Nevis: Uncrowded, Unhurried, Unsung

You have to force the action a bit on Nevis. Oh, there’s everything to do—kayak, snorkel, dive, windsurf—that you’d expect on a lush volcanic knoll in the Caribbean Leewards, but there’s no compulsion to do any of it. Why? With legends of sea beasts and fierce storms lingering in their collective unconscious, most Nevisians are happy to remain onshore. Which is why I felt perfectly authentic the day I toweled off from a morning’s snorkel and spent a few hours in the tiny capital city of Charlestown eating fresh mangoes and watching the St. Kitts ferry come in, the disembarking passengers oblivious to the two large cows strolling through Memorial Square. You can, of course, thwart the prevailing don’t-work-up-a-sweat landlubber mentality at any time and delve into the island’s sugar-sand beaches, secret dive sites, far-out windsurfing, and goat-munched singletrack. And rest assured: Your hammock will still be empty at day’s end.

The Sporting Life
Thirty-six-square-mile Nevis is content to doze beneath the tourist radar. Nevis Peak (3,232 feet) crowns the island—an ascent is a wet grunt, but worth the effort. Go with Linnell Liburd (Sunrise Tours, 869-469-2758) to avoid confusion amid a warren of routes. Nevis’s heritage as a British colony of sugarcane plantations accounts for the grand-manors-turned-hostelries, as well as the network of abandoned roads made to order for fat-tire wanderers. “If you see a trail, follow it,” is Winston Crooke’s advice at Mountain Bike Nevis (869-469-9682). Winston also runs Windsurfing Nevis; sideshore winds at Oualie Beach make it an ideal novice’s venue, but paddle beyond the placid bay and a funnel effect in the two-mile-wide channel between Nevis and St. Kitts creates bump-and-jump stuff not for the faint of heart. Ellis Chaderton runs Scuba Safaris (869-469-9518; www.divenevis.com), the island’s only dive operation. He’s charted 40 different sites, including a favorite called Booby High Shoals, where flotillas of nurse sharks and monstrous lobsters hang out. Two-tank dives cost $80.
The Beach
Oualie Beach, 250 yards of searing white sand, couldn’t be better protected, with headlands at both ends, thousand-foot Round Hill just behind, and the mountainous east end of St. Kitts just across a channel. The water is 81 degrees and virtually all of the island’s water-sports centers are here. For all that, Oualie is perennially serene.

After the Sun Goes Down
Make for Sunshine’s, a sandy shack of dubious but unquestioned legality on Pinney’s Beach that thumps nightly with reggae, blues, and jazz. The gregarious eponymous owner grills the catch of the day along with chicken and ribs, served up with a wicked concoction he calls the Killer Bee (rum being the killer ingredient).

Lay Your Sunburned Head At…
Why choose? Do surf and turf. Golden Rock Plantation Inn lies at the base of Nevis Peak about three miles inland from the windward beaches, at the cusp of the rainforest. Trails lead right out the door into the dense jungle. The stately manor has been converted into a dining room and lounge, and seven stone cottages, scattered about the ambling grounds, have ocean views and private terraces. Be sure to reserve the limestone sugar-mill tower containing an impossibly romantic circular suite. Doubles cost $140-$365 (869-469-3346; ). For surf, head to Oualie Beach Hotel, where 34 gingerbread cottages sit right on the beach. Each has a screened tile-floor terrace with chaise longues and a glorious view of the sunset over St. Kitts. Doubles range from $105-$345 (869-469-9735; ).

Très Nevis
Listening to LaRue the Parrot squawk, “Pretty bird, what a pretty bird,” as you scarf your cornflakes on Golden Rock’s breakfast terrace; joining a group of urchins playing broomstick cricket in the street; testing the mysterious “goatwater” appetizer at Cla Cha Del on Jones Bay while Pas the bartender Osterizes a mango colada.

The Price of Paradise
Nevis needs Lady Bird Johnson. The roads are lined with trash, much of it courtesy of the goats and wild donkeys that upend flimsy trash cans.

Resources: Nevis’s New York tourism office: 800-582-6208;

Grenada: The Life of Spice

A milk cow tethered to a rusting Air Cubana prop plane, a relic from the Cold War, watches with regal boredom as we spin doughnuts on the old airstrip of Grenada’s long-defunct Pearls Airport. The runway stops at the edge of the deep blue Caribbean Sea, where I toss my last bite of lambi roti (a sort of conch burrito) to a foraging billy goat. I’m exploring Grenada with Anna Magni, an Italian expat who has offered to show me around the island for the day. We’ve just come from soaking in a hot spring up in the lush hills near the village of Bylands, having pulled ourselves away from the seductive sands along the tourist strip of Grande Anse Bay just long enough to hike the primeval mountains dominating the 21-mile-long island. At the hot spring, we met a reefer-puffing Rasta man, who thrust his cutlass at the surrounding jungle and told us, “Jes’ look aroun’ you, mon, dis is Greeen-a-da. You got to park de car, hike into de hills, and you will freak.” Taking his advice, we made our way along a one-and-a-half-mile muddy trail in 3,000-acre Grand Etang Forest Reserve through groves of fruit-heavy nutmeg trees and creaking bamboo to visit the Seven Sisters, a series of tumbling waterfalls east of Grand Etang Lake. Swimming in the rushing water, the scent of nutmeg wafting through the air, we got the Rasta man’s gist, and, well, I freaked.

The Sporting Life
The attractions aren’t all topside here—dive the wreck of the Bianca C, an enormous, 600-foot-long Italian cruise liner sunk in 165 feet of water (Ecodive, 473-444-7777; ), swim among nurse sharks, stingrays, barracuda, and moray eels off the scrubby nearby island of Carriacou (Carriacou Silver Diving Ltd., in Hillsborough, 473-443-7882; ), or watch humpback whales cruise by Grenada between December and April (First Impressions Ltd., 473-440-3678; ). Anna Magni of The Wandering Gecko Marketing and Management Ltd. can arrange any number of hiking and diving itineraries (473-444-2662; ).
The Beach
The sweeping sands of two-mile Grande Anse beach are Grenada’s version of Waikiki. Here you’ll find the majority of sun-damage-seeking visitors. Find more space and ditch your tourist stigma at Bathway Beach, on the island’s northeastern tip, an inviting half-mile, palm-lined strip—but beware of dangerous currents out past the reef.

After the Sun Goes Down
Everyone from cabinet ministers to beach vendors dances a sexy little number known as “wining” (imported from nearby Trinidad) at Fantazia 2001, a popular nightclub at Morne Rouge Beach. Brush up on “jamming”—a move as erotic as you’d care to get in public—in your bedroom mirror before attempting it on the dance floor.

Lay Your Sunburned Head At…
It’s hard to beat La Sagesse Nature Center. The small, secluded hotel is tucked away on the southeast coast above a quiet beach with great snorkeling. Stay in a restored manor house or in either of two cottages with wraparound verandas overlooking the ocean (doubles $75Ð0; 473-444-6458; ). Farther afield on the southeast coast is Cabier Vision, a hip, beautifully designed new ten-room guest house, built on a rock overlooking the ocean (doubles $70; 473-444-6013; ).

The Price of Paradise
Check your brakes and practice blowing your horn, because navigating Grenada’s narrow, winding, guardrail-free roads is not for the timid. “Hit Me Easy” and other evocative local nicknames for particularly hairy bends give you an idea of what to expect.

Très Grenada
Place bets at the Flamboyant Hotel’s Monday-night hermit-crab races; haggle for nutmeg and cloves at the Saturday-morning market in St. GeorgeÕs; avoid partying anatomy students from the island’s infamous and very social medical school.

Resources: Grenada Tourist Board, 800-927-9554;

St. John: The Island of Eco-Delights

It’s no surprise that Laurance Rockefeller snapped up most of St. John for his private fiefdom in the 1950s, given the island’s rolling green hills, pristine bays, and Pepsodent-smile-white beaches. What’s surprising—and a boon for the average sun-worshiping schmo like you and me—is that in 1956 he gave 5,000 acres to the National Park Service, which now oversees 7,200 acres of land (about half of the 19-square-mile island) and 5,360 acres of surrounding water. Today, Stanley Selengut, the ecotourism guru who’s developed an enclave of green resorts (Maho Bay, Concordia, Harmony), has replaced Rockefeller as the island’s keeper. Even if you don’t stay in one of his elevated platform tents outfitted with shared bathhouses and recycled everything, you’ll find yourself communing with nature most of the time anyway—hiking, sea kayaking, diving, sailing, and swimming. Although the island is only a short ferry ride from St. Thomas, a cruise-ship mecca the Johnnies would probably love to torpedo, St. John has managed to escape the duty-free-shop/souvenir-stand fate of its buck-churning neighbor.

The Sporting Life
Start high in the hills on one of Virgin Islands National Park’s 22 hiking trails and work your way down to the waves. The scenic Reef Bay Trail (2.2 miles, two hours) descends 957 feet from Centerline Road to the Reef Bay Valley and ends at Genti Bay beach. Reserve a spot on a ranger-guided hike and pay $15 for the boat ride to Cruz Bay; call the Park Service Visitors Center in Cruz Bay (340-776-6201). Arthur Jones will take you sea kayaking to nearby Henley and Lovango Cayes ($75, full day) with his outfit Arawak Expeditions (800-238-8687; ), or to points beyond (some in the British Virgin Islands) on one of his kayaking and camping tours (five days, $995; seven days, $1,195). He also runs a new adventure week with Maho Bay Camps ($1,295 in winter, $1,125 in summer). Sandy West runs six-hour snorkeling trips to Hurricane Hole and other hard-to-reach spots on her 40-foot Lindsey Trawler, the Sadie Sea ($65; 340-776-6421; ). Scuba divers can explore the abundant local waters on both day and night dives with Low Key Watersports, which also offers a three-day PADI certification program ($350; 800-835-7718; ).
The Beach
The snow-white sand of three-quarter-mile-long Trunk Bay, on the island’s northwestern shore, is the most photographed beach on St. John, but it tends to get crowded, thanks to an express shuttle from the ferry dock. Head instead to the north shore, where you’ll find a handful of gorgeous beaches, all part of Virgin Islands National Park. The liveliest is Francis Bay—a great place to spot sea turtles in the shallows, and pelicans, ospreys, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, and banana quits camouflaged by the nearby marsh’s mangroves.

After the Sun Goes Down
Sure, you came here for the peace and quiet, but let’s face it, debating the pros and cons of low-flow showerheads at an eco-resort workshop isn’t nearly as much fun as getting ripped with the local hippies at Skinny Legs—an open-air bar in Coral Bay.

Lay Your Sunburned Head At…
Harmony Studios shares the same stunning location as legendary Maho Bay Camps (Selengut’s original tent-cottage resort). Plus, it has real walls (as opposed to fabric) and you don’t have to share bathrooms. Harmony’s six miniature townhouses, most of which have incredible views of Maho Bay, are solar powered and were built almost entirely of recycled materials (tiles made from crushed lightbulbs, countertops from recycled glass—the works). Each unit has a balcony and a full kitchen (doubles, $110-$210 per night; 340-776-6240; ). For total privacy nothing beats renting a villa. Try Park Isle Villas (340-693-8261; ), on lush Battery Hill overlooking Cruz Bay.

Très St. John
Getting busted by a park ranger for nude sunbathing at Salomon Bay (St. John’s unofficial nude beach); watching baby sea horses frolic among the mangroves at Hurricane Hole; feeling like a crunchy Über-conservationist after checking into your Maho Bay digs.

The Price of Paradise
Thanks to its blue-blood past, St. John has been de-Caribbeanized—if you want cultural attractions and lively local flavor, go elsewhere.

Resources: U.S. Virgin Islands Tourist Information Board, 800-372-8784;

Tobago: The Tranquility Zone

Hey! Let’s stay up all night and parade through the streets nearly naked to the sound of steel-drum music! Oh, sorry, that’s Trinidad. Tobago, the altogether more serene, and green, sibling of the two-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, has been environmentally conscientious for so long that it established a forest preserve—the oldest in the Western Hemisphere—ten years before America signed the Declaration of Independence. Peace and quiet is so much the draw on this 21-by-seven-mile island, some two-thirds of it still covered by mountainous rainforest, that it has long served as a morning-after decompression chamber for survivors of Trinidad’s annual pre-Lenten carnival. But Tobago’s unique charms draw their own devotees: serious birders, drift-dive scuba enthusiasts, and Robinson Crusoe-caliber escapees from society. To really fit in, though, you have to master one of the cornerstones of Tobago culture—”liming,” lying back and doing nothing at all.

The Sporting Life
Divers can swim through tunnels and drift along canyons near the north end of the island in search of sharks and elusive rays in the nutrient-rich water that’s pushed along from South America by the Guyana Current. Man Friday Diving (single-tank dive $35; 868-660-4676; ) is on the north end of the island. The best of the excellent island-wide snorkeling is among the coral gardens at Buccoo Reef, Speyside, and Mount Irvine Bay. Rent snorkeling gear at Wild Turtle Dive Safari at Pigeon Point Beach Resort ($14 per day for mask, fins, and snorkel; 868-639-7936; ). For birders, hikers, and mountain bikers, trails run like veins across the rugged spines of the 14,000-acre Tobago Main Ridge Forest Reserve. The 15-mile Gilpin Trace trail will lead you to a couple of 20-foot waterfalls in about 45 minutes. Local naturalist David Rooks offers two-and-a-half-hour hikes for $45 (868-639-4276).

The Beach
Avoid the well-lathered crowds between Pigeon and Crown Points near the biggest concentration of hotels. Instead, make your way to the pure white sand, calm water, and satisfying isolation of Englishman’s Bay, near Parlatuvier, on the north coast. If there is anyone else in sight of your beach towel, you are there on a busy day.

After the Sun Goes Down
On Sunday nights head for Sunday School, the high-decibel street dance that invariably gets cranking in the tiny village of Buccoo. The rest of the week, there is more to Tobago nightlife than listening to the tiny forest creatures. But not much.

Lay Your Sunburned Head At…
At Footprints Eco Resort, ease your environmental conscience on 62 acres of a former sugar and cocoa estate overlooking Culloden Bay. Built of local and recycled materials, its main four-room lodge sits on the ocean, while three thatch-roofed cottages, each with its own solar-heated Jacuzzi, have a bit more privacy back in the trees (doubles $95-$300; 800-814-1396; ).

Très Tobago
At Jemma’s, in Speyside, try not to fall out of your chair over the view that comes with your dinner—the restaurant is built in a massive sea-almond tree hanging over the water; make points with the locals by amping up your enthusiasm for their beloved goat and crab races.

The Price of Paradise
Adding to the damage, mostly in the form of coral broken by flippers, already done to Buccoo Reef.

Resources: Tourism and Industrial Development Company of Trinidad & Tobago (TIDCO), 868-623-6022;

Cayman Brac: Where Beauty is Skin-Diver Deep

Looking to open an offshore bank account? Book a trip to Grand Cayman. Dock-flat desolation? Little Cayman. But if you want stellar scuba diving, climbable cliffs, ridiculously friendly locals, a smattering of beachfront resorts, and enough Happy Hours to keep you steeped in a week’s worth of perma-grins, head for cigar-shaped Cayman Brac, about 165 miles northwest of Jamaica. This scruffy, hard-baked, 12-by-two-mile isle is not Bali-Hai beautiful, but it does have some pleasantly surprising topography: A cave-pocked limestone spine runs along the middle of the island, rising to 140 feet on its sheer east end; just offshore, teeming spur-and-groove reefs, coral- and sponge-flocked 3,000-foot vertical walls, and vertigo-inducing water clarity combine to produce some of the planet’s best diving.

The Sporting Life
There are 50 or so mostly current-free dive sites around the Brac, with water temperatures hovering between 75 and 85 degrees and visibility usually to 150 feet. Some sites, including the sponge-heavy Radar Reef, just 150 yards off the boat ramp at Stake Bay, can be reached from shore by strong swimmers. Other notable dives: Tarpon Reef, with deep sand gullies, thick staghorn coral, and schools of nearly unspookable giant tarpon; Rock Monster Chimney wall, with several coral-chimney swim-throughs; and an intentionally sunk 300-foot Russian frigate, home now to barracuda, angelfish, jacks, groupers, and giant jewfish. Call Reef Divers (two-tank dive, $80; 800-327-3835; ) or Dive Tiara (two-tank dive, $60Ð$90; 800-367-3484; ). Climbers can tackle some 70 bolted routes between 5.8 and 5.12 at seven different locations on the bluff; locals rebolted most routes with titanium glue-ins after stainless-steel bolts began breaking down. There are no climbing outfitters on the island; get detailed climbing-route information from local rock jock John Byrnes, owner of the Bluff View House (970-493-5801; ). Anglers will find bonefish, tarpon, and possibly permit in the flats ($80Ð $150; Munny’s Fishing Service, 345-948-1228); and marlin, tuna, and wahoo out beyond the reef ($350Ð$600; Barefoot Watersports Ltd; 345-948-1537).

The Beach
While most of the shoreline is ironstone that will shred your bare feet, there are stretches of sweet sand, especially on the island’s west end, where the Brac’s few resorts are clustered. The best swimming area is in the lagoon at the small public beach on Southeast Bay; it’s protected by a snorkelable coral reef about 50 yards offshore.

After the Sun Goes Down
Head for The Captain’s Table Bar and Restaurant at the west-end beachfront Brac Caribbean Beach Village—just past the 15-foot-high statue of Blackbeard the Pirate—where visitors, divemasters, and expats load up on Coronas and conch fritters.

Lay Your Sunburned Head At…
The Brac Reef Beach Resort (three-night packages with diving cost $528Ð$686 per person; 800-327-3835; ), on the island’s westernmost point, has a pool, a sandy beach, 40 air-conditioned rooms, and the ubiquitous yet essential tiki bar; the excellent Reef Divers operation is based here. Climbers head for the two-unit east-end Bluff View House (doubles from $80 per night, with full kitchens; 970-493-5801), within easy walking distance of some of the island’s best climbing routes.

Très Cayman Brac
Dive as deeply and as frequently as your divemaster and decompression charts will allow. Take an afternoon jeep ride to the east end and be waved at by every human you encounter. The night before you head home, power down several frozen mudslide cocktails at The Captain’s Table, ask the bartender for paint, decorate a piece of driftwood with witty farewell rhymes, and hammer your sign onto the already jammed post by the pool.

The Price of Paradise
Construction of homes for wealthy foreigners has jacked land prices out of reach for most—1.75 acres of prime beachfront can cost as much as $925,000—and has created potential for reef-wrecking runoff, and an overabundance of know-it-all divers with expensive gadgets.

Resources: Cayman Islands Tourist Board (800-346-3313; ). Cayman Brac info:

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When European colonizers swept through the West Indies, one of the islands that resisted them longest was Dominica, which, not coincidentally, has been one of the last holdouts against mass tourism in the Caribbean. In the ragtag little capital of Roseau, few visible signs of the outside world exist save a cruise ship dock and a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet. Mountainous terrain and some of the rainiest real estate on earth have discouraged conquistadors and casino builders alike. But that same terrain has made it a prized destination for hikers who don’t mind getting their socks wet.

Dominica’s undersea geography is equally appealing. The diving, especially along the walls of the flooded caldera in the Scotts Head-Soufriere Marine Reserve, puts you face-to-face with soldierfish, yellowtail snappers, seafans, and rainbow runners. But the real joy comes in walking in a rainforest ridge in search of endangered Sisserou and Jacquot parrots or discovering waterfalls streaming through a hidden valley.
There’s talk of creating a trail to run the length of the 29-mile-long island. But for now, the existing paths add up to a network of day hikes. The best-known hike, an among the most demanding, is a seven-hour round trip from Titou Gorge, near the village of Laudat, to Boiling Lake, whose milky, bubbling water sometimes reaches 190-plus degrees. The walk ascends and descends a rain-slicked footpath as it takes you through steep-walled valleys so green you have expect to see Eve leaning against a tree offering you an apple. Resist the temptation: you’ll want to be free of sin when you cross the Valley of Desolation. You’ll need a guide here because the ground is unstable, and the steam that vents up through the cracks in the earth frequently makes it necessary to reroute the path.


Another popular hike is up 4,550-foot Morne Trois Pitons, the mountain with three peaks. The beginning of the trail, a third of mile past Pont Casse on the road to Castle Bruce, is signposted, but the second half of the four-hour trek to the summit of the tallest peak is less a hike than a wet scramble through matted vegetation. If you make it to the top, you may be rewarded with outstanding Caribbean views, weather permitting.


Combine a walk with a guided rowboat ride on the Indian River, near Portsmouth, at the island’s north end. The slow, mangrove-lined river is the haunt of egrets, great blue herons, and osprey. At the river’s head, while everybody else is knocking back bottles of Kabuli beer at a slapped-together bar that gets washed clean every time the water rises during heavy rains, follow the path for an easy 30-minute walk to a swimming hole with marsh and mountain views.

Precipitation is something either to endure or revel in. I recommend the latter, beneath some of the island’s waterfalls. The most spectacular is Trafalgar, 20 minutes from Roseau. The 120-foot left side of the twin falls, the “father,” is taller, but be sure to climb across the rocks and swim in the pool at the base of the “mother.” Be careful, though—the rocks are slippery enough that “mother” is not above giving her darlings a serious bruising.


If even that sounds too tame, ream up with crazy Frenchmen Michael and Eric at the adventure tour company Escape, which leads a “river hike” from November through April. It’s a walk/swim/slide that at times has you roped to your companions to keep from being swept away by the rapids. When you’re standing on a rock ledge gazing into a waterfall pool and they tell you it’s OK, go ahead and jump—though you’ll wish you could remember a prayer or two. But afterwards, when you’re back in Roseau sipping a Kalubi and watching rainbows form over the mountains, you’ll probably consider planting a flag of your own.
The Details
American Eagle flies to Dominica twice daily from San Juan. Rent a car from Wide Range Car Rentals in Roseau ($50-$70 per day; 767.448.2198), which provides free airport pickup and drop-off.


The island’s trails can be tricky, so guides are often necessary—you’ll pay about $50-$75 per person per day. One of the more patient guides, Francis Frampton, works out of Castaways Beach Hotel (888.227.8292). Amiable dreadlocked guide Bobby Frederick operates Ras Tours (767.448.0412). For river hiking, whitewater rafting, tubing, and rappelling, contact Escape (767.448.5210).


For digs, hikers favor Papillote Wilderness Retreat, a small lodge near Trafalgar Falls with three hot mineral pools fed by natural springs. The four double rooms and three suites have straw mats on the hardwood floors and colorfully tiled baths and showers (doubles $85-$100; 767.448.2287). The restaurant serves West Indian fare like river crayfish and stewed frog in season. Or perch 80 feet above the sea at the pleasant five-room Zandoli Inn on the largely undeveloped south coast, where you may spot a whale from your balcony (doubles, $125-$135; 767.446.3161). A 25-minute drive north of Roseau is Castaways Beach Hotel (doubles, $120; 888.227.8292) on one of the island’s few stretches of sand. The 26 seaside rooms have private baths, ceiling fans, and balconies; its dive center arranges scuba trips (two-tank dives, $65) as well as sea kayaking and whale-watching.


In general, the food on Dominica will make you wish you’d hoarded the pretzel pack from your flight. But for regional flavor try Pearl’s Cuisine in Roseau—just don’t order the local delicacy, mountain chicken, without first finding out what it is.

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Solomon Islands Diving

After the recently launched Solomon Island Aggressor logged 295 nautical miles charting 30 new scuba-diving sites, it became clear that the starring attraction of the Solomons’s remote Western Province is…bait balls. These roiling masses of grunts, jacks, and mackerel are frenzied fish parties crashed by assorted billfish, devilfish, dogfish tuna, bumphead wrasses, and reef sharks, all fearless in the presence of the rare diver.


The 107-foot Aggressor, a 16-passenger yacht based in the Solomons just four months a year, aims to ensure that humans feel as relaxed as the fish. The nine-member crew includes a chef with a penchant for gourmet twists on regional cuisine (the cassava with marinated steak is delicious). Carpeted staterooms have private baths, air conditioning, and queen-sized beds or twin lofts. There’s a photo center, video library, six-person hot tub, GPS system with Loran C, and safety equipment with integrated nitrox and oxygen capabilities.
July through November, the Aggressor makes seven-day sojourns that explore the geothermal hot spot of Vella Lavella Island, 629 square kilometers of forest, fumaroles, and dormant volcanoes with a coast inhabited by porpoises, sharks, rays, bait balls aplenty, and vast populations of clownfish, cowries, and soft coral. Also on the itinerary are visits with the islanders; a look at topside World War II sites in Guadalcana’s capital city of Honiara; and a stay in Gizo in the New Georgias, renowned for radical walls, wrecks, and offshore Plum Pudding Island, where a marooned John F. Kennedy and his IPT-109 crew spent ten long days.


Weekly charters are $2,695 per person (experienced divers only), double occupancy, including meals, diving, three hotel nights, a two-tank Gizo dive, and a tour of Honiara. Contact 800.344.5662.

Sea Kayaking in Fiji

In the remote villages of Fiji, some of the locals mark important events by spending the evenings drinking kava, a mildly narcotic brew made from the dried root of the pepperlike yagona plant. A suitable occasion, for instance, might be your arrival by sea kayak. On Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second-largest island, Eco Divers-Tours will lead you on a five-day kayak expedition along an indented coast to remote villages still unacquainted with conveniences like electricity. The kayaking in Savusavu Bay is grand: On short open-water passages you might divert your course to get a closer look at a spouting pilot whale. Or on the Nasekawa River you could exchange greetings with a farmer who is amazed that you have come from such a faraway place—i.e., Savusavu town, about six miles distant.


But the best reason to make the trip is the opportunity to spend the night in the villages and experience the true Fijian lifestyle and hospitality. You’ll stay in the villagers’ homes, eat their food (taro, cassava, corned beef, raw fish, or just about anything else marinated in coconut cream), and sleep on pandanus mats on the floor. If you’re lucky, you will sit up with them well into the night drinking kava prepared from the yagona root you presented as a gift upon your arrival. After enough bowls full of the chalky-tasting liquid have been passed around, you might learn from your hosts that the lower you are to the ground, the longer you will live. That trees have eyes to see and ears to hear. And that it is far better to spend money on a child’s education than on electricity.
The five-day trip is around $760-1,025 per person for groups of two to ten, including all meals, hotel accommodations for the first and last night, and kayaks; call 011.679.850122.

Loloata Island Resort, Papua New Guinea

Diving Papua New Guinea needn’t entail a sweaty wait for a connecting flight to some cost-a-small-fortune remote corner of the island country. Some of PNG’s best macro diving lies within a half hour of its gateway, Port Moresby’s international airport. The reefs at Loloata Island Resort in Bootless Bay, 12 miles southeast of town, are virtually untouched—chalice choral flaunt ten-foot spreads at a depth of just five feet.


A 15-minute van ride gets you to a barbed-wire gate, and a ten-minute ferry ride lands you on uninhabited Loloata Island and its sleepy, 1960s chicken farm turned resort. Its waters shelter vast stands of hard coral and sea whips, along with pygmy sea horses, mantis shrimp, pipefish, and lots of mollusks—of the 43 known species of allied cowrie, 39 are found here.
The resort has 17 beachfront bungalows on stilts, each with colonial-style furniture, private baths, and veranda with ocean view. On-site you’ll find a modest restaurant and bar, as well as an ad hoc zoo with kangaroos, wallabies, and several kinds of native birds. The resort’s dive operation provides equipment, PADI instruction, and a ten-person dive boat. More than 30 sites lie within easy reach: End Bommie is known for its scorpionfish; Lion Island for black coral; and A-20 Havoc for its sunken bomber. New sites include Dianne’s Reef, inside the main barrier reef packed with soft corals, and Nadine’s Passage, a narrow gully through the barrier reef thick with gorgonian fans, pink sea whips, and pygmy sea horses. Bring your own computer and camera gear.


Double rooms are $200 per night, including airport transfers and meals. Call 011.675.325.8590.

Three Versions of Vanuatu

If you’re looking for the prototypical fantasy island plus a wild hit of traditional culture, Vanuatu could be it. Just a seaplane’s hop from Fiji, this South Pacific archipelago is home to an eerie Titanicky dive wreck, locals who have bungee jumped for centuries, and a religious cult that anxiously awaits the return of appliance-bearing American soldiers. Known as the New Hebrides until 1980, Vanuatu’s 83 islands have 185,000 residents who speak 115 different languages. Little has changed in their fascinating home since Allied forces (and James Michener) passed through in the ’40s.


On the surprisingly cosmopolitan island of Efate, book one of 70 elevated bungalows, each with air conditioning, marble bathrooms, and balcony, at the beachside Iririki Island Resort (doubles $240-$290; 011.67.8.23388). On-site activities include snorkeling, canoeing, kayaking, and windsurfing.
When the jet lag has eased, take the one-hour plane ride to Espiritu Santo Island, the country’s largest, and hook up with Santo Dive Tours (one-tank dive, $20; 011.67.8.36822). Here you’ll explore the 654-foot luxury liner turned WWII troop ship President Coolidge, one of the world’s largest easily assessible wrecks and one of the finest dives around. The almost fully intact ship, at rest in 60 to 230 feet of water, is littered with the personal effects of 5,000 American troops and crew. When you come up for air, stay in one of 17 hexagonal, thatched-roof fares at the six-acre Bougainville Resort. It feels like an old estate villa, surrounded by tropical gardens teeming with orchids, hibiscus, and frangipani (doubles $75; 011.67.8.36257).


On Tanna Island, you can almost touch the edge of 1,184-foot Mount Yasur, a volcano so reliably active you’ll want to wear running shoes. Locals belive that it’s the originator of the universe—or a spiritual home after death. Go at night, when the sound effects and fireworks are even more dramatic. Arrange for a guide on this 40-minute (one way) hike at the Tanna Beach Resort (doubles $49-$61 per person; 011.67.8.68626), which has nine thatched-roof bungalows with private baths.


If that’s not enough excitement, attend services at a church of Jon Frum, a cargo cult that emerged after American planes dropped luxuries onto the island during World War II. Members pray for refrigerators and radios to again drop from the sky and display the Red Cross insignia liberally.


Fall visitors may catch the three- to five-day Nekowiar Ceremony with its famous Toka Dance, an alliance-making event between villages consisting of feasting, face-painting, and dancing, which takes place between August and November. Even if VCRs aren’t falling from the sky, it’s nice to know that tradition is alive and well in Bali Hai.

Sailing in the Whitsunday Islands, Australia

Divers may extol the Whitsundays as an ideal base for scuba trips to the Great Barrier Reef, but in their deep-sea tunnel vision, they’re ignoring some of the finest sailing on the planet. Reliable winds and hundreds of protected bays among this tight jumble of 74 mostly uninhabited islands make it a perfect place to ride the waves.


Sixty-six of the archipelago’s islands have been designated national parkland, replete with faw sandstone bluffs and lush pine, acadia, and eucalyptus forest. The other islands host developed resorts, lending a dash of gentility to this bushland environment just of the edge of Queenstown. The Hayman Island Resort spa is worth a stop. For an elegant dinner, dock at the Hamilton Island Resort, where the Outrigger Room serves excellent seafood. For a more casual meal, toss back some fish and chips at Harpoon Harry’s, overlooking the marina in town.
Another scenic destination is Whitsunday’s southern chain, including Pentecost, Saw, and Thomas Islands, where you can grill coral trout or bluefin tuna on the back of your boat in perfect seclusion.


Australian spring (our fall) brings fine tropical weather, with generally steady, moderate breezes and warm water for windsurfing and snorkeling. On land, you can lounge on the coral-lined white-sand beaches that surround Daydream, South Molle, and Hook Islands. From your beach towel you may spot wallabies, goats, goannas, and other Australian fauna separated from the mainland when the Ice Age carved these “drowned-mountain” islands. Underwater, the array is equally dramatic, whith anemones, barramundi, octopi, white sharks, manta rays, and turtles frequently passing before your mask.


You can easily arrange day trips from the Hamilton docks or hire a seaplane to deliver you from the back of your sailboat. Most Australian charter companies provide twice-daily radio checks, which include weather updates and reassurance for the less-experienced sailor.


Australian Bareboat Charters (011.61.7.4946.9381) and Sail Whitsunday Yacht Charters (011.61.7..4946.7070) can arrange excursions. A 40-foot bareboat yacht runs $244-$462 per night (five-night minimum); add $99 per night for a skipper. for more information on yacht charters, check www.whitsunday.net.au.

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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 ���ϳԹ��� 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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At dawn, after pushing to the back of your mind images of the snake the locals call Silent Death, you start hiking. All day, as you head toward that evening’s campsite, you follow a trail that leads through rainforest where big cats hide. Later it moves out onto wave-pummeled beaches where, if you haven’t read the tide tables, you’ll find yourself pinned against a cliff by incoming water. Finally, if your luck has held, you hoist your pack above your head and wade across the mouth of a muddy, swirling jungle river, keeping a lookout for crocodiles cruising downstream and sharks cruising up. And this, you remind yourself as something bangs against your submerged leg—a snake? a croc? a harmless branch?—is in Costa Rica, the country that is supposed to have become tame and civilized.

Of course, parts of Costa Rica have become overdomesticated. Large sections of the country now cater to mainstream tourists searching for packaged “adventure” travel. In some areas, new hotel rooms outnumber insect species, and the crush of visitors at the most popular national parks is so great that wildlife sightings have become rare. If you want a photo of a quetzal, you may have to settle for those in the visitor center postcard display.
But the old Costa Rica, a country of unspoiled rainforest, abundant wildlife, rustic facilities, and bracing physical discomfort, does still exist. It lies only 90 miles southwest of San José on the Pacific coast’s rugged Osa Peninsula.


The Osa, much of which is occupied by the 160-square-mile Corcovado National Park, is a more biologically rich area than even Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Known for jaguars and other big cats, the peninsula is home to hundreds of species of birds as well, including one of the largest populations of scarlet macaws in Central America. It also sports a variety of reptiles and thousands of kinds of insects, many available for viewing in your bathroom at night. What the Osa lacks are legions of other tourists: The hard travel necessary to reach the area discourages all but the hardy and self-sufficient.


The Osa does have some basic comforts, of course. A few rutted dirt roads crisscross the area (a four-wheel-drive vehicle is essential), and pleasant lodges dot the landscape. Pitching your own tent is necessary only if you’ve arrived with a circus. As a bonus, the owners of these lodges can usually arrange horseback rides, guided hikes, sea kayaking, sport fishing, or scuba dives. Most important, they know when the tides come in and where the snakes gather. Listen to them.

Corcovado National Park

Situated 11 miles south of Drake Bay, heavily forested Corcovado is so rugged that to this day it remains roadless. That makes it a perfect park for hikers, especially if they don’t mind getting hot under the collar. Temperatures here routinely soar into the nineties.


Corcovado’s main trail, and its most scenic, is the 25-mile coastal walk. For part of its length it hugs the beach, where you’ll see turtle tracks in the sand, monkeys in the trees, and great gaudy flocks of scarlet macaws winging overhead. Before setting out, be sure to check the tide tables (every lodge has a set) so you don’t get trapped when a beach covers or a river becomes too deep to wade. Watch the weather as well. If it has been raining hard, some rivers may become impassable. And if you decide to cool off in the ocean, beware of riptides or you may suddenly find yourself halfway to Hawaii.
The coast walk has two trailheads, depending on whether you access it from the north end of Corcovado or the south. San Pedrillo, just south of Drake Bay, is at the northernmost end; La Leona is at the southern starting point. You must check in with the ranger station at either trailhead, and you need a reservation, which can be made in advance through the national park headquarters in San Jos‹ (011-506-735-5036). Trail fee is $7 in advance, $15 at the station.


From either starting point, you’ll spend the night at Sirena, a ranger station halfway along the trail. Pitch a tent ($2) or sleep beneath the eaves of the station’s roof ($4). With advance notice, the rangers can feed you rice and beans ($16 per day). If your Spanish is passable, stick around for an extra day. You’ll hear some good stories about hikers getting treed by wild pigs. Don’t laugh too heartily, though; the same fate could await you. Angry boars are a common trailside hazard.


At the end of the coastal walk, plan a few days of R&R at Costa Rica Expeditions’s Corcovado Lodge Tent Camp on Playa Carate. The camp’s beachfront setting is one of the most isolated and beautiful in all of Costa Rica (doubles, $67.85 per person, including three meals; phone 257-0766, fax 257-1665). It also has a tree-canopy platform, and if you are absolutely sure you don’t sleepwalk, you can spend the night there, 120 feet up ($125 per person).

Golfo Dulce and Cayo Island

Golfo Dulce

The eastern shore of the Osa Peninsula is bordered by the deep-blue Golfo Dulce, where game fish lurk and some very long waves come to die. Sea kayaks are the best means of exploring the area. The upper gulf’s serrated shoreline is a wilderness made for flatwater cruising, assuming of course that you have no particular phobia about crocodiles. And near the entrance, where the Golfo Dulce and the Pacific clash in the unruly manner so beloved by surfers and big-game fishermen, open-water paddlers will find just about all the excitement they can handle.


Bivouac on the gulf at Puerto Jimñez, a former gold-rush boomtown now filled with laid-back Americans who all seem to have headed south without leaving a forwarding address. Find them—and information about local adventuring—at Restaurante Carolina, where the cold beer starts flowing well before noon. Don’t be concerned by the appearance of intrigue: If a woman leans over to whisper to you conspiratorially that she used to work for the government, she probably means only that she recently lost her job as a postal worker.
Escondido Trex, which has an office near the bar in the Carolina, runs single- and multiday kayak camping trips in the Golfo Dulce. Bring your snorkeling gear and hope for waters calm enough to allow you to shoot through the Matapalo Arch, a curving rock at the southern tip of the peninsula ($85 for an overnight trip, including all meals and gear; phone/fax 735-5210).


San José-based RŒos Tropicales, Costa Rica’s major paddle-sport operator, also offers a Golfo Dulce sea kayaking trip ($1,370 for nine days; 233-6455). North Carolina’s Nantahala Outdoor Center began leading trips to the area two years ago; its ten-day tours mix sea kayaking and inland hiking ($1,475; 704-488-2175).


Not far south of Puerto Jimñez, the Osa Peninsula comes to an end. If you’ve come this far, treat yourself to a night or two at Lapa Rios, 45 minutes south of Jimñez, one of the most upscale lodges anywhere in the Costa Rican rainforest (doubles, $146 per person; 735-5130, fax 735-5179). After some excellent sea kayaking right off the beach or a horseback ride to nearby waterfalls, you’ll want to take advantage of the lodge’s massage service.


Caÿo Island

Rainforest-covered Caÿo Island, 13 miles offshore from Drake Bay, was used as a sacred burial ground by pre-Columbian Indians, who noted—as park rangers do today—that it’s struck by lightning with unusual frequency. A $65 boat trip carries you to this uninhabited island and its centuries-old artifacts—or those that remain. All over the island, depressions in the earth mark graves that were raided years ago. Caÿo’s greatest appeal, however, lies off terra firma and beneath the sea. Though the waters here are not Caribbean-style clear, the marine life is abundant. A snorkeling trip can yield dozens of animal encounters, especially with moray eels and olive ridley turtles. If you’re scuba certified, sign up with dive master Jos‹ Marin, based at the Aguila de Osa, and watch as sharks and manta rays put on a floor show. A two-tank dive costs $110.

Drake Bay and ���ϳԹ��� the Osa

Drake Bay

The Osa’s northernmost point, Drake Bay, a rudimentary town named for Sir Francis, is a good starting place for exploration. With at least seven lodges clustered near the headland, it’s the most developed part of the peninsula. But it’s also pleasantly isolated, with no road or air links to the rest of the Osa—or the world. Visitors must undergo a literal rite of passage: The only way to reach Drake Bay is on a small boat that rips through huge Pacific breakers at the mouth of the Rio Sierpe. This wetting is worth it. Drake Bay is blessed with some of the prettiest scenery and most exotic dive sites in Costa Rica.


To get to the bay, begin at the inland city of Palmar Sur, the inevitable jumping-off point for all tours of the Osa Peninsula. Pause in town long enough to look at the large, pre-Columbian stone spheres in the plaza on the south side of the river. Perfectly round, they are among thousands found all over southwest Costa Rica. Scientists have never determined their origin, though it seems obvious they could only have been bowling balls for the gods.
The tiny village of Sierpe, a slow, bumpy, $15 taxi ride from Palmar Sur, is the staging point for the boat trip to Drake Bay. The trip begins as a scenic ride (about $20), complete with iguanas in the trees and crocodiles along the shore. But 15 miles downriver, just as you’re feeling complacent, you’ll look up and realize you are headed straight into huge, boat-chewing whitewater surf. At that point, the driver will gun the engine, cut back, and gun it again, mentally measuring time and angles as he negotiates walls of crashing water before finally breaking through and speeding the final five miles to Drake Bay. (Though this ride is usually heart-stopping for passengers, at least one of the lodge workers, well accustomed to the drama, will probably sleep the whole time.)


At Drake Bay itself, the most haute-jungle accommodations are at the Aguila de Osa Inn, where the high-peaked rooms and open-air dining area give you a skybox view of comings and goings on the bay (doubles, $100 per person, including meals; phone/fax, 232-7722).


Farther afield, the Mapache Wilderness Camp and Fishing Lodge lies several miles upriver on the Sierpe. Recently built by an Italian couple with a pledge to invest part of the profits in land preservation, the lodge is proudly rustic; its owners seem to be boasting as well as warning when they tell visitors, “Do not forget that many kinds of dangerous snakes and crocodile families live close to the houses.” Rates for doubles are $75 per person in the owners’ house, $45 per person in platform tents. The lodge also runs tours of the Osa. Phone 786-6565, fax 786-6358.


Fun in and around Drake Bay often involves a saddle. Guided horseback rides along the beach can be arranged through most lodges. Be aware, though, that while many horses here are gentle, some answer, appropriately, to names such as Volcano and Stormy.


Once you and your mount have bonded, leave the beach and head up into the rainforest. The clay paths lead to gorgeous lookouts, but canter with caution: The gullies are deep enough to swallow a cavalry.


End a day at Drake Bay with the most high-flying adventure of all: a canopy tour offered by…Canopy Tours. High in the trees, where you’ll share space with monkeys, scarlet macaws, and blue morpho butterflies, you propel your swing chair via a pulley-and-cable arrangement between three penthouse-level viewing platforms ($40 per person; 257-5149).


���ϳԹ��� the Osa

Across the Golfo Dulce, on Costa Rica’s mainland but still on the gulf, the waves break long, strong, and left. For decades, surf aficionados have headed to Pavones to catch these legendary breakers. A ferry runs daily from Puerto Jimñez to Golfito ($5, no cars). From there, buses and water taxis ferry surfers to Pavones.


Fishermen, too, will want to cross to Golfito, since most of the gulf’s sportfishing boats are based there. Try hooking up with Captain Steve Lino at Golfito Sportfishing. His boats actually run out of Zancudo, a beach town just south of Golfito where gringos have built a series of vacation dream shacks. The fishing, for sailfish, marlin, and other game fish, costs $350-$400 per day (phone/fax 382-2716).


Accommodations in Pavones tend toward the primitive, but at least they’re cheap, rarely rising above $20 per night. The Oficina de Servicios Turisticos de Golfito (phone 775-0131, fax 775-0631) can make reservations. For more luxury, check into the Tiskita Jungle Lodge (and fruit farm), four miles south of Pavones (doubles, $75 per person; phone 233-6890, fax 255-4410). It’s so close to the Panama border that visiting the detached bathrooms almost requires a passport.

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Unlike its neighbor, Fiji, the pacific nation of Vanuatu, made up of 83 ruggedly forested, volcanically active islands, is a place hardly anyone in America knows. Which is odd, when you think about it. True, Vanuatu is so undeveloped that on the dozen or so larger islands where most of its people live you can still discuss the latest stock report (somebody’s cows wandering through a neighbor’s garden patch again) with a man whose entire wardrobe consists of a woven grass namba, or penis sheath. And when they bungee-jump in Vanuatu, where the pastime was invented centuries ago, they don’t use sissy stuff like bungee cords. Instead, land divers, as they are called, tie jungle vines around their ankles and plunge from towers, up to 100 feet high, that look as if they were constructed from sticks and branches by a nest-building bird who got into the fermented berries.

Yet Vanuatu, known as New Hebrides until it gained independence from England and France in 1980, has had a distinct effect on American culture, or at least on how we imagine paradise. It was among these coconut-palm-and-beach-fringed islands that Lieutenant James A. Michener was inspired to create the mystical heaven on earth known as Bali Hai.
Now, half a century later, other American travelers are discovering the archipelago too. Of Vanuatu’s 100,000 or so annual visitors, more than half come ashore via cruise ship or yacht. The rest fly in, either extending a visit to Fiji—which boasts more than a decade’s head start on development and three times the tourists—or skipping Fiji altogether.


While flying into Vanuatu is easy enough, getting around its mountainous interior—in much-abused four-wheel-drive vehicles or on foot—can be a challenge. And because tourism is new to the outer islands, lodgings at times consist of dirt-floored leaf houses where, as the tourism office so eloquently puts it, “running water is not common and the bath is to be taken on the beach or in the river.” But for uncrowded diving, sea kayaking, and trekking, and for an adventurous look at a corner of the South Pacific that has changed little since Allied forces passed through, Vanuatu is among the most fascinating spots I’ve encountered in three decades of bumping around. It’s the kind of place where, if you harbor, as I do, the fantasy of getting temporarily marooned on a tropical island, you’ll likely begin plotting your return soon after your arrival.

Right, Time, Right Place, Right Now

Efate

“Machetes, aisle three,” said the hardware store clerk in Port Vila, on Efate, the third-largest of Vanuatu’s islands and home to two-thirds of its mostly Melanesian population of 180,000. Port Vila, the capital, though faded and scruffy in a pleasant, Somerset Maughamish kind of way, is surprisingly cosmopolitan. At Le Meridien, I could order Melanesian dishes, such as minced pork wrapped in manioc and taro leaves, in English, at Paris-steep prices. As I picked at my coconut crab at the Waterfront Bar & Grill, I eavesdropped on yachties whose timetable dictated cruising to New Zealand before December’s cyclone season began. I could have shopped for French cologne or Australian shiraz. But instead I walked to the hardware store, because I’ve always wanted a machete and could find no souvenir in the duty-free shop that pleased me half as much, even though it turned out to be made in Brazil.


The best of Vanuatu lies beyond Efate. But stay a day or two to sea kayak to tiny offshore islands, snorkel among 300 species of coral, and visit the Ekasup Cultural Village. Located a few miles from Port Vila, the village is a scattering of traditional thatch houses, their pointed roofs extending almost to the ground to make them more secure during high winds. Traditional too is the location, near a banyan tree with a huge, above-ground root system that provides sanctuary during cyclones. The show Ekasup puts on is a bit commercial, but it can provide some insight into the old survival skills, which could prove useful if you find yourself in the outer islands without lunch in hand and need to know how to trap a fish or spear a pig.

Espiritu Santo

Santo, as it is usually called, is where Michener was based. No other place in all the vast Pacific, he later wrote, made as profound an impression on him. The largest of Vanuatu’s islands, it has a craggy interior that makes for rugged hiking through massive kauri trees, orchids, and moss-hung cloud forest. And Champagne Beach, with its sweep of white sand, is arguably the best in the country. But like most visitors, I’d come here for the President Coolidge, a 654-foot luxury liner-turned-American troop carrier that is considered one of the world’s finest wreck dives.


The Coolidge went down so fast after striking a “friendly” mine in October 1942 that its decks are still strewn with the rifles and personal effects of the more than 5,000 men who were aboard. (Most walked ashore, and only one life was lost.) Now sitting in 60 to 200 feet of water, the ship lies on its side but is almost fully intact. The dive, along the promenade deck, down long corridors, and into the staterooms themselves if you are experienced enough, is eerily similar to the underwater scenes in Titanic. (A few miles inland, both snorkelers and divers will also want to check out several spring-fed blue holes, where visibility is so great that as you look up, fish appear to be swimming across the sky.)
I dove with Santo Dive Tours, whose owner, Alan Power, has been exploring the Coolidge for 29 years. A round-bellied Aussie locally known as Mr. President, Power is a classic Santo character—at least that’s what I decided after spotting a hand-lettered memorial in his backyard eulogizing a cow who was the only victim of Japan’s one wartime attack on the island’s airfield.

Pentecost Island

Eel-shaped Pentecost Island, so undeveloped that there are few places to stay other than traditional leaf houses in small villages, is proof that there were crazy people in the world long before 1988, when a New Zealand company opened the first commercial bungee-jumping operation. Land diving is so rooted in local culture, in fact, that the Vanuatu government is allegedly trying to obtain compensation from international operators for “theft of the custom of Pentecost.” Though now strictly a male undertaking, done to ensure a successful yam crop, legend has it that the first jumper was a woman escaping an abusive husband who chased her up a banyan tree.


The jumps take place on Saturdays in April and May. Nowadays, many are put on just for tourists. But the most authentic—ritual jumps in which 30 divers a day leap from the highest towers—are held only once each month, in the village of Bunlap. Presumably the divers here have donned Western-style pants only once&3151;for the 1974 visit of Queen Elizabeth II.

Tanna

One of the southernmost populated islands, Tanna is best known for its mysterious “cargo cult” religion, as well as its uniquely accessible, reliably active volcano, Mount Yasur.


Yasur’s personality is more simmering than violent, but it has been erupting, sometimes with fatal results, almost continuously since Captain James Cook first observed it in 1774. With a licensed guide, which is the only way to go, you drive across an ash plain, past a lifeless lake, to a parking lot scattered with boulders that—though best not to ponder it until you are a safe distance away—were flung from the caldera during past eruptions.
From there, scramble 400 feet up the side of the cone until you come, abruptly, to the realization that there is no guardrail between you and a very big barbecue pit. It’s possible to visit Yasur on a day trip from Port Vila, but far better to stay on Tanna at least one night, which will allow you to make the climb just before sunset, when the sparkler-like display is at its best. Activity is greater, and more spectacular, during the wet season, from December through March.


The day I visited, I was standing at the crater’s edge, snickering about a nearby Frenchman sporting a hard hat and ski goggles, when the ground shook with a sound as if whatever God was driving desperately needed a new muffler. A fiery array of molten rocks the size of big-screen TVs shot into the air, followed by a belch of black smoke that devoured the entire crater but, thank goodness, was pushed away from us by a gust of wind. “Good thing I brought a clean pair of knickers,” said an Australian woman standing next to me, whose initial shriek had fortunately covered my own. Our guide shrugged. “Not to worry,” he said. “The activity is only Level Two.”


I didn’t find his reassurance all that comforting, since Level One means no activity, and Level Three that the island is in imminent danger of being vaporized. The grading scale needed refinement. Still, I stayed and watched the Roman-candle-like vents spew for another hour, and would have stayed longer if I’d had a hard hat and ski goggles.


Not far from the volcano is Sulphur Bay, or Ipeukel, the main village of the cargo cult known as John Frum. Another World War II legacy that has nearly disappeared, cargo cults once flourished all over the Southwest Pacific, with locals convinced that if they pleased the gods—by clearing jungle airstrips and building bamboo models of such unimaginable wealth as radios, refrigerators, and jeeps—they would once again be showered with the real things. Who John Frum was is something of a mystery, but he may have been an American medical corpsman, “John from America,” whose red-cross insignia has become the cult’s symbol.


Every Friday at their church in Sulphur Bay, the worshipers—whose ceremonial garb includes cast-off U.S. military uniforms—hold services that consist mostly of singing, dancing, and for the men, drinking an intoxicating kava-root brew. Visitors are welcome year-round, but the big blowout is on February 15, John Frum Day, when 100 barefoot “soldiers” carrying bamboo rifles drill solemnly before a tattered 48-star American flag in expectation of their messiah’s return. It’s likely the most flattering, if surreal, reception an American could receive so far from home. Perhaps, if I’m ever marooned on this particular tropical island, these troops would consider defending me against misguided would-be rescuers.

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Trekking White Mountains, Greece
The White Mountains of western Crete are so rugged that much of their terrain is accessible only to mountain goats—and the hikers willing to follow them. In the region’s labyrinthine valleys, official trails wind from one vine-entangled village to the next. These are the easy walks, for laid-back Mediterraneans who are as interested in sampling the local ambrosia as they are in exercise. But intrepid explorers can follow the ancient shepherds’ paths high along the precipitous flanks of the region’s 58 limestone peaks and across high alpine meadows, many of which are carpeted in red poppies and orchids in late spring. Like the shepherds who still roam the roughly 290-square-mile range, you can wander in almost complete isolation for over a week. Early June is ideal, when the trails are snow-free but not dusty, the wildflowers are coming into bloom, and the dormitory-style stone shelters along the paths, run by the Greek Alpine Club, are not yet filled with summer trekkers.

Reserve a bunk for $7.50 per night through the Alpine Club at 011-30-691-65285. Alpine Travel (011-30-821-44647; ) offers eight-day naturalist-guided rambles for $400 per person.
Whitewater Rafting Dalaman River, Turkey
The Class V rapids on the Dalaman River will inspire anyone to learn Turkish for “Paddle hard!”: Kurek çek! The Dalaman is the most rambunctious run in the Aegean (it also offers several sections of Class III and Class IV whitewater). Below the put-in at Mesebuku, in southwest Turkey, it flows through pine forests and squeezes into a deep, narrow gorge—like many rivers in California’s Sierra Nevada. Run eight miles through the upper and lower sections of the gorge, and camp alongside the river to get an early start—but not so early that you can’t catch and grill trout for breakfast. For the biggest water, 3,360 cubic feet per second, paddle in March or April. And don’t put off your trip: The gorge will flood in two or three years when the Turkish government completes a dam downriver.

Marmaris-based Alternatif Outdoors (011-90-252-417-2720; ) offers one- and two-day rafting trips for $70 and $140 per person and rents whitewater kayaks for $20 a day.

Rock Climbing Meteora, Greece
Meteora is sacred ground for serious rock climbers. In 1348, an intrepid Greek Orthodox monk climbed one of the crumbly pillars to secure a metal cross on top, ascending more than 200 feet without any guarantee that his devotion wouldn’t be memorialized in a scarlet splatter on the boulders below. To this day, the massive towers remain both frightening and alluring. Stick to popular routes like Pillar of Dreams and Direct Valley Edge, where most of the loose stones have already been pulled out. Climb at least one grade lower than your usual level; traditional protection often won’t wedge into the unconsolidated rock securely, and sparsely placed bolts mean that if you peel off you’ll take a 40-foot whipper. Meteora offers at least two weeks’ worth of 5.9-5.11 routes; almost all of them can be done in a day and reached within a half-hour walk from the affordable town of Kalabáka. Go off-season—spring or fall—unless you want to be a secondary attraction for tourists visiting the clifftop monasteries.

Hire a guide for $80 per day through the Kalabáka Alpine Club (011-30-432-24117).

Bike Touring Peloponnese Peninsula, Greece
Cyclists, unlike geographers, shouldn’t care that the Peloponnese is too big to be an island and too small to be a continent. Indeed, they should be pleased because it offers the best of both. Like an island, it’s circumnavigable in just two weeks (a 500-mile ride). Like a continent, it’s got more than one mountain range (three, in fact), colorful local folk (think of Catalonians with Spartan perseverance), and wonderfully diverse scenery ranging from grassy plains to jagged mountains. We suggest loading your panniers at the ancient Palace of Nestor in Mycenae and riding clockwise. First, cycle over rolling hills beside the untouristed Gulf of Argolis. Climb 3,000 feet through the Parnon Mountains, and coast down onto the dry, grassy Laconian plain. Head to the southernmost finger of the peninsula, the Mani region, for a look at medieval Byzantine castles; then ride north toward Kalamata, pinched between the 7,900-foot Taíyetos Mountains and the transparent waters of the Gulf of Messenia. From there, leave the citrus and olive orchards behind and head inland, to the infrequently traveled one-lane highways and packed-dirt roads of the Arcadia province. Ride a road bike. It’s worth going gingerly on the dirt to save weight in the mountains.

For details, call the Spartatikos Gymnastic Cycling Club (011-30-731-24402). An eight-day tour of the southern Peloponnese with Athens-based Prescot Travel (011-30-1-927-0591; ) costs $271 per person, and includes lodging and mountain-bike rental.

Sea Kayaking Gulf of Göva, Turkey
Turkey’s crenellated Turquoise Coast between Marmaris and Antalya is like France’s Cote d’Azur, and not only in name: Obtrusive seaside roads cut across once isolated bays and sandy, would-have-been-nice-to-camp-there beaches. But just west of Marmaris, where the topography remains craggy, ferries to and from Rhodes are the only regular traffic and most of the towns and stone castles are abandoned and crumbling. Put in at Datca, round a thin peninsula, and head into the Gulf of Gokova for a week of seclusion. Tiny coves and rocky islands thinly covered with pine trees block the afternoon winds, but it’s still a good idea to start early in the day, siesta, and then paddle again in the afternoon. Tides and currents in the horseshoe-shaped gulf are negligible, making it possible to complete the 96-mile trip without paddling more than five hours a day. Skip the arc of the horseshoe and avoid the ugly port of Gokova, but only if the weather is mellow; choppy waves and uncharacteristic winds can turn the seven-mile crossing near the gulf’s apex into a ten-hour epic. A ferry at the takeout in Bodrum will bring you and your boat back to Datca.

Rent sea kayaks and camping gear from Alternatif Outdoors (011-90-252-417-2720; ; singles are $20 per day, doubles are $30). San Francisco­ed Travel In Style (888-466-8242; ) offers several guided trips on the Turquoise Coast.

Windsurfing Paros, Greece
The Professional Windsurfers Association has held the annual World Cup competition in Greece for almost a decade—not because the local Greek breezes are strong, but because the winds that blow down off northern Europe are fierce and they happen to blow across Greece. Catch these meltemi at their fiercest in July and August; when they squeeze through the islands of Paros and Naxos they can ratchet up to 50 knots. Throughout the year, count on at least 18 knots every afternoon and rig small, four-square-meter sails for this natural wind tunnel. Protected areas near the most popular expert launches on Páros—Golden Beach (Chryssi Akti) and New Golden Beach (Nea Chryssi Akti)—are suitable for sailors not yet comfortable with water starts, harnesses, or offshore breezes.

For lessons ($20 per hour) or board rental ($150 per week), contact the Páros Surf Club on New Golden Beach (011- 30-284-52882; ).

Mountain Bike Turkey
Two-wheel your way through ancient villages in the Bey Daglari mountains and down rocky paths that lead to stunning Aegean beaches on this challenging, 15-day fat-tire tour. Be prepared to pedal three to four hours a day on steep mountain singletrack, forest trails, and paved roads. Marmara Mountain Bike ���ϳԹ���s, $1,675; 011-90-242-511-47-84; ; May-September.
Turkey Multisport
This 16-day excursion takes you to western Turkey’s Byzantine churches and the Cappadocia region before leading you off the tourist track with a whitewater canoe trip on the Class II­ Irmagi River and a four-day trek in the mountains of Lycia. Himalayan Travel, $840; 800-225-2380; April-September.

Rambling in Central Greece
You’ll hike along pine-forested paths on 8,316-foot Mount Pindos and through the 3,000-foot-deep Vikos Gorge (the country’s Grand Canyon) on this 11-day tour of north-central Greece. Hellenic ���ϳԹ���s Inc., $2,761; 800-851-6349; ; May, June, September.

Cruise Turkey’s Turquoise Coast
Spend four days exploring Istanbul and ruins in Ephesus then board a 75-foot traditional Turkish gulet—a 12-person, double-masted wooden yacht—for a ten-day cruise along Turkey’s Turquoise Coast, between Marmaris and Antalya. Wilderness Travel, $2,995-$3,195; 800-368-2794; May­ober.

Sail Greece’s Dodecanese Isles
It’s the classic Aegean adventure: a week or two of island-hopping aboard a 50-foot, eight-person sailboat. Help sail—or sit back and be a worthless deck lizard—as you ride the winds to Leros, Samos, and other islands in the Dodecanese chain. Avenir Travel, $895-$1,750; 800-367-3230; ; April-September.

Scuba Dive the Cyclades, Greece
Explore undersea ruins off the coasts of M’ykonos, Prasonísi, and Santoríni with a government-certified guide (in Greece, submerged antiquities are off-limits to independent divers). You’ll spend seven days diving and six nights relaxing in small beachfront hotels. Trekking Hellas, $1,170; 011-30-1-331-0323; ; June-August. —Dianna Delling

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