About Us
Atabey Tours was founded by Andrés Carrero after a series of ecotourism ventures in Puerto Rico and abroad. Andrés traveled to Africa (Kenya/Uganda) in 2003 for 2 months where he was welcomed by the Maasai tribe in the Serengeti, witnessed the spectacular wildebeest migration while spotting all of Africa’s famous mammals and performed gorilla trekking in the rainforests of Uganda while experiencing Africa’s ecotourism field in all its glory and volunteering within a coastal community.
In 2006, Andrés spent the entire summer camping in the Icelandic wilderness for 3 months during the midnight sun season. Here, he also stayed in the world’s first modern eco-village working with the only certified organic forestry department and in the organic greenhouses in Sólheimar, Iceland.
In 2009, Andrés embarked on an epic Amazon adventure where he lived in Brasil, Bolivia and Peru. He delved deep into the Andean way of life in the highlands of Bolivia and Peru before undertaking a serious journey from the source/birth of the Amazon River in the Andes of Peru to its outlet in the Atlantic Ocean in Brasil. Along the way, he interviewed and met with ecotourism companies, sustainable harvesters of Amazonian fruits like Açai, environmental campaigners, autonomous eco-villages, attended ecological seminars and met with native tribes and local preservation agencies in an effort to experience and document the wonders of the mightiest river and rainforest in our Planet and the plight to save perhaps the most valuable ecosystem left on Earth.
In 2012 Andrés explored the rugged and remote backcountry of Alaska with a group of adventurers setting out on a 5-day rafting, camping and fishing expedition to an isolated log cabin in the middle of the wilderness where Bears & Moose patrol the land. At the end of the journey they were picked up by a sea plane that flew them back to civilization.
In 2013 Andrés explored Japan and Indonesia thoroughly, from the coasts to the remote mountains. As well as delving into Japanese Shinto spirituality and staying in sacred temples, Andrés went surfing throughout the world famous waves of Indonesia and diving with sharks and an incredible variety of marine animals in the bountiful coral reefs of Komodo Island, where he also hiked with the notorious “man-eaters” (or so the legend has it) Komodo dragons themselves.
In 2016 Andrés went on a spiritual and cultural pilgrimage throughout India and Sri Lanka. After a long journey filled with sacred festivals (including the iconic “Holi Festival of Colors”), epic nature treks, incredible street food (sometimes against his stomach’s wishes) along with profound connections with locals, Andrés capped it off with a week long silent retreat in an Ashram by the Ganga River where he and the group of travelers would bathe daily in the pristine Ganga River at the foothills of the Himalayas, not far from where The Beatles practiced meditation in Maharishi’s ashram where Andrés also visited and meditated in “Cave #9”; the “cave” where John Lennon practiced meditation for over a month in 1968.
During the devastating Hurricane Maria in 2017, Andres began a Solar Energy Brigade named “Off Grid Relief” which via donations and videos posted on social media, was able to gather sufficient funds to install Solar Energy for FREE for 41 homes/Families (the entire population of a remote mountain town in Utuado called Altos de Arena which had been severely devastated and cut off from civilization after their bridge collapsed during the Hurricane). The town was set to be without Power for over ONE YEAR!!!! Thanks to the solar energy Brigade created by Andrés Carrero and his partner Alberto Casas, we were able to install full solar power to all 41 families one by one, one weekend at a time, during a period of almost a year, thanks to the funds we received from our supporters who followed our every solar install mission through our social media coverage. At the end of our brigade journey, we had helped create a fully off grid community that had solar energy and spring water piped to their homes, making the community self-sufficient and not reliable on the governments’ vulnerable and failing power company. We like to think we gave back to our mountain communities and island farmers during a critical time where a lot of these folks would’ve had to move due to lack of power for over a year had it not been for “Off Grid Relief’ and the people who supported our Hurricane relief efforts.
In 2019 Andrés explored the Himalayas from India on motorcycle along the world’s highest road, to Nepal on foot hiking on an 18-day trek to the highest mountain peak any human being can hike to on Planet Earth, Mount Everest or Chomolungma as its known by the Nepali locals.
In 2021, Andrés embarked on marine biology expedition with fellow Shark conservationists like Ocean Ramsey to Guadalupe Island, a 20 plus hour boat ride from Baja California, Mexico to the remote island in the middle of the Pacific en route to Hawaii. On the island, they went diving and identifying the behavior of Great White Sharks for 5 days at sea in a live-aboard boat. In 2022, Andrés traveled to the Maldives to dive with Tiger Sharks with Inah whom he met on the previous shark diving trip to Guadalupe island, and his shark conservation ecotourism diving company.
Native to Puerto Rico, Andrés has been exploring the island for all his life and sharing his spectacular findings with international travelers for over a decade. Andrés is close friends with many of the ecotourism operators in the island and hopes to work together in this field in order to reveal/share and preserve the sacred wonders of Puerto Rico. His vast experience with local and international ecotourism practices paved the way for the creation of Atabey Tours! The company strives to be the leader in ecotourism in Puerto Rico by combining our expertise in the island’s natural gifts along with our in-depth international experience in the field of ecotourism.
