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.
