Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby (2017–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Mashpi Lodge, Ecuador - full transcript

All over the world,
there are remarkable hotels

born of bold vision and daring endeavor.

Oh, my goodness, look at that.

Whether it's an epic structure
housing a sky park

the length of the Eiffel Tower…

This is definitely the biggest space
I've ever been inside.

…or a glass box perched
in the cloud forest.

-Look at that view!
-Wow.

They're all products of innovation,
creativity and hard graft.

The people running these hotels
strive to create the perfect sanctuary.

But what does it take to offer
once-in-a-lifetime experiences



in stunning locations?

To build a hotel in a place like this,
everybody thinks I'm crazy.

In total, we have about
160,000 pieces of uniform.

Oh, my word!

I'm a restaurant writer,
newspaper columnist and critic.

I have opinions on just about everything.

What a mad place to build a hotel.

I feel like Scott of the Antarctic
and it did not end well for him.

And I'm a chef
who's worked for the top end

of the hospitality industry
for well over 20 years.

How many opportunities do you get to cook
breakfast with elephants and giraffes?

We'll travel to amazing hotels
in every corner of the world.

To spend time getting to know the people
working away behind the scenes.

When did you last have
a full night's sleep?



I don't remember.

-Really?
-Yes.

-Hooray!
-Yeah!

You're the engineer.
You're like Scotty in Star Trek.

Precisely, I've been called that.

Join us as we venture inside…

The world's most extraordinary hotels.

We're on a winding single track road
in the South American country of Ecuador.

On the way to a private reserve

and a hotel called Mashpi Lodge.

You can see the mist in the background
and the palms and the huge trees.

And it's really terribly exciting.

Kind of garden of Eden vibes.

Ecuador straddles the equator
on South America's west coast.

And the Mashpi Reserve is situated
in the Andean foothills,

three hours drive from the capital, Quito.

My goodness, now there's a big gate.

I feel like we're in Jurassic Park.

It's, like, what are they trying
to keep out?

I think we're here.

This is amazing.

Oh, my life!

That's a hell of a road.
I'd have a bigger jeep or something.

That's a bit of a town car.

That was bumpy, wasn't it?
But look at this.

-Hey, welcome to Mashpi.
-Hi!

We're greeted
by General Manager Mark Berry.

-What a mad place to build a hotel.
-It is, isn't it?

Right in the middle of a cloud.

Mashpi Lodge is a $10,000,000 hotel,

offering understated jungle luxury

to guests willing
to pay up to $1,500 a night.

-Look at that view.
-Wow.

That is amazing.

Opened four years ago,
this 22-room eco hotel

is an air conditioned,
modernist glass bubble

with jaw-dropping views from every window.

It's like a massive treehouse
where 84 staff outnumber guests,

two to one, and work around
the clock providing five-star food

and maintaining
the minimalist accommodation.

Upstairs, please.

-The restaurant is downstairs.
-Lovely, it looks amazing.

Mark Berry ran busy restaurants
in Mexico and Quito

before joining Mashpi
as Operations Manager two years ago.

We are sustainable.
We don't have any kind of pollution.

We don't have landfills.
We don't want to leave a mark.

So we really are making
a big effort to respect nature.

It's a tall order for a hotel
in such a remote location.

Mashpi is an incongruous luxury sanctuary
buried deep in the heart of one

of the last surviving examples
of the primary Andean cloud forest.

Guests travel here from all over the world
for a chance to experience

the extraordinary animal and plant life,
guided by highly trained naturalists.

I've never seen anything like this before.
I was not even absolutely certain

until I saw that it really existed
outside of a Warner Bros set.

It looks proper Tarzan.

What I most want to do
is get out into it, I think.

I don't know how I'd ever get back.

Giles may be taking in the view
but we are here to work.

And I'm already in the bar learning
the ropes as part of the welcome team.

Oh, it's amazing.

Every guest is greeted
with a special drink,

which today included sugar syrup,
citronella, lime, and sparkling water.

That is delicious.

We receive a big smile.
How are you, sir? Welcome.

Of course, the most important ingredient.

-Hello, welcome to Mashpi.
-Thank you.

British newlyweds, David and Fiona
have just arrived for their honeymoon.

Here you go,
would you like a welcome drink?

I'd love one. Thank you.

-Personally, made by myself for you.
-Excellent.

Congratulations, I hear.

-Thank you. Cheers.
-Thank you. Cheers.

How was the journey?

-Yeah, good.
-Not too bad.

So, this is your room key.

I've been told to let the view
do the talking.

Your room.

Wow.

Pretty impressive.

That is phenomenal.

You just feel like you're in the jungle.
It's kind of all-encompassing, really.

-Immersed in it.
-'Cause of all the glass, it's incredible.

I should leave you
two honeymooners to enjoy your room.

-Thanks very much.
-Have a great honeymoon.

The owner of Mashpi Lodge
is Roque Sevilla.

Formerly the mayor of Quito.

Roque made his fortune
in insurance and communications.

But as the owner of Mashpi Lodge,
he's combined business acumen

with his deep love of nature.

The visitors that come here,
come to see not the hotel, but the forest.

That's the main objective so the building
should be a beautiful thing.

But shouldn't compete
with the beauty of nature.

So, I decided
to build this shell of glass.

This bubble of glass allows you
to be in constant contact with the forest.

So, wherever you are in the hotel,
you'll have a glimpse of the forest.

It's a bold idea.

But how do the staff manage
to keep up appearances in a hotel

that's surrounded by vegetation
and regularly buried in cloud?

Twenty-year-old Anna Gabriella Moyer
is head of housekeeping.

The hotel is like a cocoon for the guests,
to feel safe here and they can relax.

But also to be part of the forest
and see how mysterious it is

and how beautiful it is.

So, they expect to be able
to get super dirty outside in the forest,

but be able to come back and have a luxury
like a mix of those things.

Anna runs a staff of two who's battle
with the elements is never ending.

-Giles!
-Hi, Anna.

And today she's got
an extra pair of hands. Me!

First, this. You're gonna
have to wear your name tag.

Thank you very much.

I'm going to help her fight
her nemesis. Mold.

This is the result
of the humidity of the forest.

Humidity inside the hotel
is like our biggest enemy.

Yeah, well, that's the forest basically
trying to grow in the hotel, isn't it?

It's like saying, "This is my spot."

It is, but that would eventually turn
into a rainforest if it wasn't for you.

Housekeeping.

A cloud forest is similar to a rainforest
but situated high above sea level.

So, the rising air cools to create clouds
meaning that everything here stays moist.

Great for plants and vegetation
but not so great for hotels.

So, it's a very hostile environment
to keep a room clean, isn't it?

I mean it's more…

The humidity is crazy here.
It's really crazy.

And it's like a constant battle,
like, it's never stopping.

We have to paint the rooms continuously,
maybe every three weeks.

-You repaint every three weeks?
-Just the moldy parts.

Anna wages war on the 90% humidity
with a fleet of dehumidifiers

that liberates a staggering
15 liters of water each, every day.

To further complicate her job,

Roque insists
that every product in the hotel,

from cleaning products
to guest's shampoo is chemical free.

-Its good wheeling.
-Really? Yeah.

Really good wheeling, isn't it?

She's very committed to the environment

so we have to use things
that are eco-friendly.

Biodegradable and…

Biodegradable. And we have to come up
with different ideas,

like vinegar and baking soda,
so that makes my job a lot harder.

And then there's Ecuador's estimated
one million different species of insects.

Moths every night get attracted
when we turn on the lights.

So, it's kind of moth carnage in there.

I am the world famous
for my moth cleaning skills.

Okay?

This is like
a major suicide spot for moths.

Somersault and boom!

-Thank you very much.
-Good job.

Having experienced first-hand
the challenges

of running a hotel in this environment,

I want to meet the man behind the vision.

So why on earth
would you build a hotel here,

why did you wanna do that?

Basically, because I wanted
to show other people

the beauty of this place.

To help me understand
his ambition for Mashpi Lodge,

Roque has invited me
to his observation tower.

It stands 20m high
on a ridge above the hotel

and the forest
that he bought 15 years ago.

Yeah, I don't really like heights.

I wish you'd bought a lower bit
of a forest, frankly.

Right.

-You see there you can see…
-Is that it there?

-That's the hotel.
-Wow.

Everybody thinks I'm completely crazy.

Because who wants
to build a hotel in a place like this one?

Tell me, so, you were the Mayor of Quito,
you're a businessman.

What led you
to buy a chunk of a cloud forest?

When I bought it, I had no idea of doing
a business here, a tourist business.

It was just the protection of this area.

This kind of forest is disappearing
at an incredible rate,

and in Ecuador,
we have only 5% of it still standing.

Roque's 1,200 hectares of tropical forest
reaches almost as far as I can see.

But it's just a fraction of the Choco,
a once vast forest the stretched

for thousands of miles
through Panama, Colombia and Ecuador.

Widespread logging
and farming in the Ecuadorean Choco

has seen 95% of it
cut down in the last 50 years.

Roque's land was owned
by a logging company

but the mountainous terrain
slowed them down long enough

for him to buy it before it was too late.

Getting down to the nitty-gritty
of how much it all costs,

first of all, buying the forest
in the first place. Was that expensive?

It cost exactly the same
as a 200 square meter apartment in Quito.

$350,000 to buy 1,200 hectares.

So, it's probably
the cheapest thing I've bought in my life

because it's the most
valuable thing I have.

Roque's passion for nature meant
that he insisted no large trees or plants

were disturbed by the build.

So, the structure was fabricated off site
in large pieces and trucked in.

It took two years to build
and cost $10 million.

That was the place
where the logging company

had cut the forest for putting the mill.

-It's on the site of where the mill was.
-Exactly.

-That sawed up the trees they cut down.
-Exactly.

That's actually like the center of evil.

That's the center of evil, yes!

Roque didn't just save the forest.

He preserved some of the most
diverse habitat in the world.

Ecuador is home to around 10%
of all plant life on the planet

and the phenomenal 1,700 bird species.

More than twice the amount found
in the whole of North America.

Just looking around all the life that
you have in this green mass of forest,

it's amazing.
There's no other hotel probably

that has so much life
near to it, in the world.

So, I think it's the best idea
I've had in my life.

Roque's made it his mission
to encourage everyone who visits the hotel

to see the forest through his eyes.

What we would like is that
when people come here,

their view of the planet would change.

That they would consider themselves

as part of the whole system
and not as the king of the creation.

That would be the most wonderful thing
that could happen.

Roque's desire
for guests to engage with nature

has led to a wondrous invention,
deep in the forest.

I know it's a gondola, that's all I know.

A gondola in the sense
of a ski lift kind of thing?

Yes. In the middle of this rain forest.

This is Roque's latest project.

A jungle cable car called the Dragonfly.

Gondola baskets float for almost a mile
through the reserve's treetops,

at heights of up to 200m from the ground.

Some experts suggest that it's up here

that around 70% of life
in the forest is found.

And this gives guests a unique opportunity
to catch a glimpse of it.

That looks kind of exciting,
that looks like Jurassic Park, doesn't it?

I feel like we're gonna get
in this gondola

and this huge bird
is just gonna come and take us out.

-A pterodactyl.
-Pterodactyl, there you go.

Today, we'll be helping
the Operations Manager Mark

to carry out vital safety checks.

It has to be very smooth.
It has to be very safe.

It has to be very comfortable.

And to do that right in the middle
of nowhere is a real, real challenge.

Oh, my word. Yeah!

This is so cool.

I could stay up here all day.

I wish my daughter
was here with me, she'd love it.

If Roque thought
it was tough to build the hotel

without impacting the environment,

it was nothing compared to constructing
a mile-long jungle ski lift.

He had to find a way to put this system

somewhere in the middle of the Mashpi
reserve without having to cut down trees.

This extraordinary feat of engineering
took four years

and $3 million to complete,
employing a crew of 20

and using over a thousand tons
of concrete.

Can you imagine just going zip down there?

I mean, it's a beautiful, amazing thing,
it's just really terrifying.

I mean, really terrifying.
If you have any sort of imagination.

I don't think how you can think
about anything

except the twang of the cable snapping

and the whole thing
plummeting down sort of thing,

smashing through the trees
and the twigs, branches,

and bam and hitting the deck

and then waking up with your limbs
all broken with a panther eating you.

That's probably not going to happen

but there does have to be a rescue
procedure in case of power failure.

And there is. It's called a rope.

The thing is that you never know
what can happen,

better be safe than sorry.

Oh, that's so high.

Staff members take turns to test
the escape drill,

but today, that dubious honor
has fallen to one of us.

It looks quite a long way down.

And certainly, if you fell out
of this thing, you would die.

I'm just too scared
so I'm not going to do it.

I reckon I'm being quite brave
by staying up here.

With Giles bravely opting
to keep my seat warm,

it's my turn to take one for the team.

Well done. Well done.

-Don't look down.
-Don't look down.

-Don't look down.
-Yeah, slowly sit back.

Sit back?

-Trust your equipment.
-Okay.

Don't do that!

This is so cool!

This feels awesome,
just sitting in a swing, really.

It's the letting go.
Giles, did we bring any champagne with us?

This isn't just thrill-seeking.

It's a drill
that has to be tested regularly.

This is so awesome. Can we do it again?

Wet foot.

After doing that, and managing to
to get myself down here in in one piece,

this system is really safe.

How was that then, Mon? Are you all right?

Yeah, I am. I made it down in one piece.

-Would you do it again?
-Yeah, I would do it again.

Come on then!

Have you got a pub up here, mate?

You really do get a sense
of how huge it is

and how dense the forest is
when you're right in the middle of it.

It's an amazing experience.

Mashpi Lodge's remote location
is a big part of its charm

but running a five-star eco hotel
in such a wild environment

comes with unique logistical issues.

In keeping with Roque's zero impact policy
the access road hasn't been modernized

since the logging company
established it 40 years ago.

Landslides are a weekly occurrence
and threaten to derail guest transfers

unless they're cleared quickly.

Today, I'm joining Operations Manager Mark

to find out how to run a hotel
in the middle of nowhere.

It is a challenge.
And if it was easy, it would be boring.

This is one kitchen
that really needs their walk-in fridge

as the bulk of their weekly supplies
arrive in a single delivery.

It's not like living in the city.
You're missing something,

you can get something delivered
in maybe a few minutes.

So, you got to be on top of things,
plan everything ahead.

When the lodge is full,
the kitchen feeds 44 guests

plus 60 staffs three meals a day.

That's 300 plates of food.

I'm delighted to see that a special
request I made for Giles has arrived.

A local delicacy that's only found
in this part of the world.

Here in Ecuador, they eat guinea pig,

and Giles has just about to discover
how that tastes.

The cloud forest may steal the show here,

but Roque's made sure
the food doesn't disappoint either.

Head Chef Oswaldo and his team

lay on a comprehensive breakfast
and lunch buffet

switching to an Ecuadorean
influenced a la carte in the evening.

Okay?

Today, I'm working with Oswaldo
to prepare lunch, guinea pig.

I've never seen a guinea pig
in this way, ready to be eaten.

I've only ever seen a fluffy cute version
that I would let my daughter pat.

Guinea pig or coi isn't
a permanent fixture on the menu here.

-You want me to take that up?
-Yes.

But it is widely eaten
in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.

I'm so sorry, it's squeaking.

-Salt?
-Salt.

Really rubbing the salt and the garlic

into the guinea pig,
that just sounds so wrong.

Achiote is the saffron of South America,

mixed with cooking oil,
it adds perfume and color.

It's just a little bit bitter.
It's fragrant.

And now we have
fluorescent orange guinea pig.

Like this? OK. And in the oven we go.

One nation's pet,
another's traditional lunch.

Will I try it? Yes, I will.
Will I put it on the menu back at home?

No, I won't.

The structure of this hotel
is dominated by one thing, glass.

Roque designed it this way to keep guests
connected to the forest at all times.

The daunting task of keeping it all clean
falls to maintenance man, Fabian.

He works his way
around each pane every three weeks.

But today, Anna's nominated me to help.

They're not technically windows, are they?
Because they're just walls made of glass.

I think of a window
as a little thing in a wall

-you've got a hotel made entirely of…
-A lot of glass. That's true.

Anna tells me Fabian
will only answer to the name Niño,

which in Spanish means 'Boy'.

As Niño is famously a man of few words,

Fabian.

I'm not sure how he feels about me
trying my hand at his job.

Nice wobbly ladder
you've got here Niño, that's great.

Nice view from up here though.

How many meters of glass
are there in this building?

We have around a thousand square meters
of glass inside the hotel.

In some ways, you might say
it's a project of sheer madness

to build a giant glass box in the jungle.
And then try and keep it clean all day.

I mean, that's slightly mental, isn't it?

Do you ever get the sense
that you're fighting the jungle?

The jungle wants you to be dirty,
doesn't it?

I mean, that's the thing
about jungle's they're dirty, wet,

you know, bacteria, life,
everything grows out of this dirt.

You must know deep down
that you're going to lose,

-a thousand years from now.
-Yeah!

The jungle's gonna have eaten
this place and everything in it.

That's what we have to keep
like all the details

and the constant cleaning all the time.

We cannot even stop like for a week.
We have to do it all the time.

-Do you wake up in the night screaming?
-No, I don't.

I'm not that obsessed with cleaning.

-Yes, you are!
-No.

It's actually
rather satisfying, that is the thing.

What does Niño think? Is this all right?

-Is this all right?
-Yes.

Hat's off to Niño, this is a tiring job.

And anyone who can spend 45 solitary hours
a week doing it deserves a medal.

Terra firma, how about that,
tough job, eh?

Nino's out of a job.

That's actually quite good fun
for me to climb up there

and this sort of satisfaction
of cleaning a couple of panes

but there's a thousand square meters
of glass here

and poor Niño his entire life,
day after day after day,

hour after hour after hour
is keeping this clean.

What do you suppose
smoked moron pepper galette is?

Do you know what a "moron" is?

Moron? Well, now you're here.

I hope Giles has worked up an appetite
for his special lunch.

Guinea pig a la Mashpi.

Sir, traditional platter Ecuador, "Coi".

So, I took the liberty
of ordering you something special.

Did you save the skin 'cause I did want
to make a pair of gloves.

Oh, coi. Very good.

Thank you.

-What are you having?
-The same.

Why does yours look like that?
Is yours the traditional way?

No, yours is the traditional way.
I thought you'd enjoy it better that way.

This recipe's been handed down
by the Incas.

Because they didn't want it anymore?

Can I offer you the head
because you don't seem to have got one?

What I really need is a steak knife

or is there do you
have a guinea pig knife? Is that a…

It's quite difficult to cut.

-It's delicious.
-Is it?

It's got a lot more fat
than I thought it would have had.

I would assume
this is farmed guinea pig, isn't it?

In South America, the guinea pig
was around long before the cow

and still carries a certain status
for special occasions

like lunch with Giles Coren,

a man who's never short of an opinion
about a plate of food.

You look at a meal like this, don't you,

and you say that we, in Europe,
have become quite separated

from the reality of the food we eat
and you thank heaven for it.

What I'm trying to think of this as a rat
because then if I eat it,

even if I don't enjoy it,
at least there's one less in the world.

I mean, to be honest, as a restaurant
critic over the last 20 years,

how many rats I've eaten
without knowing it I don't know.

But this may not be the first.

Excuse me.

Our waitress, Miriam,
has even got a local tip

for using those little Guinea pig claws.

-You clean your teeth with it.
-Can I see that?

Clean your teeth, does it work?
Let me see? You missed a spot.

Normally, you look in there.

The usual non-rodent cooking
here is so good

it would be easy to put on weight.

But thankfully, there's an army
of nature guides on hand

to help guests walk it off
round the reserves nine miles of trails.

Just a very beautiful flower
that's known as Gesneriaceae.

And we take maybe one of these
little things out of here though.

And just magic comes, right?

So, what do you see now? A humming bird.

Oh, yes.

But Roque wanted to do more
with the forest than just preserve it.

So, he allocated hotel money
to pay an unusual employee.

Resident biologist Carlos Moretz.

When I started here,
they hired me for four months.

After four months,
imagine being here eight years.

I never imagined being here
for eight years.

Carlos began with an audit of the forest

to see how much wildlife
had survived years of hunting and logging.

Ten years ago,
everything was just cut down,

logging companies everywhere.

Now it has stopped, it's just amazing.

You want to be here
for the rest of your life.

Every day is understanding something
new or finding something new.

And we are getting
amazing results of our research.

And we are trying to share
these information to the world,

to science, and to people in general.

Tonight, Carlos has asked us
to help out on a research trip

into the jungle, in the dark.

I'm told that I need a head torch,
look at that. It comes on.

So you put that one.
I don't know whether this is.

I didn't know think of anybody apart
from, um, basically a coal miner

or a gynecologist would need one of these.

Everything changes at night.

There are more mammals
that usually come out at night too.

Tonight, we're
hunting Carlos's latest discovery,

a brand-new species of frog.

This is the Lagoon. This is a place
that we're going to find the Mashpi Frog.

But a close cousin catches our attention.

Wow, amazing.
This is a type of tree frog here.

This is called the Imbabura tree frog.

-Imbabura?
-They are very charismatic.

Oh, look at that.

Hey, baby.

-Oh, no! Okay.
-It's all right.

Oh, that is so cool.
It's love at first sight.

When he arrived here eight years ago,

Carlos spent months living in a tent

while he explored
every inch of the reserve.

Many of the nights you just walk
for two or three hours walk in the dark,

and you keep seeing stuff
and then you just start understanding

how the ecosystem worked.
It's a connection with nature

that I think all humans
need and have, actually.

Absolutely.

It's a connection
that Giles is struggling to make.

There's a fucking butterfly
the size of a cat flying around.

Carlos, what brings you
to this part of the world?

-What brings me?
-Yeah.

I'm not afraid of anything.

I'm freaked out by the jungle
so I'm just having a bit of a moment here.

I mean, Mon's a chef, you know,
it's different.

The insect in question
is just a harmless owl butterfly.

Yeah, all right, fine.

I've got a light on my head, which means
the moths just wants to mate with my eyes,

and you know… horrible.

I'd really rather
that they were gorillas and tigers,

frankly, than all
these revolting giant insects.

But then I spot a pair
of tiny eyes in the darkness.

Yeah, it just crawled behind that leaf.

-What is it? Is that it?
-Yeah!

-Is that the Mashpi?
-Yeah, you found the Mashpi.

-Really?
-Yeah.

Well, is it definitely the Mashpi?
Because this could be the giant frog.

-It's definitely the Mashpi.
-Really, can I see?

-That's quite exciting, actually.
-Yeah.

I've just found the Mashpi frog.
I'm very good at this.

I'm like a Crocodile Dundee,
except with weeny amphibians.

It's every biologist's dream
to describe a new species to science,

but the Mashpi frog
also helps validate Carlos's tough job.

If it wasn't for the Mashpi preservation,
if it was not for this project,

if it was not for the hotel
almost you wouldn't have the frog?

Exactly.

Oh, wow. Carlos, your work here is done.

You've converted me, that's for sure.

Until recently, Mashpi Reserve was home
not just to wildlife, but to people.

José Nappa spent years
logging and hunting here.

He was the only inhabitant of this area.

When I first met him, he had his machete,
of course, with him all the time.

And people in the vicinity said,

"Be careful of José Nappa.
He's a dangerous fellow."

But he knew very well the area here.
He had been hunting all around,

so we wanted to know what we had bought.

Instead of chasing José away,
Roque hired him on the spot.

And 15 years on, he's a senior guide
responsible for the upkeep of the trails.

José is also leader of a small local
community called Mashpi Village,

home to other staff members too.

Today, we're clearing some fallen trees
from the path leading to the village

which is three miles from the Lodge.

Watching José at work is a stark reminder
of what could have been.

That is a man who could deforest
an entire jungle with a Swiss Army Knife.

Did it make you sad to cut down the trees?

José was initially
deeply suspicious of Roque,

but his trust was won when his new boss
visited the forest with an orchid expert.

Look, they're in bloom.

Winding our way through the forest
towards Mashpi Village.

I'm beginning to understand
what all the fuss is about.

And things are about
to get even more jungle-tastic.

-That's a laugh. That's an actual vine?
-Yes.

-Hold that and then.
-More.

Really?

-So it's okay, safe? I'm not gonna die?
-Yes.

That sounded more like fear
didn't it, than Tarzan?

Yes!

Do you think the lions are gonna
come running and the gorillas?

That's proper jungle living that is.

The main thing is I should swing
from that onto another one

and then another one and then another one,

eventually arriving
with a bit of luck at the pub.

But after two hours walking,
the trees start to thin.

And we're running out of cloud forest.

God, it just ends, doesn't it? That's it.

Hey, check it.

Wow.

That's a jungle, which is supposed
to go on forever, all the way to the sea.

And now it just stops
and you walk out like it was a park.

Leaving the reserve,
we're confronted with a reason

for deforestation
the world over, agriculture.

Here, it's palm hearts,
an increasingly popular vegetable

that tastes a bit like artichoke

and yields around $200
a year per square meter.

And this all used to be forest and was
all cut down so you could grow this?

As we arrive on the outskirts
to Mashpi Village,

José invites me to see his pride and joy.

Amazing.

Yes, your passion?

In the last five years, José has found 200

of the 4,600 different species
of orchid in Ecuador.

And we're adding another to his
collection from our walk down today.

You're going to plant
the orchid bulb in the wood?

That's so clever.

Yes, José was offered a job.

He was offered an easier way
of life than he had before,

but it was seeing the orchids

and realizing that there was
something beautiful and different

that he hadn't understood about
the forest that could be the way,

the future worked for him that,
that changed his mind.

So, the orchids effectively have helped
to save this bit of cloud forest.

José was the first of many locals

with no former hospitality experience
whom Roque hired at the hotel,

as part of his mission
to bring alternative employment

to this former logging community.

Oh, really?

The basic principle
was that the people who are in the area

would benefit from the project.

So here in this hotel, 70% of the people

who work here come from the area.

The other 30% are hospitality
professionals from Quito.

They live on site for 20 days a month

and share the staff house
with local employees

overnighting between shifts.

Oh, sorry, that's rubbish!
What am I doing?

-Here we go again!
-Touché.

So I realize
family must be far away from here.

What is it like staying
with everyone here?

Well, people here become
your second family

so these are the ones
you spend more time with.

This is not for everybody,

like we've had people
that haven't even stayed for 24 hours.

For the ones that are married,

it's hard knowing that you
haven't seen your children and…

I can imagine that,
that for me would be tough,

-It's tough, yeah.
-I would find that tough.

Thirty-six year old Miriam
is a hard-working waitress

who never stops smiling.

Excuse me.

But I know that her job means regular
overnights away from her family.

As a working mom myself,
I want to find out how Miriam manages

so I'm visiting her at home

on the outskirts
of the village of La Delicia.

Monica.

What she didn't tell me
is that along with husband, Juma

she's got four children and the youngest,
Gabrielle is just a year old.

Look at your view! How did I miss that?

Oh, my word!

-Beautiful.
-Yeah.

This four-hectare sugar cane plantation
is owned by Miriam's husband's family,

in exchange for living here
they maintain it and harvest the crop.

While Miriam's new career
is providing financial stability,

husband Juma now juggles his workload
in the sugar cane plantation

with single-handedly looking after
the kids when Miriam's at the Lodge.

It's an unusual setup for a man
in this part of the world.

How do you feel being the one to stay
home now and, and raise the children?

So, Miriam, it must be hard
for you now to work in the hotel

and having to leave the family?

Everything you're doing
is for your family.

I come from a family
where I hardly saw my mother

'cause she had to work to provide
for myself and, and my siblings.

And I'm sure as hell that your girls,
and your little boy

will grow up better adults
for what you're sacrificing now.

What Miriam's doing is
she's breaking boundaries here

to be a woman
that's leaving family life and the babies.

To go in search of a career
to better their way of life

and to provide a future for her babies.

She wants them to see
that they too can achieve more.

Any parent can relate to that.

It's amazing to see the impact
of the hotel on one family.

But what about the hundreds
of other people

who can no longer log or hunt
in the cloud forest?

I do wonder how the local people
and the community

really do feel about the hotel.

Is there a bit of resentment
of the tourists

that just come here for the hotel?

All the towns and villages
were presumably once logging towns,

so there's a sort of slight sadness.

I think there used to be a mining village,
there's people now with nothing to do.

I guess there are people in what used to
be logging villages with nothing to do.

And I suppose if they get sequestered
into the tourism business

that's better than logging?

Roque believes that tourism
may be the answer

even for those not employed by the Lodge.

It has taken some time,
so that people begin to understand

that what we're doing is
developing a touristic business,

and they're beginning to see
that it is a good idea.

So we hope that they copy us

and that they learn how to do
it in the best way possible

so we hope to have a lot of competition

by people who have worked with us,
that would be very good.

Three miles from the Lodge in Mashpi,
village chief, José,

has been applying everything
he's learned at work to his own community.

Under his stewardship, they've transformed
their picturesque stretch of river

into a family-friendly picnic spot

hoping to entice weekend tourists
from Quito and it seems to be catching on.

José's nephew, Minolo, also works
at the Lodge as an English-speaking guide.

He may spend his days
with well-heeled tourists,

but he likes to provide for his family
the old fashioned way.

-We're going fishing then, are we?
-Yeah, we go fishing.

Using a line, but not using a rod?

-What kind of cheese do you use for this?
-Normal cheese.

Normal cheese, okay.

That didn't work, okay,
give me one more go

because it's not the most obvious
way to fish, but I love it.

-Good, well done.
-Okay, my son, there we go. Is that good?

-Okay, wait.
-Okay.

When they pull you have to…

-Now! Oh, no, wait.
-Oh, for heaven's sake.

When you were a kid and you used
to fish here, did it look the same?

No, years ago, we had more,
bigger fish in this water,

so now you can see it's just little ones.

Why are there not big fish now?

Too many people, they are always fishing.

No, no, no, you got it!

Okay, that's a biggie.
That got the thing, there we go.

So is there any downside to the tourism?
You know, you had a good childhood here.

If you have lots
and lots of tourists coming,

do you think your children
will have the same childhood?

No, if we have a lot
of visitors in this place.

I think one day this is gonna change.

But for the kids
it's gonna be a good change

because, you know,
better school, higher school.

I hope one day
we have a better job in this area.

And the people, they stay here,
they don't have to migrate.

If we have a lot of visitors here.

In some parts of the world
where tourism is just opening up,

you do get a sense of, if not anger
then certainly regret and loss

from the locals
of the passing of a way of life

which is being sucked out by visitors.

I don't think that's the case here.

I think what was going to be lost
was already lost,

the rain forest, the cloud forest,
big agriculture,

and the loggers had already done the harm

and indeed the local people,
they were in a fairly dark place

before the advent of the Lodge at Mashpi,
and tourism, generally.

And I think for them,
the future really is much brighter

than it could possibly
have been without it.

And I think it truly is a symbiotic
and happy relationship.

Before we leave
Mashpi's resident biologist Carlos Moretz

wants to show me one of his
most promising research projects.

A series of camera traps
around the reserve

that capture the forest's
nocturnal activity.

There's one here, you see?

They work with an infrared censor

so they sense the heat
and the movement of the animal.

Yeah.

So before, in this side,
we used to have just mostly rodents

at the beginning for the first year.

And now we've been getting
interesting animals.

Oh come on, let's do it.

-Okay, armadillo.
-And it's in shot.

-Yeah. Oh, and look at it. That's amazing.
-Oh, look at it. Oh wow.

You have all the… Wow, look,
that's an agouti.

-Agouti, it's a rodent.
-Agouti? It's a big rat.

-twice the size of a guinea pig.
-That is amazing.

So nice.

Under Roque's protection, there's been
a huge increase in smaller mammals

that were previously hunted for food,

but there's been
some bigger surprises too.

I will show you something very interesting
that we saw last year.

-Oh, look at that.
-We have a puma.

Beauty.

Wild puma have been pushed to the brink
of extinction here in Ecuador

so to see these individuals thriving
alongside the Lodge is a real success.

Look at this video.

-It's got a baby. Two, three.
-One cub, two cubs. Three cubs.

-Oh, my word. That is so unique. Yeah.
-So this is something very rare.

It tells you also that
the forest is in good shape.

The sighting of species thought extinct

provides yet more proof of success
of Roque's vision.

We have found, for instance,
birds that haven't been seen since 1936

and that happened just six months ago.

That gives us a lot of hope
that we can recover

many many forms of life,
and that's the good news.

Roque's work is not just benefiting
the natural world,

Mashpi Lodge is on the verge
of making a profit

and he's offering the local community
a share of the financial rewards

from the hotel
they've helped make a success.

The objective is that the people
who live in the area will be our partners.

I feel I'm very lucky

to have had the opportunity
to develop this.

The help of the people
has been invaluable,

and they're part of it now.

A place like this could never
be arrived at by committee.

It's just too crazy.
It requires one person,

with a very rooted,
feeling about his country,

and the land, and a lot of money.

He feels it offers great hope for the
ecological future of places like this

and it may do, but it also does offer you
the slightly scary vision

that none of this
is going to be repeated anywhere

unless there are lots of Roques.

And I slightly wonder whether there are.

Look at that one.

The colors are stunning
when they get in the light, aren't they?

Don't you think Mashpi Lodge
has basically in terms of the wild

versus comfort balance,
don't you think they've nailed it?

Absolutely, five-star luxury,
yet also the huge emphasis

on getting out of the hotel
and seeing the real reason it's there.

And that's to preserve this, this a little
bit of paradise that we have left.