!

Surprise:

“See how long you can hold a consistent singing note and document the entire thing. Make sure it’s loud and that you are in a VERY public place.”

If I learned anything this weekend, it is that sometimes it’s okay to embarrass yourself. It’s actually sort of energizing to do something crazy (but maybe not anything too crazy) in a public place.

All in all, the Atlanta Questival was amazing. I got to explore the city that is home to my second home (Georgia Tech), I got to know some of my friends from the catholic center better, and I was able to go outside of my comfort zone and do some things I don’t think I would have ever done otherwise, like hug a stranger for fifteen seconds or step on grapes to make juice.

If you would like to look at any of the other challenges that my team did, here is the link to pictures and videos:

http://questivalteams.cotopaxi.com/teampage?id=bZo...

Here is the other team’s page as well:

http://questivalteams.cotopaxi.com/teampage?id=59E...