Take a walk from the docks through the cozy cobblestone walking streets of San Marcos into the valley and through the trees. Follow the signs that point you on your way to The Yoga Forest. Here you’ll find yourself staring up the cliff walls of the valley and wondering to yourself what kind of lucky people are occupying the little huts sitting amongst the lush forest jungle. This is one of the longest lasting and highest quality yoga practice and study centers around Lake Atitlan - and it is a little paradise.
I was not here to downward any dogs or salute any suns - I came to check out the gardens. The Yoga Forest was desinged with the Permaculture principles in mind and has recently employed a very permaculture passionate woman named Kat from the UK to make sure some of the designs are fixed up and used to their maximum potential.
The first thing that caught my eye were these smartly designed yurt like tent. They seemed like a very comofrtable temporary structure that is mobile and easily placed anywhere and can accommodate very tall people like myself. Having a temporary residence comes in handy when designing new pieces of land.
Here are some happy and healthy looking goats coming back from their morning stroll. Yoga Forest sells their own goat milk and cheese which is also used generously on the pizzas from their wood fire oven. Tuesday nights is all you can eat pizza where visitors and guests get together to make their own pizzas until they run out of ingredients. Pro tip - the tastiest pies come out towards the end!
Ducks take care that the ponds and streams remain well manicured. Duck eggs can also be a nice treat. Above is the main pond/garden water resevioir. It’s just been newly fixed up and Kat has plans to plant tumeric, water cress and more water lilies in and along the banks. The pond is constatly fed by mountain spring water and is equipted with spill way pipes leading to the gardens and throughout the property.
Before we get to the gardens it’s worth mentioning that they are supported by a large and comfortable to work in nursery stocked with all kinds of leafy greens, fruit tree starters and it even looks like they are cultivating orchid flowers.
The first thing I noticed was how thickly mulched the gardens were. It’s the dry season so it is important to keep direct sunlight off the soil and lock in moisture wherever possible. The mulching effort is rewarded when you look at the dark rich soil underneath. This may turn some people away but it’s worth mentioning that the soil here is supported by a large amount of humanure provided by the many guests of the Yoga Forest. It seems like most of them are the veggie natural food types which makes for the perfect fertalizer. For those of you who are squimish you should understand that this is fully broken down biomass and any harmful or icky bacterial is long decomposed.
Here is a young garden bed amongst terraces built on contour. Some of the beds are shaded by a trellis which can house an abundance of vining food plants with my favourite being passion fruit. Kat explained to me that the drastic weather differences between the dry season from fall through winter and the wet season in the spring and summer make it challenging to preserve the land. Heavy rains easily flood and wash out terraced garden beds and being on a steep slope makes the soil dry out quickly. For this they have come up with an interesting solution that starts with managing the flow of water through the land.
At the top of the terraces they have placed a variety of smaller pools which are fed from the main pond. In here they have a kind of aquaponic system where talipia fish are farmed in the water that feeds the gardens. The fish naturally add nutrients to the water which is gobbled up by the vegetable gardens. The fish can also be eaten when they get big enough but make sure each fish pond has some water plants for shade and oxygen and that they are not too deep or cool as talipia like temperate water. Other life can be encouraged to grow in the ponds like giant snails which can be eaten in a stew (if you really want) and their shells can be ground up and used as added nutrients in animal feed.
Let’s go through their method for preserving the garden beds through more dramatic weather. They first have dug a pit around a meter deep and a meter wide under the beds, inserted a pipe and filled the pit with gravel. The pit is then covered with soil and made into a garden. During the heavy rains the beds are ancored and the water fills the gravel pit. During the dry season the pit is kept moist by irrigating from the above ponds through the insereted pipe. This creats a wicking bed where water is sucked up by the roots and soil. Water is controled by adjustable joints along the piping. The result is a whole lot of green all year round !
All throughout the property you’ll find natural buildings situated with a perfect veiw of the lake. Looks like most of the building materials like large bamboo and palms came from the low lying tropical coast land.
Who needs a newspaper? There is even great veiw while you’re sitting on the toilet.
Another nice feature is the sauna. Heated by a wood fire oven covered in rocks, this is the perfect place to relax after a long day full of 'namastays'. Aromatherapy herb and flower oil can be poured over the rocks. Wood fire saunas can be built in a number of ways and can usually double as a smoker, fire place area, oven or space heater.
Happy goats is the sign of a healthy eco-system right? Check out the future posts where I revisit The Yoga Forest in the rainy season to see how the wicking beds held up.
