Tiskita Jungle Lodge for Ecotourism in Costa Rica

l  Tortuguero l Arenal Volcano l Monteverde Cloud Forest l Guanacaste l Puerto Viejo de Limon l Carara National Park lTiskita Jungle Lodge l Corcovado National Park l Manuel Antonio NP l

About Tiskita

Surrounded by its own biological reserve of 800 acres, this nature lodge contains a lowland rainforest and a fruit orchard featuring tropical fruits collected from around the world. Tiskita's grounds teem with wildlife and hundreds of bird species and nearly 60 butterfly species have been recorded. The Tiskita property begins at a coconut-lined wilderness beach that extends for miles, crosses a flat grassy airstrip, and continues up to a low, level ridge where guest cabins are nestled between flowers, young secondary forest and tropical fruit trees. Beyond the main lodge and restaurant, the property continues further uphill into primary rainforest dominated by majestic old trees.

After graduating with his degree in Tropical Fruit Culture from the University of Florida in Gainesville in 1978, Tiskita owner Peter Aspinall purchased the land for Tiskita and with his wife Lizabeth established a tropical fruit farm and rainforest reserve. Peter then traveled to Australia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, the Amazon Basin, Thailand and Malaysia visiting local fruit markets, sampling local fruits and collecting seeds for his fruit orchard. Peter uses no pesticides-all the fruits are organically grown. Today the orchard contains over 100 varieties of tropical fruits, and guests are invited to sample ripe fruits fresh from the trees, or taste them prepared in drinks or jams. Subject to availability, several exotic fruit jams can be purchased to take home.

Tiskita has 16 rooms in quiet cabins surrounded by flowers, fruit trees, and backed by rainforest. Here morning wakeup calls are given by singing birds often accompanied by the roaring of the resident howling monkeys. Outside each cabin's door "a world of wonder" awaits visitors as exquisite butterflies, colorful birds, impish monkeys, and other wildlife are attracted to the flowers and fruiting trees planted around the cabins.

A Nature Tour of Tiskita

Much of the Tiskita property is dominated by "old growth" lowland rainforest. The forests of this region are renowned amongst biologists for their high levels of biological diversity. Naturalist visitors admire these forests for their huge trees, large woody vines that twist themselves through the tree tops, and graceful palms underneath the taller vegetation. Many of these trees have strange features that catch one's eye. Some of the large trees possess "serpentine" roots that extend out from the tree base growing on the forest floor surface for 75 feet or more! Other trees have large fin-like buttress roots that may help stabilize the trees on wet soils. Wild nutmeg trees grow here and their fruits are relished by the big keel-billed toucans that are common at Tiskita. Other trees known as "garlic trees" for their flowers' fragrance, grow tall in the forests here and are famed for the durability of their wood. The cow's tree, with a white, drinkable sap and smooth gray bark is also abundant here. These are just a few of the many fascinating trees of the ancient forests at Tiskita.

Over the years, Tiskita has become renowned for its birds. Many visitors have traveled from distant nations to observe some of the 270 bird species recorded at Tiskita and nearby. Bird lovers will enjoy the colorful tanagers, honeycreepers, fiery-billed aracaris, manakins, white hawks, blue-headed parrots, and majestic king vultures that are frequently seen here. In the last few years free-flying flocks of scarlet macaws have been established at Tiskita to help rebuild populations of these beautiful birds in Costa Rica. With its mix of seacoast, open fruit orchard, secondary forest and old-growth primary forest, a Costa Rica bird watching vacation at Tiskita is excellent.

Tiskita also has a great variety of other wildlife. Squirrel monkeys, white-throated capuchin monkeys, howling monkeys, agoutis, tent-making bats, three-toed sloths, green iguanas, spiny-tailed lizards, basilisk lizards, tiny poison-dart frogs, scarlet-legged "mouthless" crabs, hermit crabs, nocturnal kinkajous, and a resident white ghost bat reside at Tiskita. Most of these are readily seen by visitors (often with help from the resident guide).

Tiskita is an important refuge for wildlife. The squirrel monkeys at Tiskita are very rare and populations are only found in Costa Rica along its southwest coast (and possibly a tiny population that is struggling to survive the deforestation across the border in Panama). The squirrel monkeys at Tiskita appear to be thriving and spreading out to adjacent forested areas. These energetic little monkeys are great acrobats and a lot of fun to watch.

Tiskita also is helping to protect nesting sea turtles. On the beach in front of Tiskita, olive ridley turtles have produced an average of between 70 to over 400 nests per year. Small numbers of hawksbills and pacific green turtles have also nested on this beach. The Tiskita Foundation began sea turtle conservation programs in 1995, and in 1996 initiated working with PRETOMA (Sea Turtle Restoration Program of Costa Rica). This program includes identifying turtle species, tallying nests, and relocating them to enclosures to prevent destruction from poachers or predatory animals. (Poaching is a serious problem and is believed to have been close to 100% in years prior to the sea turtle program began). Overall, much information on the nesting of these sea turtles has been collected-none was ever collected for this area before-and over 50,000 hatchlings have been successfully released to the ocean from this program.

Things to Do at Tiskita Jungle Lodge

With its warm coastal "summer" climate, visitors can enjoy a variety of outdoor activities here throughout the year. Activities at Tiskita include bird watching, hiking on the extensive forest trail system with the resident guide or on your own, riding horseback on the beach and in the forest; cooling off from the midday heat in the swimming pool, ocean or in the shady forest stream, photographing nature (tropical flowers, birds, butterflies, monkeys, forests, ocean, beach, etc.); watching wildlife; exploring the tidal pools at low tide when a fascinating variety of small marine creatures are exposed, visiting the close-by seaside village of Punta Banco, shopping for items made by the local Guaymi Indians at the handcrafts store, sea fishing, surfing (the small community of Pavones 6 miles away is reported as having the world's second longest left-breaking wave), taking a day-trip to Corcovado National Park, or simply laying in the cabin's porch hammock to catch a sea breeze and do some low-effort bird watching.

In the evenings, hearty appetites are appeased with "home-cooked" meals featuring local cuisine. Dinners may be followed by cold drinks and conversations with other guests about their day's adventures before returning to your quiet cabin where one is lulled to sleep by the soothing sounds of the rainforest's gentle night chorus and ocean surf below.

To get to Tiskita, the approximately 10 hour-drive can be broken up over two or three days visiting several locations en route. Alternatively one can take an adventurous flight of about an hour (there is one stopover), which offers scenic vistas of rainforests, mountains, farmlands, rural communities and the Pacific coast. At the flight's end the plane descends in an opening between coconut palms onto Tiskita's own private airstrip!

With all it has to offer, it is understandable why Tiskita was included in Travel & Leisure Readers' Poll The World's Best Awards. ( See *Travel & Leisure Readers' Poll The World's Best Awards Hotels, Spas, Cities, Islands, Cruises, Airlines. Letters section, August 2002, Vol. 32 # 8, page18.)

l  Tortuguero l Arenal Volcano l Monteverde Cloud Forest l Guanacaste l Puerto Viejo de Limon l Carara National Park lTiskita Jungle Lodge l Corcovado National Park l Manuel Antonio NP l