Hi All. I know, I know: Its been way too long since my last post. I will also aknowledge that the frequency of my posts in general has deteriorated dramatically. Hopefully, the conditions surrounding these deficiencies will become apparent in the paragraphs to follow.

Since my last post, we’ve been doing an awful lot of traveling. The begining of the month was unusually hot compared to the rest of the summer. The ocean and mountain breezes that would normally take turns keeping the narrow coastal plain cool seemed to go on strike, or vacation, or on some sort of absence for which we were nether forewarned nor did we approve.

Consequently, around the second week in August we decided to head for the mountains in an effort to cool off as well as visit sites previously unknown to both us. We first headed for Santa Rosa de Copan in western Honduras. This is an old colonial town of around 30,000 people at about 1200 m altitude. Despite the refreshingly cool climate, the locals insisted that they were experiencing a heat wave. Anyway, leaving our divergent thermal perceptions aside, we had a great time there. Santa Rosa has for some time served as a commercial, if not officially administrative, center for the western highlands. The principal economic activities in town reflect that of the region: The production of high quality coffe and tobacco. In fact we had a chance to tour the cigar factory that produces most of Honduras’ fine cigars. I won’t go into a long disertation of the process required for producing some of the world’s finest cigars, but I will limit myself to say that from picking the tobacco to packaging the cigars takes roughly six to seven years! The time consuming and labor intensive nature of the process helps to explain their high cost. We also got a chance to visit the local coffee cooperative to see how the cofee that’s harvested in the region is selected, packaged, and shipped to foreign markets or roated and ground for domestic consumption. It is worth noting that in the coffee as in the cigars, the best quality products are exported to foreign markets. In what I’ve already referred to as a land of paradoxes, the locals seldom taste the so-coveted fruits of the land. Its not an unusual condition in under-developed couintries, but by no means is it a comfortable one.

After Santa Rosa, we climbed for 45 minutes and 700 m to the end of the paved road at Gracias a Dios, Lempira (or just plain Gracias as it is known). The story goes that the Spaniards had such a hard time finding flat land in this unforgivingly mountainous part of the country, that they were moved to express their deep gratitude to their maker for the lovely intermountain valley the town now occupies. In fact, looming over the town is Honduras’ tallest mountain. At 2800 m, Celaque (which means box of water in Lenca) contains the most spectacular cloud forest in the country. Gracias was founded in the early years of the Spanish conquest of Honduras and for a brief time was the administrative center of the Central American colonies. One of the reasons the town was founded is that it was necessary to have a center from which to confront the fierce resistance from the Lenca indigenous people in the region. In fact, Gracias is the capital of the Lempira department. So named, like the national currenecy, after the Lenca leader that for many years hampered the Spanish efforts to colonize the region.

The weird thing about Gracias is that despite having such a rich history it has been in decline ever since the Central American capital was moved to Antigua, Guatemala. Ever since then it has been a in the process of coming to terms with the reality of being a sleepy little country town, a process that has been going on for the last 450 years. Its a sad thing to see a place cling desperately to its past and nearly completely faded glory. Fortunately, the government is making some efforts to refurbish the town. Begining with re-cobbling the streets and renovating some of the old colonial buildings. You gotta start somewhere.

Our plans for after Gracias were to go over the mountains to another Lenca town called La Esperanza. Unfortunately, the trip to La Esperanza would have taken us over very rugged terrain on an 80 km dirt track. As the appeal of that thought vanished as soon as it came to be, we decided to make our way back towards San Pedro Sula in order to head south on the main highway to Tegucigalpa. This roundabout way of making our way to the capital meant that we had to spend the night somewhere between San Pedro and Tegus. We were pulling into Siquatepeque when we started running out of daylight. While the natural landscape and climate were envigorating, the built environment and overall vibe left much to be desired. This was another colonial town from the mid sixteenth century, but little (we saw none) colonial architecture remains to be seen.

The next morning we pulled into Tegus and found the capital to be surprisingly easy to get around in. I’ve heard it said that out of all the Central American capital cities, Tegucigalpa is the most livable. With Guatemala City my only measuring stick, I’m prepared to accept that assertion as one of the few absolute truths I’m willing to recognize. We spent a good deal of our time in Tegus taking care of some vehicle maintainance. Also, with just over a week left in Honduras, it started to become critical that we sell the Jimmy. We started feeling out the market by speaking with buyers/sellers to try to make a quick deal and get it over with. When nothing came of that, we realized that we would be forced to go to San Pedro to sell the car. While dreading the thought of spending any time in San Pedro, we decided to make the best of our time in Tegus. And so we did. There we stayed with my uncle and aunt who took spectacularly good care of us. By the time the wekend was over, we had spent an invigorating and stimulating few days in a city I barely knew with family I was getitng to know once again. In all, I cant’t imagine how we could have possibly improved our experience.

As far as we were concerned, our vaccation was over the moment we left Tegus. We would have to go to SAP, sell the car, get to Ceiba, and perpare for our departure. As you can imagine, we were not exactly eager to spend time in a city known for two things: heat and crime; so we decided to prolong our tourism and spend the night at Honduras’ largest natural lake: Lago de Yojoa. It was well worth it. The lake is a calm and serene oasis barely an hour south of San Pedro. In addition to the fishing and spectacular hiking in the surrounding forest, one of the biggest attraction is the fantastic diversity and outsanding quality of the birdwatching. While not a birder myself, I can appreciate being able to see so many species in one place in their natural habitat. Next time I’ll keep my eyes peeled for the Keel-Billed Mot Mot and the Lovely Cotinga.

After spending the night by the lake, we took a detour on our way to San Pedro to visit the country’s (and Central Mareica’s) only hydroelectric dam and it’s principal source of elecric power. The Represa Hydroelectrica Francisco Morazan, or El Cajon as it is popularly known, was quite a treat for an engineering geek like myself. I will say that they don’t make it easy to get to. Tours are on weekends only and we were almost turned away because it was a Monday. Somehow we managed to have one of the guards agree to give us a tour. After about three military checkpoints later, we got to the first hydroelectric dam I’d ever seen. I don’t know if I posess the vocabulary to aptly describe how and why I was left in such awe. I’ll limit myself to say that even if you’re not an engineer or a technically oriented person, as intensely physical beings, all of us experience an involuntary empathic reaction in the presence of overwhelming size. That this mass is man-made and functional, and made so by honduran engineers in this most dysfunctional of countries only intensified my impression.

That wowed feeling is what accompanied us as we descended the mountains onto the Sula Valley on our way to San Pedro. What happened next and how would be decisive in how we’d spend the next few weeks (months maybe?) and will be the subject of my next entry.