A ramble in the jungle, a laze on the beach

In Belize - the tiny Central American country formerly known as British Honduras and celebrated home of Lord Ashcroft, Tory party treasurer - the vibe is Caribbean, the people are laid back, the national sport is sleeping. "We don't need no national flag," the waiter at Belize City's Sooty Mermaid restaurant told me. "We just fly that old pillowcase." We found out just how laid-back Belizeans can be in the lobby of the city's Fort George Hotel down on the waterfront, our base for the first night. We were checking out when a man walked in - a big lad in Bob Marley T-shirt, denim cargo shorts, and a really cool pair of Ray-Bans. "Good morning, Mr Prime Minister," the doorman said. He was there for breakfast. No entourage, no minders - just his son and daughter.

In Belize - the tiny Central American country formerly known as British Honduras and celebrated home of Lord Ashcroft, Tory party treasurer - the vibe is Caribbean, the people are laid back, the national sport is sleeping. "We don't need no national flag," the waiter at Belize City's Sooty Mermaid restaurant told me. "We just fly that old pillowcase." We found out just how laid-back Belizeans can be in the lobby of the city's Fort George Hotel down on the waterfront, our base for the first night. We were checking out when a man walked in - a big lad in Bob Marley T-shirt, denim cargo shorts, and a really cool pair of Ray-Bans. "Good morning, Mr Prime Minister," the doorman said. He was there for breakfast. No entourage, no minders - just his son and daughter.

Belize City may be the country's largest place; a third of Belize's 200,000 people live there. It may also be the country's centre of commerce, such as it is. But it also contrives to be the only city I know whose airport seems somehow to have been cunningly fashioned from somebody's back garden. On this part of our tour of Belize we were flying Air Tropic, a one-plane outfit whose pilot, it is entirely possible, was called Mr Tropic.

He looked tired, the plane similarly so, and it seemed a shame to put either to work. The plane, a museum-piece four-seater with a top speed of 90mph, was downright reluctant to work. "Can I do something to help?" I asked, offering the benefit of my limited aerial experience. "Jump leads, magic tape, Prozac?" A quick tyre change and wing flap repair later, we were ready for the off. Mr Tropic's safety instructions were concise and to the point. "Fasten your seat-belts, brace yourselves, and put your faith in Jesus."

The flight, over territory that is still more than 50 per cent rainforest, was thrilling. And our descent into the jungle airstrip at Gallon Jug - followed by a drive to our lodge at Chan Chich in the Rio Bravo conservation area - was amazing, thanks to the jungle, which was theatrical in its jungliness. Our cabana, a ground-level treehouse, was sheltered from the burning sun by a canopy of huge, billowing palm leaves, and the silence was punctuated only by the howling of monkeys, the clacking of toucans, and the growling of whatever your imagination told you was out there.

We spent three days wandering through the jungle, sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback, every so often scrambling up the grass-covered walls of a buried temple that once reverberated to the chants of ancient Mayans at prayer. And each day we returned to the lodge's wildlife blackboard, eagerly scribbling the names of freshly sighted fauna out there in the undergrowth and up in the trees.

Tom Harding, once a big city high-flyer in the US, is a fine host up at Chan Chich, and clearly at ease with his new remoteness. He's some wildlife expert, too, which was handy since animal sightings were plentiful and spectacular. All the usual suspects - anteaters, bat falcons, keel-billed toucans and cockroaches the size of football boots. But I'll draw a line under my big cat sighting. Not a big big cat, but a small big cat. Ocelot. Not quite a jaguar, but plenty big enough for me, especially as there was barely a paw's length between us. It was over very quickly. I saw it, it saw me, it loped off to anonymity. But it was the first ocelot spotted in some four months and, try as I might to be blasé, I was as excited as a child.

A drive south towards the Guatemalan border brought us to Chaa Creek Resort, once a farm and now one of the best known guest ranches in Belize. Lucy and Mick Fleming, from New Jersey and Tunbridge Wells respectively, have carved out of the hillside a haven of serenity. From luxurious cabanas for the pampered travel writer, to simple log cabins for the young at heart, Lucy and Mick cater for everyone, even those in search of a good old-fashioned rub-down.

Actually, the spa at Chaa Creek was not old-fashioned at all but the height of New Age, with soothing music of the violin and tabla variety. When I asked for a detoxifying glycolic herbal linen wrap in seaweed and spirito di fango, I wasn't sure if I was ordering a massage or lunch. Later, refreshed and replenished and my muscles glistening with baby oil, I canoed down river to the town of San Ignacio, accompanied by my wife Susan, some gigantic parrots, and a flight of brilliant blue kingfishers that seemed to guide our way 10 miles downstream, through gently nudging rapids. There was no other canoe in sight.

From Chaa Creek we took a day out in Guatemala to explore the lost temples and pyramids of Tikal. I climbed every one of the six pyramids, with their ludicrously steep Inca-like steps, praying to the god of photography that Susan's zoom lens would capture these heroic moments for posterity.

With a hundred or so yards between us, it was, in all senses, a long shot. Susan is pretty nifty with a camera, but Francis Ford Coppola she isn't. I know this for a fact. I've seen all his movies and I've now stayed in his home in Belize, the breathtaking Blancaneaux Lodge in the Mountain Pine Ridge.

Did he show up? Did he heck! His presence, though, was felt in other, more ethereal ways - in the shape of many movie memorabilia, from lobby posters of Rumble Fish and Peggy Sue Got Married, to the ceiling fan that cooled Martin Sheen in the opening scene of Apocalypse Now. He seemed to have lots of horses too - all of them with heads.

This is the part of Belize to go caving, and that's what we did, down on Barton Creek. Drifting deeper and deeper into the cave, our headlamps only encouraged the local fruit bats to use our heads as target practice as we canoed to the point of no return. Our guide Gilberto asked me if I fancied leaving the canoe to scramble up the slimy walls, dodging stalagmites and stalactites as we went. I said yes. It seemed a good idea at the time.

Barefoot, I walked up through the cave to be greeted warmly by Mike Booger, a hairy Fozzie Bear of a man who traded computing in Ontario for cave-owning in Barton Creek. Five years and 300 acres later, Mike's a happy landlord. And with neighbours and tenants ranging from Mayans to Mestizos, via Creoles and pockets of Amish-like Mennonite communities, Mike's drinking buddies are nothing if not diverse.

I number my few days at Blancaneaux Lodge among the most peaceful I've known. Swaying in the hammock on the stoop outside our cabana, the sound of water rippling, sometimes thundering, from the waterfall a dozen steps away, I gave silent thanks to Coppola for providing me with the singular gift of tranquillity. And this from the man who placed the Vatican in the hands of the Mafia...

From "Coppolodge" to the coast, along the endearingly named Hummingbird Highway. We drove past settlements called Tea Kettle, Over the Top and, for heaven's sake, Middlesex, until we reached Jaguar Reef Lodge, a confection of whitewashed, thatched cabanas strewn almost as an afterthought along the beach south of the fishing village of Hopkins. I grew up in Margate so I know a good beach when I see one, and the beach at Jaguar Reef is a good one. It consists of miles of palm-fringed, soft, golden sand, and nothing but the Caribbean between us and the tiny islets that dot the horizon and line the barrier reef way out at sea. This is snorkelling country.

Our speedboat slowed down just short of a skinny sliver of paradise called Tobacco Caye, and we were overboard, snorkelled and masked, being eyeballed by angel fish, parrot fish, barracuda, sting-rays, sharks of all sizes and even more shades of black. This was an underworld that even Coppola couldn't create.

Belize is full of people who came for a holiday and never went home. For Jennifer Hall out on the idyllic South Water Caye, the transition, 15 years ago from a city in America to a dot on the map so tiny that it isn't even on the map, was apparently seamless. "So. What's happening in the outside world, then?" she asked. "Oh, the usual stuff," I said. "Clinton had an affair, Mandela got out of prison, Germany invaded Poland." It turned out that she had heard about that last one.

Visited only by the odd passing snorkeller, the resident pelican population and the students who visit her pioneering ecology and conservation centre, Jennifer was as content a soul as I have met. When the coconuts hit the ground and roll along to her doorstep, you know they are assured of a warm welcome.

The final leg of our travels through Belize was made by speedboat to the Inn at Robert's Grove. Perched at the tip of the Placencia Peninsula, our cabana was 12 steps from the sea. I know. I paced it out. For three criminally hedonistic days my consciousness was invaded by nothing more than the lapping waves, edging ever closer to my feet as I lay on the sand like some kind of middle-aged offering to the god of rejuvenation.

The only other sounds, apart from the resident bird-life, came from the owner and creator of the inn, Robert Frackman. A native New Yorker, Frackman revisits his roots each Passover by conducting a Seder service and a festive meal - imported gefilte fish, matzos, and all - out on the beach, under the stars, perhaps, even, as God intended.

Belize remains steadfastly rooted in a deep time warp. Little seems to have changed since it was a tiny pink patch in the atlas of my childhood, and if it manages to develop tourism without disturbing the spirit and pace of the place, I'll be delighted and amazed. Prince William has the place on his gap-year itinerary. Many will follow. Get there now, before McDonald's beats you to it.

Compare Travel Insurance - 5 day Euro cover from £4.33 and Annual worldwide policies from just £43.08