Eco Lives: Marilyn Raftopulos

Spring 1990 brought us to the small island of Ithaca, in recent times known for little but its sheer beauty, but famed for its king and hero Ulysses who, history tells us, was the brains behind the winning wooden-horse idea that ended the long war of Troy. He then spent 10 adventure-filled years roaming the Mediterranean seas before returning to his island, and the ever-faithful Penelope.

Our purpose in leaving Australia was to spend two years building a holiday house on this island of our ancestors. Ah, the plans of mice and men! It’s 2009 and we’re just now finishing the ‘holiday house’, which has become home. Our plans have been slightly skewed.

Back to 1990 when an abandoned citrus orchard at the end of an overgrown pathway was the favoured adventure walk and destination for our two small children. They would run ahead of us, down the small roadway, onto a track, pushing past the enormous oleanders and agaves which grew wantonly over the ever narrowing path. Into a clearing under olive trees, behind a ruined stone house, over a dilapidated stone wall and into the orchard. The favourite tree, laden with sweet oranges, was long forgotten by its owners, but now daily visitors and admirers kept it company.

The tree grew amongst many on the steep hillside. Obviously once tended carefully the orchard, had an intricate system of irrigation. An open topped stone water tank was filled from a well. The overflow wound it’s way down through the orchard in open channels formed with cut stone, from one tank to the next, until the entire orchard was watered.

It was intriguing that one water channel found it’s way under a fence to a flat terrace behind the stone ruin and at the end of this one lonely channel, hidden by tangled blackberry vines, were the shattered remains of a large ceramic water urn.

As the children happily consumed their daily quota of oranges, using a large stone as their seat, admiring the panoramic sea view below kept us endlessly occupied. The bay displayed an enormous variety of blues and turquoises, different each day. It’s backdrop was a long headland, bounded by high limestone cliffs with fingers of Mediterranean maquis tumbling down the ravines towards the shore, marking out small beaches below the cliffs. The orchard became our resting and dreaming place.

Little wonder at our surprise 18 months later when we were told that the stone ruin was the birthplace of my father-in-law. The mysterious single water channel was the only source of water for the 16 people who had once occupied the small four room house with its dirt floor, outdoor oven and outdoor sleeping ‘room’ for the boys of the family during the warmer months. The house had been home for the family since 1860 when 18-year-old, newly-married great-great-grandfather had brought his 16 year-old wife to the valley. The broken ceramic water urn was at the end of the family’s vegetable garden, which was also the place where the women washed clothes.

Nineteen years later, the garden is again a vegetable garden, the house foundations have been given a new life, olive trees have been brought back into fruit, yet more fruit trees have been planted and an expansive garden of Mediterranean flora occupies the hillside.

This has been the result of our dreaming with the original house now having three neighbouring houses, built to be within the hillside rather than on it, and scattered around the terraces and groves. The ideas tumbled through the years so now there’s a coffee shop too, a salt water pool that appears to merge into the bay far below and that takes its design from ancient Greek architecture, hammocks swing from ancient olive trees and hidden in the forest is an al-fresco pavilion where the delights of holistic massage therapy are enjoyed to the tranquil backdrop of waves lapping the cliffs.

Levendis Estate fuses romantic, secluded and family-friendly holiday retreat with sustainable farming and organic food production.. It doesn’t fit any pre-conceived ideas of holidays in Greece. It’s on an island, yet the atmosphere is country, it’s not a villa holiday or resort, but accommodation and services are those you’d expect of a five-star hotel. Our emphasis is on restoring the soul through being in a tranquil setting within nature, enjoying natural fresh foods, rejuvenating your body through massage and natural body-care products, seeing children take pleasure in feeling free and secure, exploring at will, helping with farm chores, and enjoying family fun activities of swimming, snorkelling, boating during the warmer months, or exploring the island’s mountain pathways awash with wildflowers during spring.

Somewhat like Ulysses, an adventure which has taken years sees us on Ithaca too, but our adventure has been on his island, rather than wandering the seas around it.

Marilyn Raftopulos
Levendis Estate
Ithaca, Greece
www.levendisestate.com

Eco Lives: Chris Barclay

I first started coming to the Yangshuo area when I was living in Guangzhou in the mid 90's. I had a lot of expat friends who liked to get away and we had all heard about great trails & climbing in Yangshuo so we came out to explore. We started making regular pilgrimages and while we were staying in the quaint town each time, I thought it would be great if there were a place closer to the villages and pristine countryside. I also though it would be a great place to bring clients for team-building events, as at the time I was running a corporate training business that served many of the multinationals in China. In 1998, I began talking to local government officials about building a training center on some terraced rice fields by the Yulong River.

The government was extremely supportive and helped arrange a 30-year land lease for the Yangshuo Mountain Retreat, which was to become a 30 room eco-lodge, serving as an educational center for corporate and international school clients. We opened in September 2000, and word soon spread throughout the expat community in China. Before long, we were receiving visitors from throughout the region and across the world.

From the beginning my aim was to promote and conserve Yangshuo's natural beauty, while supporting the local community. We hired staff from the surrounding villages as well as a full-time North American coach to teach them English and service skills. We have since grown from 8 to 20 staff and provide housing for them on-site. We sponsor local schools as well as provide scholarships for children of our staff. We also encourage guests to explore our staff's villages, having a meal there or even staying over night with their families.

In October of 2008, together with Yangshuo Mountain Retreat's Resident Manager, Little Fish, I opened the Yangshuo Village Inn, an 8-room boutique hotel in Yangshuo's Moon Hill Village, which has been a big hit with guests so far.


I really enjoy taking guests out on hikes or mountain biking, and showing them places where other tourists don't go. I have been lucky to have the support of the Yangshuo government as we open up tourism to the Yulong River Valley. As part of a trip to visit their sister city in the U.S. last year, I took some of these officials to national parks and historical places around Washington D.C., to help educate them about preservation and sustainable tourism. Since that trip, I've seen the government planning more strategically about protecting the valley from an overgrowth of road and river traffic.

It's also great to work with the local people, and help them share their traditional ways of life with our western guests. The Yangshuo Mountain Retreat began as a weekend project that is now a full-time ongoing business. I feel blessed to be able to work in such an amazing place and share it with people who can really appreciate its beauty.

See the Yangshuo Mountain Retreat here

Eco-Friendly Flying

When we think of recreational flying it would be hard to think of it as an environmentally friendly activity, yet one aircraft producer is proving the World wrong and doing it in style. Not content with winning a whole array of awards, including the super-prestigious NASA CAFÉ PAV Challenge 2007 and the NASA
GAT 2008 competitions for Personal Air Vehicles of the future, Pipistrel have now created the World’s first ever production two-seat electric powered aircraft. It seems like a small step, but we really are staring in the face of what could become the ultimate eco-friendly personal transportation device.

What makes this achievement all the more interesting is that it doesn’t cost any more than its closest combustion engine counterpart despite the incredible amount of R&D that the firm has put in. The Taurus Electro was built onto the company’s already very successful Taurus glider design; it uses a special lifting body shape concept and features enough room for an auxiliary, yet fully retractable engine leaving lots of space in the cockpit. The pilots in the Taurus are placed side-by-side for comfort and ease of communication, for added comfort they enjoy adjustable headrests, in-flight adjustable rudder pedals, separate vent windows and an incredible view - thanks to the large glass surfaces.

Pipistrel is a company that really cares about the environment and this product is not the only evidence of this. Their HQ in Slovenia boasts one of the most up-to-date research centres in the world designed to be completely emission free and self-sufficient. The heart of the building is Slovenia's largest solar power plant which, combined with a very sophisticated geothermal unit, makes for a totally energy-independent construction. Here at EHOTW we hope to see more aircraft manufacturers take on the environmental challenge and we salute Pipistrel for their excellent start!

For more info, click here

Natural Swimming Pond

What is a natural swimming pool?

A natural swimming pool/natural swimming pond is specifically designed so you can swim in pure, clear water with no chemicals. Its design can range from formal to entirely natural, and it is all at once a practical swimming facility, a beautiful landscape feature, and a wildlife sanctuary.

Natural swimming pools have the advantages of conventional swimming pools, but also look beautiful and respect the environment, offering a fresh and vivid display of nature in your own garden. They are the next step in man-made swimming facilities, combining design, an understanding of how ecological systems work, and the very latest in bio-technology to produce one of the most innovative and complete garden features available.

Case study

Foxhills is a 400 acre resort near Heathrow. We built a formally-designed 10m x 3m natural pool as part of their spa garden last summer.

Marc Hayton, Managing Director of Foxhills, says:

“Guided by our consultant, Michelle Hammond, we wanted to extend the spa experience into a beautiful private garden, enabling members to enjoy the space and fresh air. The Natural Pool combined the peace of water, the hydrotherapy benefits of cold water; being organic supported our focus on wellbeing and it's a real talking point. In a crowded market place, being the first club in the UK to have one didn't hurt, either.

Everyone loves it. Having an innovative product can lead some suppliers to focus less on the customer, but this is not the case when choosing GartenArt. Tim and the team were as excited about the Foxhills project as we were. They were a pleasure to work with and even attended the launch, following me into the pool one chilly November morning. True commitment.”

For more information contact:
gartenART Natural Swimming Ponds
020 7183 3333
www.gartenart.co.uk

A Director’s Green Dream

In the early 80’s, Francis Ford Coppola visited the fledgling democracy of Belize (formerly British Honduras) to try to convince the government to establish a satellite address and become a hub of communications. The government demurred, but Coppola fell in love with Belize, whose verdant jungles reminded him of the Philippines where he’d filmed Apocalypse Now.

Coppola visited an abandoned lodge called Blancaneaux and bought it. For more than a decade, his family and friends used it as a retreat. Then, in 1993, he opened his jungle paradise to the public. Coppola explains that having a resort in the remote reaches of the jungle didn’t intimidate him at all. It’s like being on location for a movie – you just bring everything with you or build it yourself. Coppola’s done just that – he is delighted that his laptop computer is run by clean, free energy that his river-powered hydroelectric plant provides.



Coppola sees his role as that of a conservator, preserving the pristine environment – loves the fact that the river water is pure enough to drink, and strongly supports Belize’s commitment to eco-tourism. In December 2000, Coppola opened Turtle Inn, his second resort in Belize, in the seaside fishing community of Placencia. Hurricane Iris swept it away into the ocean less than a year later. For the man who saw his production Apocalypse Now shut down by a typhoon, it must have been déjà vu all over again.

Turtle Inn reopened in January 2003 and once again, Coppola has taken disaster and turned it into triumph. “The new Turtle Inn fulfills my vision of a beachfront paradise” says Coppola. “I love being by the beach and in the water and our new incarnation of Turtle Inn provides the ideal balance between luxury and nature. There are things to do – or just do nothing.

And of course, the food is great – fresh, simple and absolutely delicious. I think our guests will enjoy it as much as we do.”

You can read more about Blancaneaux here

A Brief History of the Kasbah Du Toubkal by Mike McHugo

The highest peak in the High Atlas mountains in Morocco is Jbel Toubkal (4,167m) and is only about 80 km from Marrakech, the imperial city in the south of the country and a centre of commerce and tourism for over 900 years.
The original inhabitants of North Africa are the Berbers or Amizgh meaning Freeman in their dialect. Marrakech is a Berber city and the end of the trade route from the Sahara to Europe. As successive invaders – the Phoenicians, the Cathaginians, the Roman, the Arabs and the French colonised the countries of North Africa the Berbers retreated into the high mountains and eked out a subsistence living in this harsh environment.
In 1978 Mike McHugo battled his way up a dirt track for 20 kilometres to reach the Berber village of Imlil where he met Omar Ait Barmed a mountain guide. !0 years later Mike’s brother Chris met Omar in Imlil.


The following year they were both visiting Omar with their mother when they noticed a derelict building in a commanding position. As the management of a small UK tour operator with an overseas property in France another in Morocco seemed a small step.
Whilst not knowing what they might do with such a base the McHugo brothers felt they could be a safe pair of hands to help tourism to develop but with the local community – their 10 year friendship with Omar and other villagers – at the core of any initiative.

This pragmatic approach to tourism development has led to the acquisition and renovation of the ruined building, by small incremental steps, to becoming the award winning Kasbah Du Toubkal which Conde Nast Traveller said had the “ …. Finest rooftop views in North Africa” and the Cadogan Guide says “ It is worth flying out to Morocco for just one night in this remarkable hotel” and National Geographic Adventure lists in its Top 50 Ecolodges.


The Kasbah Du Toubkal now has 14 en-suite rooms and 3 Berber salons (dormitory / family rooms. It is open all year round, has a small conference room, 2 steam baths, no swimming pool and no road access. It charges a 5% supplement to its published prices which goes to the Village Association to provide rubbish clearance and incineration, 4x4 Ambulances for Imlil and the surrounding villages, a community bathhouse and improved flood defences.

All the staff at the Kasbah have been trained in house and the permanent staff now number 44 with additional guides and muleteers numbering over 50 on some days.

Many visitors to Marrakech come to the Kasbah for a day excursion arranged through their hotels concierge.

For those who like walking but do not like the roughing it out at night the Kasbah has 3 additional rooms in a remote valley 4.5 hours walk away. But don’t confuse the rooms when booking as 4.5 hours is very different from 15 minutes.

To see the Kasbah Du Toubkal listing in Eco Hotels of the World, click here

Eco Lives: Howard Carter

I have always been fascinated by travel and from a young age became engrossed with books on travel and any sort of program or film on exotic locations. Then later as an adult whenever the opportunity presented itself off I went exploring all sorts of exotic locations and meeting all sorts of wonderful people along the way.

These days, like everyone else, I'm much more aware of the necessity to reduce air travel and these days I travel much less frequently and embark on train journeys when possible. This HAS led to a whole new and dare I say it, even more adventurous journeys and all sorts of exciting expeditions. For example traveling throughout India by rail as I did 3 years ago is truly both a humbling and simultaneously an exhilarating experience.

In fact it was during one of my extended traveling expeditions that I developed incognito - the one product that every eco conscious traveler should not leave home without! I developed this after contracting both malaria and dengue while using the 'recommended' chemical products and medication THAT did not protect me. So, I came up with something that is kind for me, my kids and the planet and best of all it works brilliantly. Just using the spray (along with other incognito products), following the tips I wrote on the 'Avoiding Bites' and 'How To Use it' Pages on my website is a fantastic way to prevent mosquito and insect bites and stings.

In fact incognito is now being used by all sorts of travellers in the know from Charley Boorman to the England Cricket team. Best of all is when people re-order having used it the year before or on their last expedition -as in the case with Charley. It's the best satisfaction of all and makes throwing in the towel in my marketing career worth it. Try incogntio and see for yourself.

www.lessmosquito.com