Aline Habib Is Following Her Dream Creating Belize’s First And Only Vegan Health And Wellness Luxury Jungle Lodge
by Heather Cassell
It was a journey home when Aline Habib, her father Paul Habib, and a group of friends checked into the Mariposa Jungle Lodge last summer.
Stepping out of the van she instantly knew “this is in line with who we are right now and in our journey.”
The hospitality expert and her businessman father built luxury homes on the Caribbean coast of Belize for 13 years.
“We are very intuitive my dad and I,” she explained. “We go along with our heart, even though something is kind of crazy.”
The father-daughter hoteliers bought the Mariposa Jungle Lodge from Sharyn and Jim Brinker and took it over on September 1, 2018, but they didn’t publicly announce the transition until March 27 on the lodge’s Facebook page.
The Shore
Paul Habib, left, and Aline Habib, right, the new owners of the Mariposa Jungle Lodge (Photo: Courtesy of the Mariposa Jungle Lodge)
A year before buying the lodge, the family sold Wild Orchid Belize in Placencia in southern Belize after a lifetime living and helping her father build his luxury homes and hotels on the Caribbean coast of Belize.
Aline,36, earned her hospitality degree at the Institute of Tourism and Hospitality in Montreal, Canada and spent the past 13 years helping her father build and grow the Wild Orchid.
Aline, her 9-year-old daughter whom she didn’t provide her name, and her father returned to Montreal, Canada to figure out the next chapter in their lives.
“It was beautiful. It is still beautiful,” Aline said. “It just took a life of its own.”
The business grew like a wildflower. At one point, Aline and her father discovered it no longer resembled their dream that brought them to Belize in 2005.
“It was really our dream to go to Belize and have a beautiful little resort with little cabanas,” she said about the original dream.
“We were living the life,” she continued talking about the private island and boat the family once owned.
That life just didn’t quite resemble what they originally imagined or where they are now, she said.
The Vision
Mariposa Jungle Lodge returned them to the roots of their original vision in Belize.
Since purchasing the lodge, the family has been busy transforming the boutique resort into a vegan health and wellness retreat. There is no alcohol, only good fruit and vegetable juices and smoothies to go along with the plant-based dishes from the newly designed menu, yoga deck, pool, and other amenities.
Aline has been working with the lodge’s Chef Esau creating a vast array of vegan dishes to offer on the menu.
“We’re trying to open up the door to vegans and non-vegans alike to just come over and experience and just show them what it can be like to live and eat well for a week and love the food. It’s good food,” she said.
“The idea is to just raise awareness, not to like go vegan,” she added.
They’ve built a yoga deck beneath the jungle canopy and expanded the spa that offers specialty Mayan massages.
Morning yoga on the new yoga deck at the Mariposa Jungle Lodge in Belize. (Photo: Courtesy of the Mariposa Jungle Lodge)
The lodge still offers six air-conditioned luxury cabanas, hiking trail around the property, the bird watch tower, and other on-site amenities.
Her father’s and her goal’s for Mariposa Jungle Lodge to be a welcoming place for guests seeking a refuge to reconnect and rebalance their lives in a peaceful and comfortable place.
“We’re turning it into a space where people can just come and be themselves,” said Aline. “It’s really a place of just pure love.”
Book your next Belize vacation at the Mariposa Jungle Lodge with Girls That Roam Travel. Contact Heather Cassell at Girls That Roam Travel at 415-517-7239 or at .
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