Transportation from Quito to Shell/Puyo and back is by small bus, from 4-5 hours each way, and the 40-minute chartered flights from Shell/Puyo to Quehueri'ono and back are via either a 3- or 5-seater Cessna.
Transportation around the Lodge is by foot and by poled, dugout canoe. Return to Quito on Extraordinary Programs is by dugout canoe, small bus and regular flights from Francisco de Orellana (Coca). Prevailing weather conditions may delay flights, and programs will adapt accordingly.
The Pan-American Highway & Ecuador's "Avenue of the Volcanoes"
The Pan-American Highway is a network of roads nearly 48,000 km/29,800 mi long. Except for an 87 km/54 mi rainforest gap between Panama and Columbia, the road links the mainland nations of the Americas in a connected highway system from Fairbanks, Alaska in North America to the lower reaches of South America. According to The Guinness Book of World Records, the Pan-American Highway is the world's longest "motorable road". Ecuador Highway 35, officially named "Troncal de la Sierra" (Highland Road) but colloquially known as "La Panamericana", is a primary route that connects all the cities and towns from the Sierra region.
Jake Silverstein described the Pan-American Highway as "a system so vast, so incomplete, and so incomprehensible it is not so much a road as it is the idea of Pan-Americanism itself." (p. 71, Jake Silverstein, "Highway Run", Harper's, July 2006, p.70-80).
Ecuador's "Avenue of the Volcanoes" is a 325 km/202 mi long valley between the major Cordillera ranges following La Panamericana. From Tulcan in the north to Riobamba in the south, there are more than 60 volcanoes, 8 of which are considered "active" (have erupted at least once since the Spanish conquest) and 10 of which are "potentially active" (have erupted at least once in the past thousand years).
