Luis Rodriguez

Luis was born in Quito, Ecuador, but also holds Spanish citizenship. He received a bi-national education at Lycée La Condamine, a French-Ecuadorian elementary and high school. He later lived for over a year as an exchange student in the U.S., where he started the first of several university programs in environmental studies.

Upon returning to Ecuador, he studied and worked in the Upper Amazon rain forest, where he was involved in environmental studies on the impact of oil exploration. Afterwards, he was chosen to participate in the naturalist guide course for the Limoncocha Reserve (in the Ecuadorian Amazon Basin), where he worked on a luxury river boat and rainforest lodge. In 1990 he took the Galápagos National Park naturalist guide course and worked on board several vessels. From 1995 to 1998 he lived in Lyons, France, where he learned about the service industry while traveling throughout Western Europe.

He returned to the Galápagos in 1998 to work as a guide again, and started diving professionally within the Galápagos Marine Reserve. During this time, he further developed skills in underwater photo and videography, and also started SCUBA diving instruction.

Luis is married and has two young sons: Emilio and Adrián; and lives with his family a few miles outside of Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz Island, Galápagos. His main interests are music and reading about human and natural history, and his favorite physical activities include surfing, swimming, kayaking and scuba diving.