Hello, and thank you for your interest in traveling and discovering Chile and the South Andes! I am Jorge Montesinos, owner of Cono Sur Expeditions. Here are a few things about me that inform the vision and goals I want to see reflected in this project. I am a Chilean anthropologist, and I moved to the U.S almost 20 years ago to pursue graduate training in Latin American Studies and Anthropology. As an anthropologist and educator, and through my undergrad and graduate training and professional practice, I’ve been fortunate to travel extensively in Chile and the South Andes region. So many towns, landscapes, and small rural communities contain interesting stories worth discovering! In that spirit, several years ago, my wife (she is an outstanding medical anthropologist!) and I organized an ethnography field school/study abroad program with undergraduate students from the U.S learning from Mapuche healers and their communities in Chile. In parallel, every time I teach Latin American Studies in college, I think how cool it would be to journey through the places we discuss in class…” look! that’s poet Pablo Neruda’s house”, “see? That’s the Inka citadel that precedes the foundation of Chile’s capital, Santiago. Isn’t cool?” This is how I started to conceive Cono Sur Expeditions; as a way to combine my academic and fieldwork experience with different audiences.
Cono Sur Expeditions aims to share my enthusiasm for discovering and learning about the history, culture, and geography of Chile and the South Andes. I hope you join me on a unique, curated trip that combines a scholarly flair with the fun and excitement of visiting the captivating Southern Cone.
Sincerely,
JM