Uncharted Earth | The Adventure Team

United States

Leo Cuesta

Cofounder and President

When Leo left Colombia in 2010 and moved back home to the Philippines to set up Uncharted there, he was confident that he would establish the best adventure travel company in the country. What he didn't expect was the disappointment of numerous happy customers by the fact that his company only offered travel services in the Philippines – if only Uncharted could take them around other countries as well! So in 2015 Leo moved to the United States and set up Uncharted Earth to take people to the other little-known yet wondrous places on this planet.

Leo grew up paddling canoes and riding water buffalos in his dad's farm in the Philippines. He spent his early twenties hiking, diving, traveling and working in leisure real estate development. In 2006 he decided to follow his passion for adventure travel, but he wanted a method to his madness. The following year he was in Boston, Massachusetts getting his MBA from Babson College, a business school known for entrepreneurship. While studying Leo worked with Earthwatch Institute and gained valuable insight into sustainable travel. After graduation he moved to Colombia to work with a company that ran summer camps and nature tours and there he learned the intricacies of running adventure trips in a developing country. In 2010, feeling that he had learned enough, Leo moved back to the Philippines and has been running the country's best adventure travel company since.

Leo now runs Uncharted Earth in Las Vegas, Nevada and makes regular trips to the Philippines and Colombia to meet with his teams, develop new trips and do the things that he misses in the desert like diving and kayaking. He lives twelve minutes away from Red Rock Canyon and spends his free time hiking and climbing with his wife and keeping their dog out of trouble with roadrunners and ground squirrels.
Cami Sarmiento

Cofounder and Vice-President

Cami may look like a fifteen year old but she has seen a lot of the world. In the past seven years she has lived in four countries, moved six times and worked in five industries. She grew up in Bogota, Colombia where she spent all of her vacations traveling around the country with her family. She got an industrial engineering degree and spent her early working days in the finance and insurance industries. In 2008, looking to shift to strategic consulting, Cami moved to the United States to get her MBA at HULT Business School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Towards the end of her studies, however, several unexpected things happened. The global financial crisis hit. Cami met a Filipino who reacquainted her with her love for climbing and the outdoors. She spent a semester in China and fell in love with Asia, traveling and chow fan. Four years later these unrelated events proved to be factors that steered Cami towards an Uncharted career path. After getting her MBA Cami moved back to Colombia and spent two years working in business development, human resources and marketing. During that time she went on several adventure trips with her Filipino boyfriend before they eventually got married and moved to the Philippines. Cami's passion for traveling and experiencing new things made her realize that a corporate desk job was not for her. In 2013 Cami joined Uncharted Philippines and her talents helped develop it into the best adventure travel company in the country. Her work indulged her passion for new experiences, discovering places, and learning about different countries and cultures. In 2015, with the Philippine business well established, she moved back to the United States to help run Uncharted Earth.

Cami is an experienced diver, hiker, rock climber and backpacker. She is also an aspiring connoisseur of photography, Chilean wine and apple cider.

Colombia

Rafael Avila

Trip Leader

Rafa is a civil engineer, climber and mountaineer. In more than 20 years of climbing experience he has scaled some of the highest peaks in Colombia and the world. In Colombia he has summited all of the mountains in Los Nevados and El Cocuy National Natural Parks. At the international level, Rafa reached the top of Mount Everest on May 16, 2010. He has also summitted Mount Aconcagua (the highest mountain in the Americas) in 2003 and 2013, the two volcanoes Cotopaxi and Chimborazo in Ecuador in 2004, Denali (the tallest mountain in North America) in 2004 and 2012, and has joined expeditions to Mount Everest North Col (2007) and Mount Manaslu (2008) in the Himalayas.

Rafa has climbed in Patagonia Argentina, in the Cordillera Blanca in Peru and on Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa. In Colombia he has opened many traditional, sport, big wall and bouldering routes.

If Rafa's climbing resume does not impress you, his trip organization, attention to details and Bolognese sauce made from scratch over a camping stove surely will.
Antonio Henao

Trip Leader

Antonio is a climber and mountaineer. His climbing history began more than 15 years ago in Suesca, a municipality an hour away from Bogota and the center of rock climbing in Colombia. His passion for climbing led him to open more than 40 climbing routes in different parts of the country such as Machetá, Sutatausa and El Cocuy National Natural Park. These routes are among the most difficult in the country. His passion also led him to climb various big walls and to open, together with 5 friends, a new route 500 meters high on the wall of Pan de Azucar with pitches ranging from 5.11c to 5.13+.

In 2010 Antonio climbed Mount Aconcagua, known as the colossus of America with an altitude of 6,962 masl, solo. He also joined an Everest expedition where he got up to 7,900 masl.

Antonio’s appetite for climbing is matched only by his appetite for food. Not a believer in packing light when it comes to nutrition, he will always offer more snacks than you can finish.
Paulo Salazar

Trip Leader

Although Paulo comes from a family of city folk, he has a natural affinity for the fields, forests and mountains of his region, and for hiking, camping or riding his bike to explore. He is interested in many things but he is especially curious about everything there is to know about all types of animals and plants, and all the processes and phenomena in nature. Paulo feels more at home in forests and páramos than in cities. When he is out exploring in the mountains Paul feels that he is his true self.

Paulo takes pride in having the ability to easily make friends in any place and situation. He likes spreading his joy to those around him and these opportunities abound as a trip leader, making his work very enjoyable for him. Paulo studied Veterinary Medicine but since 2004 has been captivated by tour guiding, a profession that he came across by chance and now is his passion.

Among Paulo's other passions is mountain biking, which he does when he is not trekking or crossing one of the glaciers of Los Nevados National Natural Park. At home Paulo likes to read about history, culture and nature; he also listens to salsa since because of his work he doesn't have many opportunities to go out and dance. Of course, there will always be a good excuse to celebrate.
Jairo Bogota Benavides

Trip Leader

Jairo is an environmental engineer, climber and mountaineer. For more than 20 years he been promoting rock climbing, mountaineering and competition climbing as professional activities. In recent years he has made countless ascents of the highest difficulty in different areas in Colombia and around the world.

Jairo is a chief route setter for national and international climbing competitions, a trainer for kids and adults in climbing gyms in Bogota, and is the president of Technical Committee of the Colombian Federation of Sport Climbing. In 2016 he was certified as a Wilderness First Responder.
Cata Aponte

Dive Instructor

Cata is a Biologist and Dive Instructor and has been teaching others how to dive since she was very young. Her passion led her from an early age to get started in this wonderful underwater world and leave her native Bogotá to be near the sea. With more than 15 years of diving experience and 12 years as an instructor Cata has become a passionate leader in her profession. Thanks to her virtues as an instructor more and more people choose to discover the great world of diving with her.

Her commitment and dedication gave Cata the privilege of diving and working in different parts of the world. St Marteen, Bahamas, Tobago, Indonesia, Panama, St Thomas, Anguilla, Amalfi Coast in Italy, the Riviera Maya in Mexico, Colombia and South Africa are all part of her experience in the activity she enjoys doing the most.

Specialties like EFR Instructor (Emergency First Response, RCP and First Aids), Specialty Instructor Digital Underwater photographer, Specialty Instructor Night Diver, Specialty Instructor Wreck Diver, Specialty Instructor Deep Diver, Specialty Instructor Aware Fish Identification, Cavern Diver and Intro to Cave diver, complement her broad curriculum as a Master Scuba Diver Trainer PADI # 199168.

If you want to discover the beauty of the Colombian Caribbean there is no doubt that Cata will be your best guide during this great experience.

Philippines

Zean Villongco

Company Director

Zean likes to bite off more than he can chew. This is most applicable when it comes to food as he can easily gorge down a meal that's good for 3 persons. But other than his voracious appetite for anything edible, he moreover has a big hunger and thirst for new and exciting experiences.

Zean took up Biology in college, hoping to someday become a doctor. But his forays into mountaineering and other outdoor activities changed all of that, and he eventually decided to pursue other "less confining" occupational options. His professional history thereafter became as colorful and diverse as the many places he's been to. Zean has worked in widely different fields, including environmental conservation (whereby he worked as a marine biologist and lived on an island), finance, arts and literature (he was once a dancer and theater actor), education, and information technology. The only thing that remained constant was his passion for travel, adventure, and the outdoors. His itch was just too irrepressible that he left a lucrative and stable office job at an IT company for the freedom and challenges of a freelance career.

Having helped set up the Uncharted company from the get-go, Zean has likewise put up his own creative media business which allows him to indulge in his interests in photography, writing, web development, and graphic design. He is also a scuba diving instructor and likes to spend his free time hiking, rock climbing, freediving, and surfing. Needless to say, he also loves to eat.
Ana Santos

Operations Manager

Ana grew up with leopards, lions, elephants and hyenas. Her father was assigned in Zambia for work and she spent her childhood happily swimming in lakes and going on safaris and picnics in the land of dangerous beasts. Growing up so close to wild animals prepared Ana perfectly for her future job working with the Uncharted Philippines team. Ana's childhood in Zambia also instilled in her the love of the outdoors. There was nothing to watch on TV so she entertained herself outside, riding her bike and playing volleyball in the African savanna.

In early high school Ana and her family moved back to the Philippines. She spent a couple of years in Baguio City where she enjoyed hiking in the mountains and following streams to waterfalls. Ana went to Manila for college where she took up Accounting and joined the volleyball team. After graduation Ana spent 14 years in Customer Service in one of the country's largest banks. It was there that she met her husband who was (pretending to be) a client at the time. They got married after a whirlwind romance of two months and are currently enjoying their second decade together. After her banking career Ana spent several years in the BPO industry before joining Uncharted Philippines. Her organization skills, many years of experience in customer service, love for the outdoors, and affinity with animals make her our ideal Operations Manager.

Ana enjoys biking and going to the beach with her husband. They are big on road trips and have driven all the way from Ilocos Norte to Davao in three days, taking turns on the wheel and dutifully keeping each other company by sleeping in the passenger seat.
Dax Daquilanea

Trip Leader

Though Dax has always been a nature-lover and has a post-graduate degree in Environment and Natural Resources Management, he got his first dose of extreme outdoor adventure and physical torture challenge during his stint with the Philippine Navy. After Dax left the Navy he entered the security and safety industry and handled projects for some of the best island resorts in the country. His work required him to spend much of his time on islands and beaches (poor guy) and the outdoors became a major part of his life and livelihood.

In 2012 Dax established his own security consulting firm and he was also an operations officer for a commercial diving company. As if his work protecting people and executing complicated dives wasn't exciting enough, Dax also joined Uncharted Philippines as a trip leader. Leading trips enables Dax to commune with the wild and the sea (two of his great loves) and gives him a chance to show off his beloved country to other people. It also gives him eager audiences for his many interesting life stories. As trip leader Dax makes sure that our tours have the things that he values: excitement, safety, physical challenge and lots of nature.

Dax (whose real name is Jeffrey by the way; like a Navy SEAL he has a cool nickname that fits his personality better), is a family man with a wife, four kids and 20 pairs of Vibram Five Fingers.
Jody Kimmayong

Trip Leader

Don't be alarmed if you think you see blood in Jody's mouth while hiking with him. He's not bleeding from exhaustion. In fact, while you might be catching your breath, Jody probably hasn't even broken a sweat. Jody has been hiking in the Ifugao mountains since he was a kid and the area's trails are as challenging to him as your neighborhood's sidewalks are to you. The red liquid in his mouth is not blood; it's the juice of a palm tree seed (commonly known as betel nut) that he loves to chew.

Jody is a Banaue local and knows the region's people, customs and culture intimately. He is also very interested in foreign cultures and can speak a surprising amount of French and a smattering of other languages. Living in the small town of Banaue opens up the world to Jody and he is friends with hundreds of people from every corner of the globe. When Jody is not guiding people in the mountains he can be found at a guesthouse that he helps run, on the road riding his tricycle or at home with his young family.
Marvin Bunaton

Trip Leader

If you've ever seen photos or videos of Ifugao men in their traditional attire racing wooden scooters down a hill at breakneck speed, chances are you’ve seen Marvin before. He's part of the Banaue Wooden Scooter Racing Team and his photo has graced many magazines and newspapers. Yes, Marvin is a sort of celebrity, but he is a tough one – you need to be if you ride a scooter with zero shock absorption at 50 kph on bumpy roads. Many things attract Marvin to scooter racing – the speed, the rugged action, the adoring fans – but it's the tradition and culture associated with the race that is most important to him. Marvin is very proud and knowledgeable of everything Ifugao and he exudes this pride and knowledge when he takes guests around his home region. Get past his infectious smile and you will find a serious devotee of Ifugao culture and history.

Aside from being a racer, celebrity and trip leader, Marvin is also a double major in IT and Tourism.
Jonathan Domondon

Trip Leader

Jonathan has a gift. No matter what he is doing his hair is always impeccably styled. On the most challenging and rugged trails he looks like he just got out of the salon. In fact, only moments after a swim or putting on a hat Jonathan's hair is already back to its usual form.

Aside from his hair Jonathan has two more things that are always in perfect order: his pleasant attitude and desire to show his guests a wonderful time. Jonathan's grin is as constant as his coiffure and he goes out of his way to ensure that his travel companions wear similar smiles. Though always smiling he takes his job very seriously. From reading to learn more about different cultures to attending various skills training seminars, Jonathan is constantly improving himself as a trip leader. A proud Ifugao and a multi-skilled guide, Jonathan is the ideal person to show you around the Banaue region and surrounding areas.

When not leading trips or styling his hair Jonathan helps run a guesthouse in Banaue and chews betel nut with his friends.
Jhonas Navarro

Trip Leader

He won't admit to it, but Jhonas is a rock star among tour guides in Coron. Ok, maybe not a rock star but definitely a TV star – he has been on national television thrice, taking celebrities around his beloved Northern Palawan. Jhonas is historian, storyteller, environmentalist, outdoorsman and chef rolled into the ideal island expedition leader.

Jhonas finds beauty, excitement and inspiration in nature. He is an avid photographer, a motocross rider and an excellent cook, and nature provides his subjects, playground and ingredients. Not surprisingly, Jhonas devotes a lot of time on activities that help preserve the environment for future generations.

Jhonas leads our boat expedition in Northern Palawan and shares his passion for nature, culture and cooking with his lucky guests. In his leisure time he likes to play basketball and soccer and go trekking.
Joe Estrada

Trip Leader

Joe became a mountain explorer not for sport but for art. He has been a bonsai artist since 2003 and took to the mountains in search of yamadori which are naturally occurring bonsai. Yamadori are highly prized by bonsai enthusiasts but Joe came to realize that taking them from their natural habitat is wrong. Like other wild plants yamadori are essential to their ecosystem and are more valuable in nature than in a pot. Joe turned to sustainable bonsai art and now rescues hedge plants and other bonsai material that are threatened by construction and development around Palawan.

Joe grew up in Manila but was seduced by the adventure possibilities of Palawan and now lives in Puerto Princesa as a professional guide. He is known as a walking information desk (for being both knowledgeable and talkative), a gym rat who gets into a Zen state while pumping iron, and an endurance junkie who crosses open seas in a kayak. Despite his impressive physical and mental attributes Joe considers his being "sensitive, conscientious, reliable and compassionate" as his key strengths as a Trip Leader. (We'd say his being a drama queen is his greatest strength but this is his profile so what he says goes...)

Joe enjoys making gourmet meals in remote wilderness and at high altitude. He is the happy husband of a wife who taught him how to bake and the proud father of a daughter who dreams of becoming a marine biologist.
Jhon Santos

Driving Tour Guide

Jhon drives carefully on our adventures but in his younger days he drove aggressively – to the basket. Jhon went to college on a basketball scholarship and played professionally in the Philippines and Malaysia. After his career on the hard court, Jhon, holder of an accounting degree, worked as a manager for several different companies. But Jhon's other passions in life aside from basketball are cars and driving so after several years of employment he decided to set up his own private transportation company. Jhon now has a thriving business with several vehicles of different sizes (all of which are big enough to fit his sizeable frame) and he has done so much driving in the Philippines that it would be a challenge to find a road in the country that he has not been on.

In his leisure time Jhon is still occupied with basketball and driving. He coaches high school students on the court and likes to go on road trips with his wife to discover quaint towns and new destinations.
Will Cabanillas

Trip Leader

If you threw Will into a time machine and sent him back to the time of the dinosaurs he would probably lose his mind – from sheer joy. Will is an avid birder and amateur herpetologist so to be surrounded by the biggest birds/reptiles that roamed the earth would be heaven for him. He would run around nonstop, identifying and recording as many different species as he could find – which is just what he did when he won second place in the Borneo Bird Race in 2015, an event that had him scouring Kinabalu Park for 24 hours straight. Also, Will would surely take a lot of great pictures and none of them would be selfies. He always has his camera with him and he's quite good at using it. In fact, he's won awards in several photography contests including the grand prize in the nationwide DENR-PCSD Wildlife Photography Contest in 2013. Will's stint in the Jurassic would not be short-lived either. There’s no doubt that he would survive and thrive there for a long time. With his botanical expertise he would be able to tell which plants he could eat and which could eat him, and his extensive experience exploring mountains, rain forests, caves and coastlines would surely enable him to find – and avoid becoming – food.

Lucky for us this consummate nature lover and skilled adventurer lives in the present day and enjoys guiding people around his home province of Palawan. ~~When he's not out in the wild~~ Will likes to go biking, fishing and scuba diving.
Dondon Besarino

Trip Leader

Dondon makes a living from taking care of the needs and wants of VIPs, celebrities and divas and making sure that they are completely happy. No, we're not saying Uncharted Philippines' customers are divas. Aside from leading tours for us, Dondon also works as an events and logistics organizer for singers, actors and other famous people. As one can imagine, he is no stranger to demanding and quirky clients. Meeting strange requirements and addressing wacky concerns is a regular part of Dondon's work with VIPs and he gives every client and event his 100%. Fortunately, you don't need to be a celebrity to enjoy Dondon's exceptional customer service and attention to detail – you just need to join him on an adventure. Leading trips for Uncharted Philippines lets Dondon indulge his love for traveling and the outdoors, and it is the kind of people-oriented work that he enjoys. Dondon's diverse professional background also includes being a trained caregiver and a certified air-conditioning technician; those skills help him stay caring and cool at all times.

Dondon is a family man with three kids, the lucky beneficiaries of his love for cooking exotic food.
Stephen Tuboc

Trip Leader

Since the Philippines is an archipelago and even its largest land mass, Luzon, is often referred to as an island, every Filipino, even the worst landlubber, is technically an islander. Stephen, however, has saltwater running in his veins, takes Vitamin Sea daily, and is a true islander by anyone's standard. He grew up on Cuyo, a small island in the middle of the Sulu Sea that is over 350 kilometers away from the nearest city of Puerto Princesa. Swimming in the sea and enjoying beautiful beaches were part of everyday life for Stephen in his remote island home. He eventually moved to the city to study in the state university but continued to spend most of his time in nature, adding rainforests and mountains to his explorations. The Palawan mainland is one of the most biodiverse places in the country and Stephen, with his great curiosity about different species, was like a kid in a candy store.

Stephen has a degree in Hospitality Management and is now an experienced tour and trekking guide. He spends much of his time on trails, either guiding people or backtracking to study some weird organisms more closely. He is an avid birder and wildlife photographer. Stephen is also a legendary snorer, but, predictably, does not believe it.
EJ Tiu

Trip Leader

EJ is a perfect example of how one trip can alter the course of your life. He took up Psychology in one of the country's top universities, a practical choice for people looking to pursue lucrative corporate careers. After graduating EJ joined a friend on a trip to the mountains of Tarlac. He was an avid photographer and was on the trip to take photos and document his friend's solar electrification project for Aetas, the indigenous people of that area. What started as a trip to practice his hobby of photography turned into a full-blown non-profit career in the span of a few months. For the next two years EJ helped run Project Liwanag (liwanag means light), a charitable organization that brings a sustainable source of electricity to Aeta communities. You can learn about Project Liwanag on their website: https://www.projectliwanag.org/. In those two years EJ not only learned how to work hard without getting rich, he also showed a lot of visitors around the project areas, sharing with them the beauty of the land and culture of its people. He realized that he really enjoyed taking guests to different places in the country, giving them an appreciation not only of its famous landmarks but also of its people.

EJ continues to be a Core Team member of Project Liwanag but now has time to indulge his love for traveling and guiding by leading adventures for us. He is a talker and loves telling stories that make trips a lot of fun for his guests and for himself. Now if that’s not making great use of a Psychology degree then what is?
Jonel De Leon

Trip Leader

Two things are common among many members of the Uncharted team: a love of adventure sports and a college degree. Jonel is no different. He's a serious outdoor athlete and uses trail running, freediving, rowing and climbing mountains to get himself Ironman race ready. He also has a business degree with a major in Marketing. What make Jonel stand out, however, are two things that he lists as his special skills in his resume: driving and baking. Jonel is cooler than usual, a cross between The Transporter and The Cake Boss.

Jonel was born in Bulacan, spent his childhood in Bicol, and now lives in Palawan where he says his heart belongs. He describes his love for nature as "extreme" and spends most of his time either enjoying it or helping to protect it. He also enjoys meeting travelers from all over the world, which makes leading trips for Uncharted the perfect job that combines his passions for nature and exploration with his innate interest in people. Too bad he doesn’t go on car chases or bake 20-layer cakes on our trips, but it's good to have those skills on tap if ever we need them.
Rich Apiaza

Trip Leader

Like all of Uncharted's trip leaders Rich is an experienced outdoor adventurer and loves nothing better than being out in nature. His "type" of fun, however, often leans towards the 2nd . Type 1 fun, of course, is the kind of fun that is enjoyable while it is happening, like eating ice cream or riding a roller coaster. Type 2 fun is not actually fun in the moment; it's only fun when it's over and you think back on it. In fact, Type 2 fun can be downright miserable while it is happening, like tracking reptiles through thick rainforest where everything wants to bite, scratch or cut you. But payoff of Type 2 fun is often amazing, like photographing a rare and beautiful lizard, and that makes the hardship worthwhile and "fun". This is Rich's idea of a good time.

Rich credits his masochistic recreation preference to being the son of a carpenter and a teacher. We're not sure why. Perhaps he received old school discipline with 2x4s and rulers and he enjoyed it? More likely it's because from his parents he learned a strong work ethic that values hard work and learning. Rich has a business degree with a major in Marketing and spent 3 years working at a fast food chain and an island resort. That was not fun for him but he learned a lot. Now he is a full time adventure guide in beautiful Palawan where he has lived his whole life. Rich enjoys every moment of his job and claims not to work anymore. Who can be happier than a guy who doesn't work and thinks everything is fun?