The Deep South

For many years, ill-maintained roads, spotty communications, and the country's highest annual rainfall—as much as 180 to 200 inches—kept Belize's southernmost region off-limits to all but the most adventurous of travelers. The precipitation hasn't changed (you'll need boots and an umbrella in the rainy season), but with improvements to the Southern Highway—all of the highway has been beautifully paved, except for a short stretch near Golden Stream—and the opening of new lodges and hotels, the riches of Toledo District (often pronounced with a short "e," Toh-LEH-doh, by local residents, though others pronounce it with a long "e") are finally becoming accessible.

Toledo has Belize's only extensive, genuine rain forest, and its canopy of trees conceals a plethora of wildlife, including jaguars, margays, tapirs, and loads of tropical birds. The area's rich Mayan heritage is just being unearthed, with archaeologists at work at Pusilha, Nim Li Punit, Uxbenká, and elsewhere. Contemporary Maya—mainly Mopan and Ketchi—still live in villages around the district, as they have for centuries, along with the Garífuna, Creoles, East Indians, and others who constitute the Toledo population of 30,000.

Don't expect to come to Toledo and lounge on the sand. The area doesn't have good beaches except a few accessible only by boat: the coastal waters of the Gulf of Honduras are almost invariably muddy from silt deposited by numerous rivers flowing from the Maya Mountains. What can you expect? Exceptional fishing (Toledo has one of the world's best permit fisheries) and cayes off the coast that are well worth exploring. The closest are the Snake Cayes; farther out are the Sapodilla Cayes, the largest of which is Hunting Caye. A horseshoe-shape bay at the caye's eastern end has beaches of white coral where turtles nest in late summer.

Besides all the usual luscious tropical fruits, rice and cacao (chocolate) are grown in Toledo. Around local Mayan villages sizable quantities of organic cacao are cultivated. Most is shipped abroad and used in the Maya Gold brand of chocolate bars. In 2007, a cacao festival was organized, and it will continue annually in May (dates vary—seewww.toledochocolate.com).

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