Our base camp in Santa Elena/San Ignacio is built on top of a hill and has spectacular views of the whole area. From the tree fort you can see Santa Familia, Bullet Tree, Duck runs 1,2, and 3 , Spanish lookout and Esparanza. We usually have a breeze up here and we built the unit right into the trees so they are shaded all day, createing a noticable temperature drop.
We are on a hillside so everything is spread out a bit. the Kitchen and dining room as well as lounge decks and hammocks are below the tree fort and down hill.
At Witzob we are trying to build and live in a way that connects us with nature and maintains an eco friendly mandate. To that end we provided for the local wildlife in our initial construction and we put in tunnels and passageways for them that allows them to migrate through our developed spaces without exposing them to our guests or requireing them to negotiate through untenable landscapes. Most of the wildlife consists of birds and reptiles with the occasional howler monkey and opposum. Now even though they can move unseen that does not mean you will never see them. We can pretty much garantee you will see frogs. Good news unlike the frogs up north these ones almost never croak, maybe once a year they get together in the ball court and croak for a little while but thats it. They do however eat an astonishing amount of insects and you will almost never see cockroaches, mice or rats. One of the frogs, we call him the king of the frogs, is the size of a dinner plate.
If you do hear frogs croaking look up not down. It will be the toucans who have a sound that is exactly that of a croaking frog.
We also have lizards passing through, a turtle showed up for awhile and fish are in the water reservoiur.
We have an avairy in which we rescue small birds meant for the pet trade,we divert them into another route. Since none of these birds are breed or kept in cages big enough to fly in , they must first learn how to fly. We have a flight cage where they can stretch out and practice thier flying. Once they are acclimated to their new life they have the option of flying free through out the day as we allow them out. It is very gratifing to see these birds really flying free and soaring, it is a bueatiful thing to watch. They all return back as the sun sets, like chickens they come home to roost.
We are completly self sufficent, we have solar power as well as a system designed and built to capture and store rainwater. We have recieved word that the power grid is coming our way as we are on the very edge of town. When that happens we will connect but only to supply emergency power we will strive to continue to expand our solar capacity and maintain the eco friendly and socially responsible mandate we are founded on.
It is our hope that we can show our guests how you can live comfortably yet use minimal power , build in a way designed to work with the landscape and the creatures that live with in it, harvest and maintain an independant water supply system, give back to the natural world and factor it in as a componant to our everyday life.
When we travel to the islands we can show you the bueaty and splendor of the reef but we can also show you climate change in action. If you do not believe that it is happening and the science is right, we invite you out for the end of the world tour, where we can show you the effects of climate change and sea level rise. Here at Witzob we are trying to build and live for the future, think outside the box and reinvent how and what we need to have a comfortable life. A life where less can mean much more the hardship, it can mean comfort and peace, grace and bueaty.