The Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Preserve is home to 2.5% of the world’s biodiversity. You read that right, THE WORLD. Not just Costa Rica. So naturally in a place with such unique ecological value, the sustainability game was equally on point. It’s much easier to see the positive impacts of your eco-friendly actions when it’s your backyard that’s at risk. The area has an abundance of eco-tourism options, including Monteverde Inn where we stayed.

Monteverde Inn

Monteverde Inn is a very cool and affordable hotel ($50/night for a double room) that puts sustainability at the heart of their operations. I got to meet the owner and discuss all things environmental as he showed me what he was doing to reduce the hotel’s impacts. But first, he gave me some homework by way of David Holmgren’s book on permaculture.

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Monteverde Inn: Permaculture

Permaculture is a methodology for sustainable design that has essentially a rubric of key principles, including grow your own food, catch energy, and produce no waste. The process has some very interesting features such as observing the environment you want to build in for a year to see what patterns emerge.

For example, the owner told me he was going to build a platform by the waterfall on the property to do yoga. He decided to build the platform after only a few months of sitting there every morning. That summer he noticed small rocks covering the platform. Eventually, he discovered that occasionally coati (raccoon-like creatures) pass along the edge of the waterfall. When they do so, they kick off small rocks while they looked for food. This derailed his plan for a peaceful yoga setting. The initial stage of observation is key to building without disrupting (or being disrupted by) natural patterns.

Other sustainable features being implemented at the hotel include solar water heaters, graywater filtration, rainwater capture, and crops grown on-site. As seen in the following photos, the water from showers and rainwater flows into a series of pools with a variety of local plants that filter the water. The water natural flows downhill to a garden, where local fruits and vegetables are planted to then be used by the hotel kitchen. We had some of their avocados and they were muy delicioso!

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Valle Escondido Preserve

The owner of Monteverde Inn is so eco-conscious that he decided to keep most of the property as a protected area named Valle Escondido Preserve. We were pleased to hit the trails first thing in the morning without being too far from our rooms. The best part is the map by the preserve entrance that shows where the latest animal sightings occurred. (Alas, we could not find any sloths like we had in Manuel Antonio!) But we did find some other cool animals and landscapes.