Belize

1. Actun Tunichil Muknal (cave of the stone sepulchre)
2. 45 min jungle hike, 1/2 mile swim into cave chamber w/intact ancient Mayan pottery, cave where they worshiped Chaac (rain god)
3. from guardian.co.uk
4. The knowledge that Francis Ford Coppola's decision to open a hotel in the dark heart of the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve in central Belize was inspired by the making of Apocalypse Now didn't fill me with confidence. "I was searching for the same jungle paradise I enjoyed in the Philippines ..." he writes in the hotel's brochure, "and invite you to do the same."
   Its setting is certainly remote, close to the Guatemalan border, a bumpy 45-minute drive from the Western Highway, along an unpaved, red-clay track through a dense tropical woodland of exotic vines, strangler figs and palms that gradually gives way to pine forest, then blighted pine forest. For many of the trees are branchless, leafless, lifeless stumps. It's a blasted landscape, apocalyptic even, the legacy, it turns out, of a plague of bark beetles rather than Agent Orange, but even so thoughts of napalm, extreme prejudice and visions of Kurtz as general manager began to come to mind. What was this place?
   I needn't have worried, for Blancaneaux Lodge itself could hardly be lovelier: six thatched hardwood casitas and seven villas on stilts arranged along a steep valley descending to a creek, fed by the gushing Privassion river, all rocks and rapids and waterfalls.
   Coppola bought Blancaneaux, then a dilapidated guesthouse, in 1981, and 11 years later after a big family house party to celebrate both the wrap on Dracula and his birthday, decided to turn it into a hotel. Nothing glitzy or luxurious - the rustic decor favours guatemalteco textiles and brightly painted wooden animal masks and figures - just a hideaway, a retreat. There are no televisions or DVD players or even telephones - if you want to communicate with reception from your casita there's the "shell phone", a conch set on a wooden box concealing an intercom link. There's no swimming pool; why would there be when the river's been dammed to form pools (and generate electricity)? No air con. But there is a massage therapist offering Thai and oriental foot massages; as well as horses to ride; luxuriant tropical grounds and an immaculate organic vegetable garden to admire; waterfalls to bathe under; and rugged landscape to hike through. The air is fragrant; the atmosphere - bar the relentless roar of the river - tranquil; and sitting on the star-lit deck of our casita the first evening, watching the fireflies dance over the rapids, the sense of romantic escape was complete.
   Though Coppola makes no play of his movies in the hotel, there is nevertheless a palpable sense of the man. All 15 wines on the wine list, from the US$6-a-glass house Rosso, Bianco and Talia Rosé (after Coppola's sister Talia Shire, better known as Connie Corleone) to the US$150-a-bottle premium Rubicon, are produced on his estate in Rutherford, California. Various members of his family have contributed recipes to the Italian-influenced menu, as incidentally has Mrs Scorsese, whose hearty garlicky lemon chicken I enjoyed. He even publishes an in-house magazine, Zoetrope, a Granta-like quarterly of new writing, the current issue of which contains pieces by Neil LaBute, Neil Jordan, Eric Bogosian, Michael Tolkin and FFC himself. (Blancaneaux hosts screen-writing workshops - in June Jane Smiley is teaching a short-story writing course here.) And if you opt for Villa 7, where the Coppolas stay when they're in residence, there are family photographs, notably a group shot taken in the 80s judging by the clothes, Nicolas Cage - with hair! - in the back row, a teenage Sofia Coppola sitting at her father's knee in the front.
   We'd come to Blancaneaux from Guatemala, where we'd stayed at La Lancha, a three-hour drive away and the newest of Coppola's three resorts, on the rainforest-clad shores of Lake Petén Itzá and a small beach. The style here is similar to Blancaneaux - hillside cabanas on stilts overlooking water - but the concept is simpler, the rooms smaller and the rates lower. The rooms, all with large balconies strung with hammocks and scattered with Adirondack chairs, are beautiful but scantly furnished; a chair to put one's clothes on might be useful, I said to Elvin, the manager. "Ah," he said, "we had some chairs but they weren't right, so we got rid of them and are waiting for a container of new ones." Coppola's wife, Eleanor, who's in charge of the decor, has an exacting eye and won't countenance compromise, but the result is an ideal of perfection that's pretty close to mine.
   La Lancha's ultimate appeal is its proximity to Tikal, arguably the most spectacular of all the ruined Mayan cities. And by staying so close, you can get there early - we were there by 7am (jet lag can be good for something) - the better to appreciate the extraordinary wildlife. Earlier that morning we heard the reverberating roar of howler monkeys - a sound so terrifying it's what Spielberg used as the dinosaur call in Jurassic Park. Now we were watching them, troupes of five or six, swinging through the tree canopy, their young on their backs, along with smaller, white-fronted spider monkeys. There are jaguars and ocelots, not that you ever see them, and tapirs and peccaries here, too. But Tikal's real glory is its birds. Nearly 300 species have been recorded here, and we saw richly coloured ocellated turkeys, more like peacocks than their overfed Norfolk cousins; blue-crowned motmots or birds of paradise; keel-billed toucans and emerald toucanets; hummingbirds no bigger than a thumb; oropendolas darting from their strange suspended nests; and myriad parrots.
   Tikal may lack the sophisticated carving and friezes found on some of the Mayan sites in the Yucatán in Mexico, but its age (parts date back to 55BC), its area (370 sq km) and the dense jungle setting make it astonishing. There's no better way to get a sense of its magnitude than by climbing Temple Four, which has only been possible since last year when a ladder was installed. It's 105 steep rungs to the 58m summit, but the view of the central plaza and its acropolis is sensational, and the acoustic is incredible: up here you can still hear voices from the plaza.
   There are lots of Mayan sites in this part of Guatemala - Uaxactún, El Mirador, Rio Azul, Yaxhá and Topotxe, and Caracol and Xunantunich across the border in Belize - many of them still wild, mysterious and undeveloped. But if after so much culture, you yearn for a little seaside R'n'R, then Coppola has a third resort on the Belizean coast, a three-hour drive south down the thankfully sealed Hummingbird and Southern Highways from Blancaneaux.
   Turtle Inn sits at the southern end of the Placencia peninsula, a narrow strip of land flanked by a lagoon to the west and the Caribbean to the east, sheltered by a vast reef, where whale sharks congregate at full moon between April and June. Marine life is the big draw here, not least outstanding diving and snorkelling. But for those who prefer to stay above the surface there are kayaks and boat trips up nearby Monkey river. There we spotted not just howlers, but iridescent blue morpho butterflies the size of your hand; egrets, night herons, tarantulas, golden-silk spiders in their glittering webs and, best of all, rare manatees, for Belize has the largest population in the Caribbean of these shy elephantine aquatic mammals with their paddle tails and sad seal faces.
   Like its sister hotels, Turtle Inn consists of a dozen or so two-person "cottages" and villas, as well as the family pavilion, dotted along a palm- sheltered shore. And if you stay in a sea-front unit, the distance from the end of the bed to the ocean is barely 10m. Each is open-fronted (so who needs air con?), with a mosquito-screened veranda and a private garden out back: ours had an open-air shower and a cashew tree full of viridescent iguanas.
   While Blancaneaux and La Lancha are colourfully guatemalteco in style, the furniture and art here - further evidence of Eleanor Coppola's taste - have come mostly from Indonesia. But Belize, a British colony till 1981, is such a multicultural society - of Creoles, Maya, Garifuna, Mestizos, Ladinos, British, Chinese, Mennonites and Amish - so it doesn't feel out of place.
   As at Blancaneaux, Turtle Inn grows its own veg in an organic garden presided over by its ebullient Sicilian chef, Antonio Fecarotta, the delivery of whose "Daily Bulletin" - that evening's menu introduced with some occasionally eccentric though winningly expressed pensées - is the highlight of a lazy afternoon in a steamer chair on the beach. For dinner - conch escalopes, smoked snapper, arugula pizza - is something else to look forward to. As are Coppola's wines. The sparkling blancs de blancs he calls Sofia (natch) may be a little sweet. But his proprietary claret is excellent, and his Blancaneaux 2000, a blend of Viognier, marsanne, roussanne and chardonnay outstanding (as, at US$87.50 a bottle, it should be).
   I loved these places: their aesthetics, their laid-back ethos, their kind and friendly staff and above all the attention to detail. The sense that everything extraneous has been edited out, and that what we are left with, from the locally sourced deliciously scented soap to the aromatic salad leaves, is the best that can be. He's made great movies, he makes great wine, his hotels are fabulous, his daughter wins Oscars. Francis Ford Coppola: what a guy!
   
5. chaa creek (frommer's review)
   This is definitely the premier lodging choice in this neck of the woods, and one of the nicest hotels in the country. Much loving care has gone into creating the beautiful grounds and cottages here. Located on a high, steep bank over the Macal River, this is one of the oldest of the original jungle lodges in the Cayo District, and it's only improved with age. All of the thatched-roof cottages are artistically decorated with local and Guatemalan textiles and handcrafts. Each comes with a quiet porch or balcony area set amid the flowering gardens. The choicest rooms are the treetop suites, which are quite large, and feature a queen bed, a sunken living-room area, and a wraparound deck fitted with a sunken Jacuzzi. Of the standard rooms, nos. 1 and 2 are my favorites.
   The newest additions at Chaa Creek include a large, modern stable, and a canoe-building workshop. You'll also find a lovely little full-service spa, as well as an informative, but small, natural history museum, and a Blue Morpho butterfly breeding project. The guides here are well trained and knowledgeable. Chaa Creek has also taken over the former Panti Medicine trail and the neighboring Ixchel Farm, which you can explore with a guide or with a self-guided trail map. Canoes and mountain bikes are available, and horseback rides can always be arranged. Over 250 bird species have been spotted within a 5-mile (8km) radius of the lodge. Mick and Lucy Fleming, who originally began farming this land in 1977, are the engaging hosts, and much of the food served in the lovely screened-in dining room is organically grown on the hotel's own farm. There's also a separate open-air bar and lounge area, where guests congregate most evenings before and after dinner.
   
   Facilities:Restaurant; bar; lounge; small, well-equipped spa; bike rental; tour desk; laundry service; free Wi-Fi; nonsmoking rooms