Mashpi Lodge

In the cloud forest of the Mashpi Rainforest Biodiversity Reserve in the Chocó Andino of northwestern Ecuador, Mashpi Lodge occupies a clearing in primary cloud forest whose biological significance has been recognised by UNESCO as part of the Chocó Andino Biosphere Reserve, one of the most biodiverse regions on earth and one of the few places where the Amazon and Pacific ecosystems overlap in a mosaic of extraordinary species density. The 22 suites are housed in a single contemporary building designed with floor-to-ceiling glass walls that face the forest canopy, giving each room an uninterrupted view of the cloud forest’s vertical layers — from the forest floor visible in the undergrowth to the emergent trees above the canopy — and making the birds and mammals of the reserve a constant presence in the room’s visual field. The gondola-like birdwatching platform extending above the forest canopy gives guests a perspective on the cloud forest’s aerial ecology unavailable from the ground.

Guided forest walks with the lodge’s team of resident naturalist biologists — who conduct ongoing research in the reserve alongside the visitor programme — provide structured access to the forest’s extraordinary diversity of birds, orchids, amphibians, and mammals, including the glass frogs, spectacled bears, and the pumas whose camera-trap footage is regularly shared with guests. The canopy gondola, the forest night walks, and the stream surveys for aquatic macroinvertebrates provide different access points to the reserve’s biological complexity. The kitchen’s menus draw on Ecuadorian cuisine and the high-altitude agricultural produce of the Andes communities supplying the lodge’s ingredient programme.

Mashpi Lodge is operated under a model that treats the reserve’s conservation as the primary business purpose rather than the tourism operation, with the lodge’s revenues funding the biological research programme whose data contributes to the scientific understanding of the Chocó Andino’s extraordinary biodiversity and informs the conservation management decisions that determine which areas of the reserve receive active protection and which can accommodate limited visitor access.