Last October, I traveled to the Ecuadorian Amazon with Charlie Clark, our Director of Philanthropy, to visit a couple of the Cotopaxi Foundation’s impact partners. Both nonprofits work in an area called Loreto on the western edge of the Amazon Rainforest.

Our partner The Chain Collaborative (TCC) is all about coffee. This nonprofit is empowering local leaders in coffee-growing communities across the globe to rise out of poverty. In Ecuador, TCC is supporting a cooperative called AsoAmazonas that’s revolutionizing the way robusta beans are grown—and perceived.

We also met up with ALIADOS (“allies” in English), a nonprofit dedicated to regenerative agriculture. ALIADOS helps farmers in the Amazon blend ancient techniques with modern regenerative practices and markets to grow tea leaves, heirloom peanuts, plantains, and more.

From the amazing Amazonian people we met to a twilight tea ceremony, here are 15 photos that will give you a taste of the Ecuadorian Amazon and the work we’re supporting there. 
 

1. The Robusta Farmers 

Favio and Andrea met at university in Quito (she was his tutor). They’re both originally from the Amazon, but neither planned to go back home after university. Then a month-long “spiritual journey” down the Napo River changed everything. Now, they’re transforming the community where Favio grew up into a hub for sustainably grown coffee. Andrea says, “We wanted to take advantage of this product [robusta coffee] that is so deeply rooted in several generations.” 
 

2. Post-Roast 

In the two days we spent with Favio, we rarely saw him without a cup of coffee. And during our time at his coffee farm and Witoca Cafe, he was constantly caffeinating us with cold brew, espresso, and these unforgettable mocha popsicles. Favio is obsessed with coffee beans, but for him, it’s really about creating opportunities for the people in his community—farmers, roasters, and baristas alike. “I always thought about how to do business in a way that impacts people,” Favio says. 
 

3. Rating Robusta 

Coffee roasters evaluate different beans and roasting methods through a blind taste test known as cupping. Hot water is poured over different batches of fresh grounds in small cups. Tasters inhale the aromas, then vigorously (and audibly) slurp up spoonfuls of coffee to optimize the tasting experience. Camila Khalifé of The Chain Collaborative (2nd from left) by far had the most impressive slurp (she credits a gap in her teeth), and Andrea (to her right) was a close second. The fine robusta movement is still in its infancy (compared to arabica), and cupping has been a way to prove just how good robusta can be. 
 

4. In Her Chakra Garden 

Every day, several times a day, Maria Licuy hikes down a muddy path from her village in the Wamani area to tend to her chakra garden—a farm that uses Indigenous agricultural methods rooted in biodiversity and organic practices. She is helping her community reject monoculture and dangerous pesticides to literally and figuratively return to their roots. “We’re going back to ancestral ways of working,” Maria explains, as she picks wild fruits we’d never heard of before for us to try. 
 

5. ¡Mas Alto! 

Everywhere our Ecuadorian videographer Esteban Barrera flew his drone, he made friends. On our way back from Maria’s chakra farm, we stopped by her community of Wamani and watched some kids playing Sunday futbol. Esteban got out his drone to capture the action and the kids crowded around him with curiosity. 

6. In The Classroom With ALIADOS 

In the little village of San Bartolo in the Loreto area, 19 women (and two babies) are listening to a workshop on plantain farming. The idea is to maximize how much income they make, while prioritizing regenerative and organic practices. It’s been about three years since the farmers here used pesticides, but there are still ways to optimize yield and profit. Gonzalo Torres of ALIADOS demonstrates the ideal point at which to cut the plantain (~2cm from the tip), as laughter breaks out in the room. Banana humor, it turns out, may be universal. 
 

7. Sharing The Regenerative Knowledge

Outside a community building in San Bartolo of the Loreto area, ALIADOS Program Coordinator Gonzalo Torres demonstrates how to properly weigh plantains to maximize income from the crop. A local from the community intermittently translates what Gonzalo is saying into Kichwan, the Indigenous language of the people here.
 

8. The Elusive Volcano

At Cotopaxi, we have a thing for volcanoes—after all, we’re named for Ecuador’s iconic Cotopaxi Volcano. Some 60 miles east of Cotopaxi, Sumaco is a dormant 13,091-foot volcano protected by a biosphere preserve. We’d heard about Sumaco since we’d recently named a few hiking shirts after it. On our drive from Quito to the Amazon, we caught glimpses of the peak, but each time we stopped to try to take a picture, it disappeared behind thick clouds. Finally, toward the end of his trip, our photographer James Roh got the shot.  

9. Two Generations Of Guayusa 

Luduvina (left) has taught her daughter Glenda (right) the principles of chakra farming: integrated, holistic, organic. Here, they harvest guayusa tea leaves from a holly tree with impressive velocity. The leaves of this ancient tree are dried and crushed to make a tea said to provide energy and other health benefits. Glenda is the director of a local agricultural cooperative called Ally Guayusa that grows, processes, and sells guayusa tea leaves and other products to help her community earn a sustainable income. 
 

10. Chakra Mama 

For Luduvina, her chakra farm is her food pantry. It’s also her “first aid kit,” for everything from dengue fever to menstrual pain. As the midwife for all eight of her daughter Glenda’s children—and many more babies in the community—Luduvina used tea leaves from the forest to slow bleeding. She also grows crops to make an income, including macambo (related to cacao) and guayusa tea leaves. To ensure a good harvest, Glenda and Luduvina paint each other’s faces. “Chakra mama,” Glenda says as she draws four red crosses on her mother’s cheeks using the red seeds of the achiote.
 

11. Tomorrow’s Breakfast 

Mother-daughter chakra farming duo Luduvina and Glenda lead us to a tree crawling with little prickly red caterpillars. They fold the grubs neatly into a large leaf and tuck it into their basket. See the last photo in this story to find out how they taste roasted over an open fire. 
 

12. The Clearing

What would you guess is the number one cause of deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest? Mining? The timber industry? Surprisingly, clearing land for cattle grazing is responsible for 80% of trees chopped down in the world’s biggest rainforest—and for this tree-less opening we came upon in the jungle. Monoculture is another major culprit of Amazon deforestation, which is why chakra-style farming that leans into the strengths of the rainforest is so critical.

13. “The Amazing, Huge Tree” 

We first encountered the Amazon’s Ceiba trees (also known as Kapok trees) when coffee farmer Favio took us on a short hike to see what he described as the “amazing, huge tree.” The Ceiba he led us to was at least twice as large as the one pictured here. In front of this mesmerizing tree, chakra farmer Luchano poses next to Glenda (the director of Ally Guayusa), his wife, and their daughter at dusk. Luchano grows jungle peanuts for the Ally Guayusa cooperative, along with pineapple and yucca. 
 

14. Cascada Dramatica 

As Luchano and his family showed us around their farm, we heard talk of a “cascada” they were going to show us. I pictured a small waterfall trickling into a little pond. Past a field of jungle peanuts, rows of pineapples beneath power lines, and a clearing slated for reforestation, we descended a steep little hill to find ourselves on the precipice of a massive cliff: the waterfall. From this spot, the cascade plunges past pools of water into the Rio Huatarac of the Amazon Basin below. We all took a dip, took in the views, then took this drone shot. 
 

15. 4:30am In The Jungle 

Luduvina’s neighbor invited us to a pre-dawn community guayusa tea ceremony at her open-air house. Around a fire, they served us tea in a pilcha, a small wooden bowl. Guayusa ceremonies are a time to share your dreams from the night before, and Luduvina announced (in Kichwan, which was later translated into Spanish for us) that she’d dreamt of a snake in the river, which meant “the gringunos” (aka, us) were coming. Then the women washed tilapia caught that morning and cooked it over the fire. 

They served us each a whole fish, yucca, and chewy roasted caterpillars—the same ones we’d gathered the day before—on a giant leaf as a breakfast feast. Caterpillar tasting notes: Musky and chewy. The sun rose and the mood lightened as a parrot named Lucas munched on leftover yuca and repeated after a little boy: Hola. 

Photography by James Roh.

Explore more about our partners ALIADOS and The Chain Collaborative and their work in Ecuador, as well as how we support them through The Cotopaxi Foundation.