Parts of Belize are so surreal they evoke Hollywood film sets. That explains why Hollywood movie producer-director Francis Ford Coppola bought the country's oldest jungle lodge and redecorated in a seductive Mayan style. You can easily envision Tarzan and Jane vacationing in Coppola's 30-acre Mountain Pine Ridge spread with a roaring mountain stream that fuels a hydroelectric plant. This means you don't have to make do with kerosene lamps that provide light in much of the outlying areas. Not far away are five waterfalls that cascade through in an orchid-clad rain forest. The orchids evoke images of comic-strip character Brenda Starr looking for the endangered and protected black orchid (Encyclia cochleatum) which is the country's national flower. Black orchids were the ingredients for the bush medicine that kept Starr's fictional one-eyed boyfriend otherwise healthy. The jungle has a wide range of non-fictional magical cures, some used by the ancient Mayas, and now bearing such names as: Belly Be Good, Flu Away and Jackass Bitters Tea.
Belize sports the world's only jaguar preserve as well as a home for other cats, including ocelots, margays, jaguarundis and pumas. The latter is also known as a cougar or mountain lion. Ancient Maya aborigines worshipped jaguars and today still revere and fear the creatures. During your jungle wanderings, you might come across the rather scary tapir, or the mountain cow, Belize's national animal, resembling a cross between a pig and cow weighing up to 650 pounds. If you visit the Community Baboon Sanctuary, don't expect to see baboons. That's what the locals call their black howler monkeys.
The country's largest city, Belize City, is also referred to as Belize. While the nightlife is unremarkable in Belize, there are some fun names for places to hang out - like the Pickled Parrot.
The No 1 tourist draw in Belize is the hundreds of offshore islands, islets and atolls. Of the five atolls in the New World, Belize has four. An atoll is a group of coconut tree-fringed islets that sprout from the rim of a long-dead underwater volcano. Atolls are commonly associated with the South Seas, the perfect example being Marlon Brando's French Polynesian atoll called Tetiaroa. The largest of the Belize diving and fishing islands is Ambergris Caye - pronounced Key. Ambergris is the name for whale vomit, once used as an expensive preservative of perfume scents. Today there is a much cheaper chemical substitute.
The largest town in the Bay Islands is San Pedro, appropriately named for the patron saint of fishermen. San Pedro is the gathering point for exploring the Belize Barrier Reef, largest and longest in the Western Hemisphere. Jacques Cousteau was one of the first men of fame to put the Belize Bay Islands at the top of the list for those seeking romance and underwater adventure. The islands' history is straight out of the film: Pirates of the Caribbean. Some historians believe Pirate Captain Peter Wallace (pronounced WaLEEZE) provided the roots for the nation's name and that of a river where the pirate based his ship and Brethren of theCoast crew.
And then there are the ruins of ancient Mayan cities. More and more, scientists are learning that the Maya High Culture could produce structures that would put the ancient Greeks to shame. Belize claims to have more Mayan ruins than any other Central American country.
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