By RON MADER

Special to Honduras This Week 

Chris Humphrey is the author of Moon Handbooks: Honduras and co-author of Moon's Mexico City Handbook.  In late 1999 and early 2000 he surveyed Honduras for the second edition of the guidebook.  Chris and I recently chatted via e-mail about guidebook writing, reporting and changes in Honduras.  

RM: What's different about this edition?  

CH: First, and most obviously, a great deal of nuts-and-bolts information about traveling in Honduras has changed and needed updating.  In such a small, underdeveloped country, the tourist infrastructure changes a lot faster than in, say, the United States or Europe.  Hotels and restaurants open and close, bus routes and schedules change constantly.  It's quite a task for me to keep up with it all for the guide.

For example, just after the previous edition was published, the national telephone system added a new digit to every phone number, making all the numbers in the first edition obsolete!  Another major change for tourists in the last couple of years is the installation of automatic teller machines with links to some international networks, allowing visitors to get money from foreign bank accounts more easily than in the past.

As a fellow travel guide writer yourself, you know how difficult writing a first edition from scratch is.  The first time around I didn't have nearly as much time to dig deep into Honduras as I would have liked, because I had to spend most of my time making sure I covered all the bases.  For this edition, I spent a great deal of effort seeking out less-frequented areas that adventurous tourists might enjoy visiting -- for example Parque Nacional Pico Pijol in Yoro, the Sierra de la Botija forest near the Pacific, or the lovely colonial mining town of Cedros north of Tegucigalpa.

I had more time to research background information on culture, history, the environment, and other areas, which to me is what really distinguishes Moon Handbooks from other travel guides.  For example, the introductory section on flora and fauna is much expanded from the first edition, and includes an excellent, detailed write-up on birding in Honduras written by a top-notch

Honduran birder, Mark Bonta.  The upshot of all these additions is a text fully 100 pages longer in this edition, aimed at taking visitors both literally and metaphorically deeper into Honduras.

RM: You write very positively about this Central American country without sounding like a tourism cheerleader.  What draws you to Honduras?  

CH: So many things!  It's hard to know where to begin.  Honduras has got all the attractions you could possibly want in a Central American travel destination -- Caribbean beaches, coral reef, ancient Mayan ruins, colonial villages, and an amazing quantity of jungle and cloud forests stocked with wildlife.  But to me, what really makes Honduras unusual is how undiscovered the country is, how many opportunities remain for an independent traveler to explore, away from the tourist crowd populating the "gringo trail" elsewhere in the region.

The country is filled with all sorts of hidden treasures, often known only by the people who live nearby.  For example, just south of Yoro I learned about a little known colonial mission church named Luquigue, a lovely chapel tucked away in a hidden valley.  And a Peace Corps worker in Olancho told me of some impressive ruins of unknown origin outside of Juticalpa called Dos Quebradas, where several sizeable mounds, elevated walkways, and a large stone monolith are all visible.

In fact, all over Honduras, but in particular in the northeast, are dozens of ruin sites which have received practically no attention by professional archeologists -- no one even knows who built them.  Honduras has wonders like these all over: churches, ruins, hidden waterfalls, hot springs, cave paintings, or little known patches of cloud forest.  It seems like every time I start to ask around, someone tells me something new.  I've spent five months in the country for each edition, and my list of places I still want to explore just keeps growing.

As well, because so much of Honduras has yet to be inundated by foreign visitors, as Guatemala and Costa Rica have, people are less prone to objectifying you as a tourist, especially in rural areas.  As you wander the back roads and footpaths through the country, the people you meet might be a bit baffled by you and what you're doing out in their corner of the world, but mostly they'll want to talk to you, hear about where you're from and what you're doing.  This is particularly true when you hit the trail and go hiking -- most Honduran campesinos are hospitable to a fault, and poor though they may be, they will often invite you stop for a cup of strong black coffee and a chat about the weather, the state of the crops, or whatever...

But you bring up a good point with your comment about not being a cheerleader.  One thing I try very hard to pay attention to in writing this guide is being realistic.  Honduras is an extremely poor country, and crime and violence do exist, as with anywhere in Central America.  Rather than try to ignore this, I've done my best to warn travelers whenever I think it's appropriate.  I give details about places that should be avoided or places where certain risks exist, but at the same time I try not to freak people out unnecessarily.  For example, at last report the rural highway in Olancho leading to Parque Nacional La Muralla was renowned for robberies, while other parts of Olancho are perfectly safe for travel.  I consider writing about these dangers part of my job -- I would hate the thought of leading an unsuspecting traveler into trouble out of some misguided desire to pretend these problems don't exist.

RM: Is Honduras ready to receive tourists? 

CH: To be honest, it depends on what kind of tourists you're talking about.  If you mean tourists who are expecting five-star service and want all the amenities, they won't get very far in Honduras.  It's no different from Guatemala in this respect -- an independent traveler can get whatever they need, in terms of food, transportation, and lodging, but it might not be of the best quality.  The main exception to this is the Bay Islands and Copan, which are used to catering to foreign visitors, and the two largest cities of Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, where you can pretty much find any kind of food or lodging you might want.

My favorite parts of the country are out in the small towns in the mountainous interior of the country, like in departments Yoro or Olancho or Lempira.  To visit these areas, be prepared to sit in the back of a pickup truck for a couple of hours, eat unexceptional but usually hearty meals of beef, chicken or eggs, and sleep in a simple hotel room.  Trust me, the lack of amenities are more than compensated by the spectacular scenery and wonderful travel experiences.

RM: Did you use the Internet much to research or follow-up on your research in Honduras?  

CH: While I didn't spend a lot of time trolling the Web while I was in Honduras, I did find several Internet sites to be extremely useful in doing follow-up research.  Several location‑specific sites on the Bay Islands were very helpful in double checking information on hotels and travel arrangements, like http://www.roatanet.com, http://www.roatan.com, http://www.bayislands.com and http://www.utila.com.  For coming up with economic and social statistics for my introductory section, I found the sites for the InterAmerican Development Bank, http://www.iadb.org, and the Comision Economica para America Latina y el Caribe, http://www.eclac.org, both very useful.  Two sites which were very stimulating in seeking out new travel destinations and learning more general cultural and political information were the Honduras section of your very own http://www.planeta.com website, and http://www.marrder.com/htw, the site for the English-language newspaper Honduras This Week.  A good general site, with lots of links about Honduras, is http://www.honduras-resources.com.  

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Chris Humphrey's Moon Handbooks: Honduras and Mexico City Handbook are available via Amazon.com and your local book store.  Humphrey is a masters student at Johns Hopkins University and can be reached via email: chumphrey@compuserve.com.

Ron Mader hosts the award-winning Planeta.com: Eco Travels in Latin America website: http://www.planeta.com and is the co‑author of Honduras: Adventures in Nature as well as author of the guidebook Mexico: Adventures in Nature and the Exploring Ecotourism in the Americas Resource Guide.