The New York Times > Travel > Eco-Tourism: The Director's Cut

The New York Times > Travel > Eco-Tourism: The Director's Cut.

Eco-Tourism: The Director's Cut

Justin Lane for The New York Times A guest's-eye view from Blancaneaux Lodge in Mountain Pine Ridge Reserve in Belize. [photo caption]

By MICHELLE GREEN Published: April 3, 2005

THIS scene is good enough to fulfill almost any woman's chuck-it-all fantasies: Riding a handsome mahogany mare, I'm following my machete-packing guide, Jason Smith, through a rain forest in Belize. Absurdly oversized ferns gently swipe my sandy boots as we negotiate the green-canopied trail; to our right is an anthill the size of a child's igloo; rising from our left are trumpet trees, great oaks and vertical palms splayed out like a giantess's fan. Here are puckery crimson blossoms called hot lips; here, too, black orchids, clay-colored robins and madre de cacao flowers that cure pink eye. Mr. Smith, who works for Francis Ford Coppola at Blancaneaux Lodge, the most spectacular of Mr. Coppola's Central American properties, crushes a small green leaf and reaches back over his horse's rump to hand it to me. It's rich and complex: allspice.

A very good travel piece, covering Francis Ford Coppola's resorts.. very different travel experience, and provides a true getaway to these exotic places without destroying them...