HONDURAS

Honduras is a small country. At about 112,000 km2, it's about the size of Tennessee, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio or Kentucky. Our country would fit 3 and a half times into California, 6 times into Texas, and over 80 times into the whole of the USA. Yet Honduras is packed with so much natural, cultural and archaeological diversity, that we like to describe it in terms of three distinct and diverse "worlds". Our first world is the world of Tropical Nature, and Honduras was blessed with the incredible natural diversity that Central America is famous for. The highest peaks in our mountainous central highlands are capped with the mysterious and beautiful tropical cloud forest. Called the "weeping woods" for the constant dripping of condensed fog from the everpresent clouds, this is a lush, dense forest in which every branch and trunk are covered with mosses, bromeliads and orchids. Our north and south coasts are lined with towering, old growth mangrove swamps and coastal lagoons rich with life. And our entire northeast corner is a vast, trackless wilderness called La Mosquitia, also known as the "Mosquito Coast". Huge and remote, it is part of the largest intact rain forest north of South America. Accessible only by air or by small boats, La Mosquitia is home to several indigenous tribes that live as integral parts of their diverse tropical rainforest home. For these reasons we call La Mosquitia "Central America's Little Amazon." The second of our three wide worlds is the world of the Maya. In the world of Maya archaeology, the name Copan stands out like that of Athens in Ancient Western Civilization. Indeed, Copan has been called the Athens of the New World. Copan is considered the Maya's crowning artistic achievement because of its unique and abundant, high relief style of stone sculpture. If Tikal in Guatemala, with its towering temples, could be compared to New York, Copan, it is said, would be Paris. In addition to possessing the most intricately and artistically carved stone sculpture, Copan is the most intensely studied and best understood of all Maya sites. After decades of world class archaeological study, which has been featured often in magazines like National Geographic, Copan is the only site to yield the remains of a Maya queen. They've found two, actually. The impressive, world class Copan Sculpture Museum was constructed to display and protect the majority of the site's original sculpture. The museum's four-story centerpiece, the striking "Rosalila" temple, is a full-scale replica of a temple recently excavated beneath the Acropolis. The third and most exotic of our three worlds is the world of Caribbean Honduras. Our fascination with our north coast came at the beginning of the century, when entrepreneurs from the US conceived a plan that would eventually turn into a multi-billion dollar industry, and earn Honduras the title of "Banana Republic." Coastal towns like Puerto Cortes, Tela, La Ceiba and Trujillo are quiet memories of the heyday of the banana companies, whose presence and influence are today greatly reduced.

In the wetlands near these charming coastal towns you can explore the overgrown canals, blackwater lagoons and secluded tropical beaches of several wetland national parks and wildlife refuges. Tela is also home to the Lancetilla Botanical Gardens, a former United Fruit Company research station which today preserves hundreds of species of exotic and local tropical trees and plants. Rising abruptly behind La Ceiba, our eco-tourism capital, is the striking profile of Pico Bonito National Park. High rainfall and steep slopes in this rain forest protected area combine to form elegant waterfalls and spectacular scenery, and contribute to the churning currents of the Rio Cangrejal, one of Central America's most exciting whitewater rivers. Conveniently, La Ceiba is also the gateway to the Bay Islands, and divers can make day trips for rafting the Rio Cangrejal, hiking in the rainforest, or exploring the winding canals of Cuero y Salado Wildlife Refuge searching for monkeys, alligators, manatees and dozens of water birds. The ordered layout of the banana towns gives way to relaxed, beachside Garifuna fishing villages strung out along our entire north coast, home to one of the Caribbean's most interesting cultures. The Garifuna, whose fascinating history leads back to the wreck of a slave ship carrying slaves captured in Africa, conserve a unique language and culture, and maintain exotic chants, music and dances with the energy and rhythm of that distant continent. The Bay Islands is a collection of three large islands and over 60 islets and keys located some 30 miles off the coast. Utila is the closest to shore, smallest and flattest of the three. It maintains the most authentic Bay Island culture, is one of the best places anywhere to see whale sharks, and it offers some of the most economical dive certification courses on the planet. Roatan is the largest, most developed and most frequented of the Bay Islands. Essentially a long, forested ridge rising from the sea, it retains much of the original forest that the Buccaneers knew when they used the island as a base for raiding Spanish ships. The Bay Islands boast the greatest variety of corals and sponges in the Caribbean, and are known for their excellent shore diving. Healthy reefs bristling with macro life have inspired the slogan, "Go slow, think small".