Exotic holidays that don’t cost the Earth
SIAN DAVID goes back to nature to learn about eco-tourism in Central America
IT’S a long time since I sat in a classroom with my head buried in James Joyce’s Dubliners, preparing for my English A-level. I loved that book, and one line has stayed with me for the past 20 years: “Rapid motion through space elates one.”
I remember it every time I ride my bike down a hill; every time I’m on a rollercoaster; every time my plane takes off – and this summer I remembered it as the wind whistled and whipped past my head as I flew headlong over the trees of the rainforest on a zipline.
I was visiting Costa Rica and Panama to learn, at a similarly rapid pace, about sustainable tourism.
And it occurred to me, propelled over that most glorious view, that our understanding of how to protect and restore our planet is something we all really need to pick up the pace on, too.
It can be difficult to marry the values of sustainability with long-haul travel, but Dutch airline KLM, with whom I flew to Central America, is leading the way in the aviation industry’s drive to offset the effect of fuel consumption on the environment.
I was in a party of six and all our flights were carbon offset, a nominal fee option for any passenger which goes directly to the airline’s reforestation project in Panama, where they are planting a mix of trees to create new forests with diverse ecosystems on former pastureland.
The airline is also working to reduce its plastic use, cutting back on food waste and developing new biofuels, as well as maximising the use of every material it needs. Threads from worn-out cabin crew uniforms are reused in the planes’ carpets, for example.
We checked in to the American Trade Hotel in Casco Viejo, Panama City. Part of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World group, it is a characterful building with a fascinating history. Where now the 1917 façade contains a boutique hotel with a library, swimming pool and jazz club, it was once home to members of 20 rival gangs, squatting there for 30 years.
While the luxury and glamour of the hotel today is a far cry from the stark, bare days of the gangs (who were removed by the government in 2007), the hotel doesn’t whitewash its history, but rather celebrates its past with walls filled with photos of graffiti left by the gangs in the 1970s.
The hotel sits amid the labyrinthine streets of the old town, full of character in both architecture and inhabitants.
There’s a clear contrast between the old and new Panama seen in the traditional fish market where we stopped for ceviche, the soaring skyscrapers which tower over the city and the chocolate and coffee shops serving achingly hipster artisanal products made with traditional, ancestral methods.
Our first day saw us visit the indigenous Embera tribe – people who have lived in the Darien region of Panama for centuries. Living in wooden huts in the rainforest, in an area accessible only by dug-out canoe, the Embera welcome tourists with wide smiles, dancing and food.
After a meal of fried fish and plantain, served in a banana leaf, they waved us off back down the Gatun River.
Before visiting I did, of course, know that the Panama Canal was an engineering marvel. But I had absolutely no idea how mesmeric an experience it would be to see it in operation. Not just a functional passing point for ships, the canal site is a major tourist attraction with a visitor centre and cinema.
On the day I visited, it was packed with people jostling for a view of the colossal ships passing ever so slowly through the giant mechanical jaws.
Moving away from lively Panama, we made the short hop over to Costa Rica and the philosophy of ‘pura vida’. You hear it everywhere
you go. Literally translated, it means ‘pure life’ or ‘simple life’. But its meaning really isn’t that simple.
Pura vida isn’t just a hello or goodbye, it’s a way of life, a means to contentment and joy by slowing down and refusing to allow stress or anger to impact on your happiness.
It shines out of every person I met in Costa Rica, frequently named as one of the happiest countries on earth, and is part of the reason that it’s impossible to feel anything other than totally relaxed at TabacÓn Thermal Resort and Spa.
The music of the cicadas and birdsong fills the warm air no matter where you are – the restaurant, the pool, the hot springs or even the bedrooms.
But the back-to-nature ethos of the place does not mean that luxury is compromised in any sense.
TabacÓn, situated under the Arenal volcano and also part of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, is set in more than 900 acres of lush tropical reserve and is home to Costa Rica’s largest network of naturally flowing hot springs.
Luxuriating in the resort’s extensive network of pools, constructed so that some retain the natural rocks and riverbeds while others are paved and smooth, is truly relaxation on another level. They range in temperature from 25°C to 50°C, with a cold plunge pool which isn’t for the faint of heart.
The food, too, is all sustainably sourced and is, frankly, exquisite. We spent an evening devouring course after course from the chef’s gastronomy experience, expertly paired each time with a new wine. But then sustainability is the key message at TabacÓn.
The team maximises the pleasure to be taken in nature without exploiting the natural world. It is almost a small ecosystem in its own right – pure pura vida.
It wasn’t all lounging in pools, though. We took a four-hour hike through lush vegetation with a guide who exuded pura vida from her very soul. We saw funny little insects, snakes, spiders, marching ants carrying leaves and flowers and, at the end, a single coati, but each brought forth equal squeals of such glee and enthusiasm from her that it brought out the same in all of us.
It was a magical, unforgettable experience. But, of course, it is an enormous privilege to be able to see these creatures and these places. The Costa Ricans are way ahead of the rest of the world in terms of eco-tourism and sustainable living.
The country is responsible for 6% of the entire world’s biodiversity.
TabacÓn, for example, is a carbon neutral resort and undertakes a number of responsible environmental practices including a plant-a-tree programme, and more than half of the resort’s 872 acres is under protection as secondary rainforest.
Costa Rica is a place that can teach us all to do better – to take care of ourselves better, and to take care of the planet better. While I still agree with Joyce that speed is exhilarating, Costa Rica showed me that, sometimes, it’s better to slow down and look around.
As far as holiday mementos go, the pura vida philosophy is probably the most valuable souvenir I’ve ever brought home.