Celebrating Two Decades of Transformative Travel in Argentina with Fabrizio
Interview and edit by Rebecca Woolford, Senderos
Few companies make it to 20 years old, let alone ones with the energy and passion to bring forth fresh ideas, transformative trips and find new ways to empower women.
Socompa adventure travel has been guiding travellers and explorers to the most extraordinary places in Northwest Argentina for over 2 decades, promoting responsible and inclusive tourism for the region’s remote communities. Socompa also manages Hosteria El Peñon and manages and owns Finca Valentina, both intimate stays.
In the interview below, Fabrizio, founder of Socompa Adventure Travel shares his incredible story spanning 20 years; including how a conversation on a bus with a curious solo traveller changed the trajectory of his life, to working with his business partner Mariana to empower women in Argentina through training and self-development in a male dominated culture.
Senderos’ stories celebrate the positive impact the right kind of travel and tourism can bring to both people and places, and Senderos Partners Hosteria El Peñon, and Finca Valentina are leading examples of exactly that!
Image: Founder Fabrizio Ghilardi and business partner Mariana Caliuolo
After leaving Italy to start a new life in Argentina, to now be celebrating 20 years of adventure travel with Socompa, does it feel like you’ve come full circle, Fabrizio?
“Yes, in a way. Although, whether we’re living in Argentina or Italy, my family and I always consider ourselves ‘guests’ – it’s the best way to approach life.
When I left my home country in Italy all those years ago to explore Argentina, I remember thinking ‘let’s see what happens if I go to the other side of the world’. I wanted to start a new life and do something radically different.
After graduating in economics I spent a couple of years working in a big corporation, and I soon realised that it was not my true path. I was 35 at the time, single, free and I knew that I wanted more freedom, adventure, something beyond the expected.
Then by chance a close friend came over to visit me in Argentina, she later became my wife, and now after 13 years of living together, having both our son and daughter in Argentina, we have indeed come full circle. We wanted to share our Italian roots and culture with our children.
When our youngest finishes high school, perhaps we will return to Argentina, especially during the winter time in Europe.
The great thing about living in South America compared to Europe, is that people live in the present. They don’t forecast or make 10 year plans. It’s not the same pace.
Socompa is a success story. Up until today at least. We always say ‘up to today’ because nothing is certain for tomorrow. I consider myself lucky to have spent decades of my life working, but without feeling like I’m working, that is the most precious gift that you can imagine for yourself. There are always ups and downs, but in the end, you feel that 20 years have passed and you don’t feel it one bit.”
Image: The Pumice towers, Argentina by Sebastian del Val
The remote North West of Argentina is an area of staggering natural beauty and traditional indigenous towns. What had inspired you to move to Salta?
“I love to share this, it’s a pretty amazing story…
The move was inspired by a trip I had taken back in 1998, I was backpacking in Salta, the Northwest of Argentina at the time. I took a bus from Salta to San Pedro Atacama, a 12-hour ride, mostly unpaved. On this bus were only myself, two French guys and one woman.
I quickly left the French guys to start a conversation with this curious female traveller.
Maria Constanza Ceruti explained that she was a high mountain archaeologist, and she was en route to Peru with the National Geographic Expedition. I was on the edge of my bus seat for 10 hours talking about Inca sacred sites located on the top of volcanoes in Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile.
Once back in Italy, I bought a copy of National Geographic and realised that this same woman, on the bus next to me, was the director of the National Geographic expeditions.
She has climbed over 100 mountains above 5000 metres to study mountaintop shrines of the Inca civilization. In 1999 she co-discovered the best preserved frozen mummies at 6739 m, on the summit of Llullaillaco, the highest archaeological site on earth. The author of twenty books and more than one hundred academic publications, she has lectured throughout the five continents.
My life completely changed all because of this one conversation on a bus, otherwise I would have never visited Salta.
Following this encounter, I started to study the Puna, the high plateau in Argentina. I discovered a place called Socompa, both the name of a volcano and a train station, and one of the most remote places on Earth. This was how I came to name my adventure travel business, Socompa.
Socompa is at the border between Argentina and Chile. The geography there is pretty interesting because you go to the Pacific Ocean, then you climb nearly 2,000 metres and you arrive at the plateau of the Atacama Desert, which is immense. And then you have a wall, the Andes, going up to 6,000 or nearly 7,000 metres. On the other side, you have multiple viewpoints with different kinds of landscape such as a salt dry lake or a red desert. On the other valley you can see a white desert or a magma field. It is really unbelievable.”
Socompa, your adventure business was named after both a train station and a volcano in the area. Offering guests immersive and transformative travel experiences, can you put into words what makes your trips so transformative?
“For a decade I was the head guide at Socompa. I recall many moments when a guest would tell me, ‘Hey Fabrizio, stop. Stop. There are too many emotions I’m feeling in this place. Let’s sit and have a drink, because I have to process all of what I’m seeing, and experiencing in this landscape.’
Our guided trips with guests are deeply immersive, they can be anywhere between 15-20 days at a time, per month, therefore Socompa guides have to be driven by the deepest passion for what they do.
A good guide makes all the difference on a trip. From carefully reading the ‘silent’ moments, to gently nudging ‘open a door’ with a guest who is not used to talking, often it’s about creating spaces where people can open up.
That’s where the magic happens! It’s the energy, the atmosphere, the territory, the nature, the wildlife, the falling rain, the difficulties and uncertainty of a trip, the local community, and of course the guests.
It’s also the guides, the people in the office, those who have prepared the cars, the operation team, every single entity contributes to the magic.
At sunrise, when the first light of the day hits the mountains, it looks like it’s on fire because the mountain is made of red clay. At the base you have a blue lagoon where flamingos and llamas are settled. Six kilometres away there is a desert made of pumice stone eroded by the wind. Every few years we have a NASA expedition coming to see this part of the Puna because they are studying Mars, and there is no other place on earth where they can see wind erosion like that. Our guides sometimes travel with these scientists to learn from them.”
Celebrating 20 years of Socompa and adventure travel this month, what does responsible tourism look like to you?
“We’re awaiting for the announcement of Socompa as B Corp certified which is exciting, but apart from any external certifications, I believe that the most important is the vision and mission of a company.
For me being responsible has one core principle. You must be in a company that creates real value for people, that provides respect and opportunity for your team to develop.
Maria Constanza Ceruti, the lady on the bus I mentioned before, the only female Andean high altitude archaeologist in the world, who was recognised and awarded alongside Jane Goodall for her contribution – now lives in Buenos Aires and she comes to Socompa once a year to give inspiring talks.
We focus our attention and efforts on empowering women. In the office, most of the staff are women, and we run two hotels (Finca Valentina and Hosteria El Peñón) where the majority of the team are female.
Mariana (in the picture at the top) is in charge of Socompa travel and we have women in both administrative and commercial roles. Women in Argentina have to work harder than their male counterparts to get access to the same opportunities due to the patriarchal culture.
The concept of machismo, that men are dominant over women, is still a part of the culture here.
If you are a woman between 25-30 and you are focused on your career, you have a good salary, and are independent; you are also considered by some to be a ‘social problem’ because you are expected to be a mother at home.
The women who have joined our teams at both Finca Valentina and Hosteria-el-penon were once shepherds, or they helped their grandmother in the field with the animals. We offer them a job, train and develop them in hospitality. We prepare them for how to interact with foreigners, with people from Buenos Aires, to be able to deal with any type of situation should it arise with men. There are four women who have gone onto create startups of their own around the area of El Peñon, and we see this as success when they move on with all these new skills.
There is something else we have noticed in the last few months…
We are working closely with two local communities in the Puna. Both have a chief, who is male. However, the daughters of these chiefs haven’t stayed, instead they have left to go study tourism for example, and then come back to their community to share what they know.
The daughters are not seen as the chief in these communities, but they are the ‘real chief’, the one that we communicate with about projects, that makes things happen and brings about positive change.
There is a newspaper here called La Nación, which has a travel magazine called Lugares. Recently we took a group of journalists, all women, on a scouting trip in the Northwest. They wrote an amazing article which later got published in a newspaper and was shared on TV, giving a lot of exposure to these communities.”
Image: Driving to the Pumice Stone Field by Antonio Tita
What’s next for Socompa?
“To mark this 20 year celebration we are adding exciting new trips to our offering. One of which is 3 transformative days in which you begin between llamas, cardones (giant cacti) at an altitude of 3,000 metres.
In three days you will experience the desert, the valley, the coloured mountains, and then end in the jungle, the possibilities for activities are endless. In that area there are many communities who have been living there for centuries.
In 2025 we will be able to offer our guests the possibility of visiting the jungle, the low wetlands with the alligators and thousands of species of birds, as well as the Andes, with the clay and salt desert, all in one trip!
There is another trip we are planning to introduce which is an adventure to El Impenetrable National Park. We are currently working on this program, as we still have to define it because there are so many fantastic opportunities there. It’s really a safari experience. There is so much wildlife, and you have the possibility to navigate it all with a kayak.
Aside from the new trips, we have the Socompa Lab, started during the pandemic, it’s a female led training initiative with courses and learning resources. Mariana runs these courses to empower female guides, but also for small business entrepreneurs. The women who enrol leave with more tools and confidence.
As an Italian, I can say that Argentina is the most incredible country in the world. Geographically speaking, most big countries go from East to West. There are very few countries in the world which go from South to North and North to South. In Argentina the altitude changes bring climate changes, and when the climate changes, the people, the culture heritage change, the wildlife and the dramatic landscape of course. There is nowhere quite like it on this planet.”
Discover more at > Finca Valentina and Hosteria-el-penon
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