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Story and photography by Manos Angelakis
Honduras Update.
Only recently introduced as a luxury destination, Honduras is a Mesoamerican country that is starting to compete with neighboring Costa Rica, the Caribbean and Mexico’s gulf coast for the demanding luxury traveler.
I visited Honduras for a few days and I can attest that this country has a lot to offer, but in certain instances, you must be willing to go with the flow.
It has pristine white beaches surrounded by azure waters. Ruins as impressive as any other Mayan complex in nearby countries from an ancient civilization that flourished before the Europeans set foot on the “New World”. There are still large swaths of tropical jungle, and multihued birds. Its inhabitants are friendly and many are at least bilingual, with English being the most prevalent second language.
We flew into San Pedro Sula, the commercial center of northern Honduras. A number of airlines have direct flights to that airport from the USA and Europe, but I took a flight from Newark to Miami to meet with the rest of the group and then from Miami to La Mesa, San Pedro Sula’s international airport. The city is really of no particular interest to the tourist, but it is certainly a magnet for US based executives and investors. Honduras, without income or sales taxes, minimal real estate taxes and incentives towards international and local developers and investors, is considered a great platform from which new businesses can be launched, be they targeted locally or towards other Mesoamerican or South American countries.
A two and a half hour drive took us to Copán Ruinas, the colonial town that is build over a segment of ancient Copán, the Mayan megalopolis that still impresses with its size and the magnificence of its structures. Our driver, Rafael Ramos of Maya Temple Tours, was very good at negotiating the hairpin turns up the mountain and, near Copán, the sometimes flooded-away road. A note to prospective Copán visitors: you are better off contacting one of the many Honduran tour companies  and hiring a car and driver, than renting a car and trying to negotiate the mountain road on your own. A regional airport is planned for Copán Ruinas, late next year.
Copán Ruinas is nestled up a steep mountainside with cobblestone streets very much like a 16th century Spanish or Italian town. Our home-away-from-home in Copán Ruinas was the Hotel Marina Copán (www.hotelmarinacopan.com), a four-star property build in the Spanish Colonial style, with rooms and suites around numerous courtyards full of tropical plants, flowers, sculptures and fountains. It is still a work in progress, with some of the rooms and suites recently renovated; however, not all rooms have a telephone, so when I asked for an early wake-up call, the night clerk came and knocked on my door until she was sure I was awake. This is one of the best hotels in Copán Ruinas, owned by the influential Jose Raul Welchez that also owns a number of three- and two- star hotels in the city, as well as a coffee plantation, Finca Santa Isabel, that we also visited.
 Talking about the coffee plantation. Honduras is a producer of exceptional quality coffee, and I enjoyed many an excellent cup during my trip. The aroma of freshly roasted beans at the Finca was so alluring that most of us bought pounds of coffee beans to bring back with us. The price was also irresistible, a discounted $3 per pound, from the normal $4, for really top-of-the-line, highly aromatic coffee.
The first evening, we walked to Restaurante Don Udo’s (www.donudos.com), where we had a “Welcome to Honduras” dinner.
The one caveat I have to mention is regarding the food. Even in the best hotels, the kitchen was very ethnic, with stewed, roasted, or braised meat or fish, fried plantains, rice and beans, etc. We only had one gourmet meal, and that was at The Lodge at Pico Bonito, a lovely eco-resort, where the youngest daughter of the General Manager, trained in the culinary arts overseas, has taken over the kitchen with outstanding, world-class results. Good wines from Chile and Argentina, as well as California and Europe to a lesser extent, are available in most restaurants, and rum seems to be the national drink. I saw high quality local sipping rums at the bars of all the hotels we stayed in, and rum-based cocktails were the-order-of-the-day.
 We visited the Copán site where our guides, Yobani Pareza and Fernando Lopez, after taking us through the ruins showed us restricted sections of the tunnels dug to explore the exterior of the temples that the silt from the frequently flooding Copán River had buried in more than 60 feet of earth. Many of these tunnels are not open to the public, as excavation work is still in progress. While exploring the site, we saw many polychrome scarlet macaws flying through the trees surrounding Copán. This bird species can be found from S.E. Mexico to the Amazon basin in Brazil, and is especially populous and popular in Honduras.
An interesting and highly regarded eco-lodge overlooking the Copán River valley was Hacienda San Lucas (www.haciendasanlucas.com). We were visiting two days before the resort was officially open for the season, but Argi, the General Manager, was happy to show us around the property and provide wine and dinner on the resort’s verandah. This is not a luxury property; it is mostly geared towards the New Age community, but the yoga center (Gaia) on the promontory overlooking the Copán site has a breathtaking view of the ruins and the town, especially after sunset, when the town lights glisten like fiery gemstones on a black velvet sky. At dinner, I also found bottles of one of my favorite Chilean Cabernet Sauvignons from Emiliana (see Emiliana) a certified organic and biodynamic winery in Chile’s Central Valley.
On to The Lodge at Pico Bonito (see Lodge at Pico Bonito story). After dinner and an overnight stay at the Lodge, we drove to La Ceiba’s, Goloson International Airport for our TACA flight to Roatán Island. We were told that direct flights to and from Roatán are available from major airports in the US and some European cities, including nonstop flights from Newark. However, a search for direct, nonstop flights from the continental US showed that presently, the only direct flights are from Miami, Houston, and Atlanta to Roatán on Saturdays.
Much of Roatán is now under development, including its enlarged port where the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line invested millions of dollars in a facility that will allow its large cruise ships to dock, and passengers to disembark for a day’s exploration of the countryside; play at a nearby PGA-rated golf course; or shop at the port’s duty-free shops. While we were on site, the Carnival Valor (with capacity of almost 3,000 passengers in double occupancy cabins) docked, welcomed by a group of drumming and dancing Garifunas, a unique culture of escaped African slaves that retain much of their original language and culture and are living on the coast in isolated small communities. According to our hosts, the isolation is self-imposed, as the Garifunas wish to retain the traditions and purity of their culture without contamination from contact or intermarriage with other ethnic groups.
There are numerous condominium and villa resort hotels under development on both the mainland and on Roatán Island, the country’s playground for the affluent Hondurans, Guatemalans, Nicaraguans and, they hope, retiring baby boomers from the US. We visited a number of them that ranged from those that are already almost sold out and in use, to sites where multimillion dollar villas and golf courses are still under construction, to others that are on the planning and infrastructure implementation stages. All of the developers we met claimed that their projects were not affected by the current economic crisis, and that investors from Russia and China have taken the place of the disappearing US buyers.
Our base on the island was the condominium hotel Infinity Bay Spa & Beach Resort, a fully developed beachfront property that is in the process of finalizing the construction of its second phase. The final tower that includes the restaurant and conference rooms and the spa area are the only parts of this gated community that are still to be constructed. The central courtyard is beautifully landscaped and has a swimming pool at its center, plus tables and market umbrellas are part of the beach bar that also currently serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. A white sand beachfront extends left and right from the property, and also extends beyond the dock that is used by scuba diver boats and water taxis to other resorts. The sea is beautifully blue green and multicolor fish meander around sea fans, brain coral, and other marine life living on the coral reef that lays less than 75 feet from the beach.
Again, though the staff was excellent, well trained, and tried to accommodate our food preferences, the food itself was very pedestrian. Chefs are desperately needed in these resorts that can create imaginative meals out of the absolutely fresh local ingredients and imported meat.
Next morning we departed early for Anthony’s Key Resort, owned by a leading Roatán family that was the first to bring tourism, environmental protection and  cultural preservation on the island. The resort has a number of cabins on the main island as well as a smaller island within 100 yards from the main structures, plus a protected dolphin area where children and adults can interact with these playful creatures. A study program recently initiated, examines dolphin communication with the hope of one day enabling full communication between dolphins and humans. There is also a full medical facility, the only such facility on the island with a decompression chamber on site. An invaluable tool to ameliorate problems scuba divers might suffer if, for any reason, they have to surface in a hurry.
Some of the freshest seafood on the island I had at Gio’s Restaurant, in French Harbor. The calamaretti alla plancha smelled of the sea; the French fries were hot and delicious; the air-conditioned dinning room was a welcome respite from the heat and humidity of the day. A cold beer, a simply prepared, very fresh, delicious lunch… what more can one ask from an island restaurant?
The final resort we visited was the Nikki Beach Resort & Spa. A member of a Florida  based group of international clubs, hotels, and resorts, Nikki Beach is a property with a very distinct personality. I suspect it could become a very upscale version of what Club Méditerranée used to be at its inception. Beautifully designed one- and two- bedroom suites in complexes of one to four units are already in place, with luxurious furnishings and high quality linens and other amenities. A luxury condominium hotel tower will start construction later in the year. All things considered, including the management by the Nikki group, it will be a remarkable five star resort when completed. The only thing that I consider in need of improvement is The View, the restaurant set on the hilltop overlooking the entire development. The View has indeed a magnificent view of the seacoast, the property, and the sunset. But, even though the food was fresh, and the wines excellent, it needs the touch of a top toque that can take simple ingredients and make culinary magic. Then this resort could become one of the top luxury destinations in Mesoamerica.
These were my very positive impressions of Honduras.
And now for the brickbats. Someone has to inform the powers-that-be in the country that the stringent and strident security measures at the airports annoy travelers. Even though these measures were “requested” by TSA, the US travel security agency, the implementation is on the local Honduran level. The sour faced security officials need some lessons in cultural sensitivity. There has to be a little more leeway to the calibration of the magnetometer gates that are so sensitive, they ring when women pass through with hairpins, or wire support-bras! Also, security personnel has to be instructed that a bag of candy, given us by FIDE, the non-profit entity that invited us to Honduras, should not be confiscated as a security risk. There are many more destinations in the Caribbean, the rest of Mesoamerica, and the Mexican Gulf states that are grateful for tourists bringing their dollars into the country and taking local products out with them. Confiscating a sealed jar of Honduran jam or a bag of candy is, in the long run, counterproductive. Affluent travelers have many options, hopefully Honduras will be one of them.
© June 2009 LuxuryWeb Magazine. All rights reserved.
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