Posted in
Costa Rica 2009 on September 7th, 2009 by admin —
Comments Off on Lessons in Sustainability #1
Mountain Life as Performance Art
A View Over the Cloud Forest of the Talamanca Mountains
On the very north face of the Talamanca Mountains of Costa Rica, in what is called a cloud forest, we learned about sustainability at the Las Vueltas Lodge. The extremely clever, ingenious and industrious Seelye family operate this unique lodge and provide a gentle, comfortable lesson in what can be achieved living sustainably. Their life is like a long term performance art. Like artists, we can’t always replicate what they have done but we can be inspired by the vision of the possible that they provide.
At an elevation of over 9,000 feet, the forest surrounding Las Vueltas is called a cloud forest for the reason that the near perpetual presence of moisture in the form of clouds promotes its own form of forest. You can read more about cloud forests
here at Wikipedia. Located a mile or two off of the Pan American Highway the
Las Vueltas lodge is an oasis of comfort in a wet and wild country.
Toyota Land Cruiser is the ticket in and out for guests
While it may be only a mile or two, what a trip is was on a night of heavy rain. We hunched 10 or so at a time in the land cruiser pictured to the right while Andy ground along the dirt road from the highway. It was a real life version of the Indiana Jones ride at Disney World.
The Las Veultas Lodge, Costa Rica
The wild night time ride in the land cruiser was a miscue to what to expect. Once inside, the lodge pictured below, you find a comfortable warm dwelling with the most welcoming innkeepers you can ask for. The lodge is run by 5 siblings and their mother, their father having recently passed away. The Seelye’s are Americans transplanted to Costa Rica decades ago.
Andy the only son quickly gave us the orientation and their creed: To live sustainably, frugally, but comfortably and even luxuiously. While off the grid, they do not reject technology but harness it if it can promote sustainability. There is music, great food and dancing. Oh what dancing. Andy and his sister Janye are fantastic salsa dancers and dancing lessons are included.
The first amazing lesson in sustainability. The lodge pictured above is made from lumber cut from fallen trees on the 250 or so acres of the estate. When Andy found suitable fallen trees, he would set up camp and with his chainsaw cut lumber. Similarly, the lodge is heated entirely by firewood cut from fallen trees. At the rate trees fall on the property, Andy figures that they’ll never have to cut trees for lumber or firewood. Andy not only cut the lumber but he and his sisters built the lodge completely themselves.
The self designed hydro power generator
The second amazing lesson in sustainability. The lodge has its own hydro-electric plant. Andy designed his own hydro power generation system which harnesses a mountain stream without the need for a dam and the environmental changes they present. You can watch a video of Andy explaining his power plant. This is the cleanest energy you will ever find.
Obviously the lodge has all the fresh water it would need. Mountain streams and 6 months of wet season see to that. But how to make hot water? In answer, Andy’s father designed a convection system which heats water as a byproduct of the main wood fired heating source. Copper pipe is coiled around the fire barrel which creates enough convection current to push the water up to the tank on the second floor. There it uses gravity to provide water pressure to the sinks and showers.
Today, sewage is handled at the lodge via conventional septic drain fields as you would find on any farm. But one of the projects Andy was at work on was a system which would convert sewage waste to methane gas which could then be used for cooking and heating.
A cow standing in the pasture with a view to live for
For food they have chickens for eggs and cows for milk. In the picture at the top of this post you can see one of the trout ponds that they stock each year with hatchlings. And while there are vegetable gardens, the north facing location and high elevation limit the yield of fruits and vegetables.
For as much as they sustain themselves, outside income is still necessary. For food that can’t be grown, materials that can’t be hand made, gas for the vehicles and chain saw. Such are the challenges to complete self sustainment in our modern world. Fortunately for us, the Seelyes share their home and their vision as a commercial venture. For however briefly we can participate in a great and long term experiment in sustainable living.
Andy Seelye is one of the most ingenious and industrious person I have ever met. I’ll wager that not 1 in 10,000 of us could match his level of self-taught engineering nor match the drive and determination of he and his family. Nor can all 6 billion of us on earth expect to have 250 acres of reasonably productive land.
So the Seelye’s work is like the work of other artists; works we cannot copy but from which we can be inspired and learn. First we can be aware. Simple, sensible changes in our consumption habits can make huge differences when broadly adopted. The Seelye’s show that sustainability is not mutually exclusive with comfort and even luxury. A more sustainable lifestyle is not some austere, joyless world. It is warm and light, comfortable with good food and music. Second, technology and ingenuity are our friends and tools towards greater sustainability. For example, distributed clean generation of electricity such as Andy devised can be replicated more broadly. Whether wind powered, hydro, or biomass. We should expect more not less from a more sustainable future and technology and inventiveness can deliver that.
The Seelye’s amply demonstrate that sustainable living and joy in life are not mutually exclusive!