Three Forests Trail

Or, if you e-speaka the e-spanish, 'Sendero Tres Bosques'. It's what's been taking up all my time that usually spent on witty blogging commentary, reading in a hammock or working on the farm. So, you ask, what is 'Sendero Tres Bosques' and why is it important to our humble narrator?

Well, let's turn back the page a bit. When I lived in New Zealand right after college, one of the favorite things I did was the 'Milford Trek', which is one of NZ's 7 'Great Walks of New Zealand.' Each Great Walk is basically a 3 to 4 day hike in a different ecosystem (NZ has plenty to choose from) with a well-maintained trail and bunkhouses at the end of each day to sleep in. The Milford Trek is billed as the most beautiful walk in the world, and quite frankly if it wasn't that, it was pretty damn close. The interesting thing for me was what the walks didn't offer -- no guide, no food, etc, just lodging and water and a place to cook food -- and the fact that they costed like $300 and most had more than a 3 month waiting list. With that kind of money and that kind of quantity of international hiking tourist, it was easy for the Great Walks to be successful.

The next logical step came when I was first down in Ecuador and sat in on a meeting between Andrea and her boss Joe, who were talking about establishing a forest corridor by getting the local landowners to sign agreements to be paid by the Ecuadorian govt and Conservation International to not cut down their forests. Immediately my Great Walk experience jumped to mind, and I pointed out to them that a tourist trail running through this forest corridor would be an incredible, low impact way to bring tourism, interest and money to the area.

Some 8 months later, there I was getting signed agreements from 10 different landowners to construct a trail on their properties, GPSing possble trail routes and forming two trail crews of 4 guys each to start work. So, for the last 4 weeks, I've walked 5 days a week for an average of 7 hours a day, flagging trail, clearing brush, visiting landowners and teaching the finer points of trail creation and maintenance to my two trail crews (one from Tabuga, one from nearbye Camarones). In about another month or so, we'll have a 3-day hiking trail completed that winds through the three tipes of primary forest found in our zone, Dry Tropical Forest (incredibly endangered, something like 1% remains in the world), Pre-Montane forest and Cloud Forest. Each night will be in a nicely appointed bunkroom -- first in a private house in the forest with incredible views of the ocean, owned by 3 very special older women in Tabuga, then in the reserve house wayyyyy in the jungle at Jama-Coaque Reserve, and lastly at the reserve house in Bosque Seco Lalo Loor.

Working on the trail has been an incredible experience, what with being incredibly helpful for my Spanish, beneficial for my health (waking up at 5:30am and walking 7 hours up to 2000 ft elevation will do that) and awesome for the community. Meanwhile, I've had the chance to see the rare Capuchin monkeys three times, literally hundreds of Toucans, Trogans, Motmots, Woodpeckers, Tropical Eagles, a Coati, thousands of Tarantulas, some poisonous snakes and one dead Ocelot that got hit by a car. If you don't know what any of those things are, google them! They're awesome.

With any luck, I'll incorporate as an Ecuadorian business soon and start advertising locally and internationally, somewhere in the range of $150-$200 for a 4 day hike (including the entry and exit days), food, lodging and a local guide. At the same time I'll be providing economic incentives to landowners to not cut down their remaining tropical forests (via a per-tourist payment to them), jobs for my trail crew, jobs for local young people who want to learn how to guide gringos, and a point of access into a rapidly disapearing ecosystem for folks from all over the world.

First startup business, check. Who'dathunk it'd be in Ecuador of all places?

Email with any questions!

AJ