ROOMS W ITH
HAVING your head in the clouds is entirely possible at Mashpi Lodge as it is 3,000ft above sea level.
Staff and guests at the £8million hotel in the cloud forest are surrounded by one of the planet’s rare biodiversity hot spots. But guests pay for the privilege as a room in the startlingly modern getaway, which features 1,000 sq m of glass, costs around £1,000 a night. However there is a jungle cable car that zooms visitors through the forest canopy at a dizzying height.
The hotel’s owner is an ex-mayor of Ecuador’s capital Quito, who bought the patch of forest, a former logging station, to stop deforestation. Now 70% of the staff are local people who used to be loggers or hunters but are proud conservationists. Jose was hired as senior guide at Mashpi 15 years ago after years of logging and hunting in the area. He now educates others about conservation and said: “My whole life, I used my machete to cut trees, to cut the forest.
“I never stopped to look at these plants. But once a gentleman came and said, ‘Oh wow, the orchids!’ I said ‘What’s an orchid?’ So he explained, then I started to change, and started to love them.” TO some it looks like a surfboard, to others a baguette, but Giles called it a spaceship on top of a 22nd-century Stonehenge. But one thing is for sure, you will need a head for heights to swim in the infinity pool in the futuristic roof garden 650ft in the air. The garden sits like a cricket bail on top of three stumps of this epic £3.5billion hotel, built as part of a government plan to triple tourism in 10 years. Its 9,500-strong workforce caters for a million guests a year – working in over 60 restaurants, exclusive boutiques (with personal shopping), 12 miles of car park, two theatres and one of south east Asia’s biggest casinos. Marina Bay has works from famous artists, such as British sculptor Antony BUILT by royal decree and hidden deep in the heart of Marrakech’s ancient Medina, the Royal Mansour is one of the world’s most discreet hotels.
It was built with a limitless budget as a showcase to world leaders, billionaires and celebrity guests. Staff ride scooters in the half-mile of secret underground tunnels to be invisible to guests and provide instant service as if by magic. Executive housekeeper Laurence explains that each Gormley. Guests are to actually swim in length of three Olym
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