The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Saturday 17 July 2010
Homophone corner: "The mineral-rich rivers also feed the fertile planes that attracted Mayan farmers across the border from Guatemala in the fifth century …".
Slender green tendrils reach out from the tropical rainforest like the fingers of a trusting child. But behind these delicate creepers squats the vast animal presence of a dense, steaming jungle: a thick, musky 1,073sq km pelt of mahogany and cocoa, broad-leafed banana palms, extravagant orchids and vast shivering ferns that stretches in all directions to the horizon. Here it rises, morphing into ghostly cloud-forest as it climbs, and then thick pine, before finally emerging as the glorious, mist-crowned summit of Pico Bonito, Honduras's third-highest peak, and part of the sweeping cordillera Nombre de Dios (name of God) mountain range.
"It's 2,500 vertical metres of habitat," said James Adams, with something like paternal pride. "Each level supports its own ecosystem."
As manager of the elegant Pico Bonito Lodge, a collection of secluded, luxurious cabins set in the heart of the fiercely protected Pico Bonito national park, James is used to guests standing on the wide veranda, slack-jawed with wonder. Not just at the sight of so much nature, but at the sound: cicadas rattle like a mariachi band, toucans croak as armadillos crash through the undergrowth, and the boom of howler monkeys erupts from deep in the jungle, where jaguars slink.
"And I don't know why they call them hummingbirds," observed Rosanne Bowerman, visiting from Pennsylvania with her husband Douglas, as tiny blue and green iridescent bodies dive shrieking into the hibiscus flowers like kamikaze fighter pilots. "How can something so small make so much noise?"
Honduras may just have something to learn from those hummingbirds. Set in the heart of Central America, the country is as picturesquely rugged as it is boisterously lush. Dominated by soaring mountain ranges that channel some of Central America's major rivers, it offers a verdant habitat for more than 700 species of bird and 200 species of mammal, living in 80 protected wilderness areas and 20 vast national parks (the sprawling La Moskitia – Mosquito Coast – in north-eastern Honduras is the biggest and probably most important rainforest outside the Amazon). The mineral-rich rivers also feed the fertile planes that attracted Mayan farmers across the border from Guatemala in the fifth century, and the all-powerful American fruit companies (whose economic dominance arguably created the original banana republic) in the late 19th century.
Honduras also boasts 644km of Caribbean coastline, with the idyllic Bay Islands offering easy access to the Mesoamerican barrier reef, the world's largest after Australia's. But despite its numerous attractions, Honduras is one of the least visited countries in Central America. By comparison, Costa Rica – less than half the size – receives more than twice as many visitors (2 million compared with 830,000 to Honduras).
According to my guide, Walter Villamil, it's because Honduras has done a poor job of promoting itself. "Honduras lacks a theme," he explained philosophically. "Guatemala has La Ruta Maya; Costa Rica has its eco-attractions. Honduras has all that – history, nature, culture. We have ethnic groups and colonial towns, too. But tourists don't know about it, so they don't come."
One attraction that does seem to have made it on to the tourist map is Copán, the archaeological site whose 3,500-plus Mayan ruins, dating from between the fifth and ninth centuries, are scattered over 24sq km of jungle in western Honduras, close to the Guatemalan border.
Eight o'clock in the morning and the heat was already pitiless as Walter and I picked a path between bulging roots and lumps of stone into the dense jungle that engulfed Copán until archaeologists began unearthing the site in 1841. It was madly atmospheric: overhead, huge red and blue macaws streaked noisily across the forest canopy like fireworks. They settled in the giant ceibas, the striking trees (imagine oaks hung with giant balls of cotton wool) sacred to the Mayans, who believed the branches, trunk and roots embodied the heavens, earth and hell. The Mayans were fond of symbols and legend. They also knew how to make an impression. I stumbled from the jungle and found myself in the arresting west (or death) court, a broad, open plaza featuring the first of a series of huge pyramids. A sprawling collection of altars, stelae and monuments were scattered around, their intricate carvings recounting the battles and beliefs of a dynasty of 16 kings who for five centuries ruled more than 25,000 people, accomplished in the arts of engineering, astronomy and physics. Some say sniffily that Copán isn't as impressive as Tikal in Guatemala, but the quality and condition of Copán's artefacts is so good that they have informed much of what we know about Mayan civilisation today.
I was staying in Copán Ruinas (known just as Copán), the tiny Spanish colonial town a kilometre away, built on the site of a Mayan settlement. Charming is an overused word, but Copán truly is. Set in the lush Copán valley, surrounded on all sides by undulating hills and mountains, the town has steep cobbled streets that feel like a broken ankle waiting to happen (the cobbles are huge), but its pretty stucco buildings and colourful haciendas lead to a palm-lined square, dominated by a whitewashed Catholic church (95% of Hondurans are Catholic). The town is spotlessly clean. Locals courteously wish you and each other buenos días (brush up on your Spanish: little to no English is spoken). Everyone gathers in the square at night, the shrieks of excited children competing with those of the parrots roosting in the palm trees, while street traders busy themselves selling skewers of freshly grilled chicken and corn. By day, I joined a crowd attending open-air mass: women sat in the shade as the men stood in the blistering sun wearing the white shirt and baquero sombrero (a cowboy-style hat) that you see throughout rural Honduras.
The few tourists were mostly Hondurans and from neighbouring El Salvador. But the handful of Americans and European backpackers congregated at Twisted Tanya's: a relatively pricey ($22 for three courses) but unexpectedly gourmet roof-top restaurant run by Tanya, a charismatic expat from Suffolk.
Everyone seemed to be following La Ruta Maya, the trail of Mayan ruins that leads from the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico down through Belize into Guatemala (and Honduras). I was more interested in La Ruta Lenca, named after Honduras's largest indigenous group. It's a trail of remote villages set along the winding ascent up El Cerro de las Minas, Honduras's highest mountain (2,849m). The Lenca population stands at around 100,000. Their traditions and beliefs are shrouded in mystery and date back 3,000 years, but they are said to include sun worship and a belief in the sacro-sanctity of nature.
There is no organised La Ruta Lenca tour and, although a number of regional buses do (eventually) stop at various Lencan towns, a recent storm has washed away key sections of the mountain road. (Fortunately, the even more recent tropical storm, Agatha, did no damage in this region of Honduras, having wreaked most havoc in unfortunate Guatemala.)
Walter offered to drive me, an offer I gladly accepted, though I was sad to leave pretty Copán and its lovely cafes (all selling thrillingly good, locally grown coffee). But the four-hour drive was beautiful: swooping, winding roads through dense groves of coconut, mango, almond, fig and pine. We crossed wide rivers where locals cooled off from the intense heat. Behind them tall wooden drying-sheds sat in wide green fields of tobacco, with the vast El Cerro de las Minas mountain rising up beyond. The countryside is so lush, so physically succulent, it looks like a massive green cake: you feel as if you could cut a great big slice and cram it in your mouth. We rose higher, passing through tiny villages where sombrero-wearing men on horseback, white shirts open to the waist, galloped alongside their cattle, whirling lassos. A yellow school bus disgorged smartly uniformed children, and women chopped watermelon and pineapple at tiny roadside stalls.
I was amazed by the mostly excellent condition of the roads, and by how courteous the drivers were. I'd had concerns about hiring a car, but now I wished I had. Then again, Walter's insights and knowledge were invaluable. Periodically we stopped at a roadside stall to inspect a hammock or buy fruit. (Freshly picked pineapples and mangos here taste surround-sound flavoursome compared with what we get at home.) We sped by a woman who was holding up something to sell that I couldn't quite identify.
"It's an armadillo," Walter informed me helpfully. "She will have caught it near her house, and someone will soon stop and buy it for their dinner."
I was stunned. And horrified. I had never seen an armadillo before, and never imagined that my first sighting would be a live one hanging upside-down by its tail.
"They taste like chicken," Walter continued conversationally. "Do you eat them?"
"I'm vegetarian!" I squealed indignantly.
We made it as far as the small town of Gracias before the road ran out. Like Copán, it has challengingly cobbled streets and stuccoed, tiled-roofed buildings and a main square, this one overlooked by the commanding Iglesia de San Marcos. It is just one of four grand colonial churches in the town, and a reminder that Gracias – founded in 1536 – was once an important place (one-time capital of Spain's Central American empire). But that was long ago: Gracias now feels splendidly remote and bucolic. I didn't see a single tourist, and as I walked down a clean but badly broken road, I realised that even if Copán is not exactly a Mayan Disney town, it is certainly shaped by tourism in a way that Gracias is not.
The majority of Honduras's tourists come from the US, flying into the small, efficiently run airports (toilets are spotlessly clean, as they are in the main petrol stations) in San Pedro Sula, La Ceiba and the capital, Tegucigalpa (pronounced Teg-goosie-galpa). Honduras has an excellent internal flight network, and it was an easy 30min/55km hop out to Roatán, the biggest of the three Bay Islands.
The Bay Islands have an interesting history: although Honduras was part of the Spanish empire, the Bay Islands were mostly ruled by the British (from 1643 to 1872). They were also home to the original pirates of the Caribbean, with as as many as 5,000 aquatic outlaws living on Roatán in the mid-17th century. Nowadays the major attraction is diving. The islands are on a fringing reef system, meaning the coral extends from the shoreline, so you can snorkel to it in minutes. And diving is cheap: you can get Padi-qualified from as little as £200.
"It's as good as the Red Sea here," declared Laura, a dive instructor from London. "Great visibility and really interesting reef life." Laura knew nothing about Honduras before she arrived, and now she's been living here for two years. "Roatán's like that," said Aleksandra Chemeris, a New Yorker and keen diver. "People come for three days, and stay for two months."
After kicking off my shoes and joining the crowd of margarita drinkers at Sundowners, the popular beach-bar shack in West End (the epicentre of Roatán's hostels and nightlife), I found it wasn't a stretch to see why.
In a quiet cove up the coast, Palmetto Bay Plantation is a boho-boutique lodge with high-end self-catering cabins hidden among the thatch of beachside palm trees. Blue crabs scuttled down sandy burrows with an indignant pop, and hot air rustled through heavy palm fronds like a sigh as I walked to the boardwalk to meet master diver Laurie Shrader and her captain, the insanely handsome Alberto. I was a scuba rookie, so Laurie spent the morning teaching me the basics (familiarisation with the equipment, underwater hand signals and so on). Then I was ready for my first dive. Sailing to the dive site took all of one minute (the site isn't called One Minute West for nothing). Alberto helped me into my gear, and I followed Laurie, rolling backwards off the side of the boat into the Caribbean.
I stuck my masked face under the surface immediately – and there was the reef: 12 metres of crystal-clear water below. It was an astonishing Atlantis: tropical fish gliding like birds around huge turrets and deep valleys of coral, colourful sponges and grass beds undulating in the current. I took a deep breath, and prepared to experience a new world.
