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The Huaorani people have inhabited the headwaters of the Amazon for millennia and have lived as hunters and gatherers, entirely without contact from outer world right up until the end of the 1960's. Indeed, at least one Huaorani clan continues to shun all contact from the outside world. Numbering approximately 1,200 individuals, they continue to maintain a largely traditional lifestyle, living from the rainforest, though missionaries and oil companies have had some influence.
Huaorani leader Moi Enomenga, made famous by articles in the New Yorker magazine and as the principle character in Joe Kane's Savages (1995), as well as in an NBC television documentary telling of his struggle to protect Huaorani land from oil companies, believes that ecotourism is a means by which his people can receive an income while maintaining the integrity of their culture and conserving their rainforest territory. Moi is currently the president of the Ecotourism Association of Quehueri`ono, which represents five communities on the upper Shiripuno River, and has signed an agreement to develop this joint venture for the next ten years. This program involves the exploration of both primary and secondary rainforest in the company of a local guide and a bilingual naturalist guide.
The Huaorani Ecolodge is small. It has been designed to be intimate, harmonious and environmentally sustainable. The lodge provides accommodation for a maximum of ten people housed in five comfortable, traditionally built, palm thatched cabins. All cabins are fully meshed to keep you safe from biting insects, and are spacious to provide privacy and a chance to enjoy the sounds of the balmy Amazon nights. All rooms have twin beds (which can be joined to create a double if desired); a private bathroom equipped with a shower and flush toilet; drinking water at all times; a porch with comfortable chairs. Electricity is provided 24 hours a day by solar panels. Environmentally-friendly soaps and shampoos are provided. When you would like to relax the Lodge provides a hammock house on the banks of the Shiripuno River. The restaurant provides nutritionally balanced meals, hygienically prepared with care and artistry by the local chefs. Locally grown products are used wherever possible. Fruit, tea and coffee are always on hand and a bar is available for beer, wine and soft drinks. Locally made handcrafts and souvenirs can be bought from the community shop.
A Huaorani (Ginto) climbing a tree in the Ecuadorian rainforest.
Detailed Itinerary
Day 1: Quito-Shell-Quehueri'ono
Your journey begins early in the morning. One of the bilingual naturalist guides will pick you up from your hotel in Quito and drive East, through the Avenue of the Volcanoes, then descend along the Quijos and Cosanga river valleys into the Amazon Basin. At the small town of Shell you will board a light aircraft for the breathtaking 45 minute flight over the seemingly endless rainforest canopy until the tiny clearing that's Quehueri'ono appears. Your luggage is taken ahead of you, so you may want to keep your camera, binoculars, sunscreen and hat with you (and something dry to keep them in); at this point, the rain ponchos and rubber boots that you use daily for the rest of your visit will be distributed. You are then poled downstream in a shallow dugout canoe known as a quilla (kee-yah), enjoying the thick vegetation growing along the Shiripuno River (shiree-puno) and catching glimpses of riverside birds such as the Yellow-rumped Cacique, the Greater and Lesser Kiskadees, and any of the four Amazonian kingfishers. You arrive at the intimate setting of Huaorani Ecolodge to settle in, listen to an introductory briefing about the Huaorani and their relationship with the rainforest, and have dinner. -/-/D
Day 2: Amazon Excursion
After breakfast, an introductory 2-hour hike along a series of ridges takes you to a picturesque waterfall through terra firme forest (one that is never flooded whose composition is predominantly tall trees with little understory vegetation), during which you learn more about the ecology of the rainforest and the theories that explain its amazing diversity. A scenic overlook provides the potential for an exceptional view across miles of lush rainforest to the volcanic peaks of snow-capped Altar and green, multi-peaked Sangay, potential because since these volcanoes are at the edge of a tropical rainforest, they are often obscured by clouds as the rising, warm air condenses on the slopes. To improve your chances, you spend some time at the mirador while the Huaorani guide helps you learn how to weave, make a blowgun, hollow out a canoe and carve a spear. You can experience firsthand how challenging it is to work without tools such as sandpaper, saws, hammers, or nails. After lunch at the lodge, you go back downstream to an oxbow lake formed by the Shiripuno River (Cocha Pequeña) and walk inland a few minutes. If lucky, and quiet, you may catch a glimpse of the extraordinary Hoatzin as well as Anacondas, Capybaras and Caimans. You return to the lodge and some members of Quehueri'ono visit to talk about all sorts of things such as the ecotourism project, the Huaorani struggle against oil companies, or perhaps about their day in the forest or that a new baby was born. Extroverted and cheerful, the Huaorani may end up asking you more about your culture than you about theirs. B/L/D
Day 3: Quehueri'ono community
Hunting day! And you thought this was an environmentally-friendly project? But the Huaorani are hunters and gatherers, and their main sources of protein are mammals (yes, including monkeys), fish and birds. The goals of this project are to protect the tropical rainforest and provide an opportunity for the Huaorani culture to continue flourishing, not to stop their traditional practices. After breakfast, you go for a long hike with the Huaorani guide, also an experienced hunter. You learn firsthand about the secrets of survival in the rainforest without killing any of the creatures that live there. You learn how to set traps, make fire without matches, build a shelter in minutes, use a blowgun, practice the perfect swing of the machete, and catch fish in small creeks. Your guide may also show you edible insects, medicinal plants, the right clay to make pottery, and honey produced by stingless bees. The trail has two overlooks as it winds toward the community. Now down to the river, where you have time to plunge into the water; the canoe will have brought up your swimsuit and sandals and there are plenty of places to change if you use your imagination. The Huaorani love swimming and playing in the water and you may join it as well. Lunch is served on the beach. This is your afternoon with the community. Your visit is not intended to be a pre-planned activity as such, but rather a relaxing, informal social visit. You may see several houses, talk to family members while sharing a bowl of chucula (a sweet drink made of ripe bananas) under the filtered light of the thatched houses, and admire their beautiful handmade artifacts, including woven hammocks and bags, blowguns, traps and necklaces. Later on, you visit families' gardens and learn how to grow edible plants and try to harvest manioc, also known as yucca or cassava. Perhaps you will be invited to join in a game of soccer! You return to the Lodge by canoe at the end of the afternoon to relax and have dinner, after which your naturalist guide offers a half hour talk, or charla, on a subject of interest. B/L/D
Day 4: Amazon Excursion
 After breakfast, you take a hike of about 3 hours that traverses both terra firme and varzea (occasionally-flooded) forest, winding through majestic trees and across quiet streams (10 of them!), often following a Heliconia swamp, to the summit of a small hill on which grows a giant ceibo tree approximately 40 m high, with an equally impressive girth, after which this trail is named. You follow the curve of the lake back to the river where the canoe picks you up. After lunch at the lodge, the next few hours are all yours! You may want to visit the Discovery Trail, try some fishing, or just relax in a hammock reading a book. The Discovery Trail is a self-guided return trail that allows you to experience the rainforest on your own. Following numbered points, the Discovery Trail Guide reiterates some of the information that your real-life guides may have covered, and encourages you to engage all of your senses in order to get a more complete "picture" of your surroundings. Later on, you are dropped off across from the Lodge to walk along the Community Trail briefly before turning off to climb a series of slopes to the peak of a hill and a heavily-used salt-clay lick. Before you start uphill, you come across an infamous "lemon-ant" tree, and further on a good example of an incipient strangler fig. If the lick is inactive (or they've been scared off), you still have the opportunity to see where a variety of animals have trudged uphill to gauge out the mineral-rich soil. The return trip is a brief night walk. Since most rainforest animals are nocturnal - especially mammals and amphibians - this is your best opportunity to see some of these elusive creatures, or at least hear them climbing through the trees or digging for food. The stars of the night are the insects and the bats, both attracted by your lights, and other animals reveal their presence by the reflection of their eyes. B/L/D
Day 5: Nenkepare
After breakfast, you set off poling down the Shiripuno River in traditional Huaorani style in order to appreciate the sounds and sights of the rainforest. Leaving early, you´re sure to catch many birds unawares, and the tranquility allows you to appreciate what life must have been like before the advent of motorized canoes. You can use this time to have intimate conversations with your spouse, to review the past few days with the guide, to learn some Huaorani and/or Spanish vocabulary, or just nap. A short stop for lunch and a swim recharge you for the rest of the trip. This 6-7 hour journey takes you near the Huaorani village of Nenkepare where you have the opportunity to visit an impressive waterfall. After a 3-hour roundtrip hike, you return to the campsite, dinner and perhaps a bonfire. B/L/D
Day 6: Coca-Quito
After breakfast, you continue downstream towards the border between traditional Huaorani territory and that of the petroleum companies. At the point where a road built by oil companies in the early 1990s crosses the river, you leave the forest and head to "civilization". The symbols of modern deforestation are the roads. They provide access and means for human populations to grow at a rapid rate, which affects indigenous peoples by displacing them from the best and most accessible agricultural soils; reducing territory available for hunting and gathering; and encouraging them via settler example and government policy to increase their reliance on agriculture and timber extraction and to convert their land from communal resource. This brief journey through oil territory illustrates the reality of the threat facing the rainforest and the Huaorani people. After a 2.5 hour ride, you reach the banks of the Rio Napo and the town of Coca, where you catch your flight to Quito. B
B: Breakfast / L: Lunch / D: Dinner
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