A GUIDE INTRODUCES GUESTS to a few of the 15,000 plant species in Ecuador's rainforests (below, right). The Pastaza River is the only way in to this southern Ecuadorian stretch of rainforest.
KAPAWI, ECUADOR t is not often that you can help prevent oil exploration and promote the longevity of an indigenous tribe in the course of a vacation, but at Kapawi Lodge, your visit does this 3-million-acre swath of Amazonian rainforest good. Twenty thatched huts line a lagoon on the ink-black Pastaza River, an area oil companies covet—much to the chagrin of the Achuar, a 5,000-member Indian tribe spread throughout the upper Amazon basin just north of Peru. Ecuadorian owner Daniel Kouperman established the lodge with the goal of handing it over to the tribe completely by 2011, though they make up the bulk of the staff now and use the proceeds to help preserve the region. Guests (like actress-activist Susan Sarandon) can take morning canoe trips in search of quetzals, rufous potoos, and tawny-throated leaftossers (three of the local feathered inhabitants); go on jungle treks with guides who can pinpoint plants that cure tuberculosis as easily as jaguar prints; or swim on their own alongside pink dolphins—let me repeat, pink dolphins—in the lagoon. The bungalows are elegantly crafted using local wood and palm fronds, and come complete with composting toilets, solar-heated showers and hammocks to hang in. With no televisions, phones, or radios to distract you, the only show in town is the jungle, and after dinner—the specialty is freshly caught catfish steamed with aromatic leaves and hearts of palm—the best seat in the house is a dugout canoe, from where, armed with a flashlight, you can peer into the yellow eyes surrounding you.
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THE FINE PRINT Packages start at $530 per person for three nights, plus $200 in transportation fees (www.kapawi.com). From Quito you’ll transfer to a single-engine plane, scoot over the Andes, and land upriver from the lodge, where a motorized dugout canoe will chug you into the heart of darkness. It’s best to go anytime but the rainy season, from May to mid July. HOW ECO IS IT? Kouperman admits the solar-battery bank could use an upgrade. An increase in reforestation of the plants used to maintain the huts’ thatched roofing would be nice too. But how much grief can you give a tribe that built a lodge without one metal nail? ABOVE AND BEYOND Treat yourself to a traditional healing from one of the resident shamans, complete with a taste of chicha—masticated and fermented yucca.
March 2005 www.plentymag.com