The
Black Sheep Inn
An Ecological Inn ~ By Matt Kelly
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One
bright blue Andean afternoon a few weeks ago, I was sitting at the Black
Sheep Inn’s kitchen table, sharing a soup-and-rice lunch with the lodge’s
owners and three morning staffers. In front of us sat a copy of the March
2003 Outside Magazine, and the owners – Michelle Kirby and Andy Hammerman
– were red-faced with laughter.
Their dream
home, a unique ecological Ecuadorian alcove far from the American suburb
neighborhoods of their youth, had been named one of the world’s ten best
ecolodges by the popular monthly. A 35-year-old woman with traces of Boston
in her speech and long blong hair pulled into a pony-tail, Kirby was undoubtedly
excited about the inn’s newest honor, but a bit worried as well – about
the reservations that would increase almost immediately. And both she and
her husband, co-owner Hammerman, 37, found the honor pretty funny.
“We’re not
experts, we made it all up as we went along,” Kirby said, still doubled
over her acelga soup with laughter. “We just live here.”
With that statement
Kirby captured the unlikely and impressive success of her business and
her life in Ecuador. The Black Sheep Inn is a nine-room eco-lodge in the
tiny Ecuadorian mountain village of Chugchilan, 10,500 feet above the imaginery
line that divides the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The couple
moved here in 1994, recently married and brimming with energy and enthusiasm,
and bought a steep tree-less ten-acres. Their friends and family back home
– and perhaps the local villagers – thought they were crazy. Maybe they
were, but their gamble has paid off. Today they run an inn that has inspired
tourists to take up permaculture as soon as they
return home
and is helping to spark an eco-tourism movement with renewed vigor in this
tiny Pacific-coast nation.
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The
view from the front of Black Sheep Inn.
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I have enjoyed
the unique opportunity during the last six months to learn and live alongside
Kirby and Hammerman, working as the manager of the inn with my girlfriend,
Lindsay. We came to Ecuador in January planning to teach English or take
odd jobs to get by; we didn’t expect to stumble into something this wonderful.
In just half a year, Hammerman and Kirby have taught us about permaculture,
a modern form of sustainable farming and living; they have taught us how
to run a successful and comfortable hotel and dozens of other random skills,
like composting, caring for llamas, building an adobe house and making
a straw roof. And the people of this tiny village have welcomed us warmly,
teaching us Spanish and inviting us to experience a slice of Andean culture
we never expected to see.
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Our
jobs here basically comprise filling in for Hammerman and Kirby in running
the hotel day-to-day, freeing them to work on conservation and community
efforts, improve their hotel and take vacations. This has allowed us to
experience exactly how this hotel and farm work. Before coming to Ecuador,
we would not have considered ourselves environmentalists. Here, we’ve been
converted.
The principle
upon which everything at the Black Sheep Inn is based is permaculture,
or permanent agriculture, a philosophy for living and working invented
in Australia in the 1970s and currently catching on worldwide among the
ecologically-minded. Here, permaculture governs everything. It dictates
that we combine and connect our farming, eating, working, living, pooping
and tourism. People, farm animals and plants all play a part in each other’s
livelihood. Waste is reused or recycled. Energy and water are conserved.
A good example
of the Black Sheep Inn’s permaculture success is the inn’s composting toilet
system, a feature of the lodge that made the Black Sheep famous among Ecuadorians,
ex-pats and backpackers over the last decade. These toilets are waterless,
avoiding one type of waste accepted through the developed world. They are
designed to decompose human waste until it can be used as a nutrient-rich
fertilizer. Before it’s ready, however, the farm’s six ducks play a role,
eating insects from the nearly-finished compost. Using this fertilizer,
the owners are reforesting their property – teaching locals that native
species are preferable to the popular pine and eucalyptus. |
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With little
formal training, Hammerman and Kirby have created an architectural unity,
ecological vision and business plan that all combine to give the illusion
that they knew exactly what they were doing. And aside from the inn’s ecological
accolades, it has earned a reputation for the comforts it provides guests.
Private cabins are
cozy lofted
rooms scattered around the hillside property and heated by woodburning
stoves. Some guest rooms have skylights for stargazing at night, others
treat waking guests to crystal canyon views more eye-opening than two cups
of local coffee. Hammerman has designed all of the buildings himself, and
permaculture dictates that he use local materials as much as possible,
so straw, adobe and Spanish tile dominate the propety’s aesthetic. Breakfast
and dinner are included with a stay ($18-$38 per person per night), and
these two can cook. Their all-you-can-eat vegetarian feasts are well known
among the backpackers traversing this continent.
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importantly, Hammerman and Kirby chose a stop-and-stare spot. The windows
of the inn’s main lodge frame a stunning panorama of green canyon slopes,
a patchwork of farms and the snow-capped 5,000-meter Iliniza Norte volcano.
Most evenings, especially during the February to June rainy season, clouds
float up at us from the deep Rio Toachi Canyon like steam from a city manhole.
The sun sets behind the nearby mountain range, and the canyon lights up
a glowing pink. Popular hikes in the area include exploring the spectacular
Laguna Quiolotoa, a 3-km-wide active volcanic crater lake about an hour’s
drive from Chugchilan. Another popular day trip is riding horses over the
last spines of the Andes, as the mountains gradually bow toward the Pacific
Coast, a mere 100 kilometers away. This descent is upholstered with lush
cloud forest, which is mostly unexplored, unprotected and being logged
too fast for Hammerman and Kirby’s comfort.
Humberta Ortega,
a native of Chugchilan, leads horseback trips into the mystical cloud forest
of his youth, where he grew up hiking the wet downhill slopes toward the
Pacific Ocean. By offering an interest-free loan to buy saddles,
Hammerman and Kirby helped Ortega start his business as an ecological option
to logging and farming the forest, and he’s thankful for it today. He is
always sure to point out to his guests exactly why the forest is important
to people like him, and why it should be important to visiting gringos,
too. There are species of birds and plants in the forest that have never
been studied. Clear cutting the cloud forest effects farmers from the sierra
to the sea with changed weather patterns, he says. “The Black Sheep Inn
has been very good for Chugchilan,” Ortega says, “it is showing people
that tourism can be a good business and good for places like
the cloud
forest.” |
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| Laguna
Quiolotoa, a 3-km-wide active volcanic crater lake about an hour’s drive
from Chugchilan. |
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The Black
Sheep Inn started as a one-room show, with Hammerman and Kirby doing the
cooking and serving in the crowded kitchen and then sleeping in the back
room while their few guests slept in an adjoining cabin. Now the inn is
a popular and plush stop in the remotest part of the Ecuadorian Andes,
and the inn’s philosophy has expanded far from these ten acres. The couple
has made a positive impact by introducing tourism to Chugchilan and by
contributing time and money to local schools, opening a public library
and helping the health clinic and water system succeed. Guests leave here
relaxed and inspired – often aiming to effect their own little environment
by recycling, volunteering or perhaps practicing permaculture.
Hammerman and
Kirby’s idealism shows in every detail of the Black Sheep Inn. They live
and work by the philosophy they can change the world with baby steps.
But don’t ask them how they developed their successful ecological oasis.
They just live here.
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