Rodrigo Salles: Building Trust and Cultivating Relationships

Emily Rodger  0:00  
Hi, I'm Emily Rodger hosted the boiling point podcast, my co host de Valle. And I will bring you thoughtful discussions with leaders who are positively impacting our world. This is the boiling point where leadership and inspiration meet. So we are pretty well into 2024. Now, are you a New Year's resolution guy? Same? I was gonna say like, did you like now kind of looking back? Did you follow through with it? That's the beautiful thing about not setting them, we felt we've?

Dave Veale  0:34  
Well, I kind of believe in setting goals, not just a certain time of year, right. So I don't know for me. And there's I think, for people to do it. Great. You know, if that works for you, it just hasn't really been a big motivator for me, I find, you know, when I kind of land on what I'm trying to accomplish, and so even stuff, like we set goals around our fiscal year, which is different than the calendar year. So yeah, something about that December 31. January 1, is it's a nice time to reflect, I guess, on what's happened. But I'm not a big New Year's resolution person.

Emily Rodger  1:06  
Same is this thing of like, yeah, goal setting all along. But just just to pick one, because it's the new year. That's not me. So Dave, all the times that we have had hockey guests on where we've still spoken about leadership, we've still like, and I do like hockey. But today, we are like, I'm taking one for the team. And we're going straight into the fly fishing industry in

Dave Veale  1:37  
a deep way, based on what I'm reading here, and I'm looking forward to learning. Because I mean, this is something you do all the time. And I'm just realizing there's there's levels to this. And I'm not even a surface level like I would I don't think I've ever tried fly fishing, believe it or not. So this will be a really interesting conversation for me. In terms of that, I know there's some really other neat elements that we're going to touch on as well.

Emily Rodger  2:03  
Yeah, no. And this is someone who I've thought about, you know, inviting to have him on to the podcast for quite a while and was recently at a lodge in Brazil, that he's are also a partner of, and was listening to the guides and the way that they spoke about him and spoke about his leadership style, and his care and his compassion for what he does. And I thought, that is a conversation that listeners need to hear. But it was one of these things where it is when you have people talking about someone who is not in the room, they don't know how close I am to him. It's nothing that's ever going to likely get back to that person. But when they can just speak, have such positive things to say about someone like that speaks volumes. So with that today, on the boiling point, we have my dear friend, Rodrigo Salas and he's the co owner of untamed angling and the CEO of the Brazilian operations, and the waters of his home are no more no less than the rivers of the Amazon jungle. He is actually the one who introduced me to fishing in the Amazon and I've had the pleasure of fishing with him there. He was born in Brazil and Rodrigo fantas career working in the Amazon in the depths of the indigenous rivers. He had access to truly virgin waters in the Amazon and got to know more deeply the indigenous people who ancestrally inhabited them. He has been fishing there his entire career, exploring waters and other remote freshwater and saltwater destinations. But the jungle is his favorite place to rent and angling and with his business partner, Marcelo, they created the unique concept of community based tourism indigenous territories in Brazil, being the first company in Brazil to have approval from Fu N, AI and iba na for tourism projects and indigenous areas in Brazil. Since 2008. It's expeditions and operations had been at the forefront of junka fly fishing and most importantly, community based ecotourism. He created the concept of world class lodges and services in some of the most remote places of the Amazon. Rodrigo, welcome to the boiling point.

Speaker 1  4:29  
Thank you very much, Emily, pleasure to have you here. Nice to meet you, Dave. It's it's such a pleasure to be here and talk with you a little bit a little bit more of what we do. And both in the Brazilian and believe in Amazon. And what we love that it's working with the natives in in the jungle. Thank you very much for the invitation. Yeah,

Emily Rodger  4:52  
and Rodrigo, where are you calling in from today? Are you home in Manal house?

Speaker 1  4:56  
Yes, I'm a my home office in Manaus. which is our resilient headquarters of our operations here in the in the Brazilian Amazon Manaus it's a huge city it's 2 million people. City right in the middle of the of the of the Amazon. So it's a quite unique place to live and also it's really important as a logistics base to all of our our operations in Brazil.

Emily Rodger  5:27  
Yeah, and so Dave for more context, I met Rodrigo on my first time fishing in Brazil I was at his lodge the real Maria and so him and I so behind him Dave, you can see there's a looks like peacock bass if you move your head yeah, peacock bass on the wall. So that is the type of fish Dave that I was going after with Rodrigo so we're fishing the first morning this is like my first time down there I am just in complete awe I have no idea what to expect. He makes this cast up against the bank and this peacock bass just like smash this is fly and then his what pound what pound fly line did you have on it was like 6060 and it just like blew up like just snapped and the fish took off and I was like what did I just sign up for?

Speaker 1  6:31  
You exactly that in you know m&e, there's something you are a fly fisherman, you know what I'm talking about? For us? We remember way more the fish we lose, then we land. Because all the fish we land, it's okay. It's a photo. It's, it's a one battle. But when we lose it by exploding flyline or losing the fish we never forget. So that fish I will never forget. And it was my big my first big fish with me fishing together and the real Maria. It was it was a good introduction for me to see the powerful creators in the water in the Amazon rivers. Yeah, true.

Emily Rodger  7:15  
Yeah. From that moment on. I was like I was at the ballot that boat deep and I was like braced, like waiting for like

Dave Veale  7:27  
for the Layperson here, that wouldn't be as knowledgeable in fly fishing, as we've clearly articulated earlier. What happened there like when you talk about smashing a fly and like what what would actually happen?

Speaker 1  7:38  
Well, we were fishing together both in the same boat in the same skiff, guessing towards the bank, with our fly fishing gear with the flies and a mutation of a small fish. Because we're fishing for the peacock bass, the peacock bass is the is the most emblematic and the most important fish in in the Amazon watershed in Brazil that we can catch on the fly. That is that mound that you can see there. So it's a fish that can reach up to 30 pounds. It's it's, it's a trophy fish in the Amazon waters, in real Moria holds really hit record sites fish, we have up to 14 HFA were records there on the fly, and so on. But we were just in the first morning of the first day, just warm up session, we're not even expecting to have that kind of thing. I lost many big fish. In fact, I lost more fish, big fish, then I landed, which is normal. Considering this kind of species. The biggest one, it's it's you, you eventually you can land one, but they can really, really fight hard and explode a liter of 60 pounds, we're talking about a 20 pound fish with the strength to explode. And to break a 60 pound line, no monofilament line. So do this energy and the strength this fish can run really fast back to the structure and you need to stop it. So that moment that you need to stop the fish to run back to to a structure where you can then go and make a mass and you lose the fish obviously, you should control the fish and you should fight with the fish with a fly rod. And and that fish just got my fly run straight by the side of our skiff and run in the opposite direction. And the flight poppet like like nothing like it was just a 5x fine line of trout fishing. And that was the introduction of Emily Roger to the fly fishing in the Amazon. And I remember she she looked at Wow. That's that's what I'm signing for for this kind of battle. And I've been fishing for 25 years peacock bass in the Amazon. So say yeah, yeah, let's let's do it. And then we get away the trip started trial by fire. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So,

Emily Rodger  10:14  
Rodrigo, obviously I know you very well. And so for our listeners and for Dave, I would love for you to speak more about untamed angling and what community based tourism means. First,

Speaker 1  10:29  
our company was founded my business partner and friend Marcelo, back in 2003, in Argentina, with idea to find the real, best and truly gems of fly fishing in South America. At that moment, we didn't have any idea where we will reach nowadays, if I if I went back in time, when I met Marcelo, when we started a company, we had a goal to find the real best places and provide the best service possible in South America. For the fly fisherman coming to visit South America, but not looking into the trout rivers of Patagonia. I'm born and raised in Brazil, grew up fly fishing in the jungle, my grandfather told me all about outdoors was an amazing outdoorsman, hunters and fishermen in and I grew up fishing in those warmer warm water rivers of Brazil, same as Marcelo in Argentina. We're not those trout, fly fisherman style we came from another school of anglers in that's a was our idea in the beginnings to create possibilities for anglers comes to South America to explore more than than just the Patagonian rivers and the trout fishing in Patagonia. Because we have so many native species, amazing native species, that we can fish in South America. And the two most emblematic ones are the peacock bass in Brazil, and the golden Dorado also in Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia. So we start to explore and try to find the real best places where we can get those those fishes being untouched wild, unspoiled rivers, in what we found was, those places are really hard to find. In, in, in, in, in that way. I grew up fishing as a child with my grandfather and same as Marcelo, because they impact off the progress in the South American rivers or amazing, especially the construction of dams, hydroelectric power plants, they change it everything in in the course of 20 years. I'm talking about between the 80s and the 90s. Both Brazil, Argentina and other countries in South America, they they live this boom, the hydroelectric power and main source of energy in the rivers were a sequence of dams and all impacted directly on those species and fisheries. So what do we say it's the best places are not anymore in the north in Argentina, or salt in Brazil, where we grew up. It's in the jungle, it's in the Amazon jungle. It's in the in the marshland of panthenol, in Brazil, and then we start to explore those places. And also, what do we found it is, there's not as protected as we imagined do with all the treatments we have in the in the Amazon jungle that everybody knows the deforestation, illegal mining, logging. Well, everything that's happening there and you see every day in the news, what's happening 2025 years ago, but what we found was the real secret rivers and untouched places are inside the indigenous lands. The indigenous lands in the Amazon are the most protected areas by by law, because they are indigenous territories protected by by the government of resuable Egan and other countries on the legal Amazon area. In that we found out okay, if we if we want to know these places and visit these places, and eventually fish these places and open lodges in those areas we must understand for First, how does natives leave how they work or how they want to work? Or what are their, their dreams and their goals for the future. And then we start to travel to a completely different area, then the tourists, or the Sportfishing, that's understand about this communities. I'm a Civil and Environmental Engineer, Marcel is an architect. So we decided to quit our main business, as engineer and architect to really train deep in this in this pool of the Amazon and these rivers and these areas in these lands, and understand how this tribes lives and how they can. Partner with us. And Dave and me, we didn't have any idea how to start. We just had a dream. We just had a goal, we knew where we should go, and what are our, the end of the line, okay, our dream is to establish a partnership with the natives, build a lodge in can bring people to work here with us to fish with us and work with the natives. But we didn't have any idea. And then we started to connect with important people in this in this journey, and I think we had luck. We mostly we, we knew where we want to go. And when rich, and we, we work 24/7 For several, several we wished you are working 24/7 But anyway, we, we were moved by our our dreams and transform them in reality. And then step by step, even without knowing where we should go. We're moving is like you were opening a fat in the middle of the jungle, you just have a compass that would use you go to the north, but you need to open a new, a new path that it's completely unknown. And we were the first company in South America to work in partnership with the natives. And in the Amazon jungle for tourists propose. We were the first one in Bolivia to the force, first one in Brazil. In in this in this journey, we even need to sit with the government and and and talk with them and say you don't have a law for that you don't you don't have a regulation for this kind of activity. Can we do it together. That's what happened in Brazil, in Brazil, the government didn't have any kind of regulation for allow tourists to get into the indigenous lands in the Amazon. And it's step by step. We're working with them to create this, this possibility that was 12 years ago. So it's resent, it's not a thing that happened 25 years ago, we were talking about 10 to 12 years ago. So that's, in a nutshell our way, how we are right now here, and I'm hearing in the Amazon. Thank you,

Dave Veale  18:37  
that's really helpful. I come from northern Canada, and, and you have a lot of indigenous friends. And so I can appreciate, you know, some of the challenges, I guess, you know, making that, you know, creating that partnership, maybe in connection I'm just curious, like, what what do you think helped you be successful? Maybe we're others weren't? Rodrigo in terms of, cuz I'm imagining, you know, you had to build a certain amount of trust. And and, you know, people need to know that, that, you know, you're there to exploit you're there to partner. So I'm just curious, like, you know, and that's an easy thing to say, but it's a completely different thing to do it. From my perspective.

Speaker 1  19:17  
Yes, I think it I have this question many times. And I always think about how it was since the beginnings and it's nothing more than the build relationships and build relationships based in in body of trust in transparency. And what are your goals on that? Trying to explain in the clearest way. What if you weren't there in with the natives in Amazon? That's that's even more rough or How can I say, it's like, it's pretty much like explaining something to somebody that don't know nothing about it. But by the end, it's not only that they should I trust you, they should believe, and they should understand you, first as a friend, as a partner, and then as a long term partners, that something that you should get there for the day, as any kind of business or personal relationships is the same. With the natives, we first try to understand their culture, because they're mainly things that are different than our way of life in our occidental culture. We're, we're move it to understand how they leave, what's the meaning of quality of life for them. Now, what they what they want as as persons as goals, and in terms of H individual person, or the community, the village. So and then we start to understand that that's pretty much different than a common business, pretty much different than a common business. And then just buying a piece of land and beauty in the lodge, like most of the fly fishing industry do that, just find a nice river, a good property that you can buy it and view the lodge and set your, your tourism operation there. With the natives in in their native lands, we should understand how they live and respect that first point, and then is invited by them to be there because it's their land. We can, we cannot buy a piece of land in indigenous territory in the Amazon by the Brazilian regulation, for example. So they should invite you to be partner, but you are coming to present them an idea and a project. And the way you do it, it's the most important thing. I have seen many times other enterpreneurs not only in the tourism or fly fishing, trying to do something in Amazon, in most of them fail because they don't understand how people live in the Amazon, what their goals, what their culture. So that takes time, for example, and believe it took us three years to understand how they need what they want, in Brazil and with the Kayapo villages two years. I know. So it's a long process.

Emily Rodger  23:01  
Yeah, I'm Rodrigo and Dave. And I Dave's a leadership coach as well. And you just hit on three topics that it's like catch all leaders, which we're we are all leaders, but especially of organizations and businesses could like really get these concepts downs Have you spoke first and foremost about cultivating trust, and the trust has to be there. And then it relationships, everything is based on relationships, and then speaking of culture, and what you said and the way that you worded it, which was so beautiful is that it is their culture. And you finding out what it is that they want and need and and how to be able to preserve that in order to then partner to create something together, which you have done so, so beautifully. And is that something like within your culture, that trust relationships? Like were you just brought up and kind of born that way? Or is that something that like you have kind of learned to really cultivate over the years?

Speaker 1  24:10  
Well, obviously it comes from where I came from my education, my my parents, especially my grandfather, and especially during all this expeditions and trips I made with with with my grandfather, and we went to places that nobody else had touched before in the Brazilian jungle and the way he respect the land owners being natives or not doing any kind of business. He used to work with a buying and sell cattle and then had some coffee fields and He was very simple in the way to treat people, and in a way that he always told me, you must respect anybody from top to bottom from bottom to top. Equally as is your most beloved ones, you know, because if you if you separate in classes, if you separate them in, in, in, in styles or for the people you like most are not people, you, you see us as selective, don't be a selective treat everybody in the same way being being the one that it's, it's, it's helping you to fix an engine or the president of your country treat in the same way. And, and with that, I grew up with that. And that's the way we start to talk with the natives to sit with them to eat in the ground with our hands and sleeping in the dirt in the same way they do, and respect that as the culture. And they cultivate that and appreciate that in a genuine way, not doing doing something for a second purpose or because you were looking for another thing, you must leave in their way you must leave leave their way to understand what is that, you know, and then we start to value things in a different way. as same as we come back to our homes and we start to value that we have a mattress, or we have sheets in our beds, in it most simple things. And they live in the jungle in that way. They don't, they don't complain, they don't complain from nothing. One thing I learned from the natives in the Amazon, they never complain from any kind of situation could be raining, pouring raining in the middle of the jungle they are without clothes, they are in the middle of a hunting expedition on a fishing expedition, they never complain, they're always happy because they are alive. And they have the opportunity to be there. So I then I start to learn with them, and then start to use also the part of their way of life in their culture. And they wait they see things in life, to all other aspects of my life. And then I start to see that it's it's the most simple and genuine way to lead.

Dave Veale  27:52  
So I'm trying to imagine all the work that went into developing these relationships, and I really appreciate what you're saying about the approach. And it sounds like you know, like, what I'm hearing is had to be very genuine, you know, like, you can't have ulterior motives. Because they'll, at some point show up especially

Speaker 1  28:11  
if it's a three years. Yes. Right. Like, yeah, especially in business. Yeah.

Dave Veale  28:16  
Right. Which it's interesting, right, like so. And you're successful. And then so you've you've been doing it, who are your customers who like who what's the what's the kind of ideal or the kind of common customer that would come and stay at one of these lodges.

Speaker 1  28:32  
Nowadays, they're mostly North Americans, Europeans, obviously they're, they're in a well position. Financially, they are eager to explore travel the world understand more about different places and cultures. They require some some levels of comfort and everything. That's why we create that possibility because in the past, there were many other outfitters offering an Amazon adventure. But for the for the common public that travel. When you hear about Amazon, the first thing it comes in mind, it's all about being eaten by mosquitoes or biting by a by by pitanja or Caymans the giant Anaconda will drag me to the water. That's what mostly the television sells every day about Amazon. It's not like that. But obviously you need to have good facilities to to have people interested to travel with spend a week with you in the Amazon, not just camping on the ground and things like that what we did in the past. So we create nice facilities to provide for the general public possibly to visit those places. So our average Client, it's, it's, it's like that it's a it's a person that that value, the experience first and then the comfort and then the amenities and accommodations, but the first is the experience being in it's such wild and remote places in the middle of indigenous land. Really remote where there's no roads, there's nothing there and no, no, no CDs, nothing around in the one of the first to explore those waters and understand and not only, not only about catching fish, it's about the culture. It's about the jungle, it's about the people you meet in this kind of trips in and that's our kind of public. Is

Dave Veale  30:52  
there like a common experience for people like I'm, I'm wondering, they go down? And uh, maybe maybe this isn't happening, but you know, maybe they going down for a certain experience. And then something kind of emerges just through, you know, the interaction, the location, the remoteness, like all these sorts of things. I'm just wondering, like, do you hear things from your customers that maybe they weren't expecting?

Speaker 1  31:19  
Yes, well, first, anglers, fishermen and drive it by the fish, they want to go in a place that you can have the best possibility to catch lots of fish or a big fish or challenge of a specific specie you have in that place. So we are anglers, so we're moving about that we're the first thing that that drive, drive us to a certain place being in the Amazon in the Caribbean, in the Indian Ocean, is the fish, or the fishing, or the experience on related with the fishing. But then when, especially here in the Amazon, one on anglers come with that mindset of catching fish and getting their their challenge completed in their bucket list and blah, blah, blah. They find himself in the middle of the most amazing jungle in the planet, those amazing rainforests, the wildlife, and obviously, the natives, when they start to see, and to understand how those natives still live in the jungle, we still live there in those places, then they, they have a truly different feel of the whole trip, and then they experienced is completely different than just traveling to catch a fish and take a photo of the fish. That's the most rewarding thing. In our project. It is when people end their trip and the last day in a common car, they they just tell us that that was a life changing experience. Because that's only the best thing I can hear it is that we're we're providing in an experience that is changing the perspective of life, or it's providing them a different way to say things. And and that's way more than just having fun and catching a fish is experiencing those places in the jungle and the people that live in the jungle. For

Dave Veale  33:29  
you, Emily, is that was that the case?

Emily Rodger  33:31  
Yeah, absolutely it is. It's the fish. I think initially that can put a destination on the map and bring you to them. But then the destination ends up being so much more about the fish and just the experience of it all and even with so this summer, I'm hosting a few groups down to some of Rodrigo and Barcellos lodges and which like filled up so quickly that actually Rodrigo just opened up another week for Somani. Because there's just so many people wanting to go and you guys are like Gosh, bucking up so fast. But on one of my weeks in on the real Murray which Dave is one of the lodges in Brazil, a couple who are a good friends of mine who they've traveled with me before and she has tried fly fishing and just doesn't really care for it and that is totally fine. But they are coming to to the real Mario with me, and she is so excited about it. And she's not an angler. She has no intentions of picking up a fly rod, but she's going for the pure experience of it and the fact Rodrigo that, you know your lodge is of like yeah, they're very fly fishing focused, but it provides Yeah, experience for non anglers and anglers alike.

Speaker 1  34:54  
That's our perception all over those years. We're complete been 15 years in Bolivia and in Brazil 12 years, it is that people that come a say that's way more than just a fly fishing travel experience, that's way more than than I expected. Not only the fishing aspect, but I'm talking about the whole experience, you know, the place and the people that you meet in these areas. And that's, and that's where we start to think well, that's not only the, about the fly fishing is about those places is about really keeping those places protected in and how we, we work in partnership with the natives in a, in a truly genuine way. Because we are 5050 partners in all of our places, we're not paying a fee or have the rights only to work, we are 5050 with them from beginning to the end, obviously, we are the intrapreneurs we are the the investors, we're the ones that operate and create the facilities and, and cells and manage the whole thing but also, we involve that in all now level of decisions. That's why That's why I live here in my house I'm traveling many many times to the villages to the communities to talk with them to make board meetings we then to decide together what are we doing in the future of our operations, from Season rates and improvements, everything and then we start to see that there's lots of people coming in and say I want to bring a friend that's not a fly fisherman or not an angler at all, or I want to bring my wife or my kids or my family and then you start to see that those projects they can turn way more than just fly fishing tourist lodges they can be open for those other experience that that takes your breath away from from the point that you were there in it's exactly when i remember when i i reached all of those places for the first time way before start getting the water and fishing is a This place is amazing just itself by the location by the river by the jungle and the people that lives here it's amazing the fishing obviously it's it's our goal it's our purpose and it's it's important thing in our business but just the location it's it's amazing. And Emily experienced that in in in Moria and last year in Cemani care Riku and pidoco and hope canes and pretty soon as well I need to see that each location in Amazon is different because there are different geographically located it's it's like being in in the west of Canada in the East in the central the Amazon have that and and then we start to see well we can we can start an open another activities in our lodges that don't not only related to the fly fishing so the Eco tour is the interaction with the natives respecting them obviously not creating activities with the natives but interacting with them and in that sour definitely our next step because we saw that naturally as me give a good example people that not even in the fly fishing and want to go and want to come to visit our our destination so we're coming in preparing this with the natives for the next step that's opening our our venues for non angling activities as well.

Dave Veale  39:04  
What would those activities be just out of curiosity because that probably would feel to me

Emily Rodger  39:10  
walkie talkie oh

Unknown Speaker  39:13  
well, cute hockey in the jungle.

Dave Veale  39:16  
That would be that would be an experience worth investing in for sure.

Unknown Speaker  39:20  
I can promise you hockey but soccer as

Emily Rodger  39:25  
well and just in the birdwatching like I'm the real Mary a barge

Speaker 1  39:29  
watching it's amazing and it's another big niche on the on the tourism. The Fly Fishing is a specific niche. It is very small. It's very small compared with compared with a conventional fishing. That's not our our our target to fly fishing is a very, very small market. But then when you go for birdwatching, you go for ecotourism. Then you have massive quantity of people that are looking for those kinds of experience. And from what we saw, especially after the pandemics, that is people value, way more being outdoors. Now, I can say you Nemix was really tough to us, obviously, we're close for 20 months. But after that, in this this last year, 2023 was the very first year we felt the same bookings and levels as as Prepon. They mix. But what I felt is people are looking to genuine experience outdoors, more than just traveling to new or berries are long, though, you know, they're looking to explore the planet, the world because the pandemics gave us that sensation that everything ends pretty soon, you know, and we don't know, we don't know, the next decade, the next five years, we don't know, the next year. So what what what I see now as people wants to, to do this kind of experience and really be in in those wild and remote places of our planet. And we in the Amazon bar, are one of those places, we're lucky to have nice facilities and provide good logistics to, to host people there. And that's, that's our next step our goal for for the next coming years.

Emily Rodger  41:28  
I love to just that you're able to and continually breaking down the misconceptions that we have about places and how we can be so narrow minded and even for myself when I first thought of the jungle and how so many people were like you're going where by yourself and doing what. Because that is what you kind of know, the Amazon to be of anacondas and Puranas. And just all this kind of stuff yet, like when you I mean, a much like you like for you to be able to establish this operation, you had to go in completely open minded, and trusting trusting yourself your own intuition, as you called it that like, this is what you felt called to do. And this is what you want to do. And and letting go maybe of whatever else from the outside world and those voices that were maybe saying like or a trigger, like you're walking away from an incredible career and you're an engineer and you're gonna go try and open a lodge in the middle of where left. But yeah, when we just learned to, yes, step out intuitively and trust and be able to see things for what they are based on our own experiences, not just what we're seeing, or reading or hearing and, and that yeah, everything that that untamed angling does and represents, I think fully taps into that.

Speaker 1  42:59  
Yeah, thank you very much, but it's true. And I live that every single time that I'm I'm doing presentations or even the shows were going to us now. It will be my my I think it's my 15 year doing shows in us in nothing changed. It's the same people stop by our booth. And they look to the photos and videos and start to talk with with us. That's in the Amazon. That's that's in the Amazon jungle. Wow. Now I can go there. There's so many mosquitoes, Piranhas, anacondas, so we always need to break this misconception. That's normal. And we're using it to do that. Say, we don't have more mosquitoes than then the Florida we don't have more mosquitoes than then Alaska. We don't have more mosquitoes than Texas. In in, obviously, you were in the middle of the jungle. You're not going alone. Swimming, crossing the river and walking in the jungle and be there for the whole day. Your guidance. We have a facility we have the boat, we have everything ready for that. But the jungle, it's way more friendly than the majority of people think. Right, Amy? You experienced that? You saw that?

Emily Rodger  44:30  
Yeah. And Dave just to kind of paint a more clear picture of that. Like, the the real mrea it's like that water is so acidic that it's basically sterile. Is that right Rodrigo? Am I saying something? That's not correct in that? Yeah, it's like I was swimming in it. It's just it's a lie. Oh,

Speaker 1  44:49  
that's no mosquitoes there because the acidity of the water the tannins of the water. To create this acidity of the water, water. It's black tea tannin. And then at the CDC do not allow them larval mosquitoes are closed so you don't have those noseeums or biting mosquitoes around. So it's completely safe to swim to stay in the sandbar. You know, I travel with with my with my kids, I have a baby of one year old and she she stays in the sandbar with us. Obviously, we've protected with the sun, but we're not worried about it mosquitoes are being in the water. So that's the kind of thing that people don't know about Amazon in and I always said we have a we have a competition against those channels that UPS always try to show the the dangerous things in Amazon, you know, but that's fine. Once people understand that it's not like that, then comes the second step that's that's that's booking that trap and going that so that that's where we work hard to make it the easiest way possible. Because we're traveling to the middle of nowhere even from from us Brazilians or locals traveling to those places. If you don't do in the right way it can take you several days, you know to reach those waves. So we work in all of the best logistics to get all of our clients in the fastest and the safest way there so we use sharp lanes hydroplanes landing in the water if there's no landing strip helicopters now unbeliever so we're using any kind of vehicles and airplanes or whatever to make people get there in the fastest and safest way possible in that so open opening the gates for lots of people getting arrested to come to say okay, it's easiest than they thought or traveling from from US or Canada to the Amazon jungle is not so complicated anymore, the flights are getting better. So, people are getting arrested but mostly when they see where we are in the middle of nowhere and also the largest we have the possibility to have an English speaking professional guide where they can find comfortable with a with a with a IDM and do not need to speak Portuguese or Spanish whatever. So the we are creating new doors for for this people in going back they've to your first question where the activities on eco tourists that goes from birdwatching, canceling, tracking and hiking and jungle, there's some beautiful landscape you can explore in doing that with a professional English speaking guide, being a fishing guide, or biologists or ecotourism guy, but also assisted by a native that have those the knowledge of these natives what I have in the jungle, it's amazing. They know, every single tree, every single plant, all the animals, and they they know exactly what they are and why they are there. And then can explain to you what those fruits are, which animals are eating there. And the whole, the whole ecosystem, the whole chain that it's it's, it's inside the jungle. And it that's so amazing because it's it's it's a complex of all of the biomass, the animals in the plants that you have in the jungle, that creates that, that ecosystem that lives in harmony. And those natives they they know everything about that much more than any any scientists that study that because they it's their is their garden, I say that the Amazon jungle is a garden of those natives. So they're born and raised there. They have those in that's really important. Also, the natives in the Amazon, they they don't have a writing language, mostly, it's oral culture. So it's past generation, by generation. And that's really important if you if you destroy a community or if they leave to, I don't know, work in the near style, you lose that connection. And now that culture will be lost. So, what we're trying to do with our projects, it's bringing people to their land, and have them the possibility to stay to have an economic sustainable way of life. Stay in their villages, during training, getting educated for a new activity being a guide, we're being what they want to do inside the operation because they work with us in different aspects, but mostly stay in their villages and keeping that sense of community together. So they don't need to leave to the nearest town and look for a job, which is really tough for them without the same education level that other people have in, in, in the cities, they can stay and they can leave in their, in their, in their communities in the jungle. And, for me, the most important thing is seeing that now we are the people that are going there saying they are doing the right thing to protect those places. And that's the legacy for those natives. Because they are being they're being they're being seductive, or they're being invaded by centuries. And and, and people that goes in their land mostly goes for the log, the minor roles, the water, and just trying to put our money and extract that, take that from them. We're just going there, saying you're doing the right thing, give this place as it is. And with luck, we'll bring people from all over the world to come visit your place. And you see that you are doing the right thing to protect, protect your place, protect your journal and your river. And I think that's the legacy of our projects. And that's what we want to show to more and more people not only related on the fly fishing business,

Emily Rodger  51:31  
yeah, to preserve and live in harmony is what really stood out to me and you and you speaking yes. Yeah. Well, Rodrigo, I, thank you so much for taking the time to come on here. And I know that we could chat for days and days, days. And as with the end, we'll keep doing to be able to again this summer, but no, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on to the boiling point. And I think that there's just so many valuable insights and lessons especially around Yeah, trust and relationships that we all can draw from. So I really appreciate you, you sharing. And so we're gonna list all of your information and any extras that we discussed in the show notes, and the best place to find all of that is on our website. And for our listeners. We're active on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. And there will be a video version of all of us on YouTube and Facebook. And of course, the podcast is available on all of your favorite podcast platforms. Rodrigo. I'll see you in the jungle.

Speaker 1  52:43  
Thank you very much. See you in the jungle. Thank you for this opportunity.

Emily Rodger  52:47  
Thank ya. Thank you for listening, follow or subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app or visit boiling point podcast.com For more produced and distributed by the sound off media company