Amazon Rainforest Tours and Travel | Visiting the Pastaza Tributary of the Ecuador Amazon
The shallow Pastaza River is a whitewater Amazon tributary that flows from the Ecuador Andes south into the Peru rainforest, eventually meeting the Huasaga tributary. It is a pristine biodiverse area, home to 200 species of mammals and 540 species of birds with plenty of reptiles, amphibians and insects in the vast marshlands of its aguaje palms. On the Peru side, an important nine-acre wetland called the Abanico el Pastaza receives international protection as a Ramsar site, helping to stave off commercial interests in this oil-rich area. Near Lake Rimachi, the largest lake in the Peru Amazon, the Pastaza meets two blackriver tributaries, the Chuunda and Chupari, creating a complex eco-system.
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These are the ancestral lands of the indigenous Achuar people who live in the Amazon along the tributaries in southeast Ecuador and northwest Peru. Though split by an international border, the Achuar maintain strong cultural traditions, living in small villages spread throughout a contiguous region of 1.7 million acres, with approximately 5,000 of its population in Ecuador and 7,500 in Peru.
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We offer two Ecuador Amazon trips to the Pastaza, the twelve-day Andes, Amazon & Galapagos Multi-sport tour and the four or five-day Kapawi Lodge trip. We chose the Kapawi Lodge for several reasons. First is its location. The lodge is set on the Kapawi lagoon near the Peruvian border. Because the Achuar territory contains no roads, the location is very remote, a ten-day walk to the nearest village, literally in the middle of nowhere. In the Amazon, remote doesn't necessarily mean impossibly difficult to reach. Accessible only by air or water, Kapawi has its own airstrip. Passengers fly direct from Quito via Coca to the lodge in under two hours and are transported by motorized canoe the rest of the way. The location is 140 miles south of Yasuni National Park where our four other Ecuador Amazon trips are clustered.
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Secondly, because the Kapawi experience is so intertwined with the Achuar culture, it offers an authentic timeless experience of the Amazon. The Achuar did not have any contact with the outside world until the 1970s. The lodge is rather new, built in 1996, as a partnership between the national Achuar indigenous organization for sustainability and Canodros, an agency that promotes Ecuador eco-tourism. The lodge is managed by the community that is going to take over lodge ownership in 2011.
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Finally, there are the accommodations and the programs. Only fifty guests visit at one time. The lodge facilities consist of twenty double and triple-occupancy shoreline cabanas on stilts that allow guests to view wildlife right from their own private terrace. Shower water is heated by the sun, and electricity is generated by solar energy. The lodge caters to the interests and physical capabilities of its guests. During their stay, guests may canoe on the Capuhuari River tributary, hike along nearby forest trails and visit a parrot gathering area. To a greater degree than other eco-lodges, at the Kapawi, guests may customize their itinerary.
