Yarina Eco Lodge — Hotel in Taracoa

I decided to go to Yarina Eco Lodge after much debate. They gave me a last-minute discount, although I was slightly confused by the dates they offered because nobody was around for my last day; if I had picked to start a day later than I had which they offered me, there would be just me and the guide for the last two days. A bit odd if you ask me. Otherwise, my first few days was with two other couples.

In any case, the lodge is beautiful, food was delicious, guide was great, learned a lot. My goal of going to the Amazon was to see what it was like, not so much the animals - if the animals is your objective, this is not the place. I saw monkeys, two sloths, birds, and insects over the 4 days / 3 nights (which actually is barely 3 full days, as you arrive to the lodge in time for lunch on day 1, and day 4 is leaving right after breakfast). I didn't see any big animals.

Each cabin had hot water, a bidet for the toilet (wow!), mosquito net for the bed, a fan, and netted windows (no way to close them which was fine, air would go through the cabin the entire day and there were curtains to cover them at night). Super comfortable, although I didn't spend much time in the cabin.

Wifi is extra, $3/day - and while I got wifi in my room, the two other couples said it was so-so, so I'm going to guess it depends on where your room is located.

My guide told me the lodge only employs people who have lived in the Amazon, except for the chef / bartender (which makes sense). The visit to the community was interesting - I'm not sure how much of it was curated, but it was still nice to make / eat food like Amazonians, see what a house might look like, and learn a bit about life there.

For getting to Coca, which is where Yarina will have a boat to pick you up, Yarina gives you a few options: flight, bus, private car. I opted for the last one, and they gave me a phone number to arrange myself. The company I believe is called Cars Vip, and it was a bit of a mess. The day before, they told me 3PM pickup; I asked if it could be 2PM, and I was told that they'll start picking people up at 2PM. On the day of, I sent a message at about 3:20PM asking when they would arrive, and I was told 4:50PM (which in reality ended up being 5PM). What?! I wasted the whole day planning around this. Very unprofessional. Same thing happened the way back, although they told me the day before that instead of 10AM like they originally told me, they'll pick me up at 10:50AM (which ended up being more like 11AM).

Generally, I had a good experience, but I would say my experience was pretty average. Wouldn't rave about it or really recommend...

We stayed 3 night at Yarina Eco Lodge, but we would have liked to stay longer. This place is amazing and very relaxing: all you can hear is the animals' sounds and when you look out from your cabin's windows, you can see lush vegetation and plenty of animals. Our guides were Livio and Cristian and they were excellent. They were very friendly and they knew a lot about anything linked to the Napo River and the jungle. We did plenty of activities: jungle and night walks, boat and canoe rides and paddle canoe rides. We also had some fishing and blow-pipe experiences which were quite interesting. We loved the day when we went to see the macaws and parrots licking clay, going up above the tree level and having lunch at Mandi Forest y Mandi Wasi which was a fantastic experience to learn more about Community Tourism. The cabin were very comfortable and the food we had for all our meals was excellent and high quality. Everybody was welcoming and friendly and they made our stay special. We highly recommend staying at Yarina Eco Lodge and it was great to support Community Tourism while having a...

Room 8/10 Lodge land 8/10 Service 10/10 Food 9/10 Tours 7/10 Value 6/10 I did a 3 night trip December 2023. I think 2 nights would have been enough as we re-did activities. We did 3 day walks, 2 night canoes, 1 night walk, 1 fishing outing. 1 outing to a locals house. To make this trip better I would recommend that they do some day trips to other areas to get different scenery and look for animals. I saw lots of birds, couple types of monkeys, agouda, insects, lizards, and frogs.There was lots of bugs and mosquitos on our walks. I have traveled more then most so it was nothing new to me. I have also done an amazon trip in Bolivia that was unreal back in the day. I also find these lodges on the river way over priced. It is the most expensive thing I have done traveling. I would recommend the Galapagos Islands over this area.

This lodge was 45 mins by boat from Coca. Other lodges are 2 or 3 hours...