A New York Times Bestseller. In 1993 a mountaineer named Greg Mortenson drifted into an impoverished Pakistan village in the Karakoram mountains after a failed attempt to climb K2. Moved by the inhabitants' kindness, he promised to return and build a school. Three Cups of Tea is the story of that promise and its extraordinary outcome. Over the next decade Mortenson built not one but fifty-five schools - especially for girls - in the forbidding terrain that gave birth to the Taliban. "Thrilling ... proof that one ordinary person, with the right combination of character and determination, really can change the world." - Tom Brokaw