Sustainability Tour
Sustainability means meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In other words, it’s a commitment to using only the natural resources that we truly need and putting back what we take in order to preserve the environment while living.
I have never been in a country that “lives sustainability” more than Costa Rica. Buena Vista Lodge (in full, Buena Vista del Rincón Eco Adventure Park Hotel & Spa) is a “finca” (country estate, or property) in Cañas Dulces, a village in the country’s northwest Guanacaste province, that is an example of the widespread commitment to sustainable practices within Costa Rica.
We visited the finca on our high school Spanish Department’s biennial student trip in June, 2022. During our second day here, we took a tour to learn about Buena Vista’s sustainable practices.
Ordeñar la Vaca
La Apicultura
Here is our guide David telling us about the finca’s beekeeping practices. You can see the different types of “nests” that they build for their bees. The different types of “nests” house different species of bees, who produce different types of honey. The bees in the nest to the right of David will produce a type of honey called Marionetas, which is rare, more desired, and expensive.
La Huerta (produce farm)
Huerta = produce farm. David says, “This is where we produce what we eat.”
El Árbol de Banana
Guayaba
El Biodigestor
Runs on poop, produces biogas, and purifies water.
La Casa de Lombrices
Here, David has us gathered around this large pile of poop in the “earthworm house,” as he explains to us that they use California Red Earthworms to fertilize their soil. The earthworms eat the equivalent of their weight everyday and expel 60-100% of it in the form of humus, which is their organic waste and what naturally fertilizes the soil.
Empanadas y Rosquillas
We learned how to use corn flour to make mini-empanadas and mini-donut called Rosquillas. We rolled the dough before they baked in the oven.
Jabón
They make their own soap also, so we learned how to make it, too!
Trapiche, Buey, y Caña de Azúcar
I never knew until today that an ox is simply a castrated bull.
Anyway, here they showed us a traditional way of extracting sugar from within sugar cane. The mechanism in the middle is called a “trapiche.” It’s like a traditional sugar mill. The ox is attached to a wheel (the bar that you see at the top of the picture). This wheel operates, or turns, a “squeezer,” through which you feed the sugar cane. At the bottom, there is a receptacle that collects the juice, or liquid sugar that is extracted and falls from the cane.
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