Our Story
Hugh MacDermott, the founder of our company, is a lucky guy and his greatest fortune lies in the individuals he has met. One of the first Latin Americans he crossed paths with, soon after arriving in Argentina in 2004, went on to become Hugh’s original and, even after decades of exploring the Southern cone of the Americas, bestest (though now retired) travelling companion: Pancho Panza (a little Criollo horse). Together they set off, with a combined knowledge and resources of little to nothing, to follow, if not the route, the philosophy of the godfather of long riders, Aimé Tschiffely. This enthusiastic – bordering on delusional – start led to two years of adventures, covering over four thousand kilometres around Argentina, during which they formed an unbreakable bond and a deep passion for the country and saw a side of the region, and of humanity, that few people are privileged enough to see. They ended up in the small mountain town of Tafi del Valle in the Sierras of Aconquija, Northwest Argentina, with no means other than a great desire to share the experiences they’d had, and introduce the people they’d met on their journey, to the world. Even though it was only a twinkle in the eye of an idea, this was the moment when MacDermotts was born.
From this romantic start, it got a lot tougher before the company became the success it is today. Hugh spent almost a decade barely scraping together enough money to get through each month. Five years sleeping in various ranch barns, training hoses to make ends meet…
…followed by two years in a dilapidated boarding house in the rougher end of the Northwestern city of Salta and two more years in a little house in the dirt back streets of a country village of Mendoza. He was as down and out as a person can be, though they were good times, exciting times. An eternal optimist, emboldened with nothing but a gut feeling that he was somehow on the right path, he kept pushing on, always with a bounce in his step and his fortune of meeting the best of people followed him wherever he went.
In 2015, he finally had enough cash to get to the bright lights of Buenos Aires, where he set up a little office and slept on the sofa for a year and a bit, until the company was stable enough to pay for another studio apartment for him to live in.
Now, over twenty years from Hugh’s arrival to what was destined to become his home country, we are still only a small team and for each of us our keystone passion (from which all our other passions are built around) is our home: the wonderful, erratic, eclectic, place-where-nothing-works-quite-the-same-as-the-rest-of-the-world, heart-on-its-sleeve country of Argentina and we continue with Hugh’s original ideal of aspiring to show a genuine, real-life side of the regions we work within. And we have never stopped travelling and deepening our knowledge; expanding our philosophy of travel across the entirety of Argentina, Chile and the coasts of Uruguay and Brazil, always aspiring to tailor the perfectly fitted trip around whatever the interests and preferences of our guests, who come from all corners of the world to visit us.
Example Itineraries
Some examples of our favourite trips that we’ve organised over the years:
What our guests say
