The last week of October, San Jose hosted the first International Sustainability Conference (Planet, People, Place) that was analyzing the Costa Rican Tourism Model. It was a great success and Cayuga Sustainable Hospitality was present at the event with a booth promoting its sustainable hotels and ecolodges as well as introducing Equilibrium, the Cayuga Hotels Foundation. The picture show Karen Lewis, owner of Lapa Rios, Jorge Arrieta, Operations Director for Cayuga and Michelle Libby, Project Director for Equilibrium.

EquiLibrium: Earth and Life in Balance

EquiLibrium is an upcoming non profit organization that will operate in Costa Rica. It believes that a good life is one where people and nature are in balance and not at the expense of each other.

Equilibrium originates from the interest of the Cayuga Sustainable Hospitality Management Company and its affiliate hotels and ecolodges to actively support environmentally and socially responsible activities in their surrounding communities. This group is keenly interested in improving the lives of people while at the same time safe guarding the surrounding natural resources.

Furthermore, Cayuga and its affiliate hotels recognize the supportive role travel philanthropy can provide for a destination’s community development and environmental conservation projects; and with the creation of EquiLibrium they can provide travelers with an organized and well monitored opportunity for investing in acommunities’ projects. Equilibrium will support projects in the geographies of the hotels; these include, Guanacaste, Nicoya Peninsula, Central Pacific, Central Valley, and the Osa Peninsula. Travelers, and any others interested, will have the opportunity to help a diverse range of geographies and environmental and development projects. We are in the process of designing the portfolios of activities that Equilibrium will support in each geography.

Equilibrium will obtain its 501c3 status and will operate as a tax exempt organization. United States financial contributions to EquiLibrium will be charitable donations and as such can be deducted from taxes.

EquiLibrium’s mission is to propel a more harmonious way of living within the natural environment, by supporting projects that encourage community development be sustainable, improve management of natural resources, further environmental education, and advance biodiversity conservation.

Equilibrium objectives are to:

1. Facilitate community development congruent with safeguarding the natural environment.
2. Raise awareness to land stewardship ethics and provide basic skills for a more harmonious way of living within the natural environment.
3. Promote sustainable practices that protect natural resources.
4. Increase awareness to the natural environment and nature conservation benefits, particularly regarding unique biodiversity.
5. Promote efforts to reduce carbon emissions, as a personal, community and corporate responsibility.
   

We hope that you will visit Costa Rica and have an opportunity to better understand EquiLibrium’s community development and environmental conservation work. As we consolidate our efforts this page will have interesting information on our projects, and will provide you with an opportunity to get involved and help out with a mission that we all need to learn: living more in balance with the earth.

Experience - Learn - Connect & Relax

In early 2009, Cayuga Sustainable Hospitality added the slogan “Experience, Learn, Connect and Relax” in its logo. But more than a slogan, this is becoming Cayuga’s differentiating strategy for 2010. We want our guests to have incredible experiences such as waking up to howler monkeys shouting in the rainforest canopy above your bungalow or room or swimming next to dolphins in the Pacific Ocean. But we will take this even further and invite our guests to learn from us and connect with the local employees and community. Learn how to make tortillas, how to dance Salsa, how to surf, how to weave a thatched palm roof. Connect by playing soccer with the locals on the beach, visit a local school that is sponsored by the hotel you are staying in or simply have a chat about how life is in Costa Rica with your guide or a waiter in the restaurant. And, of course, we don’t want to forget the relaxing part. After all, this is a vacation. Plenty of hammocks and beach chairs everywhere.

If you want to find out more about this experience at the Cayuga Hotels, send me an e-mail. I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Cayuga will open an Ecologe in Nicaragua in late 2009

Karen Emanuel has been running a successful company in London for the past 19 years. Whilst on holiday in Nicaragua in January of 2007, she walked into a restaurant and saw a notice proclaiming "Island for Sale". This rather interested her- partly as a fantasy, partly as she had recognized that Nicaragua was a developing Central American country with a lot to offer. A short boat ride later with the owners, followed by a relaxing week at an astounding eco lodge on the Nicaraguan coast, an idea had started developing in her head.

After arriving back home to the bleak London winter, she got out the back of an envelope and scribbled down a few figures. Within a few weeks she had wired a deposit for the Island over to the owners.

Two years later, with the help of architect Matthew Falkiner and team from Cayuga Sustainable Hospitality the dream has become a reality and the resort is about to open in early 2010. Jicaro Island Ecolodge - a secluded island getaway. Has it been easy? Of course not, but it was the right thing to do.

Read more about Jicaro Island Ecolodge here.