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 The original Banana Republic, a byword for corruption and poverty,
Honduras is all too often overlooked by foreign tourists. Many of those
who do make it here head straight for the ruins of Copán , one of the
finest Maya sites in the region. Some even miss that, in their rush to
get to the palm-fringed beaches and clear Caribbean waters of the Bay
Islands . Beyond these prime tourist sites, however, is a land of
inspiring, often untouched natural beauty.
The second-largest country in Central America after Nicaragua, Honduras
sprawls from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, from Caribbean flatlands
through the cooler mountainous interior, and south to the sun-baked
shores of the Golfo de Fonseca. West to east, the forested highlands on
the border with Guatemala give way to the vast, undeveloped savannas and
wetlands of the Mosquitia. While eco-tourism is a relatively new concept
here, more and more Hondurans are becoming aware of the role the
country's extensive network of national parks and reserves plays in
protecting irreplaceable natural resources. Almost a quarter of Honduran
territory is protected, but a lack of funding and growing pressure on
the land mean this status often exists more on paper than in reality.
Nonetheless, the remoter reaches of the parks still host an astonishing
array of flora and fauna, amid some of the finest stretches of virgin
cloudforest and tropical forest in Central America.
Honduras's close alliance with the US, while preventing the bitter
conflicts that beset its neighbours in the 1980s, has not alleviated the
country's acute social and economic problems . After Nicaragua, this is
Latin America's poorest nation, with levels of deprivation that can be
disturbing to witness: some eighty percent of Hondurans live in poverty
and forty percent are unable to read or write. Exacerbating the pressure
on economic and environmental resources is a rapidly growing population,
now approaching seven million, much of it absorbed by the ever-increasing
shantytowns ringing the main cities.
It is in the cities that the pressures are most evident: life is fast
and harsh and social intercourse is conducted at times with gratuitous
abruptness. Move out into the rural areas, however, and the open
generosity and genuine friendliness displayed by those who have little
else are what leave an enduring impression. On the north coast, where
the population is more ethnically diverse, the heat and sunshine combine
to create a way of life that's more Caribbean than Latin |
