Swimming pool at Cassa Zenda, Francis Ford Coppola's new refuge in Guatemala.
The journey, as they say, is the journey. But Cassa Zenda arouses interest upon arrival. When this tiny black speck in the middle of a vast crystal clear lake begins to take shape inside a private dock, you will have spent most of the day sailing on a motor boat and the last two hours meandering down Guatemala's Rio Dulce.
Rugged canyons appear on both banks of the muddy river, escorting you to a silent and pristine tableau of green jungle all tangled and dotted with houses with thatched roofs. River traffic is down, except for a few families who are line fishing from canoes.
That this panorama evokes the scene in Apocalypse Now in which Martin Sheen speeds through the jungle in search of Colonel Kurtz is a more than significant coincidence: Cassa Zenda is the latest hotel adventure from director Francis Ford Coppola (In fact, it was the filmmaker's nostalgia for the jungle that led him to open his first hotel, Blancaneaux Lodge, in the jungle of northern Belize in 1993).
Cassa Zenda is on Lake Izabal, also known as Golfo Dulce, near the Caribbean coast of Guatemala.
THE JOURNEY
We start the day at the Turtle Inn, their Discreet luxury hideaway on the beach in Placencia, Belize where we spend the night at Sofia's beach house, a bohemian and modern Californian resort, with a private pool. From there, we board a sleek Monterey motorboat and spend an hour and a half sailing through the turquoise Belizean coast and its mangroves, only stopping to have our passports stamped by two drunken immigration agents playing dominoes.
Crossing into Guatemala, we drop anchor in the port of Livingston – a jumble of colorful ramshackle buildings and dockside restaurants that reverberate to the beat of reggaeton and punta rock – which it serves as the capital of the Guatemalan Garífuna Caribbean community. Finally we board a smaller and even fancier boat, a Nautique, where we meet Cassa Zenda's exuberant manager, Kika Garcés, offering glasses of champagne, and begin our cinematic 27-mile journey upriver to Lake Izabal.
HOME
Cassa Zenda is a private house turned into a profitable hideaway since The Family Coppola Hideaways began managing in December the is already his second lodge in Guatemala after La Lancha, in the north, near Tikal. Which creates a loop between his properties here and those in Belize, while championing much-needed tourism in a country that is, in some ways, still recovering from its 30-year Civil War, the one that ended in 1996. Unlike the other properties, Cassa Zenda must be rented in its entirety. But the sweet seclusion is the plus: you don't want to share this place with strangers.
Arrival at the dock culminates in a warm welcome from the lodge's butler and staff with cold towels and drinks, standing in front of the lakeside lodge with bar and huge loungers. A wooden path continues through a dense canopy of palms and gumbo-limbo trees blooming alongside orchids and bromeliads, past a reflecting oval pool and hot tub, outdoor spaces that look as if the Howells have graced their Gilligan's Island.
In & Out in Cassa Zenda, Guatemala.
DESIGN
These include two living rooms with hanging chairs and comfortable sofas, a kitchen-cabin and a dining room with a family table, all decorated by Garces – an interior designer from Guatemala City and a friend of the owner – with locally made Guatemalan textiles, handcrafted furniture, and piles of picture books that offer a colorful insight into Guatemalan history and lifestyle.
Because without these subtle cultural clues, Cassa Zenda could be anywhere in the world. Lake Izabal, a little tourist region Home to both local fishermen and weekend resorts for Guatemala's elite, it is the largest in the country and can be traveled for long stretches without seeing or hearing another boat.
In addition, this southeastern tip of Guatemala has been at the crossroads of many different influences –the Maya-K'iche' indigenous people, the Spanish colonizers, the Garífunas of the Caribbean, not to mention the social displacement caused by the country's 30-year Civil War–, so there is not much left of their unique traditional culture, which in this country of nearly 17 million people is largely concentrated in the remote western highlands.
One of the suite type houses of Cassa Zenda.
THE ACTIVITIES
However, excursions from Cassa Zenda in one of the resort's two black Land Rover Defenders are enough to immerse yourself in the nearby natural environment and daily rural Guatemalan life. One day, we passed through villages of modest houses and lush corn and fruit farms until we reached Finca El Paraíso, a waterfall of hot water, where families floated in steaming pools.
We climbed the slippery rock above the falls until we reached a trail that led us to a bubbling sulfuric stream next to a cave, where we were able to scoop up handfuls of acrid healing mud with our hands. Another day, we took the boat across the lake to the nearby Castillo de San Felipe de Lara, a limestone fort surrounded by moats built by the Spanish in 1595 to defend themselves and imprison marauding pirates and protect the treasures of Lake Izabal, which include silver and gold, as well as jade, amber and agate.
One of Cassa Zenda's lakeside suite houses.
HOUSES
These semi-precious stones give their name to three of the four thatched-roof suite villas of Cassa Zenda (the last one is lava, a nod to the 37 volcanoes in the country). The teak-floored rooms are spacious and simply decorated by Garcés, with elegant hand-woven bedspreads (in a green and gray palette, possibly typical of Guatemala) and white curtains; each one has a large bathroom with indoor and outdoor shower. Two have a loft.
But the real taste of these rooms is in its permeability to the forest, which at night comes to life with grumpy frogs, screeching insects and the occasional howler monkey scream. If you don't feel like going through this menagerie to get to the kitchen in the middle of the night, you can easily use a radio to call your butler to bring you a cup of spiced cocoa.
A house in the jungle or a jungle as a garden?
THE GASTRONOMY
It is through food, in fact, where the spirit of Guatemala is most palpable. Garces, a Cuban-American defender of the flavors and traditions of her adopted country, enlisted one of her best friends, chef Debora Fadul, of Diacá and En, two restaurants in Guatemala City with a farm-to-farm philosophy, to oversee the menu. table.
A pioneer of local flavors, Fadul travels the country in search of** ingredients like black lemon from the slopes of the Atitlán volcano** and oregano the size of a baby's hand. Fadul uses two talented young chefs to prepare (and thoroughly explain to guests) Her multi-course menus are a modern tune of Guatemalan flavors: Cassava flour cookie with shrimp tartar, oregano and fried purple corn; sea bass in coconut milk, lemon and curly celery; and a stuffed pepper with apple and cocoa crumble (the menu will soon branch out with the help of a local indigenous cook who will prepare traditional dishes like pepián, a traditional stew, and a family barbecue on the pier).
Of course, you can drink Coppola's serious cellar, including limited-production reserve wines and her award-winning claret. It is sublime to end the night rocking gently in one of the hammocks while you sip on a glass of Guatemala's famous Zacapa rum and tune in to music on the Sonos sound system.
The flavors of Guatemala on the table at Cassa Zenda.
THE FAREWELL
Daily life in Cassa Zenda really unfolds at the lake. You can rest on the dock with your eyes lost in an infinite and crystalline horizon or take the boat to have lunch at Rosita's, from whose floating kitchen comes a insanely good tapado - a seafood stew cooked in coconut water with garlic and achiote, crab, shrimp, molluscs, plantains and cilantro.
Adrenaline junkies may be all day in Cassa Zenda with the jet skis or practicing paddleboards and kayaking, and of course sailing the state-of-the-art Nautique, which can digitally modulate the waves for whatever sport you choose: waterskiing, wakeboarding, wakesurfing, or hydrofoiling.
Since the house is yours alone, you can do what you want, when you want: the warm and attentive staff will arrange anything you request on a whim. One night, at dinner time, Garcés suggested that we go water skiing at night (the lake is so empty that there is no risk of accidents).
Speeding through the velvety warm water, Beneath a nearly full moon and a dome of twinkling stars, he might not even have known where he was. But the indelible euphoria of 'flying' in the dark, the laughter of my new friends and the mutual feeling of being in a precious secret place in a country eager to divulge its hidden treasures have bound me forever to this special place.
Article originally published in the North American version of Condé Nast Traveler.
Cassa Zenda pier at sunset.