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Imagine the tranquility of 18,000 acres of private reserve, a place where you can enjoy the simple pleasures of quality accommodations, fine food and attentive service, a place where you can walk into an unspoiled world and experience a unique contact with nature. This is Hidden Valley Inn Resort, a small full-service resort geared to those who appreciate pristine nature.
The lodge is located high in the northern Maya Mountains in the Mountain Pine Ridge area of western Belize. The remoteness of the lodge offers guests the solitude and tranquility of both pine forest and tropical rainforest where the flora and fauna are like nowhere else on earth.
Exclusively for Hidden Valley Inn Resort guests, there are over ninety miles of well-maintained hiking trails to places such as Tiger Creek Pools and Falls, Butterfly Falls that cascade into clear rock pool surrounded by ferns and orchids, Manakin Falls and King Vulture Falls. Lake Lolly-Folly is great for canoeing and fishing excursions, and Bull`s Point Lookout makes a superb picnic location.
Rare and beautiful wildlife lives here, unaffected by human habitation. Puma and jaguar are sometimes seen along the roads, the tapir leaves his trails along the forest floor and the shy quash (coatimundi) may peer up from his daytime sleep. For the birders, the opportunities are endless—the rare orange-breasted falcon and the stygian owl, the huge white king vulture and the oscillated turkey, various darting hummingbirds and noisy acorn woodpecker, blue crown mot, keel-billed toucan, and red lored parrot are among the over 200 species of exotic tropical birds seen here.
Hidden Valley`s two diverse ecosystems are divided by a huge geological fault line, which marks the edge of a towering 1000-foot escarpment. Below this escarpment lies lush tropical forest, and above is the dense Caribbean pine forest. Both areas are populated with many varieties of colorful and delicate orchids and bromeliads, fuzzy-leafed melastomes, and feathery ferns in many sizes from ancient looking tree ferns to low growing club ferns. On the Hidden Valley property there are also cultivated areas of Arabica coffee, banana, plantain, macadamia, cacao, guava, various citrus, as well as areas of pineapple, ginger and haliconia.
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The twelve spacious hand-laid marble daub cottages have zinc roofs and full private baths. Rich Mexican quarry tiles and attractive scatter rugs cover the floors. The rooms have a vaulted ceilings complete with fans and screened louvered windows in each wall to provide ample movement of air to keep the rooms very comfortable. For cool days and nights there is a fireplace to ward off the chill with a cozy fire. The cottages have one queen-size bed or two twin beds, mahogany writing desks, two lounge chairs, and large closets.
The main lodge is the heart of the resort. It was originally the owners` home and reflects the graciousness of a high-country lodge with its vaulted ceilings, exotic tropical cypress paneled walls and four fireplaces. Here guests enjoy meeting new friends in a relaxed atmosphere. The various rooms provide ample space to gather before dinner with a cocktail, or to settle quietly in a comfortable chair on the glassed-in porch to read or watch the undisturbed antics of the acorn woodpeckers and hummingbirds. |
