As Susie’s Colombian adventure comes to a close, we share part 2 of our dispatch. One of the conversations I love having is right before my colleagues head out. We talk about “breaking” the destination, like the ones with Gisela before she went to Ecuador, Volker before he went to Zimbabwe, Tatiana before she left for Jordan, Colin before he delved head-first into Sri Lanka… and Susie before she left for the interior of Colombia.
In this dispatch, we focused on Los Llanos and the emerging areas that represent the evolution of Colombia. I have been visiting Colombia since 2006 when we opened our offices there. The feeling I get every time a region opens is exciting, and I cannot wait to get down there. I had that feeling about San Agustin, about Macarena, Barichara, Maranilla, and now about Los Llanos. Despite the rain, Susie has been sending video after video, photo after photo, each with even more excitement with every report.
The best part is that Big Five’s operation in Colombia has a vast network of private planes to access the areas, knowing which plane to use when and with the best routing. Susie took the long, arduous drive just as I did in Illescas, so we know what works and what doesn’t. Once we saw the private airstrip we wanted to use, we now know which plane, from which airport, and on what route would work best to avoid the drive.
Enjoy the video, and stay tuned for new programs coming soon that will take you to Los Llanos!
This is part II of Gisela’s dispatch from Ecuador. Part one took us to the Amazon, which was where I first visited as a teen with my best friend in school, Fred. What an experience that was! Part II takes us to the famed Galapagos Islands.
For the longest time, the only known way to see the islands was by boat with mediocre food, bumpy rides, and amazing guides. Well, the boat product has evolved over the years, and with some great experiences available. However, I remember a commitment we made as a company almost 20 years ago to focus on land-based products in the Galapagos, as it aligned better with who we were as a company. That decision propelled Big Five to the cutting edge in the Galapagos, and we weren’t the only ones who thought so. Our esteemed guests loved the way activities could be tailored vs. a rigid schedule of activities, coupled with top naturalist guides and experiences that covered culinary and culture, in addition to the wildlife.
So it’s no surprise that our own Gisela Polo, currently on her way home from the Galapagos, summarized her return to Galapagos as:
Seeing the Galapagos the right way means spending more time in areas that are not always visited. It reminded Captain about his times as a child, seeing his grandfather on small yachts much like the ones Gisela used for full-day excursions from her lodge, in fact, she shared something the local captain told her:
“The money doesn’t always go to the communities when one visits the Galapagos, many times, it goes back to the corporations. Look at the food you are eating, my sister prepared that!, everything you are seeing, eating, and experiencing is from the local community.”
This was touching for Gisela and frankly reinforces the ill effects of commoditization affecting some of the more mass- market products in the Galapagos.
I loved that when I asked Gisela about her favorite parts of her visit, she didn’t start with the animals, she ended with them. She started with all the micro-entrepreneurs running local farms and serving local markets.
Enjoy the video for part II and make sure to ask Gisela to tell you more about her story.
I love our Dispatch series, it may be my favorite blog post. In my opinion, it’s a trip report for the modern era. Now, don’t get me wrong; I love a page-turner like everyone else. However, images and videos could literally mean a thousand words.
As I write this, our Big Five Latin America manager, Gisela Polo, is exploring Ecuador. While on her way to the Galapagos today to visit a few of our best land-based options, she sent detailed reports with images and videos of her time in the Amazon Jungle, specifically our favorite lodge, Napo Wildlife Reserve. Enjoy the video, which chronicles her adventure in the Amazon, from the excursions and the landscape to the food. And pay attention to the glass floor, the only one of its kind in the Amazon, and my favorite room at Napo.
Big Five has been operating in Ecuador since 1989. My late father loved Ecuador, and I remember as a child him telling me how much it connected with him as his stories went beyond the Galapagos. The country remains special to us beyond tourism as our very own team member, Tatiana Johnston, is an Ecuadorian native, having climbed every peak in her native country. Maybe that’s why at 16, I went there on my own and saw firsthand what my father experienced. It was the first of many trips back to Ecuador. Even during the pandemic, my first return to the international skies was to Ecuador in September of 2020.
Enjoy part I of Gisela’s Ecuador Dispatch
Chile has been near to my heart since I was in university learning about the regime in charge decades ago. In 1998, one of my favorite professors was part of the national security team for Presidents Kennedy, Nixon, Johnson, and Ford, all the way up to the first 100 days of Ronald Reagan. Can you imagine serving that many presidents from both parties during those years? It was this professor who got me within inches of taking the necessary exams to enter the foreign civil service. To me somehow learning about the death of JFK, the various crises, in Vietnam, and the deaths of MLK and RFK from someone who was in the Oval Office for all of it, was indescribable, and like a sponge, I had soaked it all in. Among the things we discussed at length during his lectures was the rise of Pinochet as Chile’s leader and the ramifications of his policies with US ties. We had conversations using declassified information to decipher if our government supported the coup and installing Pinochet, as the two were not mutually exclusive. In fact, my professor often said Chile was the key cog in the region, something that could be argued today as well.
Just recently, I was thinking about my professor as I read an article about Chile’s economic growth showcasing how the tourism export in 2022 was double that of 2019. This was something we talked about in 1998, countries that were transformed from failed or marginal players to regional powerhouses through an in-demand export. There is no better example of this than tourism, a $300 billion-plus economy and one of the strongest in Latin America. In Chile’s case, it comes with what we at Big Five see now as a paradigm shift, with foreign entities now owning or being major investors in some of the most well-known lodges in Chile, and the rise of smaller locally owned properties that bring Chile’s indigenous cultures forward, not just the natural beauty. It is this equation that needs to evolve and constantly rewritten to keep sustainable tourism front and center in Chile and part of the discussion as we get into the ethics of sourcing lithium for electric cars, something Chile is also a leader in.
This week, we showcase Chile, beyond Patagonia, beyond Atacama. This is the Chile that Big Five actively promotes, as it is the Chile that still tells the story of what my professor talked about. These are the parts of Chile that embrace the delicate history that formed the character you see today if you go beyond and onto the road few travel.
Enjoy the video, and explore our latest Tour Chile & Bolivia; Art, Wine and Salt
