Tourists Discovering the Mysteries of Honduras : Central American Country Offers an Appealing Pace and a Friendly Face

COPAN, Honduras —  The bumpy road to the ancient Mayan city of Copan winds through a narrow valley high in the mountains of Honduras, and each mile of the way seemed to carry me deeper into the past. When I set out from the coast, there were tractors working fields of green corn, plump pineapples and waist-high tobacco plants. But in almost no time, I had journeyed into the unhurried land of an earlier day, where herdsmen still tend cattle on horseback, farmers haul produce to market by donkey or ox-drawn cart, and the women gather by the stream to wash the family clothing.

An impoverished nation, lightly populated and with a heritage of political turmoil, Honduras is also breathtakingly beautiful, enormously fascinating, appealingly friendly and inexpensive. Right now, almost nobody except the 5 million Hondurenos themselves knows this, but adventurous travelers are beginning to uncover the secret. Ever so slowly, the country is opening its doors to tourism, pursuing the economic benefits much as its Central American neighbors, Costa Rica and Guatemala, have done. Now, however, you pretty much have it to yourself.

On a visit last month, I spent a couple of days strolling the steep, cobblestone streets of Tegucigalpa, the political and cultural capital, simply to take in the colorful sights. A big, sleepy village squeezed into a green mountain valley in the central highlands, Tegucigalpa has been left mostly unscarred by earthquakes that have toppled other capitals of the old Spanish Empire, and it retains a strong flavor of the Spanish Colonial era. Seemingly every home is roofed with arched red tiles, and women go from door to door carrying big baskets atop their heads full of bananas, melons and fresh vegetables for sale.

From the capital, I signed up for an overnight excursion to the ruins of Copan, near the country’s remote western border with Guatemala. Majestic in scope, Copan is considered one of the most artistically advanced of the Mayan cities that flourished in Central America and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula from the 4th to the 10th Century. In the quiet of a cool early morning, my companions and I had the tree-shaded grounds of the national archeological park entirely to ourselves--expect maybe for the ghosts of the ancient Mayans who, it is easy to imagine, still haunt their soaring stone temples, great plazas and ceremonial ball court.

And one morning, my wife and I splurged on beautiful Honduran crafts in the two barnlike pavilions of the National Assn. of Artisans, a cooperative store in the pretty mountain village of Valle de Angeles, about 25 miles northeast of Tegucigalpa. The cooperative displays the brightly painted pottery, fine leatherwork, boldly colored baskets, intricate wood carvings, ornate wooden chests and other crafts of 200 artisans from throughout the country. We left with an armload, but prices were so modest--$6 for a large red-and-gold basket suitable as a wall hanging--we barely made a dent in our budget.

Traveling in a Third World nation is not always comfortable, but it often can be very interesting, and I was simultaneously appalled and delighted by glimpses of everyday Honduran life in the city and the countryside. Honduras ranks with Haiti and Bolivia as one of the poorest nations of this hemisphere, and on the road to Copan I saw many people living in the humblest of mud wattle huts, topped with thatch and sometimes having only a curtain for a door. My sadness at the sight was partly ameliorated, however, by an amusing and apparently common practice: To wash their pickup trucks, the more prosperous villagers simply drive them into the middle of the nearest fast-flowing stream.

The Honduran island of Roatan, just off the country’s northern coast in the Caribbean Sea, is becoming popular as an inexpensive beach and diving destination, and when I first consulted a travel agent about my trip, he assumed that’s where I was headed. “No,” I told him, “I want to fly to Tegucigalpa and go into the Honduran countryside.”

“Why?” he asked. “There’s nothing there.” In a way, he was right, but he was also very, very wrong.

The second-largest of the Central American countries, Honduras has had a turbulent history, being subjected over the years to frequent military coups, sometimes repressive governments and major foreign interference in its internal affairs. American investors in the early years of this century cultivated vast banana plantations in the northern coastal lowlands, transforming Honduras into the proverbial banana republic where the big companies often wielded more influence than the nation’s leaders. And in the turmoil of war that plagued much of Central America in the 1980s, Honduras was the base for the U.S.-sponsored Contra War against the rev olutionary Sandinista government of Nicaragua.

Today, the Hondurans have an elected civilian government, and the country is embarking on a program of long-term economic growth, which includes diversifying its agricultural exports and promoting tourism. I bumped into an example in our hotel in Tegucigalpa. One morning, the breakfast room suddenly filled with more than two dozen chattering American men in jeans and baseball caps. They were, one of them told me, pickle experts checking out a new type of cucumber that Honduras hopes to export.

The Hondurans I talked to take pride in the country’s progress, slow as it may be, and they express hope for the future. But in truth, I was more interested in the Honduras of today and yesterday--which is why I headed for Tegucigalpa, a city with its roots deep in the 16th Century. Unlike San Pedro Sula, the country’s bustling economic and industrial capital in the coastal lowlands, Tegulcigalpa remains only lightly touched by modern development. At dusk, when the red of the capital’s tiled roofs is mirrored in the sun’s rays, it appears a city a century or more old.

There is, as the travel agent suggested, really nothing of great importance for a tourist to see or do in Tegucigalpa, but I somehow managed to fill a couple of pleasant days there--mostly people-watching as I explored its streets and markets. To my mind, this is often the most rewarding sightseeing. Spring is the Honduran dry season, and in the central highlands, daytime temperatures are mild--in the 70s and 80s, cooling a bit at night.

Founded by the Spanish in 1578 as a silver-mining center, Tegucigalpa is draped across several high hills that encircle Parque Central, the city’s colonial-style central plaza. The jumbled topography has produced a maze of one-lane cobblestone streets wandering in no specific direction. It is easy to get lost, but not at all intimidating. If you point yourself downhill, you almost certainly will find your way back to Central Park--a short walk from the major tourist hotels.

In proper colonial style, the plaza is dominated by the Cathedral of Tegucigalpa, a modest 18th-Century structure with a clean, whitewashed exterior, twin bell towers and unusual pleated columns--the latter a typically Honduran adornment to the basic Spanish look. Behind its heavy wooden doors is a baroque altar of gold and silver, a contrast to the otherwise spare decor. As I exited, a woman on the steps grasped at my pant leg asking for money, a reminder of the country’s poverty. She was, however, one of only a few beggars I encountered anywhere.

Shaded by huge trees, the plaza is the city’s principal gathering spot. Many of the country’s governmental offices are nearby, as are some of the best shops and numerous movie houses. I found the plaza a refreshing sanctuary from the clamoring traffic that clogs downtown streets from morning to night. Every empty taxi in search of a passenger honked at me as it passed, or so I thought, and when the noise became oppressive I rested awhile on a park bench, watching the scene. At times, the plaza takes on the appearance of a carnival midway. Vendors hawk brightly colored balloons, toys, candy and cigarettes. Shoeshine stalls keep busy, as do the newspaper kiosks, and lottery ticket salesmen are everywhere. Every time someone parks a car, a group of young boys scrambles for a tip to protect it. I felt I had taken a seat in the nation’s living room.

As a dutiful tourist, I did seek out the city’s most important sites. Just east of the plaza is the old Presidential Palace, a yellow fortress that is being converted into a national museum. Curiously, it looks more fanciful than military,like something out of an old operetta. Nearby is the much newerLegislative Palace, the boldly modern home of the Honduran congress, hoisted from the ground on a dozen or more concrete stilts. Facing it is the Museum of Man in a beautifully restored colonial-era building with a quiet courtyard filled with pots of azaleas.

On a hillside north of the plaza, about a 15-minute walk, is the National Museum of Anthropology and History, housed in the palatial home of a former president. Inside the gate, a walkway climbs in a long, steep curve. The building, a pastel blue with stained-glass windows, is worth a visit in itself. Information describing the exhibits is only in Spanish, but visitors who don’t know the language should absorb much from the clothing, tools and handicrafts of the country’s Indian cultures on display.

About 90% of the country’s population is mestizo, according to my guidebook, a mix of Spanish and Indian that is so nearly universal, the country has been spared racial hostilities. About 7% of the people are pure Indians. The national currency is the lempira, named after Lempira, an Indian chief of the Lenca tribe who, in 1537, led an army of 30,000 Indians against the Spanish.

A couple of streets located near the plaza are pedestrian ways. One, Avenida Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus Avenue), begins at the plaza’s northwest corner. It is a street of small shops, lined also with outdoor vendors who set up ankle-high platforms laden with leather sandals, purses and odds and ends. Having forgotten sunglasses, my wife bought a reasonably fashionable pair from a vendor for 20 lempira, about $3.60.

Intersecting the avenue is Calle Los Dolores, another pedestrian passage crowded with more outdoor stalls--many of them selling school supplies, since the new semester was about to get under way. At its northern end, a block away, is the Los Dolores Church, a pretty pink structure with a huge dome and a colorfully painted interior.

As I made my way between these monuments, I poked my nose into many of the hole-in-the-wall shops I passed, including one filled from ceiling to floor with spools of ribbons in every imaginable color. Strolling around Parque La Leona, a hilltop park with a nice city view just north of the plaza, I surprised three young couples--one after another--smooching on benches secluded behind tall hedges.

One morning, I hired a car, driver and guide for $50 to take us on a three-hour excursion to Valle de Angeles, the mountain village of artisans. We could have gone much more cheaply by local bus, but our time was limited.

Though Tegucigalpa has a population approaching 1 million, the city quickly disappeared as we climbed into a cool, scenic realm of green hills and tall pines. Every mile or two, a farmer had set up a stand to sell fresh flowers, vegetables, pineapples and other fruit.

Efforts have been taken to maintain the 16th-Century look of Valle de Angeles to attract tourists, and the first person we saw as we approached town was a mounted cowboy headed our way. Behind him, three donkeys browsed the cobblestone streets for blades of grass. Sure enough, this must be the 16th Century, just 45 minutes outside Tegucigalpa. The village has a shady green square, with a whitewashed church at one end and a modest Municipal Palace at the other.

About a dozen artisans’ shops are in the village, including a small woodcarving factory with a dirt floor and rusted tin roof where eight workers send the chips flying. One young man was carving a floral design on a large handmade chest big enough to hold several blankets; another etched ornate loops in a solid handmade door, and a third traced designs on a chair.

In the artisans’ cooperative, we met Scott McNeill, a young, lanky Peace Corps volunteer from South Carolina whose assignment is to help the shop set up a facility for shipping abroad large handicrafts such as the wooden chests. As McNeill, a painter and sculptor himself, explained it, many foreign visitors are eager to buy chests and large pieces of pottery but have no way of getting them home. McNeill, who is fluent in Spanish, is also teaching English to the shop clerks to aid them in sales. In our case, the works sold themselves, and we left with many souvenirs.

The Mayan ruins of Copan are reason enough to make a trip to Honduras, and as soon as I arrived in Tegucigalpa, I made arrangements for an overnight tour later in the week. For about $375, I bought a package for two that included a round-trip flight on SAHSA, the Honduran airline, to San Pedro Sula; a three-hour van ride to Copan with four other tourists (two from Argentina, one from the Netherlands and one from Honduras); overnight accommodations in a charming little inn; three meals, and the services of a friendly, very enthusiastic young English-speaking guide and driver by the name of Miguel Andres. It was money well spent. The whole trip can be done much more cheaply by intercity bus, but not without add ing another day or two to the journey and several degrees of discomfort.

Our first sight of Copan was a Mayan stela, a carved pillar standing sentinel over the river valley where the ancient ruins were first discovered by the Spanish in the 16th Century. Among the Mayan cities of Cen tral America and Mexico, Copan is regarded as one of the most artistically advanced, as seen in the abundance of carved stones, sculp tures and stelae with hieroglyphic inscriptions. Today, they are scattered as they might have been more than 1,200 years ago over the park’s Great Plaza, the Ball Court, and the superb 63-step Hieroglyphic Stairway (named for the carved symbols covering each step). But probably not for long. The elements are taking their toll on the carvings, and the government has plans to put the artworks in a museum, replacing them in the park with fiberglass replicas. I know it must be done, but I was glad to view the real thing.

For several hours we wandered through the park, examining the animalistic sculptures and climbing (where permitted) to the summits of several pyramidal structures. From atop one of them, the Temple of the Wind, we could see across the Copan River to a field green with young tobacco. From our high perch, alone with the Mayans, I did not doubt our drive into the Honduran interior had carried us centuries into the past.

GUIDEBOOK

Honing in on Honduras

Getting there: From Los Angeles, TACA offers connecting service daily through San Salvador to Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. LACSA has direct service twice weekly from LAX to San Pedro Sula, with stops in both Mexico City and Guatemala City, and connecting service daily via San Jose, Costa Rica. American changes planes in Miami before reaching Honduras; Continental changes in Houston. Round-trip fare from LAX to Honduras on each of the airlines is $697. SAHSA, the Honduran airline, offers service from Houston to both Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. Connecting flights on SAHSA are available to Roatan Island and other Honduran towns.

Where to stay: Tegucigalpa’s two finest hotels are the Honduras Maya, with a large swimming pool in a garden setting, and the Hotel Plaza San Martin, which is new, both about a 10-minute walk from Central Park.

We stayed at the Honduras Maya (011- 504-32-3191) in a large corner room with floor-to-ceiling windows and spectacular views. A room for two with a corporate rate (available to anyone who asks) is about $100 a night, including a full buffet breakfast. At the Hotel Plaza San Martin (011-504-37- 2928), the corporate rate for a double without breakfast is $77 a night.

More modest tourist lodgings also are available. Situated in the block between the two hotels is the Comfort Guest House (011- 504-31-5692), an inviting, Spanish-style, six-room inn with a small swimming pool where a room for two with breakfast is $55 a day for guests staying two to six days. The host speaks English.

In Copan Ruinas, the best hotel in town is the Hotel Marina Copan (011-504-98-3070). It is a charming one-story inn with a couple of shady courtyards, a small swimming pool, a bar and a good dining room. A room for two without meals is $70 a day; with three meals daily, the price for two is $120.

Where to eat: Honduras raises cattle, fruit, vegetables and shrimp, all of which are found in abundance on the menus of Tegucigalpa’s better restaurants. A full meal in the finest restaurant--appetizer, filet mignon, potatoes, dessert, beverage, bottled water, tax and tip--should not come to more than about $20 per person. A full buffet meal in a hotel coffee shop with beverage, tax and tip should be less than $10 per person.

The Honduras Maya has both a coffee shop offering three meals daily and a dining room for a more formal lunch and candlelit evening meals. Across the street is the romantic Alondra, in a beautiful old Spanish-style home with tables on open-air balconies overlooking a garden. Within a block of the hotels are El Arriero, a steak house, and Cafe Allegro.

Precautions: Immunizations for yellow fever, diphtheria and tetanus are recommended before travel to Honduras. You also should consider prophylaxis for malaria, which involves taking one chloroquine tablet a week, beginning the week before your trip and continuing four weeks after the trip is over. Also recommended just prior to departure is a gamma globulin shot to ward off hepatitis A. Also, make sure you have been protected against polio.

As in any Third World country, travelers’ diarrhea is always a hazard. Avoid food from street vendors, wash your hands before dining, and stick to bottled beverages (without ice) if you are not sure the water has been purified. Also avoid leafy vegetables that may have been washed in polluted water.

Getting around: Taxis in Tegucigalpa are inexpensive. The 20-minute ride into the city from the airport is about $5.50 with tip. Adventurous travelers can explore much of Honduras by local buses, although they often are very crowded. A number of local tour companies offer city sightseeing tours as well as trips to Copan, Roatan and Valle de Angeles. We had good luck with Mas Tours in Tegucigalpa, which arranged our outing to Valle de Angeles. Mas Tours also put together our Copan trip, making use of another very responsible tour operator, Explore Honduras.

For more information: Contact the Honduras Consulate, 1543 W. Olympic Blvd., Suite M-12, Los Angeles 90015, (213) 383-9244..

A good source of information is “Honduras and the Bay Islands” by Jean-Pierre Panet with Leah Hart (Passport, $12.95), available in travel bookstores. Also of help is Lonely Planet’s “Central America on a Shoestring” ($16.95). But be aware that the prices listed in both are very outdated following devaluation of the currency.