June 6, 2025 • 9 mins
"Nestled on the western flank of the Andes, three hours northwest of Quito, I was swathed in the finery of the Chocó rainforest. Mashpi Lodge is an eco-tourism jewel, a five-star oasis within the wider Mashpi Reserve that serves up a resplendent rainforest encounter with the mighty Chocó. Truth be told, because the reserve traverses a wide altitude range, from 550 metres to 1400m, there’s the rainforest and the cloud forest. There’s a high level of endemism here, by the separation through the Andes. The forests on the western side of the Andes evolved entirely differently to the Amazon rainforest on the eastern side. To really make my head spin, geological history testifies that prior to the seismic uplift of the Andes, this was all one sprawling forest."
Read Mike's full article here.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks atb.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Mike Hadley is our travel correspondent on Saturday Mornings, the
man with the toughest job in the world, and he
has been to an extraordinary destination for us this week.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Hey Mike, Good morning Jake. Yes, I've got a crush
on Ecuador. So I'm going to bore you endlessly about
Ecuador over the next few weeks.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
You are not going to be boring me, do you know.
I've never been to Ecuador. It is like right there
at the top of the list. So I've been to Columbia,
I've been to Peru, I've been to Bolivia, I've been
to Brazil, But no, I haven't yet been to Ecuador.
So I have very much been looking forward to you
guiding us through some of the gems in that extraordinary
part of the world. So this week we're going to
focus on Ecuador's cloud forest, the Marshpee Reserve. So whereabouts
(00:55):
is the Marshpea Reserve located.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
It's about a three hour drive northwest of Kito, on
the western slopes of the Ends, so it forms part
of what they call the Chocow Region. So these are
the western forests of the Andes, quite different obviously to
the Amazon rainforest on the eastern side, and Marshbee Reserve
is ranked by the WWF as one of the world's
(01:20):
top ten biode diversity hotspots because it just has so
many endemic species. The interesting thing is Jack that prior
to all of the seismic uplifts of the Andes, both
the western and the eastern forests were all just one big,
sprawling forest. But what makes the reserve really distinctive at
(01:42):
Marshpee is that you've got this huge change in altitude.
So you can be walking on trails at five hundred
meters above sea level, getting virtually a coastal breeze, and
then you go up to fourteen hundred meters on trails.
So that's why it is considered both rainforest and cloud forest.
It's a bit like a tropical for Jordland. They measure
(02:03):
the rainfall and meters.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, lush to say the least. Yes, it's just because
that that chocol region has been heavily DeForest today shocking.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah, So it's an amazing sliver of forest that basically
sweeps down from Panama, goes through Columbia and into western Ecuador.
But in Ecuador more than ninety percent of the chocol
has been deforested. So this became a rallying call for
a former mayor of Quito to safeguard the ecosystem. So
(02:36):
about twenty five years ago he bought what is now
Mushpee Reserve from loggers, developed to this dreamy glasshouse style
lodge nine hundred meters high in the cloud forest, and
over time the reserve has just steadily grown with community
buy in, so it now spans three thousand hectares, which
(02:58):
I discovered this morning is the size of Timaru.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Wow. Well that's fantastic. And how impressive is the bird
life there?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Well, so many birds, so little time, Jack Taane. If
you are not a Twitter on arrival at Mushpee, it's
a sure bet you will leave as a hardcore addict.
There are just so many headline species, like those chocol tukens,
those with those enormously cartoonish bulbous yellow beaks. There are woodpeckers,
(03:25):
there are squirrel cuckoos. But best of all, I just
fell in love with the hummingbirds because they've got thirty
two species of hummingbirds at mushbee with crazy names like
purple coronet and the booted racket tail. And the thing
about his tail, it actually resembles two squash rackets, which
(03:45):
is just crazy. The thing about the hummingbirds, Jack, they
are so unperturbed by your presence, so you know, they
just couldn't kill less about you. You can get right
up close. You can hear them hum as they levitate
in the air as if they motorize, and they are
the only birds in the world that can fly backwards,
(04:07):
which is just wild to see up close.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
I did there something incredible about hummingbirds? So do have
you seen the Harry Potter movies? Yes, so you know
the Snitch and Harry Potter when they're playing quidditch. Don't
you think that's based on a hummingbird the way it moves.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
I'm convinced it's based on hummingbirds, because they said there's
something about the way hummingbirds move, and like you said,
the way they can go backwards. It reminds me of that.
So what about the butterflies?
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Well, yeah, I must have mentioned the butterflies, because mushb
is all a flutter with the full color spectrum of butterflies.
They've got this crazy species called the giant ol eye butterfly,
and these things are monsters and as the name suggests,
they have an L eye marking on their wings. So
when you've got two wings fully displayed, or two butterflies
(05:00):
side by side, because they're very sociable, they actually form
the face of an L. So it Julie skars off predators.
It's kind of like nature's trusty version of the evil eye.
I had to do like a double take when I
saw all these giant hel butterflies because it does look
like a bird just sitting in the tree. Absolutely insane.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
It's amazing when you see the how natures evolve to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's bana. So did you go into the forest at night?
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Yes, Well, obviously there are trails galore to explore by day,
but a guided night walk just reveals so much more magic.
So there are a lot of vine snakes at marsh
Fever and they are very active after dark. Thankfully, they
are very considerate. They stick to the vines of the
trees so they don't wander down to the trail. One
(05:55):
of my nocturnal highlights, Jack was gazing at what Ecuadorians
call Firefox, and it's this avatar like fungus with a
very vivid, luminous glow. You would think some aleds had
been wired into the fungus. James Cameron could not improve
on it. But yeah, the naturalist guides who take you around,
(06:17):
they're just so passionate about the reserve, sharing all the
forest secrets with you. National Geographic go absolutely gaga about
this place.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah, yeah, I'm not surprised. So were there any sort
of particular expedition highlights for you?
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Yeah? Well, I think you really want to commune with
the cloud forest and an intimate way to do it,
as with the Dragonfly open air gondola, so you're sort
of like just a float in the forest. But even better,
I went on a riveting ride on a skybike. I
have never come across these things before, so it's kind
of like a zip line strung above the canopy. But
(06:55):
the novelty is it's attached to pedals in a seat,
so you pedal your way across the skyline and you've
got a galloping gorge two hundred feet by low you
and robed by the forest, and I think the full
traverse was about two hundred meters on that high wire cable,
so it's a pretty it's a pretty solid workout. But yeah,
(07:17):
those views are just so celestial, and there were no
close encounters with vine snakes, I'm very pleased to report.
But it's just such a great perch on those sky
bikes to just savor the sense of isolation and this
really remarkable, intriguing pocket of the world. I definitely would
thread Mushby Lodge into a trip you're doing to Ecuador.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Oh, that sounds superb, so just to I'm just trying
to imagine these bikes. So basically, it's like, don't you
don't zoom across like you do on a zip you
go steadily like you're slowly peddling a bike kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like they're in a very
high gear like it does actually take a bit of
it must just take quite a bit of exercise. Indeed,
it just sounds.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
So special, Mike, And what a time. Well, I mean
for those who follow their Latin American politics, you know
that it's been a very interesting time with the Ecuadorian
elections recently.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
So yeah, will hiperchat about Keto in a couple of weeks,
and yeah, I was just fascinating to see the whole
security situation in Keto and a lot of pressure on
this new leader. Yeah, so sort of sort out the
country so good.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
You know, when I when I first moved to New York,
I had this terrible, terrible sort of you know, cracked
in of an apartment that was on top of a
fruit and vegetable store that was run by an Ecuadorian family.
So yeah, and I became really good friends with them
over you know, a couple of years, I suppose, and
it has just like further wht my appetite for visiting
(08:51):
that part of the world, because you have such contrasts
in such a such a relatively small area. You know,
you've got the kind of andes, and you've got the rainforest,
you've got the cloud forest, but you've also got the coastline.
It's just it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Well, so, yeah, your variety.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah yeah, I'm really looking forward to hearing more about
it over the coming weeks. Thank you so much, Mike.
So we'll make sure that Mike's tips for savoring Ecuador's
cloud forests and the Marshpee Reserve are up on the
news Talks heb website. If you just need anything from
our show, honestly, that is the easiest thing to do.
Just go to newstalksib dot co dot ented forward slash Jack.
That's our show page and they'll have everything from our
(09:27):
show right up there, just as soon as it's been
on the radio.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to newstalks 'b from nine am Saturday, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks atb.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Mike Hadley is our travel correspondent on Saturday Mornings, the
man with the toughest job in the world, and he
has been to an extraordinary destination for us this week.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Hey Mike, Good morning Jake. Yes, I've got a crush
on Ecuador. So I'm going to bore you endlessly about
Ecuador over the next few weeks.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
You are not going to be boring me, do you know.
I've never been to Ecuador. It is like right there
at the top of the list. So I've been to Columbia,
I've been to Peru, I've been to Bolivia, I've been
to Brazil, But no, I haven't yet been to Ecuador.
So I have very much been looking forward to you
guiding us through some of the gems in that extraordinary
part of the world. So this week we're going to
focus on Ecuador's cloud forest, the Marshpee Reserve. So whereabouts
(00:55):
is the Marshpea Reserve located.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
It's about a three hour drive northwest of Kito, on
the western slopes of the Ends, so it forms part
of what they call the Chocow Region. So these are
the western forests of the Andes, quite different obviously to
the Amazon rainforest on the eastern side, and Marshbee Reserve
is ranked by the WWF as one of the world's
(01:20):
top ten biode diversity hotspots because it just has so
many endemic species. The interesting thing is Jack that prior
to all of the seismic uplifts of the Andes, both
the western and the eastern forests were all just one big,
sprawling forest. But what makes the reserve really distinctive at
(01:42):
Marshpee is that you've got this huge change in altitude.
So you can be walking on trails at five hundred
meters above sea level, getting virtually a coastal breeze, and
then you go up to fourteen hundred meters on trails.
So that's why it is considered both rainforest and cloud forest.
It's a bit like a tropical for Jordland. They measure
(02:03):
the rainfall and meters.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, lush to say the least. Yes, it's just because
that that chocol region has been heavily DeForest today shocking.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah, So it's an amazing sliver of forest that basically
sweeps down from Panama, goes through Columbia and into western Ecuador.
But in Ecuador more than ninety percent of the chocol
has been deforested. So this became a rallying call for
a former mayor of Quito to safeguard the ecosystem. So
(02:36):
about twenty five years ago he bought what is now
Mushpee Reserve from loggers, developed to this dreamy glasshouse style
lodge nine hundred meters high in the cloud forest, and
over time the reserve has just steadily grown with community
buy in, so it now spans three thousand hectares, which
(02:58):
I discovered this morning is the size of Timaru.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Wow. Well that's fantastic. And how impressive is the bird
life there?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Well, so many birds, so little time, Jack Taane. If
you are not a Twitter on arrival at Mushpee, it's
a sure bet you will leave as a hardcore addict.
There are just so many headline species, like those chocol tukens,
those with those enormously cartoonish bulbous yellow beaks. There are woodpeckers,
(03:25):
there are squirrel cuckoos. But best of all, I just
fell in love with the hummingbirds because they've got thirty
two species of hummingbirds at mushbee with crazy names like
purple coronet and the booted racket tail. And the thing
about his tail, it actually resembles two squash rackets, which
(03:45):
is just crazy. The thing about the hummingbirds, Jack, they
are so unperturbed by your presence, so you know, they
just couldn't kill less about you. You can get right
up close. You can hear them hum as they levitate
in the air as if they motorize, and they are
the only birds in the world that can fly backwards,
(04:07):
which is just wild to see up close.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
I did there something incredible about hummingbirds? So do have
you seen the Harry Potter movies? Yes, so you know
the Snitch and Harry Potter when they're playing quidditch. Don't
you think that's based on a hummingbird the way it moves.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
I'm convinced it's based on hummingbirds, because they said there's
something about the way hummingbirds move, and like you said,
the way they can go backwards. It reminds me of that.
So what about the butterflies?
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Well, yeah, I must have mentioned the butterflies, because mushb
is all a flutter with the full color spectrum of butterflies.
They've got this crazy species called the giant ol eye butterfly,
and these things are monsters and as the name suggests,
they have an L eye marking on their wings. So
when you've got two wings fully displayed, or two butterflies
(05:00):
side by side, because they're very sociable, they actually form
the face of an L. So it Julie skars off predators.
It's kind of like nature's trusty version of the evil eye.
I had to do like a double take when I
saw all these giant hel butterflies because it does look
like a bird just sitting in the tree. Absolutely insane.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
It's amazing when you see the how natures evolve to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's bana. So did you go into the forest at night?
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Yes, Well, obviously there are trails galore to explore by day,
but a guided night walk just reveals so much more magic.
So there are a lot of vine snakes at marsh
Fever and they are very active after dark. Thankfully, they
are very considerate. They stick to the vines of the
trees so they don't wander down to the trail. One
(05:55):
of my nocturnal highlights, Jack was gazing at what Ecuadorians
call Firefox, and it's this avatar like fungus with a
very vivid, luminous glow. You would think some aleds had
been wired into the fungus. James Cameron could not improve
on it. But yeah, the naturalist guides who take you around,
(06:17):
they're just so passionate about the reserve, sharing all the
forest secrets with you. National Geographic go absolutely gaga about
this place.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah, yeah, I'm not surprised. So were there any sort
of particular expedition highlights for you?
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Yeah? Well, I think you really want to commune with
the cloud forest and an intimate way to do it,
as with the Dragonfly open air gondola, so you're sort
of like just a float in the forest. But even better,
I went on a riveting ride on a skybike. I
have never come across these things before, so it's kind
of like a zip line strung above the canopy. But
(06:55):
the novelty is it's attached to pedals in a seat,
so you pedal your way across the skyline and you've
got a galloping gorge two hundred feet by low you
and robed by the forest, and I think the full
traverse was about two hundred meters on that high wire cable,
so it's a pretty it's a pretty solid workout. But yeah,
(07:17):
those views are just so celestial, and there were no
close encounters with vine snakes, I'm very pleased to report.
But it's just such a great perch on those sky
bikes to just savor the sense of isolation and this
really remarkable, intriguing pocket of the world. I definitely would
thread Mushby Lodge into a trip you're doing to Ecuador.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Oh, that sounds superb, so just to I'm just trying
to imagine these bikes. So basically, it's like, don't you
don't zoom across like you do on a zip you
go steadily like you're slowly peddling a bike kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like they're in a very
high gear like it does actually take a bit of
it must just take quite a bit of exercise. Indeed,
it just sounds.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
So special, Mike, And what a time. Well, I mean
for those who follow their Latin American politics, you know
that it's been a very interesting time with the Ecuadorian
elections recently.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
So yeah, will hiperchat about Keto in a couple of weeks,
and yeah, I was just fascinating to see the whole
security situation in Keto and a lot of pressure on
this new leader. Yeah, so sort of sort out the
country so good.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
You know, when I when I first moved to New York,
I had this terrible, terrible sort of you know, cracked
in of an apartment that was on top of a
fruit and vegetable store that was run by an Ecuadorian family.
So yeah, and I became really good friends with them
over you know, a couple of years, I suppose, and
it has just like further wht my appetite for visiting
(08:51):
that part of the world, because you have such contrasts
in such a such a relatively small area. You know,
you've got the kind of andes, and you've got the rainforest,
you've got the cloud forest, but you've also got the coastline.
It's just it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Well, so, yeah, your variety.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah yeah, I'm really looking forward to hearing more about
it over the coming weeks. Thank you so much, Mike.
So we'll make sure that Mike's tips for savoring Ecuador's
cloud forests and the Marshpee Reserve are up on the
news Talks heb website. If you just need anything from
our show, honestly, that is the easiest thing to do.
Just go to newstalksib dot co dot ented forward slash Jack.
That's our show page and they'll have everything from our
(09:27):
show right up there, just as soon as it's been
on the radio.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to newstalks 'b from nine am Saturday, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio.
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