Sani Lodge

The quick way in is the flight from Quito to Coca (Francisco de Orellana), a hop the lodge puts at about 30 minutes. Aeroregional flies Monday to Saturday, leaving Quito at 9:30 am, and allows one 23 kg checked bag plus a 10 kg carry-on. By road it is about five and a half hours, climbing to 4,000 meters on the way, or seven hours by bus from Quito's Quitumbe or Carcelén terminals, with the last departure at 11:30 pm. From Coca the lodge is three hours by motor canoe. Trips can begin any day but Sunday.

The four-day Adventure Experience and Birding and Photography programs and the five-day Deep Jungle and Adventure and Soul Cleansing trips are sold for one to four people. Each covers the Coca transfers, meals from a packed lunch on day one to breakfast on the final morning, snacks on outings, every excursion, purified water, coffee and tea, and two guides: a local guide plus an English-speaking naturalist. Taxes, tips and personal spending are extra. The lodge lends rubber boots up to men's size 12 and rain ponchos, and children under 12 get a discount.

Cabins are local wood, with mosquito screening over the window openings and fans. Standard cabins have a queen and a single. The matrimonial suite has a king, a sofa and a balcony over the lagoon; the double suite adds a queen bed and faces the forest. The family cabin sleeps six over two floors, with a king upstairs, a queen and three singles below, three bathrooms and a balcony on each floor, the lower one large and facing a lagoon. Power is 110 to 120 volts from solar panels backed by a generator, with solar meeting about 70 percent of demand. Wifi is free but only in the bar area, and laundry costs extra.

The canopy tower, 36 meters tall, wraps around a giant kapok tree. At the clay lick, parrots and parakeets gather after flights of about 55 km. More than 20 km of trails cross terra firme forest, the five-day trip adds a 6 km hike, and lagoon canoe trips watch for caimans, giant otters and birds. With the Sani Warmi women, whose project began in 2008, guests wrap maito, an Amazon tamale, and make chocolate; there is also blowgun practice and piranha fishing. The lodge sits in the Yasuní Biosphere Reserve, and 10,000 of the community's 31,000 hectares fall inside Yasuní National Park. UNESCO lists the reserve at about 2.76 million hectares, with 610 bird species and 204 mammals recorded and Waorani, Kichwa and Shuar people living there. Our Ecuador guide covers the rest of the country, and our birdwatching list compares lodges.