Zapatistas, economic meltdown, corruption, political assassinations—there are so many reasons to cross Mexico off your list these days. Go right ahead; I’ll be able to get a better room at a cheaper rate (which is why I don’t mind sharing four of my favorite places). Forget the sunsets over the Pacific, the hundred shades of green, the centuries-old civilizations, the relaxing rhythm of life, the gentle humanity of people who honor civility, passion, and grace above all else. It’s OK. Go somewhere else. Did I mention the esophagus-eating parasites?

DIVING


The Yucatán

Cozumel’s Palancar Reef is one of the most dramatic places to take on nitrogen anywhere, and its famous 3,000-foot wall is certainly a worth a look—as long as you don’t mind standing in line. (I’ve seen more fish and fewer ugly tourists on the Submarine Voyage ride at Disneyland.) You want to dive and fish and feel tropically soothed? Go to Tulúm, 45 minutes south of Playa del Carmen on the mainland. Not to the ruins (though the setting is spectacular, they’re historically inconsequential), but to the little community a mile south, starting at Cabañas Santa Fe. The barrier reef that extends all along the coast of the Yucatán is only 600 yards offshore here; swim out from the beach to see giant groupers, manta rays, and moray eels. Tanks and dive equipment can be rented from the Santa Fe Dive Shop (two-tank dives, $55; 011-52-988-4-2876) right on the sand at Cabañas Santa Fe. The dive shop can also set up fishing trips for tuna, mahi-mahi, and barracuda ($50 per hour includes all tackle).
There’s a string of places to stay on Tulúm Beach (including Cabañas Santa Fe, which has campsites and cabañas for $8-$10 per person per night; 987-1-2096), but unless you like the odor of patchouli and the din of rock and reggae blaring from the open-air bars, I’d suggest Qué Fresco (no phone), about a mile south on the road to the town of Boca Paila and the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve. The food is legendary, and you can camp ($3.50 per night) or stay in a cozy thatched cabaña ($35). There are four cenotes (deep, freshwater limestone sinkholes) to explore in the area, and it’s a handy jumping-off point for exploring the reserve—full of panthers, ocelots, howler monkeys, jaguars, and tapirs. Arrange for tours into Sian Ka’an at Cabañas Ana y José (doubles, $60; 988-0-6022), two miles down the Boca Paila Road from Qué Fresco, or through the Amigos de Sian Ka’an ($40 per person; 988-4-9583). You can also rent bikes at Ana y José for $10 a day to ride the dusty Boca Paila Road. One bonus to staying in Tulúm: The Mayan ruins of Cobá are just 26 miles away.

Surfing

Puerto Escondido

At first glance, Puerto Escondido, 200 miles southwest of Oaxaca, looks like one enormous ocean-view lot tucked into the elbow of a huge bay. But it’s not the view that makes it special, it’s the waves off Zicatela Beach, a five-minute walk south of town. Surfers call it the Mexican Pipeline, home of the most reliable tube rides in the world: great bone-crunching, board-snapping, spray-spitting tunnels of doom that snap down into the rippled sand-bar bottom like a cat catching a mouse. Winter waves regularly reach six feet or more and are so powerful that shapers make boards strengthened specifically for this break.
The less turbulent Playa Marinero, the town’s main beach, is better suited for bodysurfing. Snorkeling is best at waveless El Angelito, a five-minute, $1 boat ride to the north side of the bay. You’ll see octopuses, barracuda, and lots of snappers; snorkeling equipment can be rented right on the beach for about $2 a day.


Puerto Escondido has a distinctly Italian flavor–reportedly there’s even a retired Red Guard terrorist living in town, having traded in knee-capping for cappuccino-sipping at one of the espresso joints that front Pérez Gazga, the short, red-bricked main street of downtown. This three-block section of “new” Puerto Escondido is where you’ll find all the restaurants and nightlife. La Perla Flameante has the best seafood (lightly handled and so fresh it’s still quivering). If you go out fishing (arrange for a guide through your hotel, about $15 an hour, three-hour minimum), you can have the restaurant cook your sailfish, bluefin tuna, or whatever you catch. Il Capuchino is known for its great coffee as well as its incredible avocado pie, better even than the pie de limón, a local specialty.
A number of surf-dude hammock hotels are strung along Zicatela and range in comfort and price from about $6 a night for the bare essentials (a roomful of hammocks, shared bath) to $15 for more civilized surroundings (a fan, a bed, your own bath). Rockaway Surfer Village on Zicatela Beach (doubles, $12-$18; 958-2-0668) has a pool, a well-equipped surf shop (where you can rent everything you need for about $4 an hour), rooms with fans and mosquito nets—and it’s stumbling distance from the break. For more upscale lodging, there’s only one choice: The Santa Fe (doubles $75; 958-2-0170), at the northern end of Zicatela Beach, has air conditioning, a pool, and a restaurant/bar overlooking the beach.

The Beach

Puerto Ángel
In a snug little bay on the southern coast of Oaxaca, half-way between Puerto Escondido and Huatulco, this humble fishing village of 8,000 has long been a destination for backpackers en route to and from San Cristóbal, the Yucatán, and Guatemala. At Playa Zipolite, a mile north of town, you’ll find the only quasi-sanctioned nude beach in Mexico, Playa Nudista (also called Playa de los Muertos, or Dead Men’s Beach, for its ferocious undertow). The beach is ideal for a lazy stroll, vigorous bodysurfing, hammock-induced alpha-wave lounging, and a meal of red snapper fried in garlic at Zipolite’s.
Stay right on the beach at one of the no-name hammock-cabaña places (about $5 per day), or head back over the hill to Posada de Cañón de Vata (doubles, about $35; Box 74, Pochutla, Oaxaca 70900), a hideaway tucked inside a dense, semitropical forest of teak, mahogany, ebony, and mango. There’s no phone or street address, but Puerto Ángel is so small you can find it easily—it’s about 100 yards from Playa del Panteón (Graveyard Beach), the town’s main beach.


For a break from town, take the half-mile cab ride south to Club Playa Estacahuite, a small palapa bar/restaurant perched on a rocky point that looks south toward the bays of Huatulco. There’s great snorkeling just off the exposed coast here: swim around with sea tortoises, barracuda, and moray eels.

Mountain Biking

San Miguel de Allende

San Miguel isn’t exactly a secret—artists have been coming to this colonial outpost 182 miles northwest of Mexico City for 60 years or more for its thriving art and music scene and excellent restaurants and bars. The newest attraction is some of Mexico’s best mountain biking: 800-plus miles of both hard and easy trails, a dedicated crew of local and foreign bikers, and a mountain-bike shop that feels like it belongs in Moab.
For all your biking needs—rentals, helmets, gloves, repairs, Smoke tires, Mr. Tuffy tube liners, Slime patch goop, and maps—your first stop should be Bici Burros bike shop on Calle Hospicio (rentals, $20 per day for Nishiki, TREK, and Raleigh bikes; 415-2-1526). From town, trails lead off in every direction; my favorites head north, skirting tiny pueblitos along the old Camino Real that sprang up when the area was a major silver-mining center some 300 years ago. Head out from the jardín in San Miguel to Palo Colorado, a small ranch about ten miles away, and then drop down into a roller-coaster track that leads another four miles to Atotonilco and its 250-year-old church. From there follow an old railway bed about seven miles to Cieneguitas, then head into the countryside on trails that parallel the train line to San Miguel.


The round-trip, which winds through a rocky, high-desert land of mesquite and cholla cactus, takes about six hours, depending on the heat, the number of flats you get, and your physical condition. (San Miguel is more than a mile high, so expect to spend a few days getting used to the altitude.) On the way back, there are hot springs where you can break up the ride with a thermal soak. Taboada and Xote are both close to the road from Atotonilco to Cieneguitas—look for the “Balinero” signs.
San Miguel is a resort, so there are loads of housing options. You can stay in a luxury hotel with swimming pools and private patios like La Puertecita Boutique’otel (doubles, $90-$165; packages, $119 per person per day, including lodging, local transportation, bike rental, guides, coaching, and two meals; 415-2-2250), the only hotel in town that caters to mountain biking. A couple of cheaper possibilities are Villa Jacaranda (doubles, $85; 465-2-1015) and Quinta Loreto (doubles, $17-$20; 415-2-0042).

Access and Resources

Fares to Mexico usually increase in November or December. The following fares are for high-season, midweek travel:
Use Cancún as your gateway to the Yucatán: Aeromexico (800-237-6639) has direct service from Miami ($235), Houston ($314), and Los Angeles ($553). Continental (800-525-0280) also flies from Houston ($330), as well as Los Angeles ($502), New York ($468), and Chicago ($470). Mexicana (800-531-7921) departs from Newark ($503) and Miami ($235).


Flights to Puerto Escondido require a connection in Mexico City. Mexicana flies from Los Angeles ($555), Chicago ($554), and Newark ($690). From Puerto Escondido, take a 45-minute bus ride to Puerto Ángel (around $6) or a taxi (about $30—be sure to negotiate).
The nearest airport to San Miguel de Allende is León, about 75 miles west (bus service is available from the airport; taxi, about $70). Mexicana has direct service from Chicago ($461) and Los Angeles ($460); Aeromexico and Continental fly from Houston ($471); American (800-433-7300) departs from Dallas ($383).
The cheapest and easiest route to Baja California is via Los Angeles. Mexicana goes to San José del Cabo ($295); AeroCalifornia (800-237-6225) to Cabo San Lucas and La Paz ($205 for both).
Car rental in Mexico tends to be expensive, and it’s unnecessary in most places other than the Yucatán (Avis in Cancún charges $56 per day, or $336 per week for a Chevy Corsa, $180 a week for a Volkswagen bug). Reserve your car from the U.S.—the rates will be lower—and hold on to your confirmation number. It’s often difficult to find a gas station in Mexico, so fill up whenever you get a chance, and always carry drinking water in the car.

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Mexico 200 is winding, narrow, and elevated way above the surrounding landscape, with no discernible shoulder. There’s more livestock on it than on any other major artery in Mexico, so expect delays. Our observed roadkill list included three horses, five cows, two burros, four armadillos, and countless crabs, squirrels, and dogs. Most of the tiny towns along the coast will be marked with road signs, and you’ll always be turning to the west, usually on an unpaved track. When in doubt, stay on the most traveled road and stop frequently to ask directions. As long as you’re headed for the playa, you should be OK. Don’t drive at night unless it’s absolutely unavoidable.

Rent a car in Puerto Vallarta or Acapulco, where all the big agencies are represented. A Volkswagen bug will cost approximately $180 per week, assuming you return it to the office where you rented it. Otherwise expect a hefty drop-off fee of at least $200. Booking a car from the United States means a better rate in some parts of Mexico, but not here. Prices were better when we checked directly in-country.
Be sure your tank is full, especially on the long stretch between Puerto Vallarta and Barra de Navidad. And expect to get a flat or two, so if you’re renting a car, confirm there’s a working jack and spare before you hit the road. Even small villages have a tire repair shop, or vulcanizadora, but life sure is a lot easier with a can of puncture sealer.


Don’t always believe the left-turn signal you get from trucks you want to pass. Sometimes it means, “It’s OK to pass,” and sometimes it means, “I’m turning left.” But there are plenty of times when it simply means, “Signal? What signal?”

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More often than not, the best food on the Mexican coast is found in enramadas, the ubiquitous, open-air, thatch-roof restaurants that line the beaches. Even when there’s no sign on the highway, if there’s a dirt road leading to the playa, there are usually a couple of enramadas open for business, especially during the winter months. The basic fare is huachinango, which is ostensibly red snapper but is actually whatever rockfish was caught recently. Al mojo de ajo, sautéed in garlic and butter, is the way it’s done, and like your basic hamburger, it’s hard to do it wrong. Octopus (pulpo), shrimp (camarones), and lobster (langosta) are also available everywhere. Prices will vary according to how close you are to a major resort. Keep in mind that cholera has recently been a worry in Mexico, particularly for lovers of ceviche. Last year there were some bad cases in Yelapa, south of Puerto Vallarta, and rumors of cases all the way down to Oaxaca.

If you’re in the neighborhood, don’t miss these eateries: Restaurant Ambar, in Barra de Navidad (outstanding entrée and dessert crepes); Chez Arnoldo’s, on Playa Las Gatas (wonderful fish in wine sauce); Nika’s, in Troncones (Nika is the cook for La Casa de la Tortuga and has her own restaurant on the beach, with the best lobster you’ll find anywhere); Casa Elvira’s, in old Zihuatanejo (one of the oldest restaurants in town, with good reason-large servings, classic Pacific Mexico fish recipes); Archie’s Wok, in Puerto Vallarta (pricey but clever melding of Thai flavors with fresh fish, started by the personal chef to The Night of the Iguana director John Huston).

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From the discos of the faux village of Puerto Vallarta south to the tired old mother of all resorts, Acapulco, Mexico 200 is the two-lane lifeline that feeds the Pacific Coast. Take this road, and far from the espresso bars and the ATMs you’ll find dirt tracks leading to empty beaches sprouting coconut palms and mango groves where lobster is served under the rustle of a palapa. It’s the stomping ground of iguanas, geckos, frigate birds, and flamingos, where jaguars still roam the jungles and caimans swim the lagoons. And where the people are nothing if not resilient. Last June, when Hurricane Alma decimated the town of Playa Azul, restaurants on the beach were open for business two days later.

It’s true that there have been civil troubles in the state of Guerrero recently, and supposedly that’s why you see lots of soldiers on the road there and in Michoac¤n. They may stop your car, but they’re not looking for gringos carrying guns to the insurgents. They’re checking for dope. It should be intimidating, but instead it’s just part of what keeps this coast the way it is. Call it the wild West in the tropics, Surf City in the campo, where nobody really takes things all that seriously. So take the chance. Leave the souvenir peddlers behind and turn down that rutted road.

: Pacific Mexico

Sayulita

If it’s surf you’re looking for, forget Mazatlán, San Blas, even Puerto Escondido. Make your way instead to Sayulita, about an hour north of Puerto Vallarta, where an easy paddle out to a sandbar that offers both left and right rides is so close to the beach that you can be captured on film without a long lens. It’s no wonder that El Tigre, one of Mexico’s top surfers, is a local boy.
All the action takes place in front of El Costeño restaurant, which has the best food on the beach. Right next door is Papa’s Palapas (doubles, $35 per night; 011-52-327-5-0082 or, in the United States, 805-489-7210), where you can get a comfortable two-story bungalow that sleeps four (about $3 extra for each additional person). Papa’s also rents boards and kayaks (about $7 per hour) and bodyboards ($3 per hour). The village itself is tiny and the pace soporific (the La Michoacán fruit-drink stand is where the local public phone is located and is still the town’s unofficial meeting place). There is a feeling, though, of bigger things to come—grand talk of big new hotels, Japanese money, massive projects with pro-designed golf courses—but for now the only thing on the horizon worth noting is the incoming northwesterly swell. The hill above town to the south, known locally as the Cerro de los Monos, Monkey Mountain, is perfect for horseback riding (rent horses in town for about $10 per hour) or wild-orchid collecting. For snorkeling, head ten minutes south of El Costeño, over the rocks, to protected Playa de los Muertos, below the cemetery. For a more extended excursion, hire a panga on the beach to take you out to Islas Marietas, at the mouth of the bay ($30 per person), for a combined snorkeling-kayaking tour of caves, reefs, and steep walls.


If you’d rather have a one-stop roster of land and water sports at your disposal, head up to Costa Azul, a five-acre jungle-beach compound with 28 rooms a few miles up the beach in San Francisco. Horseback riding on local beaches like Las Juntas, sea kayaking, snorkeling, surfing, hiking, fishing, and mountain biking are all right there (all-inclusive adventure package, including lodging, meals, and unlimited activities, $94 per person per night; 800-365-7613).

: Pacific Mexico

Punta Mita

Even though the condos and malls of Puerto Vallarta are just 45 minutes south, the rocky coves of the Punta Mita peninsula, at the north end of the Bay of Banderas, are visited only by surfers, lobster fishermen, and mountain bikers. There used to be an ejido here, a little farming and fishing community of palapas and pangas, but the Salinas administration kicked everyone out, closed off the only road, and began soliciting bids for development. The peso devaluation put everything on hold, however, so for now the area is as pristine as nature intended. You can drive as far as El Aclote Beach, off Mexico 200 beyond BucerŒas; from there you’ll have to walk a few miles along the beach to get out to the point. The best surf break is near El Faro, the Lighthouse. For snorkeling, there are protected coves where the beach is shaded by wild fig trees; swim out 30 feet to mingle with octopuses, lobsters, and rockfish. Or head out with Oscar de Dios of Bike-Mex (322-3-1680; www.vivamexico.com), a mountain bike touring company based in Puerto Vallarta.


A singletrack skirts the entire coastline of the point, starting off on a flat plateau of flowers and grass and winding down through a scrubby jungle canopy to the beaches and mini-coves. It takes four to seven hours to do the entire tour ($100 per person includes transportation from Puerto Vallarta, a good front-suspension bike, helmet and gloves, sodas, and lunch), stopping occasionally to jump into the water. The return trip is a 20-minute ride back to El Coral, a restaurant on El Aclote Beach where the bike support van parks.
For now there are no hotels in Punta Mita. The easiest (and least expensive) solution is to stay in Puerto Vallarta. One clean, basic choice is the Hotel Posada Río Cuale, downtown next to the river (doubles, $16; 322-2-0450).

: Pacific Mexico

La Manzanilla/Tenacatita

Tenacatita Bay is where longtime foreign residents of Mexico come when they need some extended tropical R&R. The beach, part of a 60-mile marine preserve, has clean sand, no stingrays, and a gentle yet reliable break—perfect for snorkeling and bodysurfing. Plus, you can buy a whole lobster for a whopping 40 pesos ($5).
The little village of La Manzanilla, in the crook of the bay’s southern edge, is the place to hang for a week or a month. Budget central is the RV campground at Boca de Iguana, a few kilometers north (car camping, about $3 per person per night; phone/fax 338-1-0393). There are communal showers, outdoor sinks for dishwashing, and tiny thatch enclosures for changing clothes. Fishermen come around selling their catch, and the bodysurfing out front is the best on the bay. La Manzanilla itself has adequate bungalows right on the beach, but the deal of the century has to be Helga Lehman’s El Mar bungalows at Casa MagËey ($50 per night, $800 per month; phone/fax 335-1-5012), perched on the cliff right at the southern edge of town. Of her two bungalows, the front one is the jewel. Out on the veranda, above a stairway leading to the beach, you’re at eye level with pelicans, seagulls, and frigate birds hovering in the updrafts. You may want to just sit there all day, especially in February, when orcas come through and breach in the bay. If not, Lehman has a water-skiing boat and wake boards—her son is a champion wake surfer and instructor—bodyboards, and a kayak. She even has a Volkswagen for rent ($20 per day, $150 per week).


Back in the large lagoon, hidden behind mangroves a few hundred feet off the beach, you can find caimans 18 feet long. Jorge Requence, who lives in a palapa midway down the beach, rents horses (about $7 per hour or $20 per day). He’ll give you directions to Ingenieros, a ghost town in the jungle. He’ll also show you the trail to the lagoon, where you can watch the parade of caimans daily at 10 a.m. Besides the crocs, there are roseate spoonbills, flamingos, and ibis.

: Pacific Mexico

Barra de Navidad

All the hype about pelagic fishing on Mexico’s west coast has gone to Ixtapa, Manzanillo, or Mazatlán. But at Barra de Navidad, a village that feels like Zihuatanejo before all the development, the fishing is so good no one wants to talk too loudly about it. Here, a half-hour north of Manzanillo, you usually hit blue-water hot spots less than 20 miles out. And when the yellowfin tuna are running, January through July, you may meet boils of fish chasing bait less than a kilometer offshore. Marlin, sailfish, and dorado run year-round. With a dozen comfortable and affordable hotels and scores of restaurants, it’s no wonder they call this the Costalegre—the Happy Coast. Hollywood agrees. The new version of McHale’s Navy just wrapped, having employed almost the whole town as extras.
Ricky Zuñiga, a transplant from Anaheim returning to the village where his mother was born, runs the most professional fishing outfit in town, equipped with four boats and the area’s only satellite thermal imaging system, which allows him to read water temperatures all along the coast. For cigar aficionados, he’s also the town’s best supplier of Cuban stogies. But you won’t be puffing on a rope if you’re perched in the fighting chair of his Z Wahoo, trying to muscle in a blue marlin. Zuÿiga’s prices depend on the boat, from a mini-cruiser, at $330 for seven hours, to a super-panga, at $245 for seven hours, with all ice, bait, and tackle included. And you will catch fish. Guaranteed. Zuñiga prefers a catch-and-release policy for sailfish and marlin, but your catch of dorado and tuna will be filleted and frozen—except for a few you may want to take over to Pancho’s, a restaurant on the ocean beach, where you can have them prepared a su gusto.


The Hotel Sands (doubles, $20 per night; 335-5-5018) is a slightly weathered wood-and-glass hotel that occupies the primo spot on the edge of the lagoon, just half a block from the main walking streets of the village. A more American-style but antiseptic alternative is the five-star Hotel Cabo Blanco (doubles, $54; 335-5-5136), set in a recess of the lagoon that has been converted into a mini-marina. Ask about its fishing packages.

: Pacific Mexico

Troncones

A half-hour up Mexico 200 from Ixtapa, six kilometers past the village of Buena Vista, a few restaurant signs nailed to a tree point down a dirt track toward a wide, white-sand beach, four kilometers away. This is the only marker for Troncones, a pueblito so insignificant it doesn’t even warrant bus service from Ixtapa. Surfers know the beach, though, lured by the insane long left break off Troncones Point. When it’s pumping ten feet, there’s plenty of traffic down the road.
The rest of the time it’s locals only—Zihuatanejo expats and day-trippers from Ixtapa who come up for three reasons: no tourists, great waves, and excellent food. The last is found at Burro Borracho, at the southern end of the beach. Mike Bensal, who runs the restaurant, is a graduate of the California Culinary Academy and serves up beachside concoctions like Thai pork taco rolls with peanut sauce and cheese-stuffed shrimp wrapped in bacon. Bensal has kayaks, bodyboards, and surfboards available but doesn’t bother renting them—he just lets people use them for free.


Up the beach at La Casa de la Tortuga, Karolyn McCall and Dewey McMillin rent horses ($20 per hour) for rides on the beach, tours of the village and the hills, or jumping. And unlike most of the animals you’ll find on the coast, these are full-size horses. The Casa (doubles, $50-$100, breakfast included; phone 755-7-0732, fax 755-3-2417) is wrapped around interior gardens with a beachside patio and six guest rooms (three with private bath). If you have a big group, rent the whole house for $450 per night. Other choices are the three bungalows with a common outdoor kitchen at Casa-Ki (doubles, $60; U.S. phone 415-668-0263, fax 415-868-0201).
Up in the hills near the village of Majala, there’s a large cave with two-story stalactites. It’s an hourlong slog through jungle scrub to get up there, but once you’re inside it’s expansive and daunting and takes about two hours to explore. Afterward you’ll be eager to get back to the beach, maybe for a few hours of snorkeling in the waist-deep tidepools by Troncones Point, a 40-minute walk north of the cave. Don’t try to find the cave on your own; a kid from the village will guide you for a few dollars.

: Pacific Mexico

Playa las Gatas

The people who stay at Owen Lee’s Las Gatas Beach Club, out on the fringe of Zihuatanejo Bay, are usually repeaters—and always foreigners. “When Mexicans come by,” says Owen, “they take one look and say, ‘Qué pobre!’ How poor it is!” Compare Las Gatas to the multistory bungalows across the bay in Zihuatanejo and it does seem that time has stopped here. It’s pre-package-tour Mexico, the Zihuatanejo that existed when Lee sailed into the bay 28 years ago on a Tahiti-bound yacht. Then there were only 2,500 people living in the fishing village, and most of the bay was lined with mangroves. Now the population is 70,000-plus, and the only bit of mangrove that remains is right in front of the tiny dock of Lee’s property at the southern tip of the beach, which consists of six bungalows hidden in a cocount stand (doubles, $40-$50; 755-4-8307). The electricity may fail, the shower water may smell a little salty, and the restaurants on Las Gatas beach close down shortly after the last launches return for the evening at 5 p.m. But there’s also no TV, no discos, and no city sounds.
A short boat ride can take you to dozens of good diving spots, but Las Rocas is one of Lee’s favorites, about an hour away in the Bay of Potosé. It doesn’t have the Caribbean’s variety of coral, but you may see giant manta rays, groupers, dolphins, and turtles. Most of the diving is between 40 and 60 feet. Rent your gear at Carlo Scuba, midway down the beach. Owner Jean Claude Durandt’s PADI dive center (phone 753-4-3570, fax 753-4-2764 ), the first in Zihuatanejo and the only one on the beach, has been here for 35 years. The possibilities range from resort dives off the beach and around the reef ($50) to one- and two-tank dives ($45-$65), night dives ($55), and certification courses ($400). Make reservations the day before you plan to dive.


Out here on the edge of the bay, the water is far cleaner, and the King’s Reef—supposedly built by a Tarascan king centuries ago to keep man-eaters away from the beach—offers the only protected water in the entire bay. Ask Lee for sailboards and kayaks so you can poke around the perimeter. Las Gatas (The Cats) is named after harmless nurse sharks, notable for their long whiskers. The sharks are long gone, but on a trip around the reef you’re still likely to spot some large fish, especially if you go with Lee, the first American underwater cameraman to work with Jacques Cousteau back in the sixties and author of a series of scuba-related books.

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It’s 11 p.m. on Playa Candelero beach out on Espiritu Santo, the uninhabited island five miles off La Paz. A half-dozen tents stake out the shoreline beside an impromptu harbor: a fleet of beached sea kayaks and a skiff loaded down with freshly filled air tanks, ready for the morning dive. Campfire embers are falling into ash, and the night is quiet save the neighborly barks of the sea lions camped out on Isla la Partida, a mile to the north.
Welcome to Baja California’s East Cape, the rustic yin to Cabo’s golf course¡ and cigar bar¡saturated yang. Running south from La Paz to the mouth of the Gulf of California, this oft-ignored eastern tip of Baja hasn’t changed much since the days of John Steinbeck. Despite long-discussed plans for a paved route that perhaps five years from now will wind through the Sierra de la Laguna and link up with the Los Cabos highway, most roads here are still bad, ribbed with washboard and sandy sinkholes that can swallow a tire whole. Boils of tuna and plankton still draw all manner of giant sea creatures: orcas, humpbacks, and gray whales, elusive hammerheads and whale sharks. Out on Cerralvo Channel, winter winds still blow steady and hard, exhausting the most dogged of boardsailors. And come spring the gulf still turns to glass, with 100-foot visibility over a rare coral reef cruised by dozens of neon-hued fish.


As you might expect, the dog days of summer—August 15 through September 15—can be deadly: up to 110 degrees during the day, 95 at night. But the big surprise is that the rest of the year, even through July, is quite nice, especially if your sports are water-centric. Diving and sea kayaking are best from March through December, though possible year-round. Windsurfing and mountain biking are ideal during winter and early spring. And all year, water temperatures are as much as ten degrees warmer than those of the Pacific, ranging from the seventies to the eighties.
Whatever the season, the best way to launch a tour of the East Cape is to fly into La Paz, at its northern boundary.

La Paz

The capital of Baja California Sur, La Paz straddles a sheltered bay dominated by the dark mass of Espiritu Santo Island. The lure here is diving, specifically among a host of the world’s largest underwater inhabitants. But whether or not you plan to go deep, it makes good sense to spend a day or two exploring this slow, laid-back city of 180,000, picking up supplies for your travels to the south, and even pedaling the coastline on a rented mountain bike.
Instead of spreading out along the water, La Paz itself extends miles inland on progressively funkier dirt roads bordered by neatly painted stucco and cement-block homes. It has some charming hotels, a handful of discos, and adequate restaurants, including the perfectly passable Sushi Express and Tequila’s Bar & Grill, a great open-air cantina with pool tables and more than 200 varieties of the namesake hooch. While tourism drives the economy these days, time-share hawkers are blissfully absent. The locals, known as Pace±os, display a generous hospitality rarely encountered in resorts, a trait generally attributed to environmental difficulties–ferocious heat, scarce fresh water, and occasional hurricane-force winds–which have historically demanded that both neighbors and strangers be assisted.


Conditions offshore aren’t nearly so tough, as evidenced by the crowds of pelagic fish and mammals that swing by La Paz Bay every year to snack on clouds of plankton: vast schools of yellowfin and yellowtail, manta rays with 20-foot wingspans, and just about every whale species that frequents the eastern Pacific, from minkes to sperms to blues. “In ten years of professional diving, the only time I’ve been stunned was when I turned around and saw a 30-foot humpback coming toward me,” says James Curtis, divemaster at La Paz’s Cortez Club. “I didn’t breathe for about half a minute. It came within ten feet of me, and the surge of it passing lifted me backward. It just looked at me and went on.”
Even fans like Curtis admit that it requires a bit of patience to motor out to many of the 45 local dive sites, which are scattered from 45 minutes to two hours away. Farthest afield is the internationally known Marisla Seamount, where hammerhead sharks school 100 feet down. The 28-mile boat ride north takes half a day, making live-aboard charters a more comfortable option.

La Ventana and Los Barriles

Like the snows of Alaska, the winds of the East Cape are a defining local aspect, shaping the land as much as the people, even taking on distinct personalities of their own. The sultriness of late summer and early fall, for example, is often tempered by a coromuel, a moist southerly named after Cromwell, the British pirate who captured Spanish treasure galleons by strategically using his knowledge of local gusts. Sometime after St. Francis Day (October 4) comes the last hurricane of the season: el cordonazo de San Francisco, or Saint Francis’s whiplash. From then on, North American boardsailors compulsively monitor Internet weather sites waiting for a high-pressure system to build over the southwestern United States–at which point they pack their gear and head for either La Ventana or Los Barriles.
At the end of a dusty road 40 minutes south of La Paz, the sleepy fishing village of La Ventana huddles on a 15-mile beach facing Cerralvo Channel. La Ventana means “the window,” an apt name given that, from December through March, this particular casement is wide-open to the 45-knot northerlies that barrel down the gulf like subway trains screaming through a tunnel.


Thanks to the forgiving direction of the prevailing winds, though, beach launches here are easy even for novice boardsailors, and the long, gradual arc of the bay creates a natural safety net for anyone who gets into trouble. Inevitably you’ll wind up on the sand, where a four-wheeler from one of the local rental shops will fetch you. Advanced sailors will find that the dark water farther out has little chop, thick rolling swells, and warm temperatures. Closer in, on the reef near town, you’ll find rollers that make for good play when the wind is just too strong out in the channel.
An underpublicized stop on the windsurfing circuit, La Ventana still offers no real hotels or nightlife, only one restaurant, and a handful of small places where you can rent gear and maybe a trailer to sleep in. But you can always camp on the beach, which is reliably hassle-free.
Things are much more civilized down at Los Barriles, a more established windsurfing spot and fishing center about an hour south. (Its similarly apt name, “the barrels,” refers to its past as a smugglers’ haven, when drums of tequila were illegally floated ashore.) Here you’ll find a wide range of hotel rooms, restaurants serving wood-fired pizzas, and grocery stores stocked with California wines and sunblock, earning the town’s other winking appellation: the southernmost suburb of San Diego. From mid-November to mid-March it’s also the Baja home of Vela, the reputable windsurfing academy that maintains seasonal outposts in windy locales from Aruba to Maui. Since manufacturers use the school to test new designs, most of its equipment is late-model, and you’ll appreciate its full quiver of sails once you experience the wide variety of local winds. (One tip: If you’re not staying at Playa del Sol or Palmas de Cortez but plan to rent from Vela, it’s best to reserve equipment at least a day before, since guests at these two Vela-affiliated hotels otherwise get first dibs.) Sail-swapping is a little more relaxed up in La Ventana, but in either place you should bring your own wetsuit and harness. If you’re choosing between the two spots, think of it like this: Los Barriles is the reassuringly structured university; La Ventana is the playground at recess.

Cabo Pulmo

At the very tip of the East Cape, a few miles shy of Los Frailes, where cartographers have decided the Pacific and the Gulf of California meet, you’ll find the tiny hamlet of Cabo Pulmo—population around 100, depending on the season. There’s one general store, one cantina, no paved roads, no church, no school. (There is, thankfully, the ten-year-old Cabo Pulmo Beach Resort, with 22 clean, spacious cabanas.) The residents here dig wells or truck water in, get their power from solar panels or generators, and rely on a rough dirt track for contact with the outside world. The pioneer lifestyle, however, seems a small price to pay for living next to a Baja Sur natural wonder: a living coral reef, one of only three in the eastern Pacific. To protect the area, the Mexican government designated it a national marine park in 1995 and banned all offshore fishing.
Starting about a half-mile from the beach, eight fingers of reef angle into the sea. Divers here can see as many as 200 species of tropical fish, as well as sea lions, bat rays, huge oarfish, and columnar schools of Mexican hogfish. According to Pepe Murrieta, director of the marine park and owner of Pepe’s Dive Center (011-52-114-10001), whale sharks have come as close as 100 feet from shore, and last season a school of hammerheads nested beside one of the reefs. The sites are never very crowded; even at the peak season around Easter you’ll see no more than a dozen divers at once. And since most of the sites are shallow, snorkeling is also quite good here.


You can explore Cabo Pulmo’s landscape via several other means as well. Experienced kayakers will want to paddle the series of small scalloped bays that terminates at Los Frailes Point and its sea lion colony. (Beware the strong currents that start a quarter-mile offshore during windy winter months; remember that you’re quite near the open ocean.) If you’ve brought your own gear you can also windsurf; Cabo Pulmo was the big secret spot in the late eighties, before La Ventana was “discovered.” Every fall during hurricane season, surfers hit town and head for the break at Boca de Tulas, about 20 minutes south of Los Frailes. Back on land, hikers and mountain bikers can wander among the willows, wild figs, and palms shading the foothills that rise between the arroyos curving down to the gulf. Stop by Pepe’s, the first place you see as you enter town, to pick up maps. Many of the local trails start just behind the shop, which also offers a two-hour guided hike to an ancient Pirecue petroglyph site. Along the faint trails, test your recognition of herbs long harvested by the locals: oregano, sage, mistletoe, and damiana, the last used in lieu of triple sec to make “Baja margaritas.”
In many ways, Cabo Pulmo is the East Cape in miniature: a little-changed land of rare beauty less than 90 minutes from the condo sprawl of Los Cabos. Sitting on the sand at Punta Sirena, a few miles down the beach, you can look out to where the gulf meets the Pacific, an invisible line of demarcation. Back in the village, everybody talks of the government-advocated paved road that will someday link the two worlds—and just about nobody is eager for the new connection. For now, at least, this is old Baja

Access and Resources: How to Navigate the Baja Less Traveled

Getting there

Avoid the glitz of los Cabos by flying directly to La Paz, usually from Los Angeles. Round-trip flights on Air California (800-237-6225) start at $190. At the airport, Hertz (800-645-3001) rents compacts from $250 per week. Beyond La Paz, credit cards are virtually worthless, so carry sufficient cash.

Getting Situated in…

La Paz

If you want to stay in the heart of the city, try the beachfront Los Arcos (doubles, $75; 949-450-9000). Five minutes north is La Concha Beach Resort (doubles, $107; 011-52-112-16161), home of the water-sports-oriented Cortez Club. Hopeless scuba obsessives should head for Pichilingue Point and the Cantamar Hotel (doubles, $70; 011-52-112-21826), 25 minutes closer to the dive sites. Two-tank outings start at $80 anywhere in La Paz, but package deals can lower your combined hotel-dive costs to about $100 a day. (For details, call La Concha or Cantamar.) The Cortez Club also arranges custom kayaking tours of Espiritu Santo and beyond; a three-day trip costs $300.
La Ventana/Los Barriles

Boardsailors will probably want to rent sails and boards ($50-$60 per day) in order to easily swap out as conditions change. Ventana Windsurf (800-782-6037) rents a 450-square-foot yurt or a one-bedroom bungalow for $120 or $160 per night, respectively.
Among the more plush lodgings in Los Barriles, the Palmas de Cortez (doubles, $110-$140; 800-368-4334) offers great bay views and access to big-game fishing charters, which leave daily from the nearby dock and cost $66 or more per person, plus $10 to rent tackle.
Cabo Pulmo:

Cabo Pulmo Beach Resort (888-997-8566) has one-room bungalows and spacious casitas for $85 to $120 per night, and can also help arrange outings: A half-day of panga fishing runs $150; kayaks rent for $30 to $50. Right next door, Nancy’s Restaurant rents palapa-roofed casitas ($65-$85 per night; 011-52-114-10001). Whether or not you stay there, don’t leave town without sampling Nancy’s fare. The fresh snapper, organic veggies, and homemade bread recently earned a rave review in, of all places, the New York Times.

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A vacation south of the border doesn’t have to mean a mega-resort crammed with sedentary chaise-loungers. In Mexico, there are Pacific beach towns and mountain hideaways that you probably thought ceased to exist 20 years ago. In Costa Rica, you can hike, bike, dive, and fish in places the eco-crowds haven’t found yet; in Belize, there are new jungle lodges and reefside resorts. The least-developed is Honduras, a mountain-and-rainforest refuge for the truly adventurous. Following are our picks of the region’s best.

MEXICO


Copper Canyon/Batopilas

For decades copper canyon was one of those magnificent geological monuments that could only be viewed from a distance, usually during the 20-minute pause at the Divisadero train station on the Los Mochis- Chihuahua run of the Pacífico Railway line. A few backpackers would venture down into the gorges with guides, but the harsh terrain and lack of water made it a trip only for the well-prepared.
Now, thanks to fat-tired suspended mountain bikes and a mini-boom in accommodations in Batopilas, the ghost town 7,000 feet down and several climate zones deep, the Canyon is being explored as never before. It’s a seven-hour trip by thrice-weekly bus from Creel, the easiest starting point. By bike, it takes more or less time, depending on you.


Stay in Creel the first night (at Margarita’s, about $26 per person, $30 for two, including breakfast and dinner; 011-52-145-60245) and get your legs riding around this rustic logging town. The ride out to Cusarare Falls is an easy two-kilometer single-track that winds up at a 100-foot-high cascade.


There are zillions of other single-track trails all around Creel, but nothing equals the descent into Batopilas. The road down is paved now to the halfway point at La Casita, but the next 45 miles are the downhill of your dreams. The dramatic gorges are defined by twisted primeval rock formations, views to infinity, and cliff faces marked by sooty-mouthed caves—the temporary homes of wandering Tarahumara. Once you get to the bottom, you cross the river into town, past the ruins of a nineteenth-century hacienda, and curve into the main square outside the church—in the last century, it was lined with silver ingots whenever the Bishop would visit. There’s no silver now, no bishop, and fewer than 1,000 people. But there’s a fine hotel, the Riverside Lodge ($250 for two, including meals and guided hikes; 800-776-3942), a colonial-style hacienda surrounded by cliffs and mesas. From the lodge you can hike out to Satevú (about an hour), where a domed seventeenth-century cathedral stands, or to the tiny community of Cerro Colorado (about three hours).


For maps, bike rentals, repairs, tubes, and patch kits, or guided tours of Batopilas, contact Arturo Guti‹rrez at Expediciones Umarike (fax 145-60212).


The Pacific Coast

Like rocks exposed during the shifting of sands after a winter swell, Mexico’s central Pacific coast continues to change, revealing new outposts of laid-back rhythms, uncluttered sands, warm water, and food for the soul: fruit just off the tree, fish straight from the net, hand-made tortillas. The five-star tourist warrens of Puerto Vallarta and Careyes continue to dominate the scene, but two peninsula-anchored pueblitos—Sayulita (45 minutes north of P.V.) and La Manzanilla (a half-hour south of Careyes)—are proof that life is good when you’re well off the tour-bus radar screen.


Sayulita is Surf City circa 1962, with long- and short-boarders working the waves together in uncrowded camaraderie. Throw in horseback-riding trips into the jungle, great snorkeling off the rocks, kayaking, mountain biking, and superb fishing, and you wonder why anyone would pass this up for over-priced faux-Thai food in Puerto Vallarta. You can get the full athletic treatment at Costa Azul �����ԹϺ��� Resort (doubles, $65-$98; 800-365-7613), a five-acre jungle-beach compound with only 28 rooms in the neighboring village of San Francisco. You can plot your own adventure, or sign on for one of their all-inclusive package deals ($76-$98 per person per night for surfing, kid’s adventure camp, honeymoon, or adventure packages).


Or, for the ultimate insider’s experience, there’s Casa Paradíso (call Margaret Gillham at Lones Travel, 800-458-2878), a spacious, terraced home clinging to a pristine section of coast about 15 minutes south of the village. It’s not cheap—packages run $1,500 to $4,500 a week—e higher price includes three separated terraced villas, all food and non-alcoholic drinks, full-time service (maid, houseboy, cook, chauffeur), and a huge open-air palapa living-dining room that feels like a jungle tree house. There’s a pool just a dozen steps above the private sandy beach, where there’s excellent snorkeling (manta rays, turtles, rockfish) and surfing. In winter the open ocean out front is full of porpoises and migrating orcas, breaching and spouting.


The minuscule village of La Manzanilla sits in the heart of the Costa Alegre, the “happy coast” of Jalisco. Dwarfed by the giant resorts of Careyes (Club Med, Bel-Air, etc.) to the north and the small-but-growing-fast Barra de Navidad to the south, it’s the best place to explore the still-virgin coves and reefs of Tenacatita Bay. There are some great waves for surfers, but also a long stretch of soft sand where bodyboarding and bodysurfing are superb. Around the rocks at either end of the bay are dozens of safe, close-in snorkeling and spear-fishing spots. You can stay in a beach-side bungalow in the heart of town (look for the “bungalows/restaurant” sign at the beach in town; $15-$30 a night, no phone) or, if you’re lucky, unpack at El Mar, the front villa at Casa Maguey ($50 a night; phone/fax 335-15012), perched like a cormorant’s nest on the cliff above the village’s main playa. The decor is tasteful, and the views are as close as the hovering pelicans just off the terrace, as distant as the green flash of the sun as it drops behind the curve of the Pacific.


Casa Maguey has kayaks, snorkeling gear, a water-ski boat, and wake-surfing boards for guests, and can put you in contact with locals for horseback rides into the jungle or informal tours of the nearby lagoon to see crocodiles, flamingos, spoonbills, and herons.


Backroads: El BajíoPozos-Cieneguitas

In Mexico’s colonial heartland, the El Bajío region of Guanajuato state is pretty much defined by its capital city, Guanajuato, and the much smaller artists’ colony of San Miguel de Allende. But for those who can do without espresso and CNN on demand, there are alternatives.


Pozos is a unique window on Mexico’s past, a ghost town littered with scores of dramatic fallen-in haciendas, abandoned gold mines, and cobblestone streets empty of cars or people. Which is why the Casa Mexicana ($45 per person, including meals; 468-83030) is such a surprise. It’s a tiny boutique hotel with great service, wonderful decor (Picasso lithographs!), and a fantastic blend of nouvelle and traditional Mexican cuisine. People come from San Miguel (an hour by car, the last 20 minutes on a dirt road) simply for lunch. Wiser folk come for long weekends, renting bikes in San Miguel (from Bici Burros, $20 per day; 415-21526) to check out the countryside and the ruins. The ride up to La Iglesia de Santa Cruz, the local patron saint’s church situated 1,200 feet above town, is a grinding two-hour climb that pays off with 50-mile views and a screamer of a downhill back. The nearby Cinco Señores, a 100-plus-acre walled compound, has multiple ruins dating from the mid-nineteenth century, including a Presidio where gold miners and merchants would make their last stop before venturing into the unprotected countryside. There’s hiking up to a pure-water spring (about four miles), horseback riding to Chichimecan villages within about ten miles of the compound, and mountain-bike trails in every direction.


Close to San Miguel is El Viejo Balneario Cieneguitas, known to locals simply as Lucky’s (sleeps four-six; $60 per couple, two-day minimum stay, includes all meals; 415-21687 or 21599; lucky@unisono.ciateq.mx). Built around four natural mineral baths, two outdoors and two enclosed, the half-acre compound is shaded by towering mesquite trees flanked by grassy walkways. Although San Miguel is only 20 minutes away (10 by regular bus service), the mood here is defined by the nearby RŒo Laja and its Audubon-designated nature site. Northern harriers, vermillion flycatchers, white-faced ibis, stilts, and avocets cluster along the banks of the river, only vanishing when the village women come to do their laundry. There’s also a sweat lodge, and four good mountain bikes available. Be sure to take advantage of the trails around Cieneguitas; most mountain bikers coming out of San Miguel make it only this far, so starting from here gives you much greater freedom. Just a 40-minute ride away is the baroque church of Atotonilco, recently designated a “World Treasure” by the U.N. and a major pilgrimage site for self-flagellating devotees. Across the river, trails through the fields lead to Cruz del Palmar and the remains of a Chichimecan pyramid. After a day of biking or horseback riding (good horses are available from ZayŒn; 2.5- to 3.5-hour tour, $30; overnight, $75-$100; call 415-23620), the warm waters of Lucky’s baths are the perfect complement


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Costa Rica

Costa Rica has long been familiar to those who measure success by the number of birds on their life list. Or who are annoyingly persistent about referring to the golden toad as Bufo periglenes. Or who won’t let it rest until they can explain to you the difference between two-toed and three-toed sloths. (Yeah, we thought it was one toe, too.) But for gringos who are mainly on the run from Frosty the Snowperson, this pocket-sized edition of nature-gone-to-the-carnival also offers just about any sporting vacation you could think of that doesn’t involve the risk of frostbite or having to pick up the tab aprŠs-ski.


Rough terrain can make getting around difficult, so for visits of under two weeks, most people use a tour company to put together an itinerary. In the U.S. two of the more knowledgeable companies are Costa Rica Experts (800-827-9046) and Costa Rica Connection (800-345-7422). In Costa Rica, talk to Horizontes (011-506-222-2022) and Costa Rica Expeditions (257-0766).
Whitewater Rafting

Even in the dry season, whitewater rafting in Costa Rica is a world-class thrill sport, with levels of difficulty ranging up to Class V. Go with Ríos Tropicales, the king of Costa Rican paddle sports (233-6455). If you do only one river it should be the Pacuare (Class III-IV). It’s only a day trip from San Jos‹ ($90, including transportation and lunch), but it traverses some of the prettiest jungle in Costa Rica. Blue morpho butterflies will flutter ahead of you in the narrow gorges. You’ll shoot in and out of waterfalls that drop into the river from high above. And you’ll ride rapids that will make what the screaming people do on the roller coaster at Space Mountain seem like whispering at the library.


Boardsailing One of Costa Rica’s newest sports, but gaining an international reputation, is boardsailing on 24-mile-long Lake Arenal, about 85 miles northwest of San José. The three-foot waves that can develop keep Arenal from ranking with Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge, but not by much. High-wind season is November to March, when the breeze often funnels across the lake with such velocity that you don’t want to go out without first double-checking the drawstring on your bathing suit. Base yourself at the Hotel Tilawa (doubles, $65 per day; board rental, $45 per day; 695-5050), a windsurfing resort at the opposite end of the lake from the Arenal Volcano that, yes, was intentionally built to look like the ancient Palace of Knossos, on the island of Crete.


Surfing

Surfers have been making use of Costa Rica’s 735 miles of coastline for so long that it’s almost surprising to hear that the first visitor of record, Christopher Columbus, didn’t have a board with him. Most of the classic breaks are on the Pacific side, with the area around Playa Tamarindo, in the north, being a favorite. Tamarindo village itself has too many places to stay and eat and party that cost more than they should, so after grabbing a killer burger at the Junglebus, head south 12 miles to isolated Playa Junquillal. The Iguanazul Hotel (doubles, $60; 232-1423) sits on a bluff high above the beach and gets you into the morning surf long before the party-hearty folks coming out from Tamarindo. For more wide-ranging surf trips, call Surf Express (407-779-2124). They’re based in Florida, but know Costa Rica and surfing so well that you can comfortably begin your conversation with “Buenos déas, dude.”


Hiking

Some of the best hiking in Costa Rica is 100 miles southeast of San Jos‹ in Corcovado National Park on the wild Osa Peninsula, whose biologically diverse population includes big cats and illegal gold miners. A good base for day hikes or multi-day trips throughout the park is Costa Rica Expeditions’ Corcovado Lodge Tent Camp (doubles, $68 per person, including all meals; 257-0766), so remote that, after being deposited at the nearest jungle airstrip, you still have a 45-minute walk. A favorite trip is the overnight hike from the tent camp north to the ranger station at Sirena. Most of the hike is along a surf-pounded Pacific beach beneath a canopy alive with monkeys and scarlet macaws. The ranger station provides meals—anything you want, as long as it’s rice and beans and fish—for $16 per day for three meals. Reservations are required (735-5036).


Horseback Riding

Most of the horseback riding in Costa Rica is on jungle trails, and the only skill needed is the ability to accept that the horse is smarter than you, and has no intention of sliding down the side of a mountain. The best riding, and the best horses, are in the “Wild West” ranching country of Guanacaste in the northwest. Los Inocentes Lodge (doubles, $112, including meals; 265-5484), at the northern edge of Guanacaste National Park, offers rides ($15 per day, $25 with lunch) that include a view of the cloud-capped Orosé Volcano and a chance to spot rare spider monkeys. The lodge is a classic, built in 1890 of local hardwoods as the main house for a large cattle ranch. Beautifully renovated, its best feature is still the wide veranda, where, if you’re whiling away a pleasant afternoon in one of the rocking chairs and the talk turns to politics, it’s best to keep in mind that the lodge was built by the grandfather of Nicaragua’s current president.


Scuba Diving

The best place to scuba dive in Costa Rica—in fact, one of the best in the world if you like to swim with sharks that have attitude—is Isla de Cocos, 300 miles off the Pacific Coast. But if you’ve only got a week or two, stick to the mainland. Most of the diving is done along the northern Pacific coast, but in the winter you’ll find clearer water at Isla de Cano, near Drake Bay, in the south. As with most Costa Rica diving, there’s not much coral but plenty of sea life, including schools of big manta rays. Stay at the Èguila de Osa Inn (doubles, $100 per person, meals included; two-tank dive, $110; 232-7722), in Drake Bay, where Cookie the chef serves up fish almost as fresh as those you’ll see on your dive.


Fishing

There’s tarpon and snook on the Caribbean side around Tortuguero. And some anglers are so single-mindedly focused on Lake Arenal’s rainbow bass that they have been known not to notice that the volcano is erupting. But what really hooks fishermen in Costa Rica are the Pacific ocean billfish, especially sailfish, which they’re willing to spend $400-$800 a day to pursue. Flamingo and Tamarindo are becoming the centers of activity, but in winter, when the sea kicks up a bit, many boats move down to the more sheltered Quepos, where the 36-foot Dorado IV (253-6713) hooked and released 100 sailfish in three days last season.


The Cloud Forest

Even if your attitude is that one nature preserve has the same dumb plants and bugs as another, a Costa Rican experience not to be missed is a trip to a cloud forest, where dampness is a virtue. The most famous is Monteverde, about 110 miles northwest of San Jos‹, still a misty wonderland even if the iridescently green resplendent quetzal and other wildlife have largely fled before the hordes who have come to admire them. A good alternative is the nearby Santa Elena Forest Reserve, three miles farther up the rough mountain road, where you have a better chance of seeing not only quetzals and 400 other species of birds, but also sloth, deer, ocelots, and monkeys. You can go without a guide, but that would be the cloud-forest equivalent of experiencing Times Square blindfolded.


Take one of the guided tours that start at the visitor’s center (645-5238), where you would also be wise to rent a pair of rubber boots. Stay at the Monteverde Lodge (doubles, $93; 257-0766). It’s just 15 minutes from the Santa Elena Reserve, and has an atrium Jacuzzi where you can sit and recount the day’s events with up to 14 of your newest friends.



Volcano-Watching

Even more than quetzals and blue morpho butterflies, the visual stunner in Costa Rica is the almost continuously active Arenal Volcano. Nighttime is the best time to observe it, when flowing lava often puts on an action-flick-quality sound and light show. Unless you want to become tourist on toast, don’t even think about trying to climb the volcano’s slopes. But you’ll feel like you’re practically on them from some of the rooms at the Arenal Observatory Lodge (doubles, $55-$110; 257-9489), which was originally built for volcano watchers from the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Costa Rica. The lodge, accessible only by four-wheel-drive from the village of Fortuna, is so close to the volcano that on occasion the rooms allow you, finally, to feel the earth move while you’re in bed.

Belize

During a single day in Belize, you can dive the world’s second-longest barrier reef and hike through luxuriant rainforest and lofty Mayan ruins. But why rush? No one else does in this tiny country, where most inland roads are rocky jungle trails, and local “traffic” is more likely to be a sprinting Jesus Christ lizard than another car. Belize, formerly British Honduras, is wild and rugged, a wedge of subtropical Eden with Guatemala at its back, the Caribbean Sea spread before it, and some 200 tiny islands, many of them uninhabited, just offshore. As more travelers venture to Belize’s reefs and rainforests, a surprising number of new lodges are opening to welcome them.


The Western Jungle

Western Belize, a far-flung wilderness of broadleaf jungle, slash pine woods, and cool, forest-clad mountains, is where you’ll find the most jungle lodges. Newest of the luxury digs is Jaguar Paw Jungle Resort (doubles, $155, breakfast included; 800-335-8645), opened in January 1996 on 215 acres of rainforest about an hour’s drive from Belize City. Its 17 rooms are outfitted with air-conditioning and down pillows, and its grounds are complete with satellite TV and swimming pool—rare in these wilds. Head for Caves Branch River, an easy walk from the lodge, where you can swim in see-through waters and cruise in a small boat through a honeycomb of caves. There are eight miles of nature trails, guided river tubing ($60 per person), and all-day hikes into numerous underground caverns near the lodge.
New this year at Chaa Creek Lodge (doubles, $115; 011-501-92-2037), two hours from Belize City, is the Macal River Camp ($45 per person, including breakfast and dinner), a ten-tent camp buried in jungle high above the river along a bluff, half a mile from the main lodge. It’s plenty private here and not too rough: Tents are spacious, the cots comfy, the kitchen fashioned with an open hearth. Activities include river rafting, canoeing, swimming, horseback riding, hiking, mountain biking, day trips to the Mayan ruins at Caracol (about two and a half hours away via a dirt road; $260 for one to four people), and exploring the Rainforest Medicine Trail next door to Chaa Creek. Or check out Chaa Creek’s new (since 1995) Natural History Centre and Blue Morpho Butterfly Breeding Centre. There’s also a Butterfly House, built for the scientist who started the breeding center but now open to guests, with solar electricity and kitchen ($115, double occupancy).


In western Belize’s Mountain Pine Ridge area, a two-hour trip from Belize City down a marle-and-dirt road off the Western Highway, are two luxury lodges. More established is the Hidden Valley Inn (doubles, $122 through mid-December, including breakfast; $181 after mid-December, including breakfast and dinner; 800-334-7942), with handsome stucco cottages and a main house set beneath a mantle of mountain pines. Other exclusive digs can be found at Francis Ford Coppola’s Blancaneaux Lodge (doubles, $115 through mid-December, $160 mid-December through mid-May; 92-3878), which has its own airstrip and hydroelectric plant, and a pizza oven flown in specially from Italy.


Northern Outposts

New this year in northern Belize is Pretty See Jungle Ranch ($125-$150 for two, $35 per person for meals; 31-2005), an easy 45-minute drive from Belize City. Spidery rivers run through the 1,360-acre spread, and a crocodile pond swarms with toothy creatures and colonies of boat-billed herons, keeled-billed toucans, and thousands of parrots. Accommodations consist of three large cabins, all with four-poster beds and two with Jacuzzis, surrounded by plush green pasture and high bush. You can take a canoe trip along the five miles of rivers that lace the property, a guided jungle hike ($15 per hour) or horseback ride (half-day, $50; full day, $75), or island-hop via Mexican skiff ($60 per person) over to Ambergris Caye, barely 20 miles away.


Lamanai Outpost Lodge (doubles, $105; 23-3578) in northern Belize is more remote. You can get there by road, but it’s usually reached by a one-hour pontoon boat ride (included in package prices, otherwise it’s $75) along the New River from the Mennonite village of Shipyard, past long-nosed bats dozing in hollow tree trunks and women scrubbing their clothes along the riverbank. (A newly carved airstrip at Lamanai brings chartered flights from Belize City, but the arrival is not nearly as atmospheric.) The outpost’s simple wood and palm-thatch cabanas are next door to 3,500-year-old Lamanai, a Mayan maze of wildly adorned temples and hundreds of other structures. Explore the ruins (guided tours, $22 per person), then take a guided orchid, birding, or medicinal plant tour (about $17). After dark, don’t miss the Spotlight River Safari ($29), during which the guide trains his big light on all the crocodile eyes.


Reefs, Cayes, and Cloud Forests

Down in the cloud forests of southern Belize, newly revamped Fallen Stones Butterfly Ranch and Jungle Lodge (doubles, $105, breakfast included; 72-2167) is set on a mountaintop, its simple screened cabins overlooking a broad expanse of emerald valleys. Hiking here is exceptional; sign up for the three-hour guided hike through thick bush to the Río Grande river, where canoes await to take you to the primitive Mayan village of San Pedro, Colombia (full-day trip; $15 per person). There’s an edge-of-the-world feel at Fallen Stones, possibly because the closest town, Punta Gorda, is 45 minutes away (“town” being a loose term—it’s little more than an outpost).


Other accommodations in Southern Belize: Jaguar Reef Lodge (doubles, $75 through October; $120 November through mid-May; 92-3452), a stylish eco-retreat of beachfront duplexes fashioned from Belizean hardwood. Opened in late 1995, it’s one of the few places in Belize with instant access to both reef and rainforest. Join a dive (two-tank dive, $70) or kayak trip, or a guided hike to Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary ($42), following logging trails through the dense glade past waterfalls, red-eyed tree frogs, and glistening fungi resembling seashells. Back at Jaguar Reef Lodge, take a mountain-bike ride (bikes provided at no charge) to the nearby Garifuna village of Hopkins, watching for the jaguars that prowl the forests.


New lodges seem to open every month on Ambergris Caye, largest and most developed of the Belize cayes—and the fastest-growing place in the country. Among the new expatriate-run digs on Ambergris: Coconuts Caribbean Hotel (doubles, $75 through mid-November, $105 mid-November through April, continental breakfast included; 800-324-6974) with 12 comfortable rooms facing sea and sand; and Belizean Reef Suites (one-bedroom suites for up to four guests, $100 through mid-November, $125 mid-November through April; 26-2582). In the works for future lodgers: a $250 million resort and casino, sure to change the low-key Ambergris lifestyle— in other words, get there fast.


Snorkelers will love Ambergris Caye and its clear, shallow waters. The best snorkel stops: Hol Chan Marine Reserve, where channel walls are layered with moray eels; Mexican Rocks, a galaxy of flamboyant coral formations; and Shark-Ray Alley sandbar, whose eight-foot-deep waters are thronged by docile stingrays and nurse sharks.


Scuba divers should head out to Lighthouse Reef Resort (one-week minimum stay; weekly packages from $1,350 per person, double occupancy, including meals, dives, and round-trip flight from Belize City; 800-423-3114). This is the only lodge within the seriously remote Lighthouse Reef atoll, known for its wonderful walls, wrecks, and the Blue Hole, whose dim, eerie recesses harbor albino sharks and other strange sinkhole sealife. Roomy beachfront cabanas are strewn along a powdery stretch of sand.

Honduras

Honduras’s natural beauty—the magnificent temperate rainforests of La Mosquitia, cool pine forests blanketing the center of the country, and dense patches of cloud forest crowning its highest peaks—has been difficult to get to until recently. Over the past two years, the government has opened up the country’s more remote regions to visitors, offering new access to virgin jungle and mountain forest, along with expert local guide services.


La Mosquitia

Tucked away in the northeast corner of Honduras and crossing over into Nicaragua, La Mosquitia is one of the wildest and least-explored areas in the hemisphere—a huge swath of jungle, swamp, grass savannah, and mountains populated mainly by Miskito, Garifuna, Pech, and Tawahka Indians.
Last spring, residents of Las Marías, a Pech and Miskito village on the Río Plátano, began organizing a rotation of forest and river guides to help independent travelers visit the Río PlátanoBiosphere Reserve, an 800,000-hectare section of virgin jungle in the heart of La Mosquitia that stretches from the Olancho Mountains all the way to the Caribbean coast. To get to Las Marías, hop a short flight ($60 round-trip on Isleña or Rollins Airlines) from the coastal city of Palacios at the western edge of La Mosquitia near the RŒo Pl¤tano. In Palacios, speak to Don Felix Mármol at the Isleña office; he can help you find a boat to take you across a lagoon and upriver to Las Marías(five to eight hours round trip; $90-$120, depending on your negotiating skills).


In Las Marías—a large group of thatched huts cut out of the jungle on the edge of the river—look for Martín Herrera, who can show you where to find food, a bed, and guides. Two recommended trips are a three- to four-day hike up Pico Dama, the 2,755-foot mountain looming over the jungle south of Las Marías, with fantastic views in all directions (guides, $6 per day); or a one- to two-day canoe ride upriver to the petroglyphs at Wal’pulban’sirpi and Wal’pulban’tara, and into the jungle beyond ($25 per day for two).


Another way to explore the region is an epic two-week journey from Dulce Nombre de Culmí in the Olancho Mountains in north-central Honduras, and down the Río Plátano by a combination of rafting and hiking with Mosquitia wildman Jorge Zalavery. You’ll see monkeys, tapirs, birds of all colors, and, if you’re lucky, one of the many jungle cats of the region—and then raft the white-water stretches of the river cutting through the jungle.


After leaving the last settlement in Olancho, the only signs of humanity before reaching Las Marías are several mysterious pre-Columbian ruins, thought to be of Mayan origin. The two-week trip costs $1,116 per person for groups of four to six; contact La Moskitia EcoAventuras, 21-040444; fax 21-0408.


Montañas de Celaque

Honduras is home to some of the best-preserved cloud forests in the Americas, and none is more impressive than the Montañas de Celaque in far-western Honduras, the highest mountain range in the country. A huge stretch of primary cloud forest remains intact on the top of Celaque, with tall, thick trees covered with moss, vines, and bromeliads forming the forest canopy, quetzals and other rare birds flitting among the branches, and jaguar, ocelots, and deer roaming below.


Just last year, the Honduran Forestry Service finished marking a five-mile trail into the forest from the colonial town of Gracias, making Celaque easily accessible to hikers. Go to the Gracias forestry office to get a topo map of the trails and campsites, then walk or drive the five and a half miles to the visitors’ center at the base of the mountain (beds available; $2 park entry fee; rides from Gracias for $4 per person can be arranged at Restaurante Guancasco on the town square). From the visitors’ center it’s six to eight hours of steep and slippery hiking to the top of Cerro de las Minas, the highest point in the country at 9,345 feet. Round trip could be done in two days, but it’s better to spend a couple of nights at one of the two campsites on the mountain. After returning to Gracias and soaking your stiff bones in the local hot spring, you can spend a couple of days touring the nearby colonial mountain villages of La Campa, San Manuel Colohuete, and Belón Gualcho.


Lenca Land Trails, a tour operator in Santa Rosa de Cop¤n, offers excellent five-day hiking tours from Bel‹n Gualcho across the entire Celaque range, coming out again at Gracias (about $200, everything included; contact Max Elvir at the Hotel Elvir in Santa Rosa de Cop¤n; 62-0103 or 62-0805). It rains frequently in this area, so be sure to bring along some rain gear.

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Off-road is an adjective not usually associated with the artists’ colony of San Miguel de Allende, on the mile-high Bajío plateau 180 miles northwest of Mexico City. Colonial, cobblestoned, and charming are the modifiers typically used to describe this expatriate oasis, with New Agey and tequila-drenched gaining fast. Indeed, few seasonal pilgrims ever get to know San Miguel’s surrounding countryside: 800 miles of singletrack and dirt roads, all surrounded by wildflowers and cornfields, goats and burros, friendly campesinos and their unfriendly dogs. Which explains why, when most of my fellow Americans are at art openings sipping cheap wine and trading gossip, I’m here under the shade of a towering mesquite, perched over the bars of my Cannondale to catch a quick breath.

After 10 years of pedaling in the area, I’ve zeroed in on three rides that rank with the best I’ve found anywhere. Take my word for it—or better yet, stop by Bici Burro bike shop (011-52-415-21526) and talk to owner Beto Martinez, who will gladly provide you with detailed directions or serve as your guide ($20 per day to rent a recent-vintage front-suspension bike, $30 per person for guide and bike rental).
San Luis Rey-Jardin Botánico Loop

Distance: 7.5 miles. Time: 60 to 90 minutes. Difficulty: moderate. Water: one bottle.


San Luis Rey is a growing suburb off the road to the nearby town of Dolores Hidalgo. The roads here are muy feo, very ugly, with lots of rocks and ruts. But as you climb through San Luis Rey and up along the old Querétaro road, you get a rare, uncluttered view of the valley beyond town.


Pedaling southeast past San Miguel to the mesa above San Luis Rey is an increasingly difficult 40-minute climb. On top, mercifully, the singletrack levels out. There’s a ranch that raises fighting bulls to the left. Stay to the right and circle toward the 370-acre Jardín Botánico, Mexico’s largest botanical garden and home to thousands of rare cacti and succulents. There are dozens of paths here, but the lower trails are most dramatic, skirting the edge of a huge gorge and eventually dropping you back into town.

Cieneguitas and the Palo Colorado-Atotonílco Loop

Cieneguitas

Distance: 11 miles. Time: two hours. Difficulty: moderate. Water: two bottles.


This out-and-back ride heads northwest from San Miguel’s center, passing the bus and train stations and linking up with local commuter bike trails in open countryside. Don’t worry about crossing anyone’s land: As long as there’s a trail—and there are scads of them—trespassing is not just allowed, but expected. This is cross-country heaven, with narrow, rock-free trails threading past cholla, nopal cacti, quail, and red-tailed hawks. San Miguel is far removed, dwarfed by the expanse of sky.
All northwest-tending tracks eventually cross the dusty, lane-and-a-half Cieneguitas road. At the end of this route are the Río Laja, San Miguel’s main water source; the sugarcane-framed pueblo of Cieneguitas; and a relatively new hot springs facility called Las Grutas de Guadalupe ($2.50 to enter; bring your bathing suit). The five pools are big enough for a half-dozen people and overlook cornfields and tiny ranchos. Just don’t soak too long or the gradual, uphill ride home will seem twice as steep.


Palo Colorado-Atotonílco Loop

Distance: 23.5 miles. Time: six hours. Difficulty: strenuous. Water: three bottles.


Be prepared for a day of technical riding—lots of rocks and swooping sandstone moguls. The loop begins at San Luis Rey and links up with the 300-year-old Camino Real, following its fractured path north along the mountains. You may have to push your bike over the trickier sections, but the sweeping views are well worth it, looking all the way to the Santa Rosa Mountains above Guanajuato, 35 miles away. After about two hours, you’ll see willows that mark an abandoned hacienda. Aim toward these trees, descending for five miles into the White Desert, a sandstone playground that has some of the best banked runs and air-grabbing jumps this side of Fruita, Colorado.


The big attraction at Atotonílco, 10 miles from San Miguel, is the 18th-century Santuario, a pilgrimage center for penitentes—mortifiers of the flesh. The World Monuments Fund recently helped renovate the church, with its fascinating Hieronymus Bosch-style frescoes depicting the horrors that await the unfaithful. Browse among the vendors for the perfect souvenir: a skin-piercing crown of thorns, perhaps, or a colorful rope whip for a dose of self-flagellation.


The ride back to San Miguel follows the old train bed. It’s wide, well graded, and gently inclined, and after about 40 minutes it leads you to the Cieneguitas church and the road home.

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