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Everything in life seems to be a trade-off. When trying to design a little ecologically smart beach hotel in Tulum, it gets challenging fast. Firstly there is no electricity provided along the Tulum beach. So we needed to generate and store enough power to supply our cabanas and guests, as well as the restaurant and bar.

We wanted our guests to have 24 hr electricity so they could have fans and lights and their laptops whenever they wanted. And of course we wanted refrigeration in the restaurant and bar to keep everything fresh and healthy. So we invested heaps of money in a 6kw wind turbine, with back up generator and a huge bank of batteries to store all the power we make.

Secondly we have no sewerage services along the beach. We were not prepared to just drill holes into the ground and dispose of our waste in the way that the big all-inclusive hotels do (gross!). So we invested in 2 US made bio-treatment systems that produce 99% clean water that can be used on the gardens (and yes, we tested the water to see if the claims of 99% were true...yes!). But we didn't count on the systems needing 8 amps of power...so back to the electrical system which now needed an upgrade.

Thirdly, there is no water supply along the beach. We had to find low salt content water from a well, and then build a cistern to hold it and mix with fresh water that gets trucked in every day...what a pain.

Then we invested in putting in solar hot water heating on the roof of each cabana, but found that the water corroded all the tubing really fast. And of course the installation wasn't done properly...so back to the drawing board on cabana solar hot water. Attempt 2 is scheduled for the fall this year. We will keep you posted.

We have just built some new gardens over in the jungle and will be growing our own organic vegetables, herbs and fruits, which is leading us into composting all the kitchen waste. And they say that recycling is just around the corner...so with a little luck we will just get more and more eco-real as time goes by. So in a nutshell it is really difficult to design a little ecologically smart beach Tulum Hotel.