Life after Mitch
Ben Box journeys through Central America in the wake of November’s hurricane
From this side of the Atlantic it’s hard to judge how bad things are after a hurricane. For the end of 1998 I had planned a fairly gentle, overland journey from San José, Costa Rica, to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. I wanted to see old friends, revisit some familiar places and explore others new to me. Then Hurricane Mitch deluged northern Nicaragua and all of Honduras...
Press and TV images suggested that my trip would be a waste of time, or at least a gross imposition on the people; phone calls and e-mails to friends convinced me otherwise. What finally swung it was the encouragement of the Honduran delegation at the World Travel Market in London. "We cannot sit around lamenting our losses", was Marketing Director, Kenia Lima de Zapata’s main message. "Please come and see that tourism is one of the most immediate ways for Honduras to rebuild its economy." So, with a more tentative itinerary than originally planned, I flew into San José, then took the TransNica bus to Managua.
There is no question that the tourist sites in southern Nicaragua are ready to receive visitors because none were damaged by Mitch. A good example is the Solentiname archipelago on Lake Nicaragua, made famous as the place of exile of Sandinista poet-priest Ernesto Cardenal and for the community of artists that he encouraged.
The quickest way to the archipelago is to fly from Managua to San Carlos, a rainy town at the point where the Río San Juan flows out of the southeast corner of the Lake; then to take a 45-minute boat ride to Mancarrón, one of the largest islands. Here stands the only hotel (there is a guesthouse on another island). It is beautifully peaceful but cut off from the rest of Nicaragua - all the more so since the island’s electricity generator was removed.
I took a trip to Los Guatusos National Park, on the narrow strip of land between Lake Nicaragua and the Costa Rica border. Howler monkeys watched our boat from the treetops; the birdlife was plentiful. At a lonely police post we had to register before proceeding towards the frontier, which, if you like, you can cross on foot to have a game of pool in Costa Rica.
There is enormous ecotourism potential in this part of Nicaragua, from the Lake all the way to the Caribbean coast at the mouth of the Río San Juan. It’s just waiting for visitors. The same applies after Mitch to San Juan del Sur, on the Pacific coast, famed for its sunsets and remote beaches. This is a prime nesting site for marine turtles: in December 1998 turtles were outnumbering visitors by about a thousand to one. Perhaps it is better that way, but there is an established system for protecting the turtles while allowing the egglaying to be viewed.
Journeying north towards Managua, it was clear that other places where the flow of tourists is normally constant were equally short of business. Prime examples included the handicraft centres of Masaya and San Juan del Oriente, the colonial city of Granada and the islands of Ometepe, Zapatera and Las Isletas on Lake Nicaragua.
Northwest of Managua, it’s only an hour and a quarter on the damaged Panamerican Highway to León, Nicaragua’s other main colonial city (unspoilt, even by Mitch). Beyond León the effects of the hurricane became increasingly apparent. There were houses up to the gunwales in mud; a few lamentable camps for the homeless flapped in the breeze. Every bridge between Chinandega and the border was lost, and in some cases huge tree trunks came to rest where the roadway used to be.
Choluteca, in southern Honduras, provided the first major shock. The steel bridge over the Río Choluteca was still standing, even if it looked a little shaky. However, on either side of the river the destruction was immense: a fountain barely visible amidst a sea of mud in a public park; houses being recovered from the silt that engulfed them; a container truck wrapped around a tree, bent like a piece of tin foil.
Once in the mountains, most of the mess had been cleared from the road, although in places huge chunks of tarmac had vanished. Rebuilding was going on everywhere, with few outward signs of despair. But this was the main road; who knows what anguish lay off the beaten track.
Unlike Managua, Tegucigalpa was severely battered by Mitch. There were still harrowing scenes along the river. Houses were destroyed, bus parks eaten away, and new car lots boasted only silt-stained Toyotas. Yet two blocks from the river you would not know that you were in the same city: one where everyone is working, thumping car horns in the snarled up traffic, another where the bridges are down (causing the traffic jams), and whole neighbourhoods have ceased to exist.
Copán, Honduras’ foothold in the Mayan World, is a magnificent archaeological site with fine combinations of stone and trees, plazas and staircases. Thankfully, all were unharmed by Mitch. In the nearby town all hotels and restaurants were open, but the high season was not living up to its name, and expectations for the coming year were poor. However, December was early days and the Instituto Hondureño de Turismo has been working flat out to re-kindle the interest of potential visitors.
On the Bay Islands, one of Honduras’ most popular tourist areas, only Guanaja suffered a severe beating in the hurricane. However, recovery is well underway and the hotels Bayman Bay Club and Posada del Sol were rebuilding with great optimism. Utila and Roatán, on the other hand, were never less than 95% operational.
Even though many roads in Honduras were badly damaged, it is possible to visit most of the country. Lago Yojoa, between Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula is perfectly accessible. Santa Rosa de Copán, between San Pedro and the El Salvador border, is also easy to get to, although places off the main road in the west of the country may require a bit more time to reach than before Mitch. For those interested in travel to Mosquitia and the Caribbean coast, enquiries should be made in advance because this was the area worst affected. Where services continue to be stretched, it would be unwise to visit.
Ben Box is Editor of Footprint’s Mexico & Central America Handbook. Photos by the author.