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December 12th, 2004: Southern Honduras and Tegucigalpa

We cross the Honduran border at Las Manos. All we see are mountains covered with pine forest. We spend the first night near Danli. The friendly farmers of the South, Spanish descendants, live mainly of cattle. They love chatting. Their pronounciation is very soft and most words end in whisper so we need to concentrate.

We visit Tegucigalpa, the capital. In the suburbs, small houses hold on the cliffs. The city center is modern, with a European flair. It looks like all that is left from the colonial architecture is the 18th cathedral and its immediate neighborhood.



We re-enter the pine forest. As the road nears the Salvadoran border, we seem to travel back in time. We see people, mainly women and kids, collecting wood for the everyday fire, on foot, carrying the bundles on their heads. We sense the people are very religious. Instead of asking our names, they investigate about our confession. They seem to be concerned with security, showing no trust, looking around as they tell us legends about masked men worshiping evil in the forest. We move on, and finally the first indigenous Lenca villages start to appear.

December 13th, 2004: The Lenca Trail

We are far away from any tourist infrastructure. We spend the night in one of the first Lenca villages near Marcala in our roof tent. It is quite an authentic experience.

Of course we are a bit of an attraction. As most evenings, Mathias takes his laptop out and puts himself to work on his PhD. Not easy this time. Kids ask tons of questions about how the computer works without the cable, what are the different programs doing, and what about the Internet. Mathias is great with kids. After a while, he does tell them he would like to work some more. Surprise surprise, the kids say buenas noches and go without complaint. A bunch of well educated youngsters with respect for academic work..

The morning air is chilly as we continue on the white road in the pine forest.



We cross a couple of scary wooden bridges.



We arrive at a fruit market. The Lencas get up early to have a nice selection ready when the first buyers arrive. When Mayas were still around, Lencas were despised by them because they did not build magnificient cities and did not live a spiritual life but rather dedicated themselves to agriculture and trade. That is what they still do today. Although they lost their language to Spanish, the Lencas still have a strong sense of identity. They are active, hardworking people, no sitting in a rocking chair. The kids learn from young, observing mom at the market. The little girl helps us with the fruit selection.



The baby boy does not stop charming..



...until we have a bag full!



The Lenca trail sends us up in the mountains. In a fairly rough terrain grass cows and horses and grows maiz.



The fire in a stone fireplace outside of the house promisses a meal that should last for the day. A full Lenca breakfast includes meat, salty cheese, beans, eggs, and avocado with sour cream.



Everyone is on their feet from morning until the evening.



We come into a more fertile region. The houses are whiter, the horses decorated.



We spend the night in a village of coffee growers. This time an eight years old is interested in the mechanics of the roof tent. To the question of what he would like to do when he is grown up, he answers he would like to drive a car (:)) The Honduran coffee is excellent and different sorts are on offer. The Lenca growers are creative and develop new plants. The coffee is often mixed with spices at roasting. We discover that we very much like cafe pimiento..

December 19th, 2004: The Celaque Region

We stay for the night at the nice little hotel Guancasco in the mountain town of Gracias near the National Park Celaque and appreciate the views.



The neighborhood of Celaque, which is the highest mountain of Honduras at 2850 meters above sea, offers excellent trekking opportunities. One can walk in the wilderness for days, trying not to get lost.



We buy food for three days, fill the water tank, and head to the scenic village of La Campa which will be our base for the trekking in the surrounding mountains. La Campa has its own nice church.





The inhabitants, coffee growers and ceramics makers, are very nice people. They greet us showing all their teeth. The villagers do not come to see that many foreigners. A coffee grower tells us that the last time he heard about a foreigner was last September when a small aeroplane crashed into the mountain..

The mountain people are in an incredible physical condition. Waking up at four, the coffee growers hike four kilometres up the 30 percent steep hill to La Cruz Alta, work the whole day under the baking sun, and walk back in the evening. A woman from La Cruz Alta walks with her five months old baby to see the doctor in La Campa, then hikes back up. An eight years old boy shows us a village half an hour walking distance from La Campa where he goes to play with his friends. When he is grown up, he would like to study..

We decide to climb the Camapara, the most beautiful mountain according to the La Campa villagers.



The first stop is La Cruz Alta where the coffee is almost ready to be harvested.



The vegetation changes as we climb, it smells pines, and the birds sing enchanting songs.



Up in the cloud forest, everything is in flowers. This is certainly the most impressive concentration of orchides and bromelias I have seen in free nature.



Fresh air helps your brains and intellectual cows your concentration (:))

December 24th, 2004: The Maya Ruins at Copan

Copan was the last and southermost great city Mayans created. In the Mayan world, Copan was famous for its excellent astronomical school attracting scientists from as far as todays Mexico. The city was of course not exclusively academic. It had its workers, farmers, priests, and the crossed-eyes, flat head, jade-between-the-teeth nobility that drank hot chocolate with chili and played ball games. The story of the city and its sixteen kings is immortalized in the Hierogliphic Stairway Inscriptions and fine sculptures around the city, which make Copan a unique Mayan site today.









The city's buildings are richly decorated with statues of gods and beings Mayas worshiped such as macaws, jaguars or snakes. The macaws, the godly birds that live for 150 years, can still be spotted in the park, in a less awe inspiring version.





In Copan, a lot remains to be discovered. The city has suffered severe earthquakes, a lot of stones and stelaes fell out of place, and the jungle covered the rubin red and white city with green and grey when Mayans left around the 10th century.



The archeologists estimate that less than 40 per cent of all structures have been uncovered so far. Burried under the visible ruins are layers of other structures as Mayan kings took the habit of building bigger pyramids over those built by their predecessors. Tunnels explore the Pre-existing structures down to 40 meters underground. After Copan was declared World Heritage by UNESCO, capital supplied by American and Japanese institutions and the World Bank has been flowing in to fund excavations. Work in progress.

After returning from Paris of the Mayan world, we spend the Christmas Eve at the Copan river barbequing by full moon, fireflies light, and jungle music.