Guatemala may be complicated to get to, but the strength of the pound against the dollar makes flights from London via Houston on Continental Airlines (01293 776464, www.continental.com) less expensive than they were. It's usually cheaper to book each leg separately: the combined cost of the London-to-Houston and Houston-to-Flores legs worked out at one-third less than the price I was quoted for a London-Flores ticket (about £800). Alternatively, Monarch (www.flymonarch.com) operates charters to Cancún, from which there are onward connections.
And living expenses once you're there - apart from during mid-winter peak season - can be a bargain, even if you opt to stay at La Lancha (00 501 824 4912; www.lalancha.com; e-mail: info@ blancaneaux.com), the newest of Francis Ford Coppola's resorts, and his current favourite.
Close to the magnificent Mayan ruins of Tikal, on the rainforest-clad shores of Lake Petén Itzá, La Lancha consists of 10 hillside casitas set on stilts, above its own small beach (there's also a small bi-level swimming pool). The rooms, all with spacious balconies strung with hammocks and scattered with Adirondack chairs, are beautifully, if minimally, furnished with brightly coloured local textiles and artworks which meet Eleanor Coppola's exacting eye and rigorous standards. There are fresh flowers from the garden in the rooms; the locally sourced soap is the kind you want to pinch; and contributors to the house magazine - including Zaha Hadid and Gus Van Sant as guest designers, Neil LaBute, Joyce Carol Oates and TC Boyle among the writers - make the
place feel alluringly cool and well-connected. Yet perhaps because Coppola regards the place as a work in progress, the B&B rates start at US$65 for a rainforest casita, US$95 for a lake view.
You also feel very close to nature here. The roar you hear in the night - a sound so terrifying Spielberg used it as the dinosaur call in Jurassic Park - comes from the howler monkeys, a troupe of whom you may see on the beach. And the birdwatching possibilities from your balcony are superb: blue-crowned birds of paradise, keel-billed toucans and emerald toucanets, hummingbirds the size of your thumb, and myriad parrots.
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