Day 4 - More Sustainability

Day 4 started out with a tour of the hotel grounds, where we saw how the hotel implements its own sustainability practices, including its own system of collecting water for the hotel. We also saw the livestock contained on the hotel grounds, with animals like pigs and cows, and how the methane from the excrement of the animals was captured and used to produce energy for the hotel in a process called biogas.

A piglet from the farm in Hotel Tilawa

Following the tour we visited a wildlife conservation site. The conservation location had previously been farm land, but was later donated to help save the environment in Costa Rica. We toured the area, and saw the incredible wildlife that lived there. We even saw the tree that was the inspiration for Home Tree in James Cameron's Avatar.

It's hard to believe, but that's a porcupine in that tree

The tree that was inspiration for James Cameron's Avatar

Howler monkeys: a common site in Costa Rica

After our tour we picked out trees to plant back at Tilawa in an effort to create a monkey bridge. In Costa Rica, there is an abundance of howler monkeys. These monkeys cross streets and are often killed by passing cars. In an effort to prevent these deaths, we were creating a monkey bridge, or planting trees along roadways so that the monkeys can swing over the road instead of crossing it.