Amazon Basin (Kapawi Ecolodge)

Summary

We spent 4 days in the Kapawi Ecolodge, deep in Ecuador's Amazon Basin, near the border of Peru.  It took two flights on small planes and over an hour on a canoe to reach Kapawi, which resides on the land of the Achuar people.  The lodge was built without nails, in the Achuar style of architecture.  The concept of the Ecolodge is to teach visitors about the ways of the indigenous people and help preserve the Achuar culture. The current owners plan to give the lodge to the Achuar people at the end of 15 years when they are ready to run it.  We had very full days hiking in the rain forest, bird watching, cayman (crocodiles) watching, fishing, and even visiting a traditional Achuar community.  Every meal at the lodge was outstanding -- some of the best food we have had on the trip.  It rained every day but was a unique and interesting experience.

Facts

Year ecolodge built: 1999

Number of days it rained: 4/4

Number of TVs/telephones: 0

Number of people at lodge our week: 19

Language: Spanish, Achuar

Dial-in access: none

Number of tarantula/scorpion sightings in huts: 3

Detail

Day 1

When we arrived at the ecolodge on the first day, they fed us a huge snack, and gave us some information about the lodge:

• No nails used to construct the lodge.  Tightly bound cylinders of vine/fiber were used in place of nails.

• Conceived of concept in 1996, and completed the lodge in 1999.

• Uses solar power for everything, but has back up generators for use when it has not been sunny enough.

• Implement restrictions on how much power each hut is allowed so you can turn on no more than three lights at a time in your hut.  This rule was somewhat arbitrary, because each of the 5 lights in the huts was only about 12 watts, and their brightness depended totally on not only how many lights you had on, but also what other power was being pulled from other huts. Basically, it was dark at night!

• Not allowed to place toilet paper in the toilets.  Separate bins were placed next to the toilets, and they were cleaned twice a day.

• Five gallons of hot water for a shower was delivered to your room at 4PM each day (only if it was sunny, since it was solar heated)

We then divided into groups.  We had been lead to believe there would be very small groups, but because many people wanted to do moderate to strenuous activity plans we were part of a group of 4 couples.  We did all of our activities with this group all week, so we got to know them pretty well.  Richard and Jane, the British couple, were also on extended travel (3 months) and had many experiences and preferences frighteningly similar to ours.  We will definitely keep in touch with them.

Our hut was near the end of the lodge, so we had to walk a long way on the slippery raised path through the rain forest to get to our hut.  On any walk to our hut, there would typically be one section that would have a swarm of ants on it -- always a different kind of ant than the last swarm.  But within the hour all the ants would be gone.  Since we always wore the Kapawi-provided knee high rubber boots, walking through ants was trivial.  The huts were very basic, but had water, some lighting, and beds with ever so critical mosquito nets.  Even though there were lots of mosquitoes, the nets served mostly as a sense of protection from the many sounds and sights of things in the forest.  Because the huts were so embedded in the rainforest and they were so open in their construction, it felt like you were sleeping in the very active noisy jungle.  We were very careful to secure our mosquito nets to the edges of our beds in the light before going to dinner so that we could know that there was nothing in there with us when we got back later in the dark.

We met each night before dinner to agree on the activities for the next day.

Day 2

The activities for day 2 included early morning bird watching and then a hike in the rain forest, and then cayman watching at night.

The bird watching started at 6:30 AM, before breakfast.  Supposedly, the Ecuadorian rainforest has 1/3 of all bird species in the world.  Even though none of our group are 'birders' it was  interesting to see the really odd and big birds.  We quickly realized that our digital camera does not have a strong enough zoom lens to take any real pictures of birds.  Other groups came to Kapawi specifically for the bird watching.

The hike this day was very much a "nature" hike -- we stopped every 50 feet to learn about insects, plants, etc.  There were so many unique insects it was kind of freaky.  We tasted some of the fruits in the rain forest -- most of them were not ripe enough so they did not taste anything like what we expected.  We learned about and saw many 'strangler' trees that engulf an existing "host" tree.  Eventually, the many strangler vines come together to form a very large solid tree around the host tree, killing it. We saw huge strangler roots and vines all over the forest floor, as well as completely grown real trees.  We also saw very long trails of 'leaf cutter' ants that were stripping trees and taking the leaves to their nest.  You could follow the trail of millions of ants all carrying large leaf pieces for hundred of yards along the forest floor.  It looked just like a Discovery Channel show.  We saw some monkeys, but they were always so hard to see (they stayed up high in the trees) that it was not that impressive.

The night cayman watching was pretty interesting because it was pitch black on the water except where the guide's flashlight was shining.  Even though he was in the front of the long boat facing right and left looking for cayman, the driver in the back of the boat was still going full speed in the pitch black!  The drivers of the boats are all Achuar and they know the river at all levels like the back of their hands so they could do it with their eyes closed, fortunately.  We spotted several cayman including a 6-8 foot long cayman, which was barely on the shore.  With the flashlight freezing it, we got very close to it, almost coasting into it, before it jumped and caused us to almost fall out of the boat -- everyone jumped to the side away from the cayman and we almost toppled into the water with it!

Day 3

The activities for day 3 included a longer, faster paced hike than the day before, and fishing in the late afternoon.  We took the boats to a spot up river, fast-hiked for 4.5 hours, then paddled kayaks 2 hours down river in the rain.

We did not slow down much on this hike except for crossing large creeks and deep mud.  We did run into an area of 'lemon ant' trees where the ants live inside the hollow trees.  You cannot tell by looking at the trees, but if you break a limb you can see hundreds of ants and larvae.  The ants are supposed to taste like lemon, thus the name.  Dan is the only one in the group to taste the ants, but he could not taste lemon over the DEET (mosquito repellent) on his hands, even after eating many ants!  One of our group was stung twice during the trek by what we think were wasps.  His hand swelled for a few days so we all wondered whether it was something else.

We stopped for a hot lunch at a thatched roof hut beside the river, before the kayak trip.  At one point we thought the rain was falling through the roof onto our heads, until we realized there was a swarm of ants in the roof and they were falling onto us.  Very unsettling.

Only three of us and two guides went on the fishing activity, because it was raining and everyone else was tired from the long hike.  Although we tourists did not catch anything, the guides caught a piranha and some very ugly large catfish.  One catfish, called the 'chainsaw' catfish, had short double spikes along both sides of its body and looked prehistoric.  It howled at us as the guide was cutting the hook out of its mouth.  They kept all the fish they caught because the Achuar believe if you throw the fish back, they will tell the others and you will not catch any more.

It rained so much that night that the river rose 6 feet and the lagoon in front of the huts started to fill up.  The guides said that during rainy season the lagoon would rise another 20 feet and come up to edge of the hut porches, and people would jump into the lagoon from their hut (with the piranha and cayman, etc!) 

Day 4

Day 4 was the visit to the Achuar community.  See the next section for details of the visit.