Honduras Travel

I was a little worried as the young man lifted me up and hooked my harness to the cable. He smiled and warned me not to crash in to any trees.

He then let me go and all at once I was flying through the treetops at Gumba Limba Park in Roatan, Honduras. I really enjoyed this great adventure, even though, after my canopy tour, a very impolite monkey stole my water bottle out of my back pack.

There’s nothing better than learning something new while traveling, learning about ancient and unknown worlds, lose myself in nature and exercise, and be pampered in total relaxation. Honduras offers all of this and a lot more.

Honduras is one of the most naturally beautiful and least explored areas of Central America according to Moon Handbooks and other travel guides. The Mesoamerican Reef, just off its Caribbean coast, is the second-largest coral reef in the world, offering some of the best diving and values in the Caribbean.

I learned to dive on Roatan thirty years ago. I took a short flight from la Ceiba on the mainland, to the island’s dirt runway, sharing a tiny plane filled with missionaries, the door held shut with a wire hanger.

This time, thirty years later we arrived at the Roatan International Airport and entered the air-conditioned terminal. Roatan has become a destination of choice, no longer just for divers and backpackers, but for vacationers, including many honeymooners, from North America and around the world.

Arriving on Roatan, directly from San Francisco, we allowed ourselves a few days to decompress at the Henry Morgan, a full service resort on Roatan’s most popular beach in West Bay.

Roatan is the largest and most developed of the three Bay Islands. There is superb diving on more than 40 dive sites around the islands, a number of full service resorts, as well as hotels in different price ranges. Cruise ships now stop at this beautiful island. In addition to diving, there are lots of activities such as Glass-bottom boat rides, fishing, hiking, snorkeling, biking, dolphin shows, shopping visits to an iguana farm and more.

The Island of Guanaja, sometimes referred to as the “Venice of Central America” because of its network of canals, is the second largest of the Bay Islands and is where Columbus landed in 1502 and European pirates like Henry Morgan and John Coxen set up home bases for their raids on Spanish ships in the 1600s. Today, Henry Morgan is an upscale resort on Roatan and the town Coxen’s Hole is named after John Coxen.

The third of the Bay Islands and the closest to shore is Utila, reportedly the least expensive place to get your dive certification and home to whale sharks, the world’s largest fish.

I always search for adventures a bit off the beaten track. Someone mentioned an island 30 kilometers off the coast that had only one small resort and very few people. We immediately decided to investigate. Its name, Cayos Cochinos, or Hog Island, hails from the days when pirates put their pigs there and stopped back occasionally for a barbecue. Part of a group of two small islands and 12 minuscule sand cays, the Honduran government declared it a marine reserve in 1993, and for several years the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute managed it.

Forty minutes of gliding through the waves delivered us to the pristine shore of the Plantation Beach Resort. The manager welcomed us with a cool tropical drink.

The 12 room resort, built of mahogany and local stone on more than four hectares of virgin tropical forest, appeals to nature lovers as well as world-class divers. After a delicious lunch of fresh fish cakes, coleslaw, potato salad and still-warm chocolate chip cookies prepared lovingly by the Plantation Beach’s creative chef, I was drawn to the red, orange and yellow Maya hammock that swings in the trade winds under palm trees. Water lapped on the white sandy beach. An occasional wind chime tinkled. I was home.

That evening during a dinner of baked chicken in a lovely sauce, fried eggplant and a birthday cake that the chef baked for me, having learned that it was my birthday, the manager pointed out that you don’t have to be a diver to enjoy Cayos Cochinos. There are also other activities such as snorkeling, kayaking, hiking and photography.

However, my husband and I are both divers. On our first dive of the day, there were only four of us, in addition to the boat captain and our dive guide, on the spacious and well-equipped dive boat. Exxon, our guide, readied my gear and lifted my tank onto my back. I looked forward to the cool water, a refreshing contrast to the warm, humid air.

One step off the boat and it all came back to me: The comfort of weightlessness, the gentle water, the undulation of sea fans. And we saw so much more on this dive and subsequent ones during our time on Cayos Cochinos: The luminescence of blue barrel coral, the elegant yellow and blue Queen Angel with her crown, the surprise of seeing a large turtle or a giant ray soaring past, a lonely barracuda, enormous lobsters and, on our last dive, one of my favorites, the spotted drum fish, looking like a small black and white circus horse tossing the fancy plume on her tiny head.

On most days the sea was calm with about 23 metres visibility. It can’t get any better than this for an island dive experience. Even though, someone would occasionally warn: “That gecko’s in the sugar bowl again!”

After one morning dive, we visited the small Garifuna village of Chachahuate, a 30-minute boat ride away, on a tiny cay. The Garifuna people are descendants of escaped slaves from a wrecked slave ship in 1635 that mixed with the local Carib people. Their culture, language and music drums, and punta dance, all derive from African roots.

We ended our trip with a visit to The Lodge at Pico Bonito, a luxury eco-lodge and member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World. We stayed in one of the 22 cabins in their gorgeous location on the Corinto River at the foot of the slopes of Pico Bonito National Park on the Caribbean coast, just 15 minutes from la Ceiba International Airport.

By Diane LeBow