It’s all about the guides!

In one way, being a really good Wildland guide is a relatively easy job! Of course, it requires the requisite study of history, ecology, archaeology, or other areas of expertise, and first-aid training with leadership skills are all requisites. But the most important characteristic for a Wildland guide is to be, and to share, your Self! If Wildland travelers are the “Initiates” who want to connect with the people and the places we visit, then our guides are their “Wizards”, or at least their best friends who take them down new pathways by encouraging, sharing and supporting the traveler to be open-hearted and open-minded to new experiences.

 

Our goal is to share a real world without artifice, that craves our understanding and compassion rather than our judgment; a world that seeks to welcome us rather than entertain us. And to accomplish this, above all other factors, it’s the guides: guides are the catalyst between travelers and their experience.

 

Having the right guide that creates the ‘Wild Style’ experience is the difference between magic and mediocrity in travel. There are many trained naturalists, excellent tour escorts, and knowledgeable historians and archaeologists, but we seek native guides with the requisite wide range of skills and character: a sufficient command of multiple languages, the knowledge and the skill to impart the information, the experience to lead; but above all else a personality that is open to sharing a part of themselves, and their personal beliefs and values, which creates an opening that induces heart-to-heart interactions between travelers and their hosts.

 

With guides like this, who bring with them a smile and good-natured sense of humor, our initiates go farther in their journey to know a place deeper, to discover themselves better, and to develop closer emotional ties to others they meet along the way. Therefore, it’s not just about the ability to transmit information succinctly and quickly to the traveler, but more importantly to create experiences unwritten in a published itinerary that often become the most memorable simply because they are real, unplanned and meaningful.

As my friend, Michael Kaye, President of Costa Rica Expeditions once said, "The criteria for excellence in guiding have changed from knowing the place to facilitating the most profound and meaningful experiences that travel can provide. This is only accomplished by knowing the individual traveler; not only from knowing what the individual traveler wants, but knowing the kinds of experiences they can really get beyond what they say they want, and how to deliver it well."  

Wild Argentina Wine Event at the Kutay's Home

 

Last weekend in our little town of Edmonds by the sea we got about as close to Argentina as we could through delicious wine and cuisine, tango and milango music, and a show by Kirsten Gardner, one of Wildland's South America Program Directors, about the hikes, bodegas, barrios and penas we'll be visiting in Buenos Aires, Mendoza and Salta regions. In anticipation of our March 2013 Wines and Adventures in Argentina trip, Anne and I co-hosted a reception in our home with our friends, wine-experts, and trip co-leaders, David and Ruth Arista of Arista Wine Cellars in Edmonds. 

     

Shannon Groshong of Fig Tree Organics and Catering (770-547-8578) prepared the Argentinean recipes and cuisine with her partner, Julia Nesbitt (who happens to be one of Wildland's former Africa Program Directors as well):

· Berenjenas en Escabeche (marinated eggplant) with chimichurri

· Corvina Rellena (baked stuffed Sea Bass)

· Faina (garbonzo flatbread) with spinach, bleu cheese and sliced chorizo sausage

· Matambre (rolled stuffed flank steak - hardboiled egg, vegetables and fresh parsley stuffing - vinegar, garlic and thyme marinade)

· Dulce de Leche Pionono (roulade)

    

The Aristas served six wine tastings including three (out of many) bodegqas we will be visiting on the trip: Clos de los Siete, Bodegas La Azul, and Belasco de Baquedan. Belasco has three wineries under their brand and we tried their Swinto, Llama, and Ar Guentota. We kicked it off with a delicious Argentine torrontes. The Swinto was the winner of the evening!      

   

WOW! One of the guests, Kristine summed up the evening and what we know will be the sentiment on the March trip as well:

"Thank you for such a wonderful event last night! My husband, Darrell and I had a great time! You and your family are all so welcoming and open. It seems that people who enjoy travel are more naturally curious about other people. We had so much fun talking with you, Anne, and Kelly and so many of the other guests. It felt more like a family reunion than a gathering of strangers! Thank you again for being such gracious hosts."  

Along with our local Argentine cultural guide, Jorge Barcelo, Anne and I will co-lead this Wildland Adventure with David and Ruth who will bring their lifetime of wine expertise creating a fun, informed and tasty trip deep into the culture and high into the Andean landscape of South America.  

About the trip:

With the snow-capped Andean mountains as a backdrop, the Argentine provinces of Mendoza and Salta produce South America's most exquisite, high-quality wines in small batches. On this handcrafted adventure, Wildland Adventures' founding directors Kurt and Anne Kutay join David and Ruth of Arista Wine Cellars through the vinicultural paradise of Mendoza and Argentina's Noreste, Salta and Juyjuy, regions also known for lively folk music, zesty cuisine, dramatic landscapes and a rich cultural heritage. 

Anyone who loves Malbec has heard of Mendoza but most North Americans are unfamiliar with Argentina’s Noroeste, home of the world’s highest vineyards and described by National Geographic Traveler as a “land of gaucho culture, sloping vineyards, verdant Andes foothills, and spectacularly striated canyons punctuated by towering cardón cactuses." Along the journey, you'll be accompanied by local expert guides that specialize in wine, culture and history. You'll have special access to small, family-owned bodegas, experience impromptu folk music performances, travel seldom-trodden mountain trails via horseback, and learn culinary secrets of the traditional cuisine from renowned chefs.

Space is limited to just 12 wine-loving guests and we expect this journey to sell out quickl 

 

Visit our website for the complete itinerary: March 2013 Wines and Adventures in Argentina

 
 

Elizabeth L Pelham: "...maybe there were things that are hard to forgive, but that have made all of us who we are today."

  

Elizabeth Louise Pelham

 1930 - 2012

Elizabeth was our 'Wild' bookkeeper for 15 years and every day we delighted in her company. She loved every party and any opportunity to eat and drink in the office; at every holiday party with a little libation and an opportunity to talk more about our lives we would learn something new and amazing about her life. She was truly a Grande Dame and we will miss her dearly, but never will she be forgotten for her spirit and her dedication to our success and happiness in business.

Kurt and Anne Kutay, Directors

Obituary

Elizabeth will perhaps be most remembered for all the work she has done in the theatre, not only on the stage acting, but also her work as a Producer and Director. She was most recently the editor of the Seattle Repertory Organization "Backstage News." She also established the Paragon Players’, which included the acting troop “The Jongleurs”. Although the theatre was a very big part of her life, she was also active with the Seattle Jazz Society.

That however, does not tell her whole story. Born on a farm during the depression in Brookfield Missouri, she was the eldest child of Leo and Mildred Wickizer. Her younger brother Wayne survives her. Growing up on a farm during the depression had its own challenges, and all of these shaped the foundation of what she believed, to take nothing for granted and appreciate even the smallest things in life.

She eventually moved with her family from Missouri to Chicago and then to the Pacific Northwest. The move from Chicago had a very lasting memory for Elizabeth because she was able to travel out West on the Empire Builder Train in June 1942. She would often reminisce about that trip and this past June she was given one of the best gifts anyone could give her, another chance to take that trip on the Empire Builder. We have the Northwest Parkinson’s Foundation to thank for their generosity in not only organizing that trip but also funding it. I know that Elizabeth was profoundly grateful.

In 1942 her father got a job in the Bremerton Navy Yard and they first lived in Port Orchard in a trailer camp but eventually moved to Shelton to live on a farm. Elizabeth has fond memories of growing up on a farm. Work was hard, but she and her brother spent many days playing in the woods, exploring abandoned railways and plowing the fields with her father.

 Elizabeth comes from a time when people made do with what they had and were resourceful. The week before her high school graduation, she came home to find their house had burned down. They set up camp in the fruit cellar and used tents. They didn’t have showers, so they used an old tin bath to get clean. Clothes were washed by hand and when she went off to college, she went to the feed store and picked out feed sacks to make her own clothes.When she finished high school she went to L.A. to attend the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. She managed two semesters, but her passion was for the theatre. She somehow managed to get into UCLA where she studied drama and child psychology. She managed to pay for her studies by playing the accordion. She was spotted in a group and got a break to play for the Roy Rogers and Sons of the Pioneer. She was also a keen pianist.

Her whole life although seemingly wrapped up in theatre, music and her day job as a book keeper; Elizabeth still found time to host over 200 students from Japan, Russia, China, Poland, France and England – and they came to think of her as their ‘American Mom.’ She was mother to her five children Jon, Ruth, Heather, Tim and Heidi; and although she was busy with all her other endeavors, she was able to enrich their lives with the love of music, theatre, dinner parties, entertaining, conversation and debate, Christmas and the pixies, Thanksgiving, and a very unique collection of ‘Elizabeth’ words and phrases. She was our loving mother and much more. Forever loved, forever missed.

 “I mean there are times when I cringe when I think about my life. I think now - listening to different people, that maybe there were things that are hard to forgive, but that have made all of us who we are today. And if we can accept those things and instead of seeing them as a regret, look past them and see that our lives have only been enriched by those experiences.”

                        Elizabeth