After having worked as a biologist for 2 years in Belgium, Pieter decided to leave everything behind and to start traveling and give in to his desire to explore more of the Neotropics and especially its avifauna. In 2001 Pieter said goodbye to his colleagues, friends and family and bought a one way ticket to Costa Rica. From there he started traveling and birding in South America, exploring rainforests, Andean cloud forest, highland deserts, puna, paramo and much more. 6 months and about 1000 species later Pieter returned to Costa Rica to settle near his dad’s place, a small eco-lodge near San Isidro del General in Southern Costa Rica. Here Pieter helped in the business and started offering his expertise in birding to hotel guests, who really appreciated Pieters expertise. Pieters free time was spent to explore and bird different areas in Costa Rica.  Birding had been great the last months but Pieter missed people to share his passion with and to be able to put at work the expertise and experience he had build up over the years. That’s how the idea was born to start a company specialized in birding tours in Costa Rica and in 2004 Aratinga Tours was founded.

Since 2024 Pieter has successfully organized and leaded more than 100 tours in Costa Rica for birding and natural history groups and also had the opportunity to lead groups in Panama and Ecuador. With the years groups shifted gradually from only birders equipped with binoculars and telescopes to birder – photographers equipped with binoculars and (semi-)professional photography equipment with big zoom lenses – to sometimes even only photographers equipped with not only zoom lenses but also with macro lenses and landscape photography lenses. With the years at Aratinga Tours we have gained affinity with the whole spectrum of interests from pure birding to pure nature photography and everything in between.