Black Sheep Inn, Outside Magazine's Top 10 ECO Lodge in the World!

WHEN GUESTS ARRIVE at this lodge, tucked in the Cordillera mountain range five hours down the road from Quito, they marvel at the rustic chalet-style lodge and the view over the Rio Toachi Canyon. But they break out the cameras for the facility's dry-composting toilets. These thrones are stand-alone shacks that include little indoor vegetable and flower gardens and picture windows for enjoying the canyon views.

"Guests always compliment us on the toilets," says Andres Hammerman, a 36-year-old Chicago native who co-owns Black Sheep Inn with his wife, Michelle Kirby. "But they're also a really good example of sustainable agriculture, because the compost is used later for planting trees."

The rest of the lodge may not be quite as eccentric, but it's equally sustainable. The four outbuildings (which have a total of nine bedrooms, each with its own fireplace) and the dining lodge are built from homemade adobe bricks and roofed with straw and Spanish tile. Hammerman and Kirby travel to Quito to recycle glass, paper, and plastics. Besides donating phone lines to the village school and police station, the couple encourages visitors to get involved in local projects; one recent guest bought books for local schoolchildren.

The seven-mile hike from 12,500-foot Quilotoa Crater Lagoon down to Black Sheep Inn is considered one of the best day hikes in Ecuador (a lodge employee will drive you to the trailhead). Visitors can also climb, mountain-bike, and ride horses along the volcanic walls of Rio Toachi Canyon, trek to pre-Incan ruins, or wander up into the high-altitude cloudforest. In the evenings, guests assemble for family-style feasts of organic veggies from the garden. Afterward, they gather around the fireplace to drink beer, tell stories, and woozily stroll back to their cabins to sink into cozy loft beds. Contact: Black Sheep Inn, 011-593-3-281-4587, http://www.blacksheepinn.com/. cost: $22-$24 per person, double; $36-$38, single; includes breakfast and dinner.

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Resort to Virtue

IT USED TO BE ENOUGH FOR TOURISTS staying at hotels in wilderness areas to "do no harm"—that is, to leave the outdoors the way they found it. But since the very existence of a resort operation, no matter how green, can blotto fragile soil and scare off wildlife for days, most eco-lodge operators have tempered their vision to "doing more good than harm." And as Michael Seltzer, the director of Business Enterprises for Sustainable Travel, reminds us, eco isn't just about the environment. "Facilities worthy of the term 'eco-lodge' should also benefit the local community and economy," he says. We found quite a few places that fit this bill and offer access to stunning wilds. The choice is yours: Spend your next vacation at a corporate mega-resort or check into one of these ten Edens, and save the guilt for your fuel-guzzling flight home.

The Following are links to the Outside Magazine Section on each Eco-Lodge:

1. Turtle Island, Fiji
The High Life Just Gets Better and Better

2. Asa Wright Nature Centre and Lodge: Trinidad
Everybody Wings it in This Lush Shangri-La

3. Birch Pond Lodge, Alaska
Join the Griz and Roam a Kinder, Gentler Last Frontier

4. Wenhai Ecolodge, China
Visions of Ancixent China in the Snow Peaks of Yunnan

5. Posada Amazonas, Peru
The Amazon Trough the Eyes of the True People

6. Wilderness Lodge Lake Moeraki, New Zealand
Frodo Never Had It So Good

7. Tassia Lodge, Kenya
Step into a Hemingway Story (But Hold Your Fire!)

8. Chumbe Island Coral Park, Tanzania
A Comeback Reef and a Kingdom by the Sea

9. Selva Bananito Lodge, Costa Rica
Dreamtime and Fireflies in Central America

10. Black Sheep Inn, Ecuador
A Getaway to Andean Adventure
www.blacksheepinn.com

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