Doyle's Delight

Where is Doyle's Delight?

Doyle's Delight is part of the Maya Mountains.

You will find it in: Belize.

Summit: 16.494° N, 89.046° W

The story behind it

The Maya Mountains are a block of very old rock in the south of Belize, and the highest place on their long ridge carries the odd name Doyle's Delight. Up there the forest changes: the trees stay small and crooked, every branch is wrapped in moss, and orchids and ferns grow on the bark because clouds keep everything wet almost all year. No road reaches the summit, and the ridge is so far from any village that researchers usually arrive by helicopter or walk for days through the jungle with machetes and camps. The wide forest around is a refuge for jaguars, tapirs, scarlet macaws and hundreds of kinds of birds, many of them hard to see in the green shade. Scientists still find plants and small animals here that were unknown before.

Find it on the globe

Doyle's Delight is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.