Day 7 -- WATERFALLS AND HOT SPRINGS

Your master naturalist guide from Costa Rica Expeditions is still on the job, leading you on a morning horseback ride to La Fortuna Falls through a magical world of banana trees and ferns. Once at the impressive falls, tie up your horses and go down rough-hewn steps and cool off in the freshwater pools below. If you like your Eden on the hot side, follow-up with a late afternoon visit to Tabacon Hot Springs, an idyllic retreat of pools, waterfalls and streams surrounded by lush vegetation. Spa services, including everything from mud baths to manicures are also available on site.

Day 8 -- BELIZE

BLANCANEAUX LODGE/BELIZE

Arriving by air-conditioned van back in San Jose (sorry, limos are rarer than emeralds in this part of the world), your charter flight takes you to Belize City. If you're weary of using your high school Spanish, no worries. Formerly known as British Honduras, Belize is the only country in Latin America whose official language is English. It also boasts the world's second-largest reef system and Mayan ruins and rainforest adventures second to none. Creature comforts are also available for discerning travelers, as you discover after being flown to Francis Ford Coppola's Blancaneaux Lodge in the owner's private aircraft. At Blancaneaux, where notables such as Jimmy Buffett, Brooke Shields and director couple Sophia Coppola and Spike Jonze have cocooned, Mr. and Mrs. Coppola's personal touches abound, including family portraits and antiques and artifacts as varied as Guatemalan church pews and Indonesian textiles. Before checking into Villa #7 (the one preferred by Mr. Coppola), we suggest stopping at the bar to slake your thirst with a Jaguar Juice, a potent rum libation popular with guests.

Day 9 -- CAVES AND RUINS

Spend the morning paddling canoes in mysterious Barton Creek Cave with one of Blananeaux's excellent guides (we like Oscar and Herman). Used for ritual burials by the Maya, it's an eerie natural cathedral of vaulting ceilings, stalactites, ancient pottery and a skull or two. If you're craving still more adventure, your guide will take you to the Mayan ruins of Caracol to explore the tallest building in Belize -- the pyramid of Caana, rising 14 stories from the rainforest floor and estimated to be almost 1,500 years old. Still being excavated, Hollywood couldn't imagine a more evocative site, filled with tombs, pyramids and even an ancient observatory.

Day 10 -- BELIZE COAST

WATERFRONT LUXURY/KANATIK/BELIZE

Say goodbye to the woodsy ambiance (and Jaguar Juice, by now surely a preferred restorative) of Blancaneaux and head to Belize's storied coast. Arriving at the private airstrip of newly opened Kanantik, you'll be shuttled to this refined, rustic hideaway envisioned by a gregarious Italian, Roberto Fabbri. A former yacht broker, he'll most likely greet you personally and invite you to his bar. Featuring a forty-foot high thatch roof rendered by a Guatemalan master thatcher, it's so artfully done, it may qualify as Belize's Sistine Chapel. Since Kanantik is all about the water, take out a sea kayak, Hobie Cat, or just stroll the beach before a dinner of freshly caught seafood.