On the prowl for the big cat of Belize

The immigration inspector at Belize City airport was built like an overweight Lennox Lewis. My passport looked like a little business card in his huge hands. But when I told him what I was doing in Belize he jumped back as if I'd suddenly stuck a cattle prod up his baggy shorts. "What! You looking for jaguars, man?" he wailed. "If you see one you'd better just run – those are some big cats. Them so dangerous. I never seen one and I hope I never do!"

After a flight to Miami and a two-hour overcrowded flight south to Belize City, it was too late to turn back. I had come to this small Central American country tipped as the next tourist destination, because it has the world's greatest concentration of jaguars. I simply wanted to see one of these big cats in the wild. They grow up to 8ft long, so I reckoned that it would be easy to spot them strolling round.

Unfortunately not. I was repeatedly warned that I was very unlikely to see one. In fact, like the immigration officer, most Belizeans have never seen the third biggest cat after the lion and tiger. On long sultry nights in Belizean bars conversation often seems to turn to "jaguars I have nearly seen". It's not just their rarity: these camouflaged cats are nocturnal, preferring the densest rainforest where they live scattered, shy lives. An adult male jaguar likes his patch to stretch for 16 lonely miles. After that noisy, packed flight from Miami to Belize City I felt some empathy.

I was even prepared to brave a rainforest notorious for tarantulas, soldier ants, boa constrictors and the particularly deadly fer de lance snake, which stalks victims with highly sensitive heat detectors on its head. Even the local centipedes have poison-injecting fangs. Despite my European squeamishness, I recognised Belize is a hot tip as future tourist magnet. It is a small nation bordered by Mexico, Guatemala, and the Caribbean Sea, yet its landscape contains a mix of pristine eco-systems. There are mountains, jungles, swamps, sandy beaches, coastal lagoons and, to cap it all, one of the world's longest barrier reefs.

Thankfully, the former British colony is a peaceful democracy with the foresight to give protected status to an astonishing proportion of itself, more than 40 per cent. It can't have been popular with farmers, hunters and loggers, but, as an investment for the future, that could be a priceless decision.

From Belize City I took a tiny plane to Dangriga airport – a pebble-dashed hut and gravel runway in a clearing. I was collected in a battered truck by a young driver from Jaguar Reef Lodge – a picturesque and colourful eco-resort on a seven-mile sandy beach. The "rooms" along the beach are whitewashed thatched bungalows with a central open-sided lodge that juts between swaying beach palms. I was excited. I rushed around looking at the brightly coloured local art in the rooms, then dashed into the clear warm sea as a flock of crested terns watched from the jetty. Then I took a kayak for a paddle around the lagoon, then borrowed a mountain bike to ride to the hotel's pavilion on the Sittee River a mile away. Here I met a hotel boatman who made an offer you don't often hear at a Ritz-Carlton. "You wanna see some crocodiles?" he asked with a huge smile.

I jumped aboard for an African Queen-style boat trip down a sluggish waterway lined by lilies, mangroves, palms, breadfruit, mangoes, alamanda flowers, and trees like wild cane, caraway and the lovely mayflower whose pink flowers float down the river for miles. And, yes, he was soon pointing out crocodiles and iguanas lounging along the banks while tiger herons and egrets patrolled the shallows.

The next day another boat took me 12 miles out to the reef, where stingrays and eagle rays glided around shallow clear water like vast shadows. On one of these World Heritage islands – a bird reserve called Man of War Caye – I watched the spectacular courtship displays of the frigate bird where males inflate their red throats to lure females.

The best expedition was to the Jaguar sanctuary at Cockscomb Basin. I expected Longleat without the gift shop, but I found a green sea of jungle spreading towards a distant rim of hazy, gnarled mountains. Cockscomb is 155 square miles of tropical wilderness. As eco-tourism grows and rainforests shrink, this extraordinary theme park of nature could one day become a world-famous attraction.

The basin's teeming fauna includes a screeching, tweeting and hooting collection of 300 types of birds, from toucans and vultures to hummingbirds as tiny as insects. There are hundreds of exotic animals, too, including tapirs, anteaters and armadillos, and countless plants ranging from giant tree ferns to precious mahogany trees. My guide stopped our 4WD truck at a clearing in the centre of the basin. From here you can explore miles of marked paths leading into the rain-drenched tropical basin. Rain drenched? Well, annual rainfall reaches 180in in parts – that's 15ft.

The ring of mountains around Cockscomb includes the 3,680ft Victoria Peak. It shows just how undeveloped this country is when a local guide book refers to Victoria as "perhaps the second-highest mountain in Belize". "Higher peaks may exist in the unexplored southern divide," it said. This is the sort of terrain where maps mark some roads as "seasonal" and some towns as "abandoned". Yet these untamed jungles include more attractions of the future: Central America's highest waterfall and the biggest cave system in the Americas, stretching into Guatemala.

In Cockscomb I saw gangs of howler monkeys staring down from the canopy, a daunting "road" cleared through the undergrowth by an army of leaf-cutter ants and a tiny leaping frog the size of a grasshopper. There were colourful birds of all shapes and sizes fluttering through the leaves, sleeping bats hanging from trees and giant termite hills humming with activity. I was buzzed by huge dragonflies and saw thin lizards running around on their back legs, scarily reminiscent of a scene in Jurassic Park. If I couldn't see a jaguar, at least exploring the inspirational creature's habitat was an unexpected thrill.

There's an aura of mystery and superstition about jaguars. Locals speak of the big cat with reverence. To indigenous Mayans the jaguar is simply called baalum, meaning "king". Its likeness is carved on stone ruins of their ancient civilisation throughout Belize. The jaguar they worshipped once occupied a range from the US to Argentina, but fur hunters and deforestation reduced that to a few hundred in Central America's and Brazil's thickest rainforests.

One guide took me on a long walk just to see the spot where he had once glimpsed a jaguar years before. "There. That's where it was," he said, gazing at the empty patch of forest as if the spirit of the beast were still present. As he looked at his vision of the past, I couldn't help thinking of Belize's vision of the future.

The Facts

Getting there

Trailfinders (020-7937 5400) is quoting return fares of £608 to Belize City with Continental Airlines via Houston, with an outbound overnight stop.

Being there

Three-day packages at the Jaguar Reef Lodge (001 501 520 7040; www.jaguarreef.com) start from $499 (£332) per person, based on two sharing, including transfers to the lodge, two full-day guided tours and all meals.

Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary (00 501 223 5004; www.belizeaudubon.org ) is open daily from 7.30am to 4.30pm, entry costs BZ$10 (£3) per adult.

Further information

Belize Tourism Board (00 501 231 913; www.travelbelize.org).