Blissing Out in Balmy Belize

Pyramids and coral reefs beckon, but the chief attraction of this angler's paradise is stalking the wily tarpon with fly rod and reel

Belize, formerly British Honduras, enjoys the distinction of being the most obscure country in Latin America. It is tiny: a nibble between the borders of Mexico to the north, Honduras to the south and Guatemala to the west. In the 16th and 17th centuries it was the haunt of Spanish bucaneros and English slavers, of logwood cutters and warm-sea riffraff. In 1981 it achieved independence, and today it is the last fragment of the British Commonwealth on Central American soil, the smallest sovereign state on the whole continent (pop. about 200,000) and politically the least eventful.

Belize has rain forest, jaguars,...

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