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. |
