The LANDED Podcast

John Montgomery
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Society & Culture

LANDED creates tailor-made journeys throughout Central America, South America, and the Antarctic. We’re devoted to exploring these regions—searching out exceptional experiences and locations for our clients. This podcast profiles some of our favorite places and brings you conversations with friends we’ve made along the way—explorers, artists, and visionaries. Subscribe and share.

  1. Sep 17

    Inside Copán: A Native Guide's 20-Year Journey Through Maya History

    LANDED Podcast 038 Fito Alvarado – Copan Archaeological Site Guide Fito Alvarado was born in a small town of western Honduras, within the ruins of the world-famous Maya archaeological site of Copan. His father was a truck driver, and his mother was a cook at the only tourist hotel in town. Fito spent his childhood playing between the ruins of this ancient Maya kingdom. Over the years, he has witnessed many of the discoveries made during the excavations at the site. At age 15 he began guiding visitors of the ruins on weekends. Those interactions helped him learn English.  After completing high school Fito studied at IBM Honduras, graduating with accreditations in computer programming and software design. He began studies in industrial engineering at the national University at Tegucigalpa. On school breaks he traveled home to continue guiding at the Maya ruins. That contrast made clear that his passions were Maya culture and the natural world. He left the capital to dedicate his life to guiding.  Fito has trained in tourism, nature, archaeology and history. He has a gift for language, and is conversant in English, Spanish and Italian. His work has taken him site across the Maya world, from Mexico to Panama. Rather read than listen? Find the transcript below Fito Alvarado, it’s so good to talk to you again. Nice to hear from you, John. A pleasure. Do you know it was 20 years ago that I met you in Copán? Is it hard to believe? Time flies. Yes, hard to believe. I was looking at pictures of the time that we brought our girls to Copán. The oldest one is married now. Wow, time flies. Oh my god. Yeah. Fito, you’re from Copán Ruinas. Yes, you’re right. I’m from Copán. I was born and raised here. I love that town. Yeah, me too. It’s a nice town. When I met you, we did a tour together. We started in Quiriguá, and then we went to Copán. I remember that. Normally the two sites are visited together, Quiriguá and Copán. I have great memories of Copán. What makes it so special for you as a native? Well, there’s so much about it. The fact that Copán is the southernmost of the Maya, but it’s also the southernmost border of Mesoamerica, which is this cultural region grouping all the maize-farming, the corn-farming societies of this part of the world. Copán, for instance, in the past, the Maya of Copán were the only ones that were able to interact with non-Maya, but they were able also to interact with non-maize farmers who were making a life mostly out of hunting and gathering. And some of them that had a little bit of agriculture were growing root crops rather than maize. And this is very interesting because the Maya of the rest of the lands never had that interaction with anybody different, but only Mesoamericans or Mayans around them. So that makes Copán very special, and we still have some of those cultural characteristics and differences with the neighbors in the rest of Honduras. We notice it even today. So imagine far back during the Classic Maya, that was more accentuated than today. Were those Lenca people? Yes, some of them are what we call Lenca today. Most of those people were interacting with the Maya and trying to copy some of the things the Maya did. For instance, in some of their pottery, we can see details that try to imitate Maya iconography, but in reality it’s not Maya, or some kind of glyphs that look like Maya glyphs, but they are not Maya glyphs. Copán and the Maya were like the big superpowers at that time in this part of Honduras. So the rest of the people were from different linguistic families. Maybe the most dominant today in the rest of Honduras and a big part of the north of El Salvador is what we call the Lenca. And if I remember right, there is evidence on site that Copán interacted with Tikal and probably with El Mirador. Yes, Copán and Tikal had a very interesting relationship. It’s archaeologically proven that the Copán monarchic system was established by the Tikal royal family. Archaeological evidence points out Copán like a younger brother of Tikal. It is possible that back at that time Tikal was trying to stretch its control. Maybe in this area the major attraction was to control the areas where jade was extracted. So Copán is different to the rest of the Maya world because most of the Maya cities you see in the Classic period were settled in the base of the Yucatán Peninsula or in the Yucatán Peninsula itself, so there’s a lot of limestone. But there were no volcanic stones that were needed at that time for their tool making or jewelry making, like obsidian and jade. Right, obsidian and jade. So we have nearby obsidian quarries and also jade quarries in what is eastern Guatemala today, relatively close to Copán. So probably that was motivating the elite of Tikal to execute some control of this part of the Maya world, with Copán being so far south. So the time period of Copán… All the Copán monarchic system is taking place within the Maya Classic period, between 250 AD up to 900 AD. But the Copán monarchy itself runs from around 420 AD to around 820 or 822 AD. So let me say that the monarchy of Copán lasted around 400 years. Although there is archaeological evidence showing permanent occupation of Copán dating far back to 1500 BC, in a time when the communities that were settled here were those hunters and gatherers transitioning into agriculture, probably a very early stage of discovering agriculture in this part of the Maya world. And that was primarily maize. Maize was the main element through the success of this culture. But in that very early stage, they were domesticating other plants as well. Probably one of the very first plants to be domesticated was maize, some sort of proto-beans, and some types of squashes. But there were others that were very helpful for them. One of them is the calabash or the gourd tree. That was probably one of the very first ones to be domesticated as well. And very often the gourd tree appears in the iconography of Maya mythology. I’m curious, being a border region, do we find evidence that the people of Copán traded crops or plants that came all the way from South America, like cacao? Not from South America. Perishable materials, grain for instance, would be very hard to trade over far distances since the transportation technology of the Maya was basically walking or dugout canoeing when possible. But there are certain objects that were found in Copán that prove contact with far south in Central America. Some of those pieces were little pieces of gold that were here for a little while on display in a little museum, but they were robbed from the museum. Oh, Fito. Being from Copán, do you feel a family connection to this culture? Definitely, yes. Part of my ancestry was Maya from here, ***Maya Ch’orti’***, but part of my family was of Spanish origin. So my family is mestizo. My grandfather used to be one of the workers in the archaeological project. So I was visiting the site every week. He used to teach all of his grandchildren about the ruins, and he proudly made sketches of things and told us stories about the site. So yeah, we grew up understanding that that is like our ancient home. When was the Copán Park created? The Copán archaeological site comes out officially back in 1952. That was the time most of the major archaeological projects were finishing and restoring the temples and trying to stabilize most of the infrastructure. When the institutions handed over the project—in this case it was the Carnegie archaeological project—they decided to hand the site officially to the government of Honduras. For that purpose, the government of Honduras created an institute, the Institute of Anthropology and History, to protect the site of Copán and also protect all the rest of the historical monuments of the country. And that’s the time, 1952, when the Copán archaeological site came to life as a protected area. Was your grandfather involved in the creation of the park? My grandfather was part of the working staff at that time. What happened too is that most of those people who were working in the excavation processes were hired by the Institute of Anthropology to continue protecting the site as guards. That was one of the suggestions of the archaeological mission in order to create sustainability: they said, “You should incorporate the people who were working at the site. Let’s give them the job of protecting it now.” So you grew up learning about the site, visiting there, spending time with your family, and it’s right outside of town. I mean, it’s a 10-minute walk from the center of town. The main archaeological site is half a mile from town. But what was discovered, John, is that the archaeological site that was first protected back in 1952 was only the center of the ancient city. As mapping projects started and people began to report the existence of ruined buildings on their properties, we started little by little to understand that the city in the past was actually occupying the totality of the valley, occupying the hilltops and the areas where modern town of Copán is built now. So we realized that the city in the past was actually bigger than the town today. Were any of the buildings in town, like maybe the church, built on top of Maya structures? Yes, you’re right. The church that was originally built in the middle of town was originally only mud with a thatch roof. There was a British explorer, Maudslay, who documented that part of a Maya altar was embedded in the main altar of that early church. Little by little, that mud-wall church was rebuilt and made larger, and for that purpose they used building materials from the temples that were adjacent. So

  2. Aug 11

    Juan Pablo Culasso

    LANDED Podcast 037 Juan Pablo Culasso – Nature Recordist Juan Pablo Culasso is a master interpreter of the natural world. Through his field recordings, he takes listeners deep into wild spaces: the Atlantic Rainforest of Argentina, the cloud forests of Colombia, the Brazilian Pantanal, and coastal lagoons of his native Uruguay. Entering these soundscapes is immersive, transportive, and invigorating. Juan Pablo trained under Jaques Vielliard, curator of the Neotropical Bird Sound Archive at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil. Later, he studied nature sound recording at Cornell University’s Ornithology Lab. He’s become one of the largest contributors to the Macaulay Library—the premier scientific archive of natural history media. With more than 20 years of experience, Juan Pablo’s expertise as a sonic curator of avian environments is unparalleled. Juan Pablo has an acutely musical ear and an astonishing memory. Barred from pursuing a traditional biology degree due to barriers in Latin American education, he trained himself to distinguish countless bird species by ear. This talent helped him win National Geographic’s “Superbrains” competition in 2014. In 2024, he was named to The Explorers Club 50, honored as a “Bioacoustic Engineer & Accessibility Advocate” for reframing exploration as a multisensory practice (one built on listening rather than looking) and for his work making the natural world more accessible to people with visual impairments. He writes, “In a world where nature is often forgotten or harmed, these recordings remind us of what we could lose. They’re not just sounds; they’re the voices of places that need our protection. I’ve been recording the sounds of different habitats, from the rainforest to the Antarctic. Sadly, some of the pristine soundscapes I recorded do not exist anymore.” Juan Pablo lives in Bogotá with his wife, Sara (an avid birder) and his dog Alegra. You can find his work on Spotify Rather read than listen? Find the transcript below Well, Juan Pablo, let’s introduce you to our listeners. You’re from Uruguay, but you live in Colombia. You started recording and became interested in the sounds of nature at a young age. You’re from Hawaii, but you live in Colombia. You started recording and became interested in the sounds of nature at a young age. Yeah. When I was 16 years old, I had the chance to go on a field expedition with a biologist in my country, Uruguay. And one of them gave me a recorder, a microphone, and basically he said, “Here’s the record button, the play button, the stop button. Try to record something.” And the very first sound that I captured with the microphone was a Kingfisher, and that Kingfisher really changed my mind in a really amazing way. It was a really warm day in Uruguay in January 2003, in the west of the country near the Uruai River. We were searching for migratory birds, seed eaters. They are extremely endangered because the grasslands that they use to feed on are disappearing, and we tried to really find those tiny birds. A beautiful expedition, four or five days searching, listening, was my very first time with professionals of nature in the field. And when I got that recorder, a cassette recorder on my shoulder, got my microphone in my hand, and pressed the record button, I was beginning to listen to that sound through headphones. It was really so nice because in that time, John, from my perspective, understanding the world through sounds was my way to really understand what’s around me. But listening through headphones with a microphone and focusing on a bird was so nice. And I asked biologist Santiago, “What do I need to do to become a biologist or become a nature passion or a thing like that?” And he said, “You need to study biology.” Well, my life pushed me in other ways, but in the end, I really got that trophy and dedicated my life to recording nature and conserving our sound heritage. You’ve trained now in Brazil and also done work with the Cornell Ornithology Lab. Yes, yes. To your audience, basically, on the surface, there is a lot of discrimination against blind people in education. So I need to learn most of the things by myself. Of course, I had the chance to know amazing people along the way in Brazil, of course in Campinas at UNICAMP with Jack Villar [Jacques Vielliard], and then amazing people in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I got a lot of knowledge from them. Finally, I give that knowledge to other people like me who cannot study using the mainstream, using the main way. So that’s the thing. Nature gave me a lot of things, gave me a lot of knowledge, gave me the chance to know our world, and now I’m trying to do the same thing to my community. You’ve become a major contributor to the Macaulay library. Which is probably the most important library of nature sounds. Yes, yes. I contribute to Macaulay because in the neotropics, even in my country, Uruguay, there are not too many recordings or register of sounds. Macaulay, even today, 70% of the sounds are from North America, and I think that here in South America we have one of the most amazing treasures that is: 66% of the bird species are here. So it’s really nice because here we have a lot of sounds, a lot of forest, a lot of things to record. And as you know, John, in every 100 photographers, only one sound recordist. So we are a bit of a rare species in the world that really puts the sound in the center of the story. To be sorry for the filmmakers, but filmmakers put the footage, the image, in the center of the story: 4K, 8K, but the sound is always in a secondary way. Nature recordists like me, even with my—again, I don’t like to talk too much about that—but my disability allows me to really understand basically what’s around me, understand the perspective of the forest, to understand what the forest is saying to us, is telling a message, is saying something. So with my microphones, I try to go there and capture and record that kind of music. I think, put that music or those sounds in a different series of actions to really put those nature sounds together for the people, you know. Most documentaries or things like that are really focused on images. Today, attention to sounds is growing really, really slowly, but this conversation regarding sound recordists, the importance, the priority of that- I’m talking to that, I don’t know, maybe 15 years ago or 20 years ago. So I’m so happy that this conversation is really going to the table, but it’s really, really going so slowly, and we are losing that ecosystem; we are losing, to a really high degree, that kind of music today because of habitat change or things like that, human noises. I say to you, it’s like an invisible loss. You are not really aware of how much we are losing our soundscape. And this is so sad. This is really, really sad. And with my publications on several things, I think that I’m giving the world a bit of that magic because, in my opinion, sound tells you a story, a beautiful story. My wife and I have been to the Amazon since we last talked. While we were on the canoe, right, away from the motors, away from engine sounds, I took time to close my eyes and to turn on my Zoom recorder and to see what I could see with my ears. I think there are some things about being in a jungle environment that cause you to be able to observe more without your eyes. The green, the leaves, it’s everywhere. And you can’t really penetrate it with your eyes. It’s basically your brain opening new ways when you visualize things. It’s this thing. But when you start to listen and pay attention and be open to that forest, it’s not common for your brain really to try to interpret what’s happening around you outside. So you are opening a new way in your brain, and I really, I’m 90% sure that that recording that you did with your recorder will be more remarkable than many photographs that you took, because sound really connects you directly with your brain. Images need some interpretation, but sound is, it is what it is. So it’s really, really nice how a soundscape can change the way that you understand where you are. That’s the thing. It’s a great exercise. It’s not easy. You need to learn. It’s a learning curve. Yes. Because you are using your ears. Basically, 90% of people don’t use their ears. Only you use your ears when the energy comes out; you are beginning to listen to a lot of clickings and cracklings and things like that. But in your normal life, you don’t use your ears as much as you can really. So I really believe that soundscapes and nature sounds can allow people to be more sensitive, right? To be more aware of themselves. When you are aware of yourself, you are aware of what’s around you. This is my experience that I can share with you regarding this. If you want to practice using your ears, go into the forest at night. It’s really nice. The very first time, it’s a little alarming. “What? Why is there so much noise?” But when you are with someone who can help you to interpret, to understand, you realize there’s more. The other sound I will always remember from this last trip to Peru. We were in Colca, and at one point more than a dozen condors were flying right above us at such a close range that, Pablo, we could hear the sound of the wind in their feathers. I’ve been around, you know, been able to see condors in many places, but I had never heard that. You inspired me. Let me put this thing in a really more common situation for many people, maybe in the north. I had the chance to listen to a really calm lake in Minnesota, the sound of the tail punching the water, the tail of the beaver. And that sound in the really silent place was really, really, really amazing. So yeah, soundscapes

  3. Jun 24

    Rocío Florez – Gocta Natura

    LANDED Podcast 036 Rocío Florez – Founder of Gocta Natura Rocío Florez is the Founder and CEO of Gocta Natura SAC and Gocta Natura Reserve. The reserve protects more than 200 acres in the Chachapoyas region of northern Peru—in the transition region between the Andes and the Amazon. For generations, the forest had been cut down to make way for cattle. Under Rocio’s leadership, the land is being rewilded to cloud-forest—habitat for birds, monkeys, and orchids. It is also the site of a lodge that allows guests to access the forest, one of the world’s tallest waterfalls, and the area’s ancient cultural sites. Rocio holds a degree in Finance from California State University and a master’s degree in social management from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. She worked for 12 years at the World Bank, where she led the Peru chapter of a Hygiene Behavioral Change Research Program, while also providing support to initiatives across Latin America. In 2009, she moved to the Amazonas region of Peru and established a sustainable development project in Cocachimba, in partnership with local communities, the private sector, and the National University Toribio Rodríguez de Mendoza of Chachapoyas. The initiative combined community capacity building, including the Children’s Forest Rangers program developed with the University, rewilding and reforestation, communication for change, and women’s leadership and economic empowerment. Over time, these efforts evolved into a rewilding hospitality model that integrates conservation, community development, and meaningful guest experiences. Today, Gocta Natura is a certified B Corp and a signatory of the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs). Rather read than listen? Find the transcript below Today we’re talking about your lodge, Gocta Reserva, in the north of Peru. You found this property with your husband on a birthday trip. Exactly. We had not been in that area ever, so we decided to go and learn about the archaeological sites of that area in Peru, visit all the archaeological sites and wander around. We took a 7-day trip, it was a nice amount of days to visit almost everything. And we saved not knowingly, but knowingly I guess, the best for the last. Gocta and Cocachimba are famous for their waterfall. Some people say this is the highest waterfall in the world. I don’t know what your thoughts are. Well, they say the third tallest, but still, there are discussions about that as well. So we decided to go because someone told us about the waterfall. It was not in our map and we entered the area, where you have to go back through the same road. So you go in and the final part is the town of Cocachimba. From there the view is amazing because there are all these cliffs surrounding the small town and the area.  We entered just after the rain had stopped and the sun came out. When it rains a lot of water, all the cliffs have waterfalls in different sizes, but Gocta is the main one in size. We really were astonished with the beauty of the place from the very beginning. That’s great. Now, I think when most North Americans think of Peru, they have a picture of the Andes, which probably includes something like Machu Picchu. And Machu Picchu is in a transition zone between the high Andes and the Amazon. Gocta and Cocachimba are also in sort of an Amazon high Andean location, but you’re a cloud forest location. Yes, exactly. We are in the lower part of the Andes, the newest part of the Andes. Landscape, by the way, is one of the attractions as well because it’s just beautiful. Wherever you go, whether to an archaeological site or when trekking, you will encounter these amazing views at some point. It is the Amazonian basin as you were saying, but it is high and it is cloud forest as well. And when we think of cloud forest, we think especially of birds. Yes, we have beautiful birds, some of them really in danger of extinction like the spatula tails hummingbird, but we have a wide variety of birds. And we learned about that as the time went by.  For the past five or six years, I’ve had ornithologists come once a year to do an inventory to see how we were doing. So right now, in the property, we have over 180 varieties. And in time, we’ve learnt to plant for them. The spatula tail needs one type of flower, and the Tanagers need another type of tree, and so on.  Conservation in Action: Community-Led Tourism in Cocachimba Rocío when you found this land it wasn’t what it should be. It wasn’t the native jungle, the cloud forest. It had been cleared for cattle. Yes, cattle and agriculture. But I understood that as soon as I met the community and families. From the beginning, I would visit frequently, ever since we bought our first piece of land while returning from our first trek to Gocta. We would get to know about the families there and so that’s how we started for instance understanding why they cut trees. It is just a family economic matter. They plant beans or coffee for subsistence.  But what happened in the meantime, was that tourism started coming. In most instances, they have left their land alone to grow, because they’re fully engaged as a community in tourism. There are well-trained guides locally. They are those who take the tourists on horseback all the way, especially back from the waterfall. Small hotels have arrived and restaurants as well, but very mildly. So, it still is a very nice little town. And so tourism in a way has replaced and has become a source of income for the families. Well, it goes beyond the guiding and the hospitality. It goes to the food, it goes to the transportation. And in many cases when this happens, we’re also seeing a reduction in poaching. And people who maybe formerly made their lives as hunters become some of the best wildlife guides. Yeah, that has been the transition which we’ve experienced. We got there 17 years ago and the waterfall had been discovered to the world in 2006. As it was only 3 years after that, we’ve seen the growth of tourism and specialized tourism as you were saying, the bird watchers and people from different parts of the world and also from Peruvians.  A Private Home in the Forest: The Personal Story of Gocta Natura You have no background in hospitality and it wasn’t your intention to open a hotel. This was a home you built and then you added a cabin for friends and now that’s evolved into six cabins and you’ve generously decided to share this place with the rest of the world. It happened slowly, very slowly because as you say, I didn’t have any background in hospitality. The first years, we would stay in town with the families, so we got to know the families and the families got to know us. Then we decided to build a home, as you were saying. but a large home.  The main area of the home was a very large living room with a kitchenette and our room, and then one additional cabin. My daughter is an architect so it was really great that she had to design it. And then along with the main area, we built one cabin and we had people that know, friends of ours from Lima come and stay there for a while. It became obvious that we needed more space and we built two more.  At that time, I was cautiously thinking about hospitality, but not really. I was engaged in projects that we would do with the community like the program to build young kids into the value of their place and the value of the environment and the forest.  I was reluctant. I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy being a host or receiving people. So, we opened up in a very private way. The gate was closed and reservations had to be made in advance. So, we started receiving people and they would come to a home and they would eat like you eat at home and they had a wonderful time and so that started growing. I want to circle back to two things you’ve said. One is that you bought the land the day you saw it. Yes. We bought the first piece of land when we were coming back from the waterfall. My husband asked the guide, “Do you know if anyone is selling a piece of land?” And I just froze because I thought this is it, this is it because I love this place. I didn’t even turn around because I didn’t want to ruin the magic. So, yes, we left the place committed to paying for that piece of land. We had thought about retiring, so it made sense. And we had always thought about going to the country and doing something there, but we didn’t know what at all. And so, yes, it was from the beginning. And then what followed was that I would come back and then they would show us another piece of land. And the reserve now is made up of different pieces of land that we started buying and we have 84 hectares.  The second point I wanted to emphasize is that before you built a hotel, you worked for many years with the local community with children to reforest the land. Yes. First of all, we did a public private partnership with a firm that was willing to fund half of a program that was very successful in the south of Peru. And we brought the person that is the director and founder of that program to Cocachimba to share what they’ve done in the south with the families in Cocachimba.  And so they accepted to work on it. It lasted about two years and it targeted the point of improving the economy in the family. So they would learn to save the water to have gardens, vegetable gardens, with drip irrigation or covered and they would learn about nutrition as well and many other sustainable technologies.  That lasted two years. And it was really beautiful because someone who had the experience of the project in the south would come and live with everyone for three months and work with them on this concept. So that was beautiful.

  4. Jun 2

    Nicolas Sahli – The Singular Hotels

    LANDED Podcast 035 Nicolas Sahli – Founder of The Singular Hotels Nicolas Sahli is one of the founders of The Singular Hotels. With his father, Felipe, they have created two of Chile’s standout properties: The Singular Santiago and The Singular Patagonia.  The Singular Santiago The Singular Patagonia “Growing up between the Andes and the Pacific, I learned early that this country has a rare gift: landscapes so extreme and so beautiful that they demand your full attention. From the silence of Patagonia to the golden light of the desert, Chile has a way of making you feel genuinely alive.” That sense of wonder is what drives Nicolas in his work. Chile deserves to be experienced slowly, with curiosity and intention—on a boat threading through the fjords, on horseback through the desert, or hiking in the wild heart of Patagonia.  “My hope is that every guest who walks through our doors leaves with a story that belongs entirely to them, shaped by a corner of this country.” This is not just a professional belief—it is how his family lives. “My wife and I have made Chile our greatest shared adventure, exploring it endlessly with our five children. And every time, Chile finds new ways to surprise us.” What I find most rewarding is seeing our guests depart not just rested, but genuinely moved—carrying with them a feeling that they have touched something real and extraordinary about Chile. The post Nicolas Sahli – The Singular Hotels appeared first on LANDED Travel.

  5. Apr 20

    The Power of Moments in Patagonia – Lilo Gari

    LANDED Podcast 035 Lilo Gari – Master Adventure Guide Lilo Gari puts it this way, “Patagonia has always been what makes me happy.” Lilo was born in the Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. He’s been living in Bariloche for the past nine years. It’s a place where he spent every summer growing up. “That’s why I developed such a deep love for this place.” With a corporate past and an outdoor present, Lilo now works as master adventure guide, and as an outdoor experience product developer. “I see my role as a hybrid between a commercial strategist and a field guide. During the low season, I focus on planning, developing new experiences, and training partner agencies. Then, in the high season, I’m fully dedicated—almost without pause—to ensuring our guests are happy and able to truly absorb the experience. Through creativity and attention, he builds bridges between the sometimes-stressful lifestyles of the travelers he serves, and a more circadian, nature-driven way of living. “What I love most about my work is earning the trust of our guests and creating a space where we can reach a certain level of depth and connection. The natural environment plays a key role in this—it encourages creativity, openness, and sometimes even a bit of courage, so that when guests return home, they do so as a better version of themselves—me included.” Lilo believes there is something in Patagonia for everyone, and his intention is to truly pay attention to each guest—to help them find their own form of Patagonian joy. Throughout the journey, Lilo stays constantly attentive and flexible. “While Patagonian weather can be unpredictable, nothing is quite as dynamic as our guests’ expectations.” “I understand that guests entrust me with the most valuable thing they have: their time.” The post The Power of Moments in Patagonia – Lilo Gari appeared first on LANDED Travel.

  6. Mar 6

    Simon Heyes

    LANDED Podcast 033 Simon Heyes Simon Heyes is an ace of Latin American travel—the final boss, the old gaffer. Simon fell head over heels for Latin America back in the early 90’s. He’s been a guide throughout the Andes—from Colombia to Chile. Then, after working for leading specialist UK tour operators, he started Senderos in 2004. The question Simon asks is: How can you love Latin America and not want to preserve it, conserve it, and help it regenerate?  Simon argues that tourism is uniquely capable of doing just that. It is a powerful tool for Conservation, Community, Culture and sustainable Commerce.  Senderos is a positive-impact focused, UK-based marketing, sales and PR firm.  Its clients are conservation-focused wildlife lodges, private estancias, boutique hotels and expedition vessels in Latin America.  Simon has been involved with The Latin American Travel Association since 1996. His firm has been a proud affiliate of The Long Run since 2017, and founding members of The Conscious Travel Foundation. Senderos gained B Corp certification in early 2024—bravo Simon! Well done—joining Travel by B Corp soon after. I’m chuffed to bring you this conversation with The Ledge himself, Simon Heyes of Senderos. Rather read than listen? Find the transcript below Simon Heyes, it’s great to hear your voice again. Simon: John Montgomery of Salt Lake City, it’s fantastic to be here with you and hear your voice. Park City. Now we’ve moved, changed things. Simon: You have. You’re out in the rural Idaho now, aren’t you? I have. My only neighbor is a bald eagle. Simon: Wow. Amazing. I aspire to this. I’m still in Bristol, but I’ve just been in the wilds of Patagonia and every time I come back, I think I love Bristol, but I think, ah, I need a little bit more countryside, bit more nature. Yeah. You and I were just in the same place. Cerro Guido. Well, isn’t that a lovely thing? Someone mentioned, not knowing that we knew each other, but probably suspecting that we did, that you had been down there as well. What, in October? Simon: That would be Gonzalo. And yes. Yeah. I mean, what a place that is. Simon: It’s shockingly beautiful. Yeah, it did blow me away. And I knew it was going to be good. I haven’t been down to Torres del Paine for a few years. I did actually visit Cerro Guido 10, 11, 12 years ago when it was in a different, sort of, in a different form. But… Simon: Yeah, so the landscapes were familiar, but, you know, the hotel was all new. Did see a huge amount of incredible landscapes and incredible wildlife, but an armadillo wasn’t on the list. So what else did you see when you were there that we can compare notes? Simon: You know, the most unscripted moment, let’s call it, was when we were riding. We were really riding. And you know, there you can run. You can canter as fast as your horse can carry you and your wits will allow. We’re mounting this valley, and in the distance is that peak of Paine Grande that they sometimes call Bart Simpson because it has spiky hair and a straight-faced profile. Well, in the distance we see a black stallion, and he’s circling something, and he’s very agitated. He’s rearing up on his hindquarters and giving us the full cinematic, you know, front-leg cycle motion. Incredible. Simon: And we get closer and we realize he’s protecting another horse, a horse that—and these are wild horses, they’re not part of the ranch—this horse has had some sort of an injury or an illness, and it’s lying down, and it’s on its last breaths, and it’s giving us this wild-eyed stare. But this beautiful black stallion just keeps circling and doesn’t want us to approach. And of course the gauchos want to get closer to find out, take some photos, go back and talk to the vet, see if there’s anything that can be done. And the stallion gives us some space to do that. And he—I think he senses that we’re not so much of a threat, but he’s pacing along sort of the mesa top nearby. And we do our little check and leave them in peace all the time, wishing we could do something for this horse. And as we’re going away, he does another one of those hind leg rear-ups, you know, straight off the silver screen, and gives us the whinny and then comes back down and starts protecting her again. There is an extraordinary drama to Patagonia, isn’t there? And a real drama to Cerro Guido. I think everyone who goes there—nobody will have that same moment again. That’s yours. That won’t ever be produced. But there is something where you enter some kind of flow of natural splendor. Cerro Guido is a portal into a dramatic wild nature that very few of us get to see. And I think everyone who stays there has these moments. No one’s going to have the moment you had, but everyone’s going to have something. I’d just come—it was a very unusual visit because I’d just come from doing a huge amount of walking in El Chaltén, Laguna de los Tres. Spent a lot of time with Alberto del Castillo from Estancia Cristina, with Mariana and Carla and him. And then I arrived at Cerro Guido, and my back decided to go into spasm. So I was in this extraordinary place—107,000 hectares, over a quarter of a million acres of wild Patagonia to explore, and I could barely get to my room. But I did manage to get moving again. And actually there’s always something you can get from every moment, isn’t there? And the fact that I wasn’t out horse riding with Victor as much as I wanted to be meant that I sat down with Victor in the stables and interviewed him, and I sat down with Claudia, the amazing chef, in his kitchen. And I chatted to a lot of people. And then I did have my moment: the next morning I managed to get my back moving and went out on the conservation safari with Pía and Sebastian and Mariana, and we spent the whole morning around the Condorera, you know, the condor cliffs that you would have visited. It was very Patagonian: stormy, dark skies, kind of light rain. And we weren’t focusing on the keystone species; we were just focusing on the incredible views and the drama and the wind and just being outside in this amazing place. And as we headed up to the Condorera, we saw some falcons and two falcon chicks which had been in a nest the week before and were now trying to learn how to fly, with the parents keeping an eye on them. Amazing, kind of watching these falcons trying to fly in the gusts of Patagonia. And then we saw a fox, and it was just beautiful. But we were about to head back when Pía said, ‘Simon, you should come and see my living room, my living room,’ she told me. And I was like, because she knew my back was sore and she thought, ‘This old boy needs to go back and have a cup of tea,’ but ‘I’ll show him my living room first.’ And we moved over to the cliffs, the condor cliffs, and there was a condor up there, and we were looking at the condor, and then suddenly she said, ‘Puma.’ And she said it from her—she said it from her midriff, from her stomach—’ Puma.’ And she told me that she follows her gut instinct, and down there, probably only 20 or 25 meters, were these piercing eyes, and it was extraordinary. I’ve never seen a puma before. I’ve been very lucky with wildlife sightings all over Latin America, but… Panthers. Yeah. Yeah. Well, just missed the black panther. But it was… Really a panther, right? It’s a jaguar, too. But the puma—Panthera. Panthera is the Latin, right? So, you’re absolutely spot on. But yeah, we were—moving away from Patagonia, we were at Trijun in the Cerrado in Brazil in April, and we were there at the same time as a National Geographic journalist whom we’d organized to visit with my wife and my kids. And the journalist, she went out, and she saw a maned wolf and a black jaguar that afternoon. And we didn’t. So, you just never know with wildlife sightings, do you? They’re always different and never to be repeated. I want to make sure all the Americans listening know that he said maned wolf. A wolf with a mane, not a maimed wolf. Yes, quite right. Sorry. Yes, quite right, John. Thank you for pointing that out. Yeah, maned wolf, which is an extraordinary creature out on a limb in evolutionary terms. It’s neither a wolf nor a fox; it looks a little bit like both. And Stanley Stewart called the maned wolf the ballerina of the Cerrado, of the savannah, which is Brazil’s greatest, great savannah and most biodiverse savannah on the planet. And the maned wolf is the closest—it’s a wild dog, but it’s an extraordinary creature and a keystone species and emblematic of biome health. And as we know, all interconnected with all of the other creatures in the biome. So yeah, very important. Same vibe as a wild dog in Africa but longer legs. Yeah, exactly. Very, and sort of delicate-looking. I mean, there’s a sort of—you feel a connection with them, and they feel fragile as well, and you sort of feel protective about them. How did you get started in all this? I know you were a guide in Venezuela and you were a guide in Peru, but where did that come from? So, I think calling me a guide in Venezuela is probably overstating it. And I was—I did work as a guide for a short time in Venezuela in ’94. And let’s just say I probably didn’t cover myself in glory as a guide. I was a bilingual trekking guide in the Andes and didn’t have a great grasp of Spanish and didn’t know the mountains that well. So, it was a fairly inauspicious start to working in tourism, but I learned fast, and I fell head over heels in love with Venezuela, and then Chile, and then Peru, and then Ecuador on that first sort of

  7. Jan 29

    Sebastian Correa

    LANDED Podcast 032 Sebastian Correa Sebastián Correa Ehlers is Vice President of Explorations & Land Management at Explora. He leads exploration programs and expeditions across South America, and in emerging destinations such as Iceland.  Trained as a philosopher, with early studies in architecture, and formative experience as a missionary in the Peruvian Andes, his work combines territorial insight, operational leadership, and place-based storytelling. He creates meaningful exploration experiences grounded in respect for landscape, nature, and culture. Sebastian lives in Santiago with his family, and we caught up by phone. “Humbleness is about understanding your scale in this universe. If you discover that, you will be in the right place in your own life. These places are the key for that because in dialy life in cities it’s difficult to understand who you are and what your scale is. You are part of something great but much bigger than yourself. And you are the key to it, but you must understand the size of it and your own size on it”. Explora Lodges Explora is a collection of lodges focused on immersive travel in some of South America’s most remote regions. Designed for comfort while keeping guests closely connected to the surrounding environment, each property sits within extraordinary landscapes. With a strong focus on sustainability and expertly guided excursions, Explora invites travelers to experience the region’s natural beauty and cultural depth in a meaningful way. Explora Uyuni Explora Parque Patagonia Explora Torres el Paine Explora Rapa Nui Explora Sacred Valley Explora Atacama Explora El Chaltén The post Sebastian Correa appeared first on LANDED Travel.

  8. 07/11/2025

    Ignacio Masias

    LANDED Podcast 031 Ignacio Masias Born in the Cordillera Blanca region of central Peru, Ignacio Masias is a visionary hotelier, deeply rooted in the landscapes and cultures of the Andes. His first major project was the early development of his family’s land in Aguas Calientes, where he helped shape what would become the Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel. That early effort helped define a turning point in Peruvian tourism—elevating the standards for service and immersive experiences. After studying business and hospitality in the United States and Europe, Ignacio returned to Peru with a clear mission: to reimagine travel through design-forward spaces, storytelling, authentic cultural connection, and environmental stewardship Since then, “Nacho” has founded a collection of exceptional properties: Atemporal, a stylish urban retreat in Lima; CIRQA, a restored 16th-century monastery in Arequipa; Titilaka, a modern lodge atop a private peninsula on Lake Titicaca; and Puqio, a refined tented camp in the Colca Valley. Each reflects his commitment to understated luxury, cultural resonance, and sustainable travel. We reunited during a trip to Guatemala, reflecting on his journey, lessons learned, and what’s on his horizon. “I think creativity is about having no fear, or at least facing it, because many people are creative but they have a fear of being wrong. So when you overcome that fear of being wrong and you don’t care about being wrong and you learn from being wrong, you let loose your creativity and it grows every time you make a mistake.” The post Ignacio Masias appeared first on LANDED Travel.

See All (38)

About

LANDED creates tailor-made journeys throughout Central America, South America, and the Antarctic. We’re devoted to exploring these regions—searching out exceptional experiences and locations for our clients. This podcast profiles some of our favorite places and brings you conversations with friends we’ve made along the way—explorers, artists, and visionaries. Subscribe and share.

Information

  • Creator
    John Montgomery
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    38
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    The LANDED Podcast