Guest Bio
Pablo Negri Edwards is a Luxury Tourism Consultant with extensive experience in designing and managing high-end travel experiences across Latin America and beyond. Based in Mexico and Chile, Pablo specializes in creating bespoke itineraries that blend nature, culture, and unique activities such as fly fishing and photography. With deep roots in hospitality dating back to his family’s hotel heritage in Chile, Pablo brings a rich understanding of luxury travel that emphasizes memorable experiences over material goods.
Show Summary
In this episode of the Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Podcast, host Jason Elkins speaks with Pablo Negri Edwards about his journey from growing up in a hotel family in Chile to becoming a luxury travel consultant. Pablo shares stories from his time managing and guiding fly fishing trips, including his involvement with Nomads of the Seas, a unique Chilean expedition that combines boat and helicopter access to remote fishing spots in Patagonia’s fjords.
Pablo reflects on his passion for fly fishing, photography, and sustainable travel, highlighting how these interests shape his approach to creating personalized travel experiences. He also discusses the meaning of luxury, emphasizing that true luxury lies in the quality of the experience rather than expensive possessions. The conversation touches on the cultural traits of Latin American travelers and the importance of knowledgeable guides in enhancing travel adventures.
Throughout the episode, Pablo and Jason revisit shared memories and connections in the fly fishing world, illustrating the close-knit nature of this community and the profound impact travel has had on their lives.
Key Takeaways
- ✓ Pablo’s family background in hospitality gave him early exposure to the travel industry and shaped his career path.
- ✓ He has extensive experience managing ultra-luxury and tailor-made travel experiences, particularly in Chile, Mexico, and Argentina.
- ✓ Fly fishing and photography are not only passions but integral elements of Pablo’s travel offerings.
- ✓ Nomads of the Seas is a distinctive travel operation combining a ship and helicopters to explore remote fishing locations in Chile’s fjords.
- ✓ True luxury is defined by unique, memorable experiences rather than material wealth or branded goods.
- ✓ Latin American travelers, especially from Mexico and Colombia, tend to be easygoing and appreciative of authentic, joyful travel experiences.
- ✓ Professional guides and specialized travel agents add significant value to high-end travel by enhancing the experience and providing local knowledge.
- ✓ Pablo uses technology, including artificial intelligence, to efficiently design personalized itineraries and manage his businesses.
- ✓ Photography teaches a way of seeing the world and capturing moments, but Pablo advises balancing the art of photography with simply enjoying the experience.
- ✓ Sustainability and environmental awareness underpin Pablo’s approach to tourism and his personal values.
What You’ll Find on Pablo Negri Edwards
- ✓ Custom-designed luxury trips across Latin America, Europe, and select global destinations.
- ✓ Expertise in specialized niches such as fly fishing, photography, wine tourism, and culinary experiences.
- ✓ Access to exclusive activities including helicopter-supported adventures and private dining with renowned chefs and architects.
- ✓ Deep local knowledge of Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Peru, and other Latin American countries.
- ✓ Commitment to creating “soft luxury” experiences focused on joy, ease, and lasting memories.
- ✓ Professional travel consulting with a focus on authenticity, respect for local culture, and environmental sustainability.
Learn more about Pablo Negri Edwards and connect with Pablo at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pablonegri/
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Podcast Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated on recording, and has not been edited by a human. It may contain lots of mistakes, crazy words, and stuff that makes no sense. The host and the guest are not responsible for the accuracy of the transcript.
Jason Elkins (00:01.643)
Welcome everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the Adventure Traveler. Today, I’ve got a friend from way back, a blast from the past. I am visiting with Pablo Negri Edwards and Pablo is he is let’s see what’s the official title Associate Director of Palatine by Viajes Temixco. Is that pretty close Pablo?
Pablo Negri Edwards (00:12.107)
Oops.
Pablo Negri Edwards (00:24.862)
Yeah, yeah. Well, Viejas, no, Viejas would be old lady. I would say instead, Viajes, you have to, instead of the H, the soft H, you’re going to go with the G, but it’s pretty cool. Yeah, good Spanish.
Jason Elkins (00:35.285)
We are heads.
Jason Elkins (00:43.867)
All right, well, thank you. Yeah, we started the conversation before I pushed the record button. I was speaking a little in Spanish and we were talking about that, but obviously I haven’t mastered it yet. So thank you. Thank you for correcting me. So probably just gonna share this with the audience that you and I had worked together on some projects back in the past when I was working at Orvis and you were working with Nomads of the Seas down in Chile. I’m sure we’ll chat about that here in just a moment. But the big point is it’s just super cool to…
Pablo Negri Edwards (00:49.774)
I’m gonna go.
Jason Elkins (01:13.455)
To see you again, I’m sitting across, you know, looking at you here on the screen and good to see your face. It’s been quite a while. So thank you so much for joining us today.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:21.691)
My pleasure. Yeah, you forgot to say this is not, I mean, structured and you have you haven’t no script.
Jason Elkins (01:29.302)
This is not a scripted conversation. It’s just, and we’re not gonna edit anything. So be careful what you say, Pablo.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:36.67)
You know, yeah. Okay. You know what? Um, there is a great director, probably the very best regarding documentaries. He is German. I have the pleasure of knowing the guy, meeting him twice, actually in Peru, in Lima and a French house. Uh, he’s the owner of Inca Terra, which is a very well known and very famous tourism brand in Peru. And, um,
The name of this director is Werner Herzog. You probably heard about the guy. Okay, Fitzcarraldo. And of course you heard about Grizzly Man, which relates to a US, he is kind of crazy, but great guy anyway. He did a lot of stuff regarding grizzly bears in Alaska. Anyway, make the story short. Yeah, Herzog says, nothing.
Jason Elkins (02:11.175)
Absolutely.
Pablo Negri Edwards (02:33.602)
has to have a script when it comes to either TV or when it comes to cinema or when it comes to documentaries, whatever it is. So when we did ESPN and after that I did a little bit of a program in Fox Sports, that was pretty short, like six months. The other one was quite long, a bunch of years. We never had a script.
never ever but when I said something and the guy directing said I don’t like it you should do this that they changed this that we kept all the time with the same phrase or the same script but the script was done right there in the field that’s very cool it makes it you know it makes it more natural now of course you cannot you know come up with a news without a script
Jason Elkins (03:25.38)
Yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (03:33.114)
Oh, come on. No, no way to do that. But yeah, for some things like this documentaries, even some things regarding movies, pretty cool movies. Yeah, you you’re traveling worldwide. I know. And right now you’re in Colombia as far as from what you told me. This is a great TV series called Narcos. I don’t know if you’ve seen it. And.
Jason Elkins (03:59.808)
I have seen it. A lot of the people here in Columbia are not super excited about the show, but yeah, I’ve seen it.
Pablo Negri Edwards (04:07.478)
Well, whatever. One of the two main characters there, he is Chilean, he is Pedro Pascal. And most of the scenes, they were not coming from a script. I mean, there’s a lot of in the field, if you can call it that way, things coming up. That’s pretty cool. That makes it really happy and better and easier. And it’s a great series.
Jason Elkins (04:26.832)
Mm-hmm.
Pablo Negri Edwards (04:35.39)
It is very, very good. Yeah. And just terrible as, yeah, whatever. Uh, so you were saying about Nomus and Orvis. Yeah, that was a great time. That, that was a great time at both. Um, I remember, I think the last time we met was in Manchester, Vermont. I think you were there, you, you were there with, uh, with the CEO of, uh, at that time.
Jason Elkins (04:58.352)
Oh yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Pablo Negri Edwards (05:04.85)
Orvis travel.
Jason Elkins (05:07.623)
I think it was you and Dave Parker and I got together for sure.
Pablo Negri Edwards (05:13.526)
Yeah, yeah, I think I’m not sure if I was on my own on Francisco Rultagli, which uh, he’s a still my buddy. He was with me. Yeah, they was there. They Yeah, yeah. Yeah. He’s a great guy living a little bit north of Santiago about 400 kilometers. That’s roughly 320 miles north of Santiago Since uh quite a long time. He’s into the gym business Believe it or not. Yeah
Jason Elkins (05:24.131)
think Francisco was with you.
Jason Elkins (05:40.875)
Oh, okay. Yeah, all right, very cool.
Pablo Negri Edwards (05:43.394)
But I kept on the same thing as you said, that is tourism, actually luxury travel. So I kept booking people coming in. I did a lot of incoming, very, I would say very ultra luxury, very high end, even fly fishing. And at a certain time, my
old friend. She’s a very nice woman. She’s Mexican, Emiré Vargas. She asked me to join her at Viajes de Nisco. That was about six or seven years ago, maybe probably eight. And I joined about six. And when then we had COVID, which was a big disaster. You know, Chile was probably one of the most closed countries on the planet.
We couldn’t put anyone from outside like for like one year and a half, almost two years. So, yeah, I don’t know if you get any noise on the background. No, no. Oh.
Jason Elkins (06:53.967)
No, no, absolutely. So, Pablo, let’s do this because I think that our listeners might want to just get kind of a clear picture of what you’re doing. I mean, I heard you mention, you know, kind of the high end ultra, high end luxury folks. Can you give us kind of a quick recap of what you’re doing now? And then I want to go back in time a little bit and figure out how you got to this point. So how would you describe what you’re doing now?
Pablo Negri Edwards (07:22.695)
Yeah, you want to go back when I was a young guy. There you go. Okay.
Jason Elkins (07:25.887)
Yeah, we’re going to talk about your relationship with your mother and what went wrong for you to end up in tourism basically. But in the meantime, what are you doing now? How do you describe what you’re doing now in this space?
Pablo Negri Edwards (07:29.25)
Ha ha ha!
Pablo Negri Edwards (07:35.938)
No.
Pablo Negri Edwards (07:41.426)
Okay, let me start a little bit before that. My family, actually my dad’s family, I mean, they run the hotel. So when I was zero years old, I was inside a hotel. I bring, yeah. Yeah, my friend. And that means, no, I didn’t end disgracefully in this industry, I really like it.
Jason Elkins (07:58.575)
You went way back!
Pablo Negri Edwards (08:09.854)
It’s a lot of fun, a lot of very nice people. Well, you, Dave, I have very good memories of Dave and I can keep going. What I’m doing now is the company is based in Mexico, that’s Morelos State and Emilia decided to invite me as a partner so I joined her. I invited somebody else here in Chile.
which is Pablo Casiz with some little shares also to join. He’s Argentinian. We have a very close relationship. Chile and Argentina, as you probably well known, and that not only relates with fly fishing, it relates with many other things. I would say it’s even stronger than what we have with Peru. Yeah, probably the strongest. So we get along pretty well the last years, although Argentina is not doing very good these days.
And well, since decades, whatever it is. And so I joined the MIR to push most of what Temisco was doing in Mexico, either in Chile, Argentina, Peru, and some other parts of Latin America. Brazil is kind of tough for me. I’m, although I used to work ages ago for a Brazilian company. I speak very little Portuguese, whatever it is.
Next step is the U.S. and that’s our focus for this 2024. We organized and we tailor-made trips. It could be a ship. It could be, I don’t know, you want to sit on an evening with a very high-end chef of let’s say Chile or it could be in Colombia. Colombia has pretty good chefs and pretty good
Pablo Negri Edwards (10:06.83)
In that evening with that chef, you want to sit down in a specific place, which has a lot of architecture behind. So you want to sit down with probably the best architect of the country. So what we do is we organize all this. Or you want to grab a chopper, just you and your girlfriend, whoever it is. And you know,
go to some specific place to do a, I don’t know, it could be photography, it could be, yeah. Well, of course, I have some, you know, areas in tourism. Yeah, some markets or niche that I understand a lot. One is, as you well known, fly fishing. The other one is photography. You know, I’ve been into photography for ages.
And there’s some others I will know as well. Wine, before studying business, I studied analogy. So I do know a lot about that. Many friends here in Chile and same in Argentina, which is a great place for wines as well. Well, the US as well. Napa, you have Oregon and you can keep going. France and Italy, dah, dah. It’s a, yeah, it’s a great. So that is what we do. We organize very special.
very unique trips to some very specific requests. Now sometimes we just get a request for a luxury hotel like a very good friend, a classmate at the university that called me about a couple of months ago said, Paulo, I want the very best hotel in Madrid. And I said, well, look, there is no very best. It all depends what you’re looking.
What are you looking for? And he said, da, da. I said, okay, what are you looking for? Four seasons. That’s the one I would suggest. But there’s a bunch of pretty good hotels in Europe. Well, same place, same thing in the US, and same thing here. Chile has probably the most luxury properties here in Chile are focused mostly in nature.
Pablo Negri Edwards (12:35.642)
Well, that is the main thing. When you come to Chile, you’re not coming here for the Incas. We don’t have Incas. We have Mapuches and it’s not the same. Interesting, yes, but by far not the same. You come because of the wilderness or because of the sightseeing or because of fly fishing or because of your…
You’re looking for great waves and a little bit south of Santiago. Or you’re looking for whatever. Yeah, could be photography or wines, wine tourism. That is what we do. Yeah, it is. It is mostly Mexican clients, but it’s a huge market. Very interesting. And it’s really easy. Very easy going people. Very easy. Very easy compared to other markets. Probably the easiest that they will work with.
Jason Elkins (13:32.112)
Why is that?
Pablo Negri Edwards (13:32.266)
But besides that, go ahead.
Jason Elkins (13:35.291)
Why do you think that is? Why do you think the Mexican market is so much easier than other markets you’ve worked with?
Pablo Negri Edwards (13:37.71)
AHHHHH
Pablo Negri Edwards (13:40.91)
Probably they’re happy people. Brazilian people are easygoing people too for working in tourism. Yes, they’re very happy. Even with what they have, I mean, very few places in Mexico, you can go at night without any risk. I would say very, very few. It’s a great country anyway. And it’s…
People really enjoy life and it’s the same thing in Brazil. Where you are, yeah, pretty much the same as well. Colombia is one of the happiest, probably, countries in Latin America, I would say. Brazil is by far the happiest. I don’t have any doubt at all. But probably number two is Colombia. I’m talking about South America. And probably that is the reason why. Yeah, they’re very easy.
Jason Elkins (14:33.115)
Great.
Pablo Negri Edwards (14:39.81)
They don’t whine for anything. It will be very rare. They really like everything, but you gotta do your job. I mean, they’re not dummies. They know what they’re asking and they’re looking for. And of course, you cannot cheat anyone in Mexico. They would really go, I wouldn’t say mad or crazy, but they would whine. Yeah, yeah.
Jason Elkins (15:03.591)
Not a smart, not a smart choice. And I, you know, I can relate. It resonates. What you’re saying resonates with me. Just my limited traveling in Latin America, but specifically Mexico and Colombia. You know, I’ve spent a fair amount of time in both places. And yeah, I think that the people that I’ve come across are just…
Pablo Negri Edwards (15:06.325)
No.
Jason Elkins (15:23.995)
they’re experiential there, you know, whether that’s sharing time with, with friends and family. Um, I’d love that I can just go out on the street and sit in front of a tienda with, you know, 15 other people all sitting around BS and having fun with each other, you know, doing shots of aguardiente or, or whatever it is, they just seem so happy and they want to experience life. And I think that that’s a perfect.
Pablo Negri Edwards (15:44.62)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (15:52.591)
candidate for pretty much any of the types of trips and things that we’re discussing doing because it’s all about experiences so that makes sense.
Pablo Negri Edwards (16:00.79)
Yeah, that is, well, actually that is what we try to achieve when anyone asks for something that is tailor-made, you know, to get something that is stress less, easy, happy, joyful, and probably that you will remember it for, if not your whole life, but for a very long time.
I would say that’s something that is easy with Mexicans and Colombians. I mean, they’re happy people. Chile is not that happy. We’re pretty critic. Yes. Yeah. We are very critic. Well, I’m Italian. So, I mean, they go like, you know, and Argentina are pretty critic, but I would say they’re happier than we are. I mean, Argentina is…
been having a hard time for the last three, four decades. And you go there and they keep going with asados, parrillas, they call it parrillas, which are the barbecues. And they keep going with the wines and laughing and dancing tango and they’re very friendly. And yeah, my two partners in another business I have here, which is, yes, it is head hunting company, both of them.
Argentinian. Actually, one is Pablo, which I invited also to Viajes de Misco. And the other guy is Silvio Sabol, the great guy. They both used to work for Unilever for decades in sea level positions. Very nice guys and easy going, simple, happy. Pablo and Silvio have been living here for like 22 or 23 years. Yes.
Jason Elkins (17:57.255)
Okay, and they’re living in Chile now.
Pablo Negri Edwards (18:00.57)
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Amy, my other partner, she lives in Mexico. And and actually right now, she’s in Antarctica traveling. Well, we traveled a lot, as I was telling you off camera. Yeah, I used to travel like nine months out of 12 for like 10, 11 or 12 years.
Jason Elkins (18:11.484)
Oh, okay. Very cool.
Pablo Negri Edwards (18:29.406)
It was over a million miles a year. It was crazy. Uh, you know, pushing sales for nomads. So the C’s getting some either charters or FITs for those who do not know. FITs frequent independent traveler, um, could be families as well. Um, so yeah, I traveled, uh, over, over a hundred countries. Yeah. Over 40, I think it’s 43 or 44 states in the U S.
Which is pretty impressive for, even for Americans, I know. Yeah. Yes.
Jason Elkins (19:01.531)
Oh yeah, yeah. I think the typical American maybe, I don’t know, the average is probably six or seven states I would guess. Yeah it’s, I think it’s pretty low.
Pablo Negri Edwards (19:07.566)
10 really? Yeah.
For example, I was listening to something that happened yesterday in Iowa. I don’t know Iowa. I’ve never been to Kansas as well. Ohio neither. But well, I would say the west coast, all of it, central part, most of it. The upper part, of course, because of fly fishing. I mean, how could I miss Montana or yeah, I love Montana. I really love Montana. Yes. Same thing.
Jason Elkins (19:38.183)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (19:41.859)
Actually, there’s a couple things I wanna learn about you and this is a good opportunity to bring that up. So let’s go back to year zero. You were born into hospitality. It sounds like literally. And there’s a couple things that really became super important for you and some of this comes from what you’ve already mentioned here on the show, but some of it’s just because I know you and one is fly fishing and the other probably, the I think is…
Pablo Negri Edwards (19:54.909)
Almost, yeah.
Jason Elkins (20:10.999)
discussing at this point is photography and then maybe just the travel in general. How like I’ve always wondered like you because you were born in a hotel in Italy. Tell me a little bit more about the story.
Pablo Negri Edwards (20:25.015)
No, no, my, my grandfather came to Chile, uh, and he, uh, raised the hotel, um, a little bit south of Santiago in a very high end area at that timeframe. Uh, not now it changed a lot. I’m talking about almost a hundred years ago. Um, so he came up with a hotel, which was almost a whole square, huge over a hundred rooms. Uh,
very high end. He was Italian and he was from Piemonte. He was an engineer and very smart guy. So when I was very, I mean, since I was born, I was visiting the hotel every time from December till March, a couple of months a year. Yeah, that was until I was 16.
At that time, they decided the family to the hotel had to be had to be in it. They had to sell it. Uh, uh, yeah. Sale were no good. Uh, the place did change a lot. It went from very high end to not very high end. Uh, and, um, but anyway, I remember many things from there, but I did not get into, um, the tourism business since someone.
When I started the fly shop here in Santiago, someone asked me to guide him. Actually, that someone was a former president of the view of the US. I’m not kidding you. Uh, Jimmy, Jimmy Carter was my, yes, he was my client. Actually, no one, but two times. And the first time somebody, someone from the US embassy contacted the fly shop. And I said, well, why not?
Jason Elkins (22:02.331)
Yeah?
Pablo Negri Edwards (22:17.59)
So we came up and yeah, it was a great thing.
Jason Elkins (22:19.751)
So what was your connection with the, you say the fly shop. What was your connection with the fly shop?
Pablo Negri Edwards (22:26.086)
I started the fly shop with two other friends. I was 30, I think. And I was a manager of another company on a totally different business, which was a transportation company related with either trucks, you know, Rockwell International, we were the representatives of them here in Chile. And Marco Polo, which is one of the two or three largest,
Jason Elkins (22:30.24)
Okay, so it was your business. Okay.
Pablo Negri Edwards (22:54.966)
bus company. They’re based in Brazil, Caxias do Sul, that’s in the south, southeast. And the thing is, yeah, we started a fly shop and they started asking me for trips. So someone learned that I had guided, actually not me, but we were three. Yeah, I was a head guide there. And they kept me asking, asking me for guiding and guiding. I was a manager.
Finest manager, actually. So, you know, things happen in life, as my English grandfather said, for good, all time. I’m absolutely convinced of that. Look at you, you’re in Colombia, you’re traveling worldwide, and you’re getting a great life. When I met you, you were behind a desk, you know, like this.
Uh, I mean…
Jason Elkins (23:53.194)
Well, I don’t know that that’s the image I want to portray, but yeah, I know what you mean. There was a cubicle. There was a cubicle involved.
Pablo Negri Edwards (23:57.246)
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, Orb is a great company for working at. Yes, I agree. I’m just putting it funny, but whatever. So things happen for good. So I used to be the finance manager at Yamaha, and one day they said, Paolo, the company is not going well, so you gotta go. This is…
Jason Elkins (24:07.567)
Yeah. No, I know.
Pablo Negri Edwards (24:24.722)
A different company than the one I was telling you on transportation. But once again, engines, Yamaha, you know, Yamaha is mostly musical instruments. People don’t know that. Okay. Yeah. It’s around 70, 80% of the business. Um, I mean that well, it used to be probably it changed a lot, whatever. Uh, and I was out of Yamaha one Friday and I said, what I’m going to do.
Jason Elkins (24:35.131)
Mm-hmm.
Pablo Negri Edwards (24:54.014)
And then, tunk, guide. And I started guiding, guiding. Yeah, I used to.
Jason Elkins (25:00.267)
Now, but were you fishing before that or? I mean, how did, tell me how you got into fly fishing. We got to mix that in. So, because you went from, I worked at Yamaha to I opened a fly shop to I took Jimmy Carter Fishing and I got lost.
Pablo Negri Edwards (25:04.766)
Oh yeah, yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (25:16.803)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me put it together. We call that in Spanish, disperso. I mean, you’re… Okay, let me put it together. Yeah, my grandfather Italian came up with a hotel. I used to visit the place most of the time. So I got involved with the industry since I was a kid. Then I studied first analogy.
Jason Elkins (25:21.958)
Thank you.
Jason Elkins (25:27.17)
Okay
Uh-huh.
Pablo Negri Edwards (25:44.162)
Then I started business, got an MBA. Then I started working in the banking business, moved to the transportation business. And there I was in this company that had Rockwell International as a rep here in the country. And then I moved to Yamaha, well there’s another one in the middle, but whatever. I moved to Yamaha and I stopped being a CFO. And I said, what the hell, what am I gonna do? So I started guiding.
Because I was guiding before. So why was guiding before? My grandfather, the owner of the hotel, had taught me fly fishing when I was, I don’t know, seven? And my dad, who did not fly fish and did not fish, actually, he didn’t hate it, but it was boring. He took me fishing all the time. And he didn’t do it. I mean, I mean.
Jason Elkins (26:25.221)
Okay.
Pablo Negri Edwards (26:42.942)
Yeah, that’s the way a father is, a good father is, whatever it is. And, and yeah, that’s the way I became involved with fly fishing. When I was at the university, to put it clear, uh, my second career after, you know, dating a lot of ladies and having a lot of fun, I decided it was time to get back to fly fishing. That was when I, I was like 22, 21, 23 more, more or less.
Jason Elkins (27:10.256)
Hmm?
Pablo Negri Edwards (27:12.386)
And so I grabbed a teacher. He was an Italian teacher to teach me about casting. Um, I think it was a second lesson and I was teaching the Italian teacher. He was, he was some, he was like this, you know, yeah. I mean, remember the newspaper, just terrible or whatever, but he’s a, he’s a great guy. I still talk with him still even this day.
Jason Elkins (27:35.563)
Mm-hmm. Yup.
Pablo Negri Edwards (27:41.378)
Yes, and then, well, I did whatever I told you. I started guiding, and in the middle, when I started the fly shop, I was a CFO. I started as a site business. We started traveling to the International Flight Doctor Leader Show, where I started meeting a lot of people and getting friends. I don’t know, Steve Rajiff. He is a longtime friend of myself. Tim Rajiff.
Same thing. Even John Wolf. I don’t know how old is she now, but she must be 90 something probably. Yeah, I remember meeting her, his son at the company. Then meeting Tom Rossenbauer and Orvis. I still keep talking with Tom. And Dave Whitlock, he passed away, he passed away a couple of years ago. Very nice man.
Jason Elkins (28:27.461)
Mm-hmm.
Pablo Negri Edwards (28:39.218)
Yeah, long time friend of Dave Hughes, the writer, uh, angle. I can keep going. Yeah. Mail Krieger. That’s why I brought mail here. And yeah, I started becoming friends with a lot of people. Uh, the past owner of Scarfly brought company, da da. So it’s, it’s a mix of things getting together. So once again, things happen all the time for good always.
Jason Elkins (28:53.703)
That’s pppp
Jason Elkins (29:06.831)
That is fun. I’m really happy I dug into that because this is stuff I did actually not know about you. And even back in the day when we were, you know, discussing fishing and putting together fishing packages and programs to Chile, I knew that you seemed excited about fishing. I did not make the connection. I mean, honestly, Pablo, I…
Pablo Negri Edwards (29:26.85)
Ha ha ha!
Jason Elkins (29:32.751)
I thought, okay, you’re a marketing guy. You’re really good at the marketing thing. You’re working for a fly fishing destination in a sense. And you knew how to talk the talk and you seemed to walk the walk, but I didn’t put it all together. So I’m happy to share that because when you mentioned school, college when you were younger and then you decide to get back into fishing, I remember, I was a slightly non-traditional college student. I had…
Pablo Negri Edwards (29:42.574)
Ha ha!
Jason Elkins (30:01.507)
gone and done some stuff in the army for a while. And then when I went back to school, I had a really hard time going to class because I was in Montana, going to Montana State University. And I’d be walking to class and the weather was too nice. It was like, oh man, the weather is really good. I would literally just walk right past the classroom. I’d walk home, grab my stuff, jump in the car and go fishing. So I could…
Pablo Negri Edwards (30:11.63)
Ha ha ha! Jeez! River! Ha ha ha!
Pablo Negri Edwards (30:28.198)
I would have done the same. I don’t blame you. I would have done just the same. Let me tell you something. Sometimes when I was a CFO getting big bucks, I grabbed a plane on Friday evening, flew to the South, Saturday, Sunday, doon, doon. And Monday morning, first plane, I don’t know, 5 a.m., I was here, got to my apartment, and got a shower, boom.
Jason Elkins (30:30.757)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (30:41.155)
Nice, yep.
Pablo Negri Edwards (30:57.342)
to work. It was crazy. Yeah. The good news is that…
Jason Elkins (30:58.743)
Oh yeah. You and I are a lot alike. I, except I was never in the spot where I could just go get a plane and take off. But I do remember weekends, weekends like that.
Pablo Negri Edwards (31:09.103)
Well, you were in Montana. Montana is a fly fishing maker, just as Patagonia South. Yeah. But let me keep going with what I was telling you. I think it’s going to be interesting for you and for the guys that are going to hear and listen to the podcast. Maybe they’re just going to put stuff.
Jason Elkins (31:14.807)
Yeah, well, that’s why I was there. I chose that. But it wasn’t good for school.
Jason Elkins (31:33.86)
That’s okay, we’re just here. If they’re listening, that’s great. If they’re not, we’re still having a good time.
Pablo Negri Edwards (31:39.362)
Well, whatever. Yeah, I became friends with a lot of very, very well-known people, legions of the industry. Still, unfortunately, some of them passed away. Yeah, like Gary LaFontaine. I knew him, yes. He was not my friend, but I knew him. And he knew me, yes, I know. I met with a lot of Argentinian friends, nice guys.
Very nice people. And some people from Canada. A little bit, a few of them from the UK. Remember the owner of Partridge, the Hooks. Very nice guy, very funny guy. Some people from Austria, Italy, Spain. It was a lot of fun. So yes, I really improved my casting. I think I’m a good caster.
Uh, not the very best, but good. Yes. And I improved the needs and presentation and yeah, everything. Uh, fly tying. Yes. I, I mean, I’m good, but I hate it. Uh, it’s time consuming. Yes. Uh, I, it’s time consuming. I mean, yeah, it’s, it’s a lot of fun, but come on. I’m into fishing now. Um, yeah, I created the first, um,
Jason Elkins (32:53.611)
Yes, I can relate to that.
Pablo Negri Edwards (33:06.838)
probably the largest Spanish web with another guy. It was called Rio Cisendero’s website. That was, yeah, that was year 2000. And then about the year 2010 or 2008, I created the first certification for guides regarding fly fishing in Chile. Tim Brajiff can tell you about that. Yeah, we run a lot of programs. Actually, they were like,
eight or ten with the university. At some point the guys of the IFF contacted me for trying to make something or merge something but nothing happened at the end. So yes, and then when the new law regarding fly fishing in Chile was being worked, yeah, I worked on that intensively for
long time. I did help some of the largest here in promotion. Very few of them did good promotion and still very few. I would say Gonzalo Cortes was probably one of the only ones that did it and the one that you also had at Orvis, by the way, the GM there, Manuel
Jason Elkins (34:30.859)
Oh yeah, Manuel, yeah. It’s Patagonia Baker, right? Or no. Was it? Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (34:36.618)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Manuel was a GM of Patagonia Baker. Actually he had some shares there. He’s not there anymore. He’s at Marimarri. He’s a long time friend of myself and I’m the one that certified Manuel on fly fishing as a fly fishing guy. So.
Jason Elkins (34:51.743)
Oh yeah, I remember a specific fish that I caught with him the first day that I was at Patagonia Baker. He took me down to a spot and yeah, I remember that very well. He’s a great guy. I need to get him on the show.
Pablo Negri Edwards (35:04.206)
So that it, yeah, he, I’ll let you, I’ll let you know the contact and all that. Yeah. I’m helping Manuel right now with a Mari on the South, which is a very high end property. It’s a villa actually. It’s a beautiful place. They have two choppers of fly fishing. Yeah. Very nice place. Yeah. You, you, you must come down here, uh, Jason and go fishing. Oh man. Yeah. That’s for sure. Yeah. We can, and we can do, oh man, we can do another, another conversation.
Jason Elkins (35:28.762)
Sounds good.
Pablo Negri Edwards (35:33.754)
live from you just come here in April this year and I’ll bring you to a place you will never ever forget. Now if you want to go fly fishing.
Jason Elkins (35:43.971)
All right, well, that sounds like a deal. And I’ve got it recorded, so. Ha ha.
Pablo Negri Edwards (35:47.174)
Okay. Yeah. April. It’s got to be April this year. Yeah. We have to, yeah. The other, the other, yeah, yeah. Thing is a lot of people still call me saying where should I go? What should I do? And yeah. Yeah. I traveled this country very, trust me, very much. That is why Andres,
contacted me and contracted me for over 10 years in nomads. I knew the fjords, I knew the fishing, where the fish were, not all of them. And Osvaldo Anguante, which is a long-term friend of myself, he really helped me with the first fly fishing certification here in the country. He knew some other places as well, so it was a pretty good combination. Osvaldo’s…
Very nice guy living in Fruity Yacht in the South and joint life. He’s retired. I’m going to retire next year, but still, I mean, I want to retire and get the money from, from who is going to pay me, but I’m going to still keep working, man. Yeah, of course. I mean, yeah.
Jason Elkins (36:58.415)
Hey Pablo, let’s do this because I think that Nomads of the Seas was a fascinating thing. I think I took at least three groups down there over the course of two or three years and I just thought it was super, super cool and I’m sure that a lot of people that are listening to this have no idea what we’re talking about when I say Nomads of the Seas and since you did such a great job promoting it and…
helping develop that program, I’d love to have you describe what it was and what you, any other things that you think are exciting that are kind of like that, or just what mark do you think that left on fishing in Chile?
Pablo Negri Edwards (37:38.622)
Yeah, well, yeah, for those who do not know about nomads, Andres, the owner, his father as well, both the owners, he is one of the biggest, not the biggest, he’s one of the main shareholders of one of the big banks here in Chile. So, and he is just nuts about fly fishing. He’s a very good fly fisherman. Yeah. I’m very smart guy as well.
and probably the most creative ever guy I’ve ever met. So he thought after traveling a lot with Osvaldo, the best way for approaching this very hidden spots was with choppers, but how would you get there with choppers? I mean, gravel roads, cities, no cities, I mean, it wasn’t possible. So he thought,
It should to be, it should. The only way to approach with a chopper, those places was with a ship. The ship was called the atmosphere. Atmosfera for those Spanish listeners. Atmosphere in English. Uh, yeah, actually it was called the atmosphere in English. And the company was called nomads of the seas because we were moving everywhere through the ocean, actually not the ocean fjords.
That part of Chile is probably and in my opinion and I know once again this country very much The most beautiful part of Chile, although it rains And when it rains man, it rains and it rains a lot The the woods are just like those that you have in bc, pers columbia It’s called the cold temperate forest. So
What the ship did is it sailed through the fjords anchored in very stable places. The ocean there is not rough at all. It can be a little bit rough in one pass. The Corcovado Gulf actually, that’s it. And the fishing is very good. Unfortunately, it’s mostly lagoons and lakes and some rivers and a few spring tricks.
Pablo Negri Edwards (40:05.162)
which are just, just amazing. As much as the ones that you know on Montana, Nelson’s, Armstrong, and the View. I know them very well, the three. And you live there, man, but I’ve been there a billion times. Yeah, I know Yellowstone and all the area, and Yellowstone Angler, and Jim Branga, they used to work there, and yeah, you can keep going.
Jason Elkins (40:16.55)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (40:26.715)
Well, that’s Pablo. I don’t remember if you and I ever mentioned it, but since you just brought it up, I, I get to mention that I managed to turn a flats and Belize that I know, you know, but also, um, the Yellowstone Angler, I worked with Jim Brungart at the Yellowstone Angler. He was one of my, my mentors. So when I was going to school at Montana state, walking past class to go fishing.
Pablo Negri Edwards (40:37.622)
Yeah, I know. I was there last year.
Really?
Jason Elkins (40:52.056)
My job was, you know, I was working at the Yellowstone Angler with George and Jim and Brant and yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (40:55.638)
Welchee. Yeah, yep, yeah. Brandt, Brandt. I know the whole crew. Brandt Oswald, yeah, great guy. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I know you were at Turnip, which is a great place. I was there one year and a half ago with Craig. Craig actually had a knee surgery. I don’t know if you know that. He had a knee replacement. Oh yeah, yes, yeah. Yeah, I had, yeah, yeah. I don’t know how he’s doing. Yeah, last time I was there, I left Turnip Flats.
Jason Elkins (41:02.467)
Yeah, yep. Yep, yep.
Jason Elkins (41:15.844)
No.
Pablo Negri Edwards (41:25.154)
Two days after I left, big hurricane. Big, well, not that bad. I mean, oh yeah, I was very lucky. I was there like 12 days doing photography. Of course, fly fishing, but doing photography. You know what, you know what, Jason, I enjoy nowadays more, well, I enjoy fly fishing myself. I enjoy casting a lot, yes.
Jason Elkins (41:29.731)
Jeez.
Jason Elkins (41:37.344)
Mm-hmm. That’s fun.
Pablo Negri Edwards (41:54.654)
with a one hand fly rod, not two. And not ten karats or stuff like that, no. The regular classic fly fishing. But I enjoy a lot making some other people catch fish. Or yeah, sight fishing. And so that’s why I enjoy a lot saltwater fly fishing. I really enjoy the nervous water, you know, the tailing perm and you know, even the kudas which are just.
Jason Elkins (41:57.703)
Okay.
Jason Elkins (42:09.763)
Yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (42:24.318)
on the fly rod. Well, if you’re using the proper gear, otherwise you did. Whatever. Nomads, getting back to what you said, Nomads is still running, although only by charter. It’s a ship that sails from Puerto Mon, which is 1,000 kilometers south of Santiago. I’m sitting right now in Santiago, the capital. And has two choppers on the stern, sitting on the stern.
Jason Elkins (42:29.051)
Yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (42:52.566)
Bell 407 and it has capacity for 28 guests. And I usually recommend that never over 24. And one fly fishing guide per two clients. So it’s a bit true for the whole people there. Very high end wines, very high end meals. Well, probably one of the best in the country. Guillermo Rodriguez, yes. Guillermo Rodriguez still in charge of that. But yeah, Andres is selling it nowadays only
Jason Elkins (43:14.145)
Incredible. Yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (43:22.562)
By charters, he doesn’t sell any if I taste and he does a lot of charges Well, and this thing sales through the fjords so everyone can understand and every day You get you get a ride in the morning Then you’re taking back for lunch or you could have lunch on site And then you have a second ride and the evening or on the afternoon for fly fishing in the afternoon Not a night. You’re not allowed
Jason Elkins (43:27.947)
Okay.
Pablo Negri Edwards (43:51.874)
to fly choppers in Chile at night. No, it’s against the law. And we’re very strict on what comes to being respectful with the law in Chile, which is very different than the rest, all of the rest of Latin America. Oh yeah. This is.
Jason Elkins (44:07.619)
Yeah, I didn’t know that you could not fly a helicopter at night in Chile. That’s interesting.
Pablo Negri Edwards (44:11.122)
No, you cannot unless you have a very special permit and it takes quite a while to get it. Yes. Yeah, you cannot. You cannot. Yeah. And yeah, the operation started, it was like 16 years ago, maybe 14 years ago. I’m not sure. Probably 16. Yes. Yeah. That long. So.
Jason Elkins (44:19.27)
Okay.
Jason Elkins (44:33.639)
Has it been that long? Oh my goodness, yep. Yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (44:40.126)
Yes, and getting back to Montana, Jimbo is a longtime friend of myself. He’s now living in Idaho, as you well know. You will know he’s in charge of a club or whatever it is. And we get in touch every now and then. And he is a great guy. Yes. Um, I really like Montana. Uh, it’s, uh, if you ask me, what would I choose instead of Patagonia? Uh, yeah, that would be Montana.
It wouldn’t be Alaska, it wouldn’t be, no. It would be, it’s so special. I mean, not only the big skies, which we do have here in the South as well, it’s everything. It’s the history, it’s the mountains, it’s the wildlife. Yeah, it’s very special. I mean, yeah, I fly fish because…
I really get a big feeling and it’s a really nice feeling. When I’m fly fishing, it’s just an excuse for, you know, listening to the silence, listening to the birds, enjoying the green or whatever it is. Could be brown if you’re fishing in the Argentinian side where the pampas are, which is beautiful as well.
and feeling the water, feeling the cold water in your feet. And it’s the same thing in the Caribbean. You’re feeling the breeze, you’re feeling the nervous water. You’re talking to your guide in the back, which is usually, most of the time, speaking Creole, which for me, at the beginning, it was a mess. But yeah, I got used to it. But yeah, yeah. But yeah, it’s beautiful.
Jason Elkins (46:25.691)
Mm-hmm. Heh heh heh.
Jason Elkins (46:34.822)
Yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (46:38.59)
It’s a beautiful, it’s not a sport, it’s an art, it’s a way of life. Absolutely, it’s a way of life.
Jason Elkins (46:45.912)
Yeah, I’m happy we had this conversation because you’re definitely bringing back a lot of memories and fond and fond thoughts of my time on the water, both guiding people and being guided and some friends. We’ve got a lot of… I knew that we knew we had some mutual connections. I don’t think I’ve… this is probably the longest real focused conversation I’ve had with you, so it’s been a great opportunity to kind of to connect and…
Pablo Negri Edwards (46:51.094)
Memories.
Jason Elkins (47:14.187)
how much we actually have in common so I need to so it sounds like I need to come down to Chile and you said April right okay we’ll do that over a pisco sour I remember on nomads I learned about the piscola which is pisco and cola which is yeah
Pablo Negri Edwards (47:19.926)
Yeah, yeah. Oh yes, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (47:31.498)
Yep, I don’t like it. I don’t like it. They call it Cuba libre, free Cuba, because it’s Coca-Cola. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (47:42.115)
Yeah, but it’s Pisco instead of rum, right? So it’s weird. But it was, I have some fond memories of being on the ship and you mentioned the food and the helicopters are just, oh my gosh, I just being in those helicopters. And I remember maybe it was the first year I went down. I think I remember his name, but I’m not gonna mention it here because I’m not 100% sure. But I think one of the pilots had.
Flown for Pinochet back in the day or something like that. And is that just a story?
Pablo Negri Edwards (48:11.31)
No, no, no
Jason Elkins (48:29.167)
Was it Osvaldo that worked for?
Jason Elkins (48:39.068)
Yeah, okay, and I heard some stories that we’re not going to share here because
Pablo Negri Edwards (48:42.258)
Osvaldo, he used to be the bodyguard and I don’t like Pinochet at all. I mean, he did good things, but in human rights, he was just terrible. He was a Pablo Escobar within the army. Yeah, not that bad, but whatever. Yeah, the comparison is not a proper one. Anyway, Osvaldo…
Jason Elkins (49:00.735)
Yeah, yeah, okay.
Pablo Negri Edwards (49:11.643)
listens to me he will go mad well
Jason Elkins (49:14.391)
Yeah, we’re not gonna I just remember having some conversations and he’s a super interesting guy I probably should have him on the show as well if he’s still around doing stuff. Yeah, that’d be cool
Pablo Negri Edwards (49:20.254)
Yes. Yeah, I’ll let you know him. Yes, I’ll let you. Ovaldo is living in Frutillar. Yeah, he’s very fluent in German and he’s pretty fluent in English as well. Yes. The the guy, the guy that flew the flu, excuse me, the guy that flew the chopper was Francisco Esquivel.
Jason Elkins (49:34.171)
Yeah, that’s fun.
Jason Elkins (49:43.739)
Francisco, yeah, I was right. Okay, I remember him.
Pablo Negri Edwards (49:47.728)
He used to be the pilot of Michel Bachelet, our former president, the lady.
Jason Elkins (49:53.695)
Okay, okay, I got it. That’s yeah. I remember okay pilot. Yeah, it was for the president Okay, and he was he was good. I’ve been on helicopters. I was in the army I was an army Pathfinder which was we spent a lot of time on helicopters and doing air traffic control with helicopters very familiar with Helicopters just short of being a pilot
Pablo Negri Edwards (50:03.392)
What’s good?
Jason Elkins (50:13.787)
And I remember how impressed I was by Francisco. Some of the, yeah, some of the places he picked us up in. And I was like, wow, he’s really, he was, you know, he’s like, he’s got the door open, open hanging out the door to look backwards as he’s reversing to get out of the spots. Yeah, a lot of good memories.
Pablo Negri Edwards (50:17.004)
It was good.
Pablo Negri Edwards (50:24.887)
Yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (50:29.466)
Yeah, yeah. Andres, Andres is a very good chopper pilot as well. Very, very good. He’s the pilot, you know, you know, the planes, military planes, actually, Air Force planes, Andres. Yeah, yeah, and he is a very, very skilled chopper pilot. He’s good on fly fishing as well. Smart.
Jason Elkins (50:37.499)
He’s good too, yeah. Yup. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (50:47.867)
Okay. Yep.
Pablo Negri Edwards (50:56.31)
Yeah, it was a great time working with Andrea said no, much of the seas. Very good time. I, I really worked my, uh, not, not very polite work, but I worked my ass during those 10 to 12 years there. I worked my ass. Actually, actually when I quit, a lot of people said, did you shit, did you sell your shares? And I said, what shares? Come on. You’re, you’re not an owner. I said, no, you’re not.
Jason Elkins (51:12.331)
I know you did.
Jason Elkins (51:24.675)
No, I just worked like one.
Pablo Negri Edwards (51:27.286)
You’re not a shareholder? No. I said, well, I thought you were a shareholder. No, no. But yes, I really like what I did. Well, I love what I do as well now. I travel a lot, not as I did at that time, but I do travel a lot. And yeah, it’s been recovering. It was really, really slow. Fortunately, I have some other businesses, otherwise I would be dead.
You wouldn’t be talking to me. But yeah, it is recovering here and it is recovering worldwide. That’s pretty good. Yes. I just came back from a trip. I think I told you I was in Cannes. There’s a very famous luxury travel show there. It’s called ILTM, International Luxury Travel Market. From there, I moved to Paris where my oldest daughter lives. She has a PhD at La Sorbonne, Claudia.
She lives there. She’s pretty good at artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. Yeah, she’s one of the best actually. And from there I moved them to Venice. From there I moved to Rome, back to Madrid and then back to Santiago. That was almost…
Pablo Negri Edwards (52:46.007)
Almost a month ago, a month, a week ago, I came back, yes.
Jason Elkins (52:50.407)
So you’re still bouncing all over around the place. What’s, is there, you know, I’ve asked you a bunch of questions. We’ve had quite a conversation.
Pablo Negri Edwards (52:59.83)
Yeah, you were asking about phot- you were asking about photography.
Jason Elkins (53:03.767)
Yeah, okay, good. You didn’t forget. So, all right, so let’s discuss that a little bit. I know it’s a passion of yours.
Pablo Negri Edwards (53:06.459)
Yeah, yeah, no, no. Well, let me tell you this, Jason. I used to be a teacher at the university for like 25 years, teaching either marketing, finance, and at the end I taught a lot about sustainability, and I’m not talking about the real one. And that was 20 years ago, when I was teaching the students, and then I’m gonna get to photography. When I was teaching the students,
how the rain was gonna behave, why the planet was gonna get warmer and da da. You know I’m a green guy, very deep green, yes. They went like, I remember looking at the faces like, this jerk, he is crazy, but whatever. And I met this guy 20 years after that. And I go like, professor, yeah, you were right, you were right.
everything you told us 20 years ago is happening. And I go like, unfortunately, yes, I was right. Yeah. So, okay.
Jason Elkins (54:12.613)
It’s one of those deals where you wish you’d.
Pablo Negri Edwards (54:16.126)
Yeah, I know. Well, photography, my dad, he was an ophthalmologist, MD, medical doctor. So when I was six or seven, I was gifted a photographic camera. Of course, it was a codec that doesn’t exist now. Weird. It was a plastic codec with a roll with a film and whatever.
Jason Elkins (54:37.735)
Mm-hmm. Hehehehehe.
Jason Elkins (54:43.451)
Yep, I remember those.
Pablo Negri Edwards (54:46.346)
Me too, but I’m older than you are, whatever. So I was six, seven. So why? Well, my father taught optics at the university for like 50 years and he was a very, very good photographer and very good cinematographer, both. I’m not into videos.
But yes, into photography. So he was my teacher. And, um, I don’t know. I, since then I’ve been shooting and shooting and shooting and I keep shooting and, uh, actually shooting with this, which is, um, I mean, yeah. The cell where you get the, you capture whatever you capture is still very small. And the ones you get with a Nikon, I use a D8.
850 and I’m going to move to the mirrorless very soon in a few months, which means changing most of the lenses. I mean, you can keep using the old lenses, but it doesn’t make any sense. Yeah. Photography is something that…
um makes you see things in a way that otherwise you will never um see them um you learn to open your eyes and see lines shapes shadows lights colors contrasts um you learn to see the mess
And you learn to make that mess something that is readable by the one who looks at the picture. Actually, photography is the only art. And I’ve been talking about this for ages with Val Atkinson, which is a long time friend of myself. You know, Val. Yeah, me too. He’s a great guy. And, and
Jason Elkins (56:56.241)
Mm-hmm. I fished with Val before, yeah, he’s great. Yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (57:04.982)
Photography is the only art in which you come up with a mess. Whatever it is, it’s a mess. And you have to start taking things of the mess. I mean, you won’t grab them and put, I mean, I’m gonna grab that tree and put it, put him out. No, you have to move yourself, change the angle, whatever it is. Yeah, it’s framing. And there’s a lot of art besides that involved.
Jason Elkins (57:19.501)
Mm-hmm.
Pablo Negri Edwards (57:34.814)
I mean, perspective, lights, contrast, expressions. I love portraits. I really love portraits. Actually, I think Val, the portrait he was using until a year ago, it was mine, the one I did from him. Yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, we’re pretty close friends. Yes, we’ve been fishing in very different places. I invited him actually to Chile. And…
That’s the good thing about photography. Now, there’s a bad thing about photography. Yeah, and it’s pretty bad.
Jason Elkins (58:14.339)
What’s that? Share it with me.
Pablo Negri Edwards (58:16.69)
Yeah, there is a movie. Jesus, I can’t remember the name. He’s not the main character, but Sean Penn is in the movie. It’s a movie of the guy that used to work in a behind the desk. And suddenly he decides to change everything. Well, in some section of that movie, Sean Penn is with a long telephoto. This will explain why photography can be bad.
with a very long telephoto. It’s not that big, but probably that big. And there’s a snow leopard at what this guy is looking. And then comes this other guy.
Pablo Negri Edwards (59:01.474)
kind of a nerd that was trying to explore the world he didn’t know and he started speaking with Sean Penn I can’t remember the name I mean if I look at my Mac I could but it’s gonna be a mess so no yeah let’s keep it that way I’m gonna tell yeah the story the story is nice so
Jason Elkins (59:22.235)
That’s okay, you’re telling a story, we don’t need to know the specifics.
Pablo Negri Edwards (59:29.442)
This guy is sitting and chasing the snow leopard. You know snow leopards? They’re very, almost impossible to get on a camera. Okay, so this guy’s sitting, champagne, and comes the other one. They start blah, about some rolls of films, whatever it is. And then the snow leopard shows up right in the middle of the frame and stays there. And champagne.
Jason Elkins (59:35.465)
Mm-hmm.
Pablo Negri Edwards (59:59.406)
calls a guy and says, look. And the guy says, no, you shoot. And Sean Penn says, no, look. So the other guy comes, looks, then through the viewfinder. And then Sean Penn looks once again. And then the snow leopards moves. And he didn’t shoot. Now, this is one of the greatest scenes.
regarding photography I’ve ever seen. What does it tell you? Most of the time when you are a photographer, you’re looking things with a photography eye. You’re framing, you’re changing things, you’re, and that is not really very restful.
It’s kind of stressing once and nomads when we were looking at blue whales that you know we had there and a lot. Gianpaolo Sanino, which was the marine biologist we had in charge of one of the big, in charge of the big zodiac we had there. By the way, we had for the other guys, we had a huge zodiac.
Jason Elkins (01:01:18.226)
I remember him, yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:01:24.018)
It was a 920 top of the line, so the acute for like 18 to 20 people with two Yamahas on the stern. Each Yamaha was, I think it was 350 horsepower, four stroke, whatever it was. Yeah, it really run. Yeah, really, whatever. We were looking at the blue whales and I was shooting with my night gun, telephoto and John Paulo comes very close to me and says, Paulo, yes, John Paulo.
How many blue whales have you seen with your eyes?
And I go like, shit.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:02:04.75)
I go like, none. I said, well, bring the F camera, the F-t-t-t camera down, and use your eyes. Yeah. That is the bad news about photography. And I will say most of photographers probably have to face that. We spoke about this with Val. And yeah, you learn. After a while, you learn.
the moment in which you have to say, okay, ciao camera. I’m done. Now, go ahead. You’re gonna ask something.
Jason Elkins (01:02:44.607)
It’s yeah, no, it’s interesting. It’s that’s really, really interesting story. And it’s interesting that you mentioned Val specifically because I remember I had led a couple trips that involved Val, where we kind of brought him on as a as a guest, just as a guest, just because, you know, our clients just love spending time with him. And I remember for Orvis. Yeah, we did some projects in the Bahamas where I brought him along and.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:03:06.926)
Turnif or Orvis? Turnif? Orvis.
Jason Elkins (01:03:15.243)
I remember he would sit there in the group, there’d be a group of us having conversation, he’d sit there with his camera on his lap. And just every once in a while, click, camera comes up, click, goes back in his lap. And he was really good at capturing those moments, kind of those spontaneous moments, they weren’t staged, they were just, he was just kind of sitting there observing. And based on what your story that you just shared,
It’s causing me to kind of see that experience a little differently now, and I’m envisioning him there experiencing the conversation, experiencing the group through the lens of a photographer, and looking for the shot, and maybe, I’m not speaking for him, but maybe trying to capture the shot more than capture the moment on a more cerebral level, I don’t know, what do you think?
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:04:13.633)
Well, yeah, you should see the movie I’m telling you. I mean, I should look at it. Let me check here. I don’t think it will mess up things.
Jason Elkins (01:04:19.099)
We gotta figure it out.
Jason Elkins (01:04:23.223)
Hold on, you keep telling stories. It’s Sean Penn. I bet if we Google Sean Penn snow leopard. Do you?
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:04:28.49)
Wait a minute, wait a minute. No, no, I have it here in my, I’m checking here. Yeah, yeah, hold it. That’s the one. Yes, man, that’s the one. That’s it, bingo.
Jason Elkins (01:04:36.271)
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Yep. All right, so anybody that’s listening to this, now they don’t have to go figure it out. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. And I will check that out as well.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:04:50.424)
There is a great scene of Sean Penn with that. It is just amazing. Yeah, what that scene tells you is… It’s the same thing that Herzog said. No scripts. I mean, enjoy the moment. Be happy every moment. You know, the planet is so screwed up in many senses.
Look at the wars. I mean, and look at climate crisis and biodiversity crisis, which is just terrible. I mean, and we’re done with climate crisis. We’re done. There’s no way back. No, no point of return. No. Well, look at that. When, when you look at that, yes, you have to understand that you have to, of course, being respectful with everyone. Respect.
respecting the laws and da da, but you have to enjoy every single moment in life and Yeah, that scene is Is what is telling you and that is what photography sometimes steals from you You’re so focused on getting the shot That you miss the whole thing and let me tell you something when you miss the whole thing you miss the best shot
So.
Jason Elkins (01:06:15.587)
It’s kind of metaphor for life in general, isn’t it?
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:06:18.77)
Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah. Well, actually with this thing, with photography, I really, I’ve enjoyed many things, but I learned after a few decades that I had to take out my eyes of doing photography. Now, I enjoy photography as much as I enjoy fly fishing. Probably more. No kidding.
And the other thing I’ve been involved to or with since I was eight is entomology, which is a weird thing, you know, fly fishing and entomology connect. And yes, I was deeply involved with entomology. That is why my first career was agronomy, although I studied enology, which is a specialization, but it was agronomy. Yeah. Because of entomology, I’m a love for.
ecology and all that. Yes. Yeah. I’m green. I’m very deep green. Not crazy, but green. Yeah, of course. And yeah, well, I think a lot of people in the fly fishing industry are that way. They love nature. And fly fishing is just an excuse. And that’s a pretty good excuse. It’s, I mean, we use the expression sensual, which is more than sexy. What is more sexy than a
Than a fly line flying it’s like ballet. That’s beautiful and you’re doing that on a beautiful setting most of the time and With beautiful sounds most of the time great smell I mean it’s even when it rains
Jason Elkins (01:08:05.083)
Well, it’s an amazing excuse. Like you use the word excuse. I love that because I’ve often recognized that fly fishing specifically was an excuse for me to see things I never would have seen otherwise. I mean, just the conversation you and I are having, if I just look at my end of this conversation, I’ve visited 30 plus countries now and I…
I guarantee I’d probably be closer to five if it wasn’t for fly fishing because so many of those places I went were because I worked in the fly fishing industry because I was excited and passionate about it because I was leading a group because I wanted to go tiger fishing in Africa because I wanted to go, you know, catch fish in New Zealand or whatever. And I got to see all these amazing places.
I remember a few of the fish, but I remember the people a lot more. I remember the culture, the society, the lessons learned, and just the experiences so much more than the fish. And yeah, like you say, it’s just a great excuse to go do things.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:09:05.188)
Yeah, absolutely. That’s what I like. Like the travel business as well. Although this is luxury travel, which is even better. Oh, I know luxury. Yeah, let me make and this is a point probably interesting for the ones that will listen as
Luxury is a very difficult word to explain. A lot of people associate luxury with gold or Ferraris. I love Ferraris. Yeah, but that’s not luxury. That’s a commodity. And gold is a commodity. Actually it is. It’s, you know, it’s a mineral, whatever. That’s not luxury. Luxury is an experience. You could be, you know, with a tin can.
and a very decent wine, not probably chambré, which is at the proper temperature, even cold, but in a great location with a great friend talking about great stories. Well, that’s luxury. That is luxury. That is what I call soft luxury. The other is camaraderie, or you can call it hard
Yeah, what we try to do is all the time in the company I’m associated right now is creating that soft luxury for everything that we do. And that is one of the things I created when I guided or, you know, manage some guided trips here in Chile with, yeah, some famous people. I got it. Some famous people, actor.
Jason Elkins (01:10:49.111)
I really, really liked the way you said that. Yeah, so what I heard you say was, yeah, luxury is… I want you to, I kinda want you to say it again. Luxury is not a commodity, it’s an experience. You used the word experience, right?
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:10:51.946)
Yeah, actors, actresses.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:11:02.77)
No, luxury. Yeah, luxury is creating something that is unique. Experiences cannot be, you know, replied. I mean, you can you cannot you cannot repeat the same thing 10 bit 20 times. Service could be repeated, but not an experience. That’s a big difference between services and experiences. And.
And luxury, the real luxury is not about gold or Ferraris, which once again I love. It could be a Porsche or whatever it is or Rolex. Yeah, that is not luxury. That is hard goods, hard stuff that is not luxury that can contribute to luxury. Maybe. What about a dish? A good dish. A risotto. Risotto.
a risotto with funghi, with done it in a proper way. You know, you can have the risotto in a terrible dish or you can have the same risotto in a beautiful dish, sitting in a beautiful place in Venice where I was. I mean, I want to put it this way. The apparel spritz.
which is actually not from Venice, but from other place in Italy. Yeah, that’s another spritz, which is the, the opera, which is a real one in Venice, whatever I had an opera spritz at the terrace of the same bridges at Venice, where I was invited and staying, looking at the grand canal with one of the managers of the hotel. Do you think. Or.
How could you compare that with Leonardo? Great guy, great friend. How could you compare that with, I don’t know, a room with cold in some parts?
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:13:15.446)
and I don’t know it has no comparison one is an experience the other is a hard thing you can you
Jason Elkins (01:13:24.015)
Yeah, I get it. I get what you’re saying and I absolutely agree. I think, yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:13:32.163)
This is what we run. You know Virtuoso, right? Yeah, okay, we are members of Virtuoso and I’m a Virtuoso travel agent and travel consultant, you can put the name in one. That is one of the things we’re trying to redefine in Virtuoso. A lot of people still are on the old thinking of the gold and the Ferrari and no, it is.
It is very different. I remember Michael Keaton downloading his private jet in Puerto Mon in Chile for getting on board of nomads of the seas. You know what he did when he took, he pulled out of the, of the jet, his private jet, he started picking pieces of papers that were, they were on the floor. That is very simple.
And it was a very simple guy. What did he enjoy? The ship, the chopper? No, he enjoyed the rides, the talking, the nature. You were there? No.
Jason Elkins (01:14:41.667)
No, but I worked with him in Montana and he’s got from a different bolt and I appreciate it. Yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:14:43.148)
You sent it.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:14:50.022)
Yeah, yeah, I know. Well, whatever. I remember Tim Rajeff with him and teaching him fly casting. Tim was on board at that time. And Tim actually has a video in which he is teaching Michael Keaton, which is a shitty caster. Yes, he’s a great actor, but shitty caster. Teaching Tim Rajeff, Tim Rajeff teaching one of the best fly casters ever. I mean, Steve has been.
world champion, I don’t know, a billion times. And Tim is almost the same, although he doesn’t compete that much. Well, whatever. Tim Rajeff teaching Michael Keaton how to fly fish. And he was like, I remember seeing, pick and drop, pick, drop, pick. No, don’t move the wrist. Yeah. That was fun. Well, that is, that is an experience and that is luxury.
Jason Elkins (01:15:42.297)
Yep.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:15:48.214)
That is, it is a whole combination of soft things. Not the hard ferrari or the hard gold, whatever it is.
Jason Elkins (01:16:01.307)
Let’s, it’s, I guess it’s the difference to read the word, you know, tangible and intangible, right? Is as in a sense or not. Yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:16:05.482)
Yeah, well, but it’s, but it’s more than that. Ah, it’s more than intangible. But yeah, well, we sell intangibles, not tangibles. Yeah, that is why it’s so difficult to sell them. I mean, you don’t sell the night of the hotel today, ciao, you’re done. I mean, it’s gone. You can keep it. You don’t sell this iPhone 15 today, well.
Jason Elkins (01:16:27.171)
Yeah, you sell the experience of what you’re, yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:16:34.038)
You save it for tomorrow. You can sell it tomorrow. Well, that’s not the thing with intangibles. Well, with some yes, yeah, saving, I mean, an insurance, you could, yeah, sell it the next day.
Jason Elkins (01:16:37.147)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (01:16:50.619)
Yeah, I see the difference. I see, I see what you’re saying. It’s, it’s not as simple as tangible and intangible, but it’s that like, like you just described this experience with Michael Keaton and Tim Ray Jeff. It’s that’s not something that you can put your hands on. It’s an experience, right?
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:16:56.106)
Yeah, but it’s more or less.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:17:07.402)
Yeah, yeah, of course. It is, it is, the real Lushy is something that you really enjoy, memorable. Probably it would last for a lifetime or for a very long time as a very good memory. Could be a very bad experience as well, of course. I’m talking about the good ones. Yeah, that’s the ones we’re working for. But yeah, it does not have to do
With what you’re using. Let’s say you’re going for a permit. Um, I don’t know a 22 pound permit, which is a big fish Yeah, they’re bigger but whatever yeah, I’ve seen bigger whatever yeah and I mean It will make a difference The real you have yeah, probably if it burns out and it doesn’t have But I mean you could you could pay
Jason Elkins (01:17:47.695)
Mm-hmm.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:18:05.998)
I’m not gonna say brands because I’m good friend of many of those, but you could pay a lot of money for one and maybe half or 30% now. Is the experience different? No, probably no. Unless you want to see the real and the real is so nice. Of course. Yeah. Well, whatever. So, yes. But now.
Jason Elkins (01:18:09.571)
Yeah, mate, yep.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:18:35.598)
for building the soft luxury. Of course, you need part of the hard things I was talking about, but they are not the real luxury. They are just builders of the experience. That is what I’ve been teaching this in marketing for. Actually marketing services marketing is what I’ve been teaching. There’s a guru there.
Jason Elkins (01:19:00.613)
Yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:19:04.706)
called Christopher Love Look. And most of us who teach that use his book, which is probably the very best ever written. And yeah. So photography again, photography again is a partner of fly fishing? Yes. And entomology? Yes. And luxury? Yes. Because it’s a luxury. Cool.
Jason Elkins (01:19:16.271)
Very cool.
Jason Elkins (01:19:25.759)
I do have to ask you this one question back on luxury. And then we’re gonna probably wrap up here, but does luxury have to be expensive?
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:19:37.33)
No, no, most of the time, yes. But no, the answer is no. You can do, I mean, it all depends on what we’re talking about. I mean, if you’re trying to do something luxurious in Venice, regarding staying there and staying in a place, very difficult. I mean, I sent my partner to an
He was in a great place. If you ask me, it was luxury. The place? No. The experience? Well, yeah, he had a terrace. He had a terrace and he was looking at one of the channels, not the main channel, but one of the channels. And he was, you know, calling me, uh, through WhatsApp from there saying, Paulo, I can’t believe what I’m, I mean, we’re so happy. This is luxury. Of course. But yes.
It all depends what you’re looking for. But it can be cheap, yes. Now, let me put it this way. You can pay a lot of money for eating turnip flats. A couple, I don’t know, 12 grand. Couple, yeah, it’s around 12 grand a couple. Old fly fish, okay, that’s a lot of money. Turnip is luxury.
Well, it all depends. Rooms for me are luxury. I mean, come on, you open the door and the sea is right there. You walk, I don’t know what, 20 feet?
Jason Elkins (01:21:19.184)
We used to say if you tripped on the way down the stairs, you’d land in the ocean.
Yeah, that’s close.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:21:25.719)
So, you, and, and now it is luxury once again. Let’s go to the fly fishing site. Okay, you get the skiff and you get a great guy on the back, pulling very good ice and he’s putting permit everywhere. And you got great weather for spotting permit, but perfect weather.
for casting over a pyramid, which as you well know, they’re extremely spooky, extremely, not very, no, extremely. And so if you’re a shitty caster, you don’t land the fly properly, you don’t do the cast in the position you need, well, you’re done. Now, what if you’re your guide? It’s not the same guide, but it’s a not very good guide, with not very good eyes.
who doesn’t know where the hell is the school of permit moving. He just saw one tail and it’s going like there, there. And the school is there. It moved. It is luxury. So once again, you’re in the same skiff, the same pole. Well, the guy in the back, no, it’s not the same, but you’re in the same skiff, the same with the same pole, with the same fly bra, with the same reel on the same lodge. And the finishing was shitty. Why?
Because the guy wasn’t good. No, now it is luxury? No. Or it did not achieve the standards. So once again, it is a full combination of things. So it must be expensive. Well, most of the time when you need to pay for the very good things, yes, you need to pay a lot of money. But not every time. Now you can do many things on your own if you learn how to and…
and get pretty good results. Oh yeah, I agree. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:23:22.535)
But there’s probably some sort of investment, whether that’s money to pay to get yourself there or the time and effort to learn the skills or to take the hike to walk for three days to get away from the crowds because you can’t afford the helicopter to get there. Yeah. Okay.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:23:30.669)
Yes.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:23:38.506)
Yes, yeah, I agree. Yes, that’s it. Yes. I mean, guides exist, guides exist because of something. Uh, artificial intelligence, uh, won’t put guides out of business. No, and very few travel agents that are very specialized, they will keep in business. I use, I personally use artificial intelligence. Let me tell you a short story. I don’t know when we’re done with the time, but you let me know, uh, Jason.
Jason Elkins (01:23:43.089)
Very cool.
Jason Elkins (01:24:07.587)
You just keep going. Someone’s still listening. So. Ha ha ha.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:24:09.926)
Yeah. Okay. The, the, I had a, a media called me from Mexico saying, Pablo, I can’t, can’t be stressed. I have a client, very important client from Mexico that wants to travel to Belgium and to, to Holland, well, to the, the Netherlands. And I said, okay, what does he want to do?
Jason Elkins (01:24:33.818)
Mm-hmm.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:24:38.77)
He wants to make a trip by car. I said, ah, okay. So what car? Yeah, he wants a good car and he wants to drive himself with his Curfan. He is easygoing, very wealthy and likes things very well organized. Well, he looks like an American. Well, he’s Mexican. Okay. So I go like, ah, in about one hour, I’ll have the trip. And she goes like, you’re kidding me. No.
When what I did to the part I preferred part, I’m not a big fan of Microsoft. So I tried to avoid chat GPT. So I went to barred, but which are the most important cities I should visit in a. I don’t know. It was so yeah. In a one week trip in Belgium, okay.
Jason Elkins (01:25:20.056)
Mm-hmm.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:25:35.446)
Which are the most important cities I should visit in one and in Netherlands then, which is, look at this, which is the roads I should take to connect all this. This road saved. Then I get Google maps and I put them, them. Okay. Give me the roads. Boom, boom, one Belgium. Ready? Netherlands.
Okay, I have to put the guy out of Belgium enter Netherlands and then enter into Belgium once again No problem piece of cake. I know the place by the way, of course. I knew what I was looking at They made it it’s here. Oh But it’s in English. I said use translator. It’s a Google translator. It goes like this Of course, you’re gonna have to change things you know, but
Jason Elkins (01:26:17.639)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (01:26:33.555)
Mm hmm. Well, it’s a lot quicker and easier than doing it all from scratch.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:26:34.492)
and 95.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:26:39.15)
I mean, it took me, Jason, it took me one hour at the most. I mean, what it took me most was typing, typing to ask, then copy, boom, boom. Okay. Then I had to reassign places and da da. And then I asked, what does this guy like? Food, architecture, history, what?
Jason Elkins (01:26:42.811)
Yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:27:09.238)
Sightseeing There’s some places which are great sightseeing, but you won’t send anyone for sightseeing to rota them That’s not sightseeing. It’s a big poor huge enormous. Yeah, there’s some good museum. That’s a nice pussy one nice museum there No But probably once that that’s a big city or How you call brujas in English, I don’t know the word for brujas
Yeah, it’s a beautiful town, small town, medieval town in Bruges. Yeah, yeah, Belgium. Yeah. You, you won’t send anyone to Bruges Belgium if he’s looking for museums. No, that is, there’s some.
Jason Elkins (01:27:41.476)
Bruges, Bruges Belgium? Yep, yep.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:27:54.882)
You will send it to Amsterdam, of course, which you, I mean, there you get a bunch of those. So once again, yeah, it is a combination of things. Just like luxury, it is a combination of things working on the industry. And for me, AI is a big help every day. Oh.
Jason Elkins (01:28:19.703)
It’s a great tool. I mean, when you and I are finished with this conversation, my system is going to use AI to go through and create a transcript. It’s going to go through and create show notes with bullet points. And and it’s it saves me from sitting there listening to this conversation again with my pen and paper writing down, what did we talk about? Let’s outline it. Boom, boom, boom. And literally it’ll take five minutes for AI to recap the conversation. I’ll read it, obviously, just to make sure that like
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:28:46.476)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:28:49.083)
you know, something real weird’s not coming up, but it’s, and that allows me to have more conversations with interesting people, to spend more time on the conversation with you instead of, we’re in, oh, well, I gotta hurry up and wrap up this conversation so I can go do the show notes or the this or the that. So I think it’s a great tool, and I’ve been using it for the podcast, and I’ve been using it for some of my clients to put together itineraries, mostly as an idea generator. I think it’s great for that.
So, yeah.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:29:19.658)
It is. It is. I really like it. I really, really like it. I use it a lot for many things. Even for the human resources and business in which I’m involved, actually that’s, I told you, headhunting, we use it a lot. We use it a lot, yes, a lot. Actually, we have…
Jason Elkins (01:29:38.083)
Actually, actually real quick, the head hunting is this tourism related head hunting? What is this? Because that might be something we want to touch on real quick.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:29:49.446)
We have a focus on sea level positions and mid positions. And I thought, and this was last year, hey, why don’t we come up with, you know, focus on tourism? And Pablo said, well, I think you know something about that. I said, yeah.
I think too. So yes, so right now, yeah, we’re working some pretty good and big hotel companies here. Actually three and usually small companies like lodges and guys like that do not ask in Chile for head hunters. They just try and go themselves, which is a big mistake. But whatever.
It’s like going fly fishing without a guide. In Chile, a lot of people try to avoid that unless they’re, you know, floating a river. And they need someone in charge of the oars. But I don’t agree with that. I think guides, when they really are professional, they really add. And that’s all the time. All the time.
Jason Elkins (01:31:12.855)
Mm-hmm. No, I agree. I agree completely. All right.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:31:15.462)
All the time. You were a guy yourself, me too, so yeah. Uh, yeah, all the time.
Jason Elkins (01:31:21.732)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Makes a huge difference. If I go somewhere, I’m going to hire a guide. Even if I have to scrape together every last penny, because I’m going to have a totally different experience. And when I take my family or I go do things, it’s like I see the value. And it’s interesting, because before I, I mean, I’d never been with a guide. My first guide trip, I was guiding. I’d never been on a guide trip.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:31:31.947)
Of course.
Jason Elkins (01:31:48.007)
You know, and I remember we got to the takeout. I floated the river with these folks. I was back when I was working with Jim and Brant floated the river. They caught some fish. We get to the takeout. I dropped them off at their car and they said, wow, this was our first guide trip and you really set the bar high. And to this day, I wish that I’d looked at them and said, you know what? This was my first guide trip, too. And you guys set the bar real high. Of course, I was too embarrassed to admit that it was my first trip. But it was. Yeah, it’s.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:31:48.565)
Really?
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:31:53.538)
Haha
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:32:04.994)
Hahaha
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:32:18.471)
How many years you lived in Montana?
Jason Elkins (01:32:21.519)
Oh boy, well I was born and raised more or less in Wyoming, but I would say in Montana, actively fishing.
Jason Elkins (01:32:32.135)
seven eight years probably total I was in Montana before I went to work for Orvis so I figured the only thing that would have ever taken me out of Montana was the opportunity to go work for Orvis and only because it was the travel business I could I could fish in all these other exotic amazing places so it was worth it
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:32:45.503)
And.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:32:50.578)
You and you and you met Craig in Bozeman as for sure
Jason Elkins (01:32:56.015)
You know, I was, no, it’s really, it’s interesting because we, meaning me and my, my girlfriend at the time, um, I was working for the Yellowstone angler. Actually, I was working for the big horn angler on the big horn river for a short period and. Yeah. Oh yeah. I bet. And
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:33:10.222)
Oh, I know it. I know it. I know it. I bought flies there.
Jason Elkins (01:33:17.491)
And a guy came into the shop, he was staying there. It was kind of a more of a lodge. We had some rooms and stuff and he’d stayed there for a few days and he was telling me, oh, you should put together a group and bring your group down to this place in Belize called Turner Flats that I’m a shareholder in. And I thought, wow, that sounds pretty cool. And then shortly after that conversation, I met my girlfriend with.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:33:37.974)
Was that Jim? Was, sorry, was that Jim Adams?
Jason Elkins (01:33:43.923)
No, but there’s it’s all connected. It was yeah, yeah. It’s all connected. It was and I feel really bad because I’m blanking out on his name and I hope he doesn’t listen to this because he was quite a good friend for a long time. He’d come fit. But anyway, I’ll probably think of later. But anyway, and then shortly after that, I met a woman who I thought was pretty cool. And when I met her, I said, you know, you’re really cool. We can hang out.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:33:45.486)
You know Jim, right?
Jason Elkins (01:34:10.971)
But someday I’m going to go move to Belize and I’m going to manage this lodge called Turner Flats. And I’d never been there. And I’d, you know, and she’s like, where’s Belize? And I said, it’s somewhere in Central America. I think it’s by Mexico. And she’s like, yeah, okay, whatever. And then two years later, Craig, Craig Hayes was sitting in with us in a restaurant in Bozeman interviewing us for the job.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:34:36.798)
Really?
Jason Elkins (01:34:38.727)
And yeah, and then we went down there together and she’d never left the country. And we got, we actually had a little wedding ceremony at the lodge. So all of the guides and the staff were right there in the main lodge. We got married the last day we were there before we left to go back to Montana. And then Craig ended up buying his townhouse in Montana. So that…
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:34:48.66)
Really?
Jason Elkins (01:35:01.603)
We could live there and my wife continued doing reservations for turn of flats for, for a while before we moved to Vermont. So yeah, it’s all connected. And Jim Adams of course was, was working, was a guide for the Yellowstone Angler. And yeah, it’s a small world.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:35:11.662)
Wow.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:35:19.363)
Wow. Yeah, this is very funny. I was on a trip to Belize. This was 1998 maybe, 1999. Invited by a guy. He used to be the CEO of Cutco. It’s a company of knives. Whatever. It doesn’t matter.
Jason Elkins (01:35:22.011)
Yeah, very, very cool.
Jason Elkins (01:35:30.648)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (01:35:42.823)
Okay, cut, go.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:35:45.054)
Yeah, Catco, you know the company probably. Oh, yeah, well, of course. Well, this guy was, the name was Don Mildred, and he used to live in Napa. Right in the, OK, OK. So Don said, Paolo, we need good casters and good photographers, so you invited to Belize. I said, what? Yeah, you invited to Belize. OK, well, of course I paid my ticket. But everything was for free.
Jason Elkins (01:35:46.679)
Yeah, yeah, I know, Keco, yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:35:55.628)
I know the name.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:36:14.394)
After that, I organized a trip to Yellowstone. This was August. September that year, I organized a trip to Yellowstone with some folks here in Chile. Do you get me? Connection is going slow. Yeah, OK. And so I do the trip to Yellowstone. And I meet two madams there.
Jason Elkins (01:36:28.667)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, no, we’re good.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:36:43.246)
I was a longtime friend of Jim for many years before. And he goes like, Paolo, Jim Brangard? Yeah, we actually were having a barbecue at Jimbo’s place in between Bozeman and Livingston. Right in the middle, he had a house. Okay. And a big barbecue. Actually, I was doing the pisco sour, so at the end, almost everyone ended up drunk. Well, whatever.
And Jim Adams goes like, Paulo Jimbo told me that you just pulled out of Belize. I mean, you just had a trip to Belize. I said, yes. Did you like it? Oh man, of course. So where were you? I was on a ship. Oh really? What did you do? Well, we set sail from Belize city down to Placencia and we were just chasing permit. Actually we got permit. Yeah. He said, well, would you like to go again?
And we’re like, of course, why? And he goes, I’m inviting you. I say, yeah, come on, come on. Go, go, go. I mean, don’t kid me, come on. He said, no, I’m inviting you. You’re kidding me. No, go with your girlfriend. I don’t have any. Well, invite a friend then. And go like, where? He says, to turn a flat. Why? Well, we’re building a fam trip. And I said,
Why are you building a fam trip to turn flats? Because I bought some shares of the property. I go like, what? Yeah, that was almost year, I think it was 2000, 2001, 2002, more or less.
Jason Elkins (01:38:15.504)
Mm-hmm.
Nope.
Jason Elkins (01:38:24.539)
That’s right about the time I showed up on the scene in Bozeman. Now I remember that. So very end Livingston. So Pablo, I think you and I, it’s a, it’s a small world. And if anybody’s still listening to this, they, they realize that we just went off the reservation and, uh, maybe, maybe if, if they’re listening still, it’s because they know some of these names as well. And.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:38:32.178)
What a small world. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:38:47.719)
I appreciate the opportunity to have the conversation with you. I’m curious, are there any questions? Because we could probably speak for another four hours. Are there any questions that I should have asked, forgot to ask, or anything you want to make sure our listeners hear before we wrap up?
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:38:55.511)
Ha ha ha!
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:39:03.958)
Well, I don’t know which are you listen, it’s going to be either into fly fishing. Yeah, probably. Which are the best spots in Chile? And what is the best time of the year?
Jason Elkins (01:39:20.395)
Well, let’s do this because I know that you know all the answers to that. I’m going to have your link in the show notes to your business website. And obviously they’ve got your name. I know they can find you through social media. If somebody is looking to try and set something up, is it okay if they reach out to you directly to have that conversation?
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:39:41.01)
Oh yeah, of course. Well, actually, that’s what I do. That’s my business. Yeah. Are you in Brazil? We do Chile and Argentina, but we book a lot of Peru and Ecuador as well. We don’t do that much Brazil. And yes, we do a lot of bookings in Europe. So you’re going to laugh about this. I have clients from the US, Canada, and Europe that book.
Jason Elkins (01:39:44.867)
Yeah, I figured you’d say yes. It was okay. All right.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:40:09.55)
through me here in Chile to do something in Europe. And you’re gonna go like, you’re crazy. Well, no, I know France a lot, Spain as well, and Italy. Not that much the South, but all of the North. Yes, I can do some pretty amazing things. Even some parts in Africa. Even some parts in Africa, yes.
Jason Elkins (01:40:13.731)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:40:34.843)
Cool. So what I just heard you say, was anybody that’s listening to this that feels some sort of connection with you feel like you’re the type of person that would get them or would be able to help them then they should just reach out to you and connect and see what happens. Is that an accurate way to put it? Cool.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:40:51.606)
Yeah, sure.
Jason Elkins (01:40:54.471)
And of course, I’m going to recommend it because I, you know, I know the great work that you’ve done in the past and great conversation and small world. And thank you so much for coming on to the show today. I appreciate you, Pablo.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:40:59.202)
Ha ha.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:41:05.63)
Well, my pleasure. Thank you for inviting me.
Jason Elkins (01:41:10.567)
There’s a lot of fun. We’ll talk to you soon.
Pablo Negri Edwards (01:41:12.898)
Ciao.
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