Ecuador and the "S" Word
by Angie Brenner
Less than twenty hours back in Quito and already I miss the self-contained, eco-world of The Black Sheep Inn in Ecuador´s Central Andian Highlands. While there, my lungs struggled against hiking in high altitude air (some 10 to 12,000ft), in Quito they must also work to filter out clouds of black exhaust expelled by an endless stream of buses.
When I booked the Black Sheep, there was no way of knowing that it would turn out to be a geo-political, eco-tourism mecca. Due to the Black Sheep's remoteness - midway on the Quilotoa Loop in the tiny hamlet of Chugchilan - I'd expected to be by myself most of the time. I was wrong. Hikers, vegans, adventurers, volunteers, an NGO worker, and Canadian Vice-Consul poured through the inn during my four night stay.
Chugchilan sits on the Ecuadorian paramo, the high, harsh, grass and scrublands that soak up mist and rain and brings an abundance of water to the many small, traditional farmlands in the lush green region. Outside my cozy, well-appointed room (one of several individual buildings stratigically placed for the best views) clouds part to reveal the almost vertical hillsides planted with potatoes, beans, and corn - staple crops of the thin erodied soil. The snowy peaks of the Ilinizas peaks, green plateaus, and deep canyons stand out like a diaorama against the clear blue sky. The seven hour bus ride to this shangrila, over a bumpy dirt road, seems worth the struggle and a good excuse to linger a bit longer than only a couple nights.
One can understand why the owner-operators, Michelle Kirby and Andres Hammerman, an American couple, who chose to stay on and buy the land to develop the eco-friendly inn. Their dreams and persistence, not to mention 24 hours a day of work, have paid off. The Black Sheep has won many Eco-awards and Outside Magazine voted listed them as one of the world´s top ten ecolodges.
Everything here is about sustainability, mindfulness of the land and culture. From the easy to use compost toilets that efficiently transforms human waste into rich garden compost, to saving the tea wrappers to use as scratch paper, nothing gets tossed into a landfill.
"Firewood," says Andres, "is from non-native pine and eucalyptus trees and should be used sparingly, if at all."
The Black Sheep treads lightly so as to be a part of the solution to Ecuador´s serious environmental problems of poluted water, soil erosion, illiteracy, over population, and cultural degradation.
Michelle who seems to prefer being behind the scenes, teaches a weekly English and computer class at the local school. Andres hires locals to staff the inn and as hiking and tour guides and drivers. Since setting up the inn about twelve years ago they have seen gradual changes in attitudes.
"There are now two other backpacker hostles in town run by locals that help with the overflow of guests," says Andres, the gregarious, 41 year old host who hails from Chicago. "At first I was angry that they were copying us. Then I realized it was a good thing. I raised our prices and now guests have options and the local people are benefiting. That was part of our goal, to create a sustainable community to help build and reforest the land." He says that now the community has trash bins throughout town for Organic and Non-Organic trash.
"Sustainability is the new word for Ecuador," says another fellow guests, Marc-Andre Hawkes, one of the three Vice-consuls to Canada in Ecuador (versus over 200 people with the U.S. Embassy in the country). "There´s talk about gold mining in Southern Ecuador near the Peruvian boarder, and how this will impact the land and people,' he says.
Another guest, an English woman, Claudina Nagiah, who works with the organization, CRACYP, a reforestation NGO, is here for a rest from her agricultural work in Southern Ecuador. "It´s a stuggle to teach and sustain methods to move poeple from subsistance living to a sustainable environment," she says. "CRACYP has also started a micro-credit lending bank similar to Muhammad Yunus´s Graneen Bank in Banglhdesh."
Three other young women (two from London, and one from Montana) show up at the Black Sheep doorstep one night after finishing several months of work in Ecuador´s jungle regions helping other eco-tourism facilities find their way. They paid for the opportunity to clean out cages for wild animals in need of rehabilitation and helped host tourists. "It's party week in Quito," says the woman from Montana, clearly ready for a break from the good-will jungle tour.
In Eucador aulturism has taken new heights. Never have I seen a country so ripe with people ready help a culture sustain itself. I wonder, however, whether anyone is asking the people what they ultimately want their country to look like. Do they want flourishing eco-tourism or to be left alone to farm and live as their ancesters, or is sustainable tourism an opportunity of the western mentality?
From the Swiss Hotel with Wild River Review Editor-in-chief, Joy Stocke and photographer Gabriel Cooney, members of the Andean Parliament, and numerous delegates, we await Muhammad Yunus who will arrive at four. It will be interesting to meet with him and hear him speak as he discusses whether his sustainable solutions against poverty can be integrated into the Ecuadorian culture.