Sustainability

Energy

Solar, with batteries

Electricity comes from solar panels feeding a battery bank through an inverter, with a backup generator that recharges the batteries when the sky does not. That is why we ask every guest to be mindful with energy.

Air conditioning is not compatible with that system, so there is none in the units: ceiling fans in the living room and the bedroom, and the breeze off the water or through the trees.

Water

Rain, collected and treated

Water is rainwater, stored in a tank, maintained on a schedule and chlorine-tested. It is enough for a ten-guest resort that uses it with care, which is what we ask of our guests too.

Waste

Recycling and our own compost

Waste is separated and recycled. Leaves and old wood become compost in a shed at the back of the property, and go back into the garden plant by plant.

The garden

A garden on what was clay

When the family bought the land in 2013 it was hard clay where nothing grew, and the neighbors did not want it. Since then it has become a tropical garden. River sand was worked in to soften the clay, stone for fill and edges, bought fertilizer and weekly watering, and for Carlos, the head gardener, it is still a struggle.

Today the garden grows cacao, bananas, soursop, coffee in the shade and a first planting of watermelon, plus medicinal plants and flowers. By the clay oven, an herb bed of oregano, mint and others goes straight onto Saturday's pizzas. A wooden nursery with a washing station is where seeds are tried before they are planted; the first one was bamboo, moths ate it hollow, and it was rebuilt in layers of branches, black soil and dry leaves.

Carlos looks after it with his team. The aim is simple: to grow everything that can be eaten and everything that looks beautiful.

What comes next

The next beds, and the animals

The plan is to extend the garden with lettuce, potatoes, carrots, oranges and lemons, and to add a henhouse for laying hens, ducks, and lobster and tilapia farms. None of that exists yet. The garden and the nursery do, and they are what makes the plan believable.

People

Work, and houses, from the villages around us

The resort tries to employ only people from the villages around it, and offers them microcredit. The people who work here today own their homes because of it. Rodolfo came for a single day in 2014 to clear the land and has run maintenance ever since.

Wildlife

Neighbors we do not manage

Dolphins can be seen in the lagoon in front of the overwater bungalows. Parrots and many other birds live in the trees around the lodges, and shy monkeys can come through, sometimes at night to the tree in front of a lodge. We never promise a sighting.