overview
Experience the deep Amazon rainforest through the eyes of its indigenous inhabitants. Huaorani Ecolodge has 5 double cabins in traditional style, with key modifications to provide comfort. Hike deep forest trails or pole downstream in a dugout canoe in the company of a Huaorani. Bi-lingual naturalists help interpret the experience.
The Huaorani have long inhabited the headwaters of the Amazon, living as nomadic hunters and gatherers with no outside contact until the end of the 1950s, and at least one clan continues to shun all contact with the outside world. According to their folklore, they migrated to this area a long time ago to escape from cannibals. The Huaorani speak a language unrelated to any other; their name means "the people", while everyone else is cowore, or "non-human" (that's you!).
In 1956, when the Huaorani became the last of Ecuador's indigenous peoples to be contacted by missionaries, their territory extended from the Napo River in the north to the Curaray River in the south. After the missionaries, the oil companies came looking for new reserves as the global demand for fossil fuels increased. The Huaorani live on top of one of Ecuador's largest oil deposits and since its discovery have been forced to deal with the presence of oil companies and other outsiders on the land they have called home for at least a thousand years.
Numbering approximately 2,400 individuals, the Huaorani maintain a largely traditional lifestyle living directly in and from the rainforest.