PHOTOGRAPHS: PHILIP LEE HARVEY, STEVE RYAN, JORGE VINUEZA G.
What, for you, makes the best hotel? Mind-blowing views, or the thoughtfulness of the staff? Unbeatable value, remarkable food, avant-garde architecture, or the quality of experiences on hand? When I was recently asked to name the best hotel I’ve ever stayed in, ‘Mashpi Lodge’ spilled out. This glassy Modernist cathedral to the natural world, as its owners sell it, lies deep in the Chocó rainforest of Ecuador, where clouds roll off the Pacific and smack against the lower slopes of the Andes. I won’t deny it was fancy - enough so to have later hosted Giles Coren and Monica Galetti for an episode of BBC Two’s Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby. But what stays with me most is the time I spent walking with Mashpi’s nature guide José Napa, a former worker at the logging mill located here before the lodge was built. His unique knowledge of the creatures found close by - from empress brilliant hummingbirds to pumas - was born of an adult life spent living among them. You’ll notice Mashpi Lodge is included in our list of 100 incredible places to wake up in, this issue’s cover story (starting from p42). I hope one of them, one day, will become your best ever.
@peter_grunert petervg73