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Thomas Power |
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Thomas Power
Thomas is one of the founders of Pura. It all started back in 1992 when working for Oxfam as a fundraiser. One day his boss looked up from her desk and suggested that he would be well suited as a tour guide.
Taking this clear 'go away' as a piece of positive advice, he got himself a job guiding coach loads of tourists around Europe, primarily Spain (but also Italy, Germany, Switzerland, France, UK, Belgium, Morocco... you get the idea.)
This footloose and fancy free lifestyle gave him the opportunity to travel in the off season i.e. winter. There seemed no more sensible place to go that South America. In his first 6 month jaunt he landed up in a small village in northern Mexico, started to learn Spanish and set up a little cafe (Cafe Basura - a legend in its own lunchtime).
The following year he fetched up in Santiago de Chile working for a UN agency proof reading and translating documents. It was while he was here that he started to see images of Torres del Paine National Park and decided that he had to go. That first visit to the park lasted 6 weeks, during which time he met a Spaniard, Diego Martin, who was working as a volunteer park guard.
Back in Europe the tour guiding continued for a couple more years but Thomas spent a lot of time preparing the ground for a travel company specialising in holidays to Chile. The name Pura Aventura was actually thought up by a tourist on a bus (thank you Mary).
In 1999 Pura was founded in Thomas' erstwhile university town of Brighton. Given the amount of travelling in the previous decade, Pura was a welcome opportunity to stay still. Fast forward 8 years and the arrival of two energetic and nocturnal small children mean that getting away from home is now appealing and dreadful in roughly equal measure. Only joking...
Xabier Etxarri
Many of you will know Xabi from La Rioja or the Pyrenees in Spain. Others will have been guided by him in Chile.
Firstly, the name (Xabier Etxarri Goni) is Basque so he's from the area around Pamplona in northern Spain. He has a sort of gruff, no-nonsense approach. Getting him to talk about himself is a bit like getting blood out of a stone but with a little perseverance I managed to extract the following, rather eclectic, CV.
Firstly he became a science teacher, then he went off to get his physics degree, specialising in astrophysics. He then started to play full back for the Cisneros rugby team in Madrid, trained by the ex-All Black Ken Going. He flirted with selection for the Spanish national team so ended up playing against people like Jeremy Guscott. I say 'playing against' but from Xabi's own account of the occasion, he sort of stood there as Guscott ran past at the speed of sound.
Xabi then ended up in Chilean Patagonia where he ran the first trips along the Rio Serrano into the Torres del Paine National Park, both by zodiac and by kayak.
More recently, his first volume of poetry was published in Chile and is for sale in Santiago as well as in Spain (Bilbao, Pamplona and San Sebastian). The second volume is, apparently, due out soon.
Sarah Wightman
Sarah is our head of operations and in charge of making sure that all flights, guides, hotels, transport, meals, activities and excursions are booked, tracked, paid for, confirmed and then re-confirmed. Our hands-on approach to organisation means we prefer to deal direct with suppliers rather than agencies, so for Sarah, this means handling heaps of detailed information, day in and day out.
Before we extract the violins however, let's make it clear that Sarah has been organising holidays from an early age. With an eye for detail, a pile of brochures, a region and a budget, she would regularly draw up a shortlist for the family holiday. For Sarah, brochures, maps and atlases were favoured over the usual teen magazines, so the passion for travel and organising has been slowly but persistently weaving its magic.
Sarah is a totally invaluble member of the Pura team and we'd like to extend our thanks and appreciation of her hard work! Masterchef* will have to be for another lifetime, Sarah!
* We nearly lost Sarah to Masterchef at one point although, fortunately for us, her pesto sauce was such a 'miss' that the tasting chef spat it out. Close call...
Jaime Lahoz Ortiz
Just to prove that we like our guides to be well rounded and interesting individuals.
Some of you will already know Jaime from the slopes of the Spanish Pyrenees where he leads our ski groups. Others will have met him in the Picos de Europa where he helps out with our Family Adventure holidays. But there's so much more to him than just that...
Ten years ago, Jaime was enjoying a modelling career as well as playing rugby for the Spanish national team. In fact he was on the verge of being signed up by Wigan to play Rugby League here in the UK when he was involved in a nasty traffic accident whilst travelling with one of Pura's founders, Xabi Etxarri.
After a few months in traction next door to one another, they became best of buddies. That's how Jaime came to be involved in Pura.
Nowadays Jaime's first love (with all due respect to Adriana) is the snow, closely followed by photography. Much of Jaime's photography ends up as front covers for snowboard magazines in Spain, Italy, Germany, the US and the UK.
He is a ski/board instructor and chooses to spend his time, when not travelling for photo shoots, in the intimate Pyrenean resort of Cerler.
He is 'married in' to local nobility, his partner being one of the last people to speak the indigenous language, Patues. Her father was one of the founders of the ski resort - hiking up into the mountains with a shovel to dig holes in order to set up the ski lifts.
So, if you meet Jaime this year either on our Family Ski Week, Better Skiing, Picos Family Adventure or Pyrenees Family Adventure holidays, do be sure to ask him about his rugby or his modelling, or even his stint as an airline steward. But don't tell him I told you because he'll be mortified!
Alex Asensio
Alex brings a touch of glamour having worked as a movie stuntman amongst his past adventures! He has guided in Spain, South America and the Himalayas during which time he climbed several 6,000m peaks.
From these travels he holds various mountain guiding certifications which allow him to guide any mountain from sea level to 6,000m. He also holds the highest level of canyoning qualification which allows him to guide canyons anywhere in the world.
Alex settled back in his native Picos de Europa Mountains 6 years ago to set up a riding school. He trains horses to take part in races across the open country while his girlfriend rides the races.
Now, back to that stunt work. Although most of his on screen work was with horses, he has also done his share of falling through windows, being blown up and going into space. Fans of Spanish b movies should dust off their copies of 'Viaje al Infierno' and play 'spot the Alex'.
Alex guides our small group holidays in the Picos as well as welcoming more of you on our Picos Self Drive holidays and Picos Inn to Inn walks.
Some of you have already met Alex: "We couldn't have asked for a better guide. Alex made this holiday a perfect vacation". Sarah R, Picos Family Adventure.
Natasha Slater-Bowen
'Tash' is possibly the most shy and retiring member of our team.
She's in charge of keeping our books in order. Clients will know her as the person who gets in touch when holiday balances are due. So this is our attempt to show you that she's not such a bad money-chasing sort after all.
Tash is a wonderful mixture of serious and fun. On the serious side she was a teacher; has a slightly unhealthy interest in stationery and gets worryingly excited when she uncovers numeric palindromes.
On the fun side, she is an accomplished portrait photographer in her spare time and has just kicked off her recording career by doing the vocals on a track written by her husband Brad. Sadly none of us have heard it yet, but we have our eyes on iTunes.
Tash does rather suffer as she dreams about going on our holidays - current top of her wish list is Peru - but Brad hates flying. Try as we might to encourage them further afield, they seem to end up at Butlins in Bognor most years. To be fair, Tash is a great defender of Butlins but she's yet to convince the rest of us.