Overview

Since the beginning, they hit on a motto for La Selva Jungle Lodge and it has served them well for over 20 years: “In the jungle anything is possible...” The motto has a couple of meanings. First and foremost it means that the level of your experience of the jungle, once placed in La Selva’s hands, will seem like one great magic trick: effortlessly elevated and expanded to mind-bending proportions merely by letting them join forces with you in their super natural Amazon Rainforest.

The second meaning is that La Selva will do anything to make your visit a success in their terms, which means nothing short of the most exciting, elucidating, and sensuous experience of your lifetime. And they will move heaven and earth to do so. La Selva is always pleased to find that even the veteran travelers to the edges of this earth are surprised by the level of service that has often been characterized as a totally unexpected measure of love offered by staff to guests who quickly find themselves ambushed by their affections and suddenly, happily, find themselves part of the La Selva family.

This notion of family is integral to the corporate culture of La Selva and has been so for over 20 years. Many of the staff members have been with the lodge since the first day of construction, some only 15 years; siblings now are joining the team. And every member of the staff knows that La Selva has the most important thing guests can give and it is not money. It is that precious free time that in most cases visitors have worked a great portion of the year to get and La Selva knows they can never fall short of their goal, which is a perfection of spirit on their part, a sharing of goodwill and a demonstration of all they know about service and the rainforest that leads to the spectacular experiences guests have.

Welcome to La Selva, which in Spanish means simply “The Jungle”, and they are necessarily remote, but once you catch the “rainforest rhythm”, time will be on your side and you will find joy in the journey, which, after a 30-minute flight to the Ecuadorian version of Dodge City (from which you are quickly whisked), your voyage of delights begins.

Travel and Leisure magazine once said about La Selva, “…if it is not at the end of the world it’s within shouting distance…” and you will travel 60 miles down river and 2½ hours later until one of La Selva’s launches brings you to a quiet dock. The staff is waiting to carry your luggage and you will begin a stroll on the boardwalk about a half mile through a vast palm forest making your way to the lake, Garzacocha, called by the Lonely Planet Guide “the most beautiful Lake in the Amazon…” The boardwalk ends at a lazy stream where paddle canoes await you for your voyage across Garzacocha to the lodge. Like the trip down river, it is another expedition of discovery, in what will be a vacation filled with marvel and wonder – the kind most only dimly remember from childhood.

So what do you do at La Selva? You go on excursions. Working with a team composed of an English-speaking naturalist guide and a native tracker, you will travel into the forest through various trails in a network, walking slowly because there is so much to see, and in dugout canoes down streams and around lakes to spot wildlife and learn about the rainforest. 14 species of monkeys, 650 species of birds, 15,000 species of plants, sloths, giant otters, anteaters, jaguars, they are all there. Some sightings only go to the lucky but rest assured, you will see and hear and ultimately feel in the most sensuous of all places more than you will be able to process. This is nature spelled NATURE.

Through more than 20 years of refinement, La Selva has achieved a oneness with the environment and that includes a relationship with their neighbors, Kichwa Indians, who they help in many ways and employ as the majority of the on-site staff.

La Selva is, above all, an ecotourism venture, sometimes known as an eco lodge that embraces the guests, the forest, the native inhabitants, even the refuse they produce; a coherent, interconnected and viable form of “green” commerce and to that end La Selva has won the Ecotourism Award presented at the World Conference on Tourism and the Environment and more recently, the 2007 Ecotourism Award, presented by the Ecoclub in Greece.

It is La Selva’s belief that you can have the time of your life, serve gourmet food, and laugh and learn all the while being socially responsible because in the jungle anything is possible.