In the highlands there is an old and beautiful belief that water carries energy, and that a body can be washed clean of far more than dust. During the June festivals, families walk to sacred waterfalls like Peguche in the dark and bathe at midnight in a ritual called Armay Tuta, letting the falling water carry away the heaviness of the year. You do not have to take part in a ceremony to feel the sense behind it. Spend a few days near moving mountain water and you understand exactly why people have always come here to be restored.
Wake with the sun and the quinde
There is a particular magic to sunrise at this altitude. The valley fills with cloud, the light turns to gold, and the forest wakes with song, including the hum of the quinde, the hummingbird, at the first open flowers. Begin your day with a gentle stretch or slow yoga on the deck, mountain air in your lungs and not a single notification in sight. It is the kind of morning that quietly resets you.
Treatments framed by the forest
Our spa treatments are designed to bring the outside in. Picture a massage with the green canopy filling the window, or a long soak with the stars coming out over the ridge. Andean healing has always drawn on the plants of these hills, and a traditional cleansing, known as a limpia, uses herbs and flowers to sweep away tiredness and worry. After a day of activity, or a day of blissful nothing, it is the gentlest way to let the body catch up with the mind.
Ecuador’s healing traditions run deep. In the villages of Imbabura a yachak, a traditional healer, still reads the body with herbs, flowers, eggs and mountain water in a cleansing known as a limpia, meant to lift away heavy energy and restore balance. You are welcome simply to rest with a modern massage, but it is lovely to know that the idea behind it, that nature mends us, is thousands of years old in these hills. When our therapists reach for local herbs, they are drawing on knowledge that has been quietly kept and passed down for many generations.
A land of healing waters
This is also a land of warm water rising from the earth. Not far from the lodge, natural hot springs such as Nangulví and Chachimbiro have drawn people for generations to soak away aches and quiet the mind. A slow afternoon among the thermal pools makes a perfect, restful excursion, and you return to the hush of the forest by evening. It fits the rhythm we love here, one that the Kichwa call a life lived in balance rather than in a hurry.
Eat well and sleep deeply
Wellness is not only spa hours. It is fresh food at the table, cool clean air that makes for deep sleep, and days unhurried enough that you truly rest. Our kitchen cooks with what the region gives, from just picked vegetables to warming bowls of locro de papa, a creamy potato and cheese soup that every Ecuadorian grandmother makes a little differently. Eating well here takes no effort at all.
Expect fresh cheeses and fruit from the valley, and pots of aromatic mountain tea brewed from herbs like cedrón and manzanilla, sipped slowly on the deck as the light fades. It is the kind of eating that leaves you calm rather than heavy, ready for a long, deep night of mountain sleep. Nothing on the plate has travelled far, and you can taste the difference.
- Sunrise yoga and gentle stretching on the deck
- Forest view massage and herbal treatments
- An open air jacuzzi under a dark, starry sky
- Fresh Andean meals and quiet, screen free evenings
A word in Kichwa. Yaku means water, understood as a living, healing presence. It is why waterfalls are treated as sacred, and why a soak in mountain water feels like so much more than a bath.
You can see the full offering on our wellness and spa page. Many guests weave restful days into gentle time in nature, a slow walk from the wilderness ecolodge or an easy morning of birdwatching before the massage table.
Give yourself the reset
A few unhurried days in the mountains go a long way. Come and let Pachamama, and a very good jacuzzi, do their quiet work. Reserve your escape and leave the rest to us.
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