Gracias and Cerro Las Minas, Honduras

Friday February 12. Slept nine hours and woke up feeling good! Said hasta luego to our friends—Andreita was calling me mama—and got directions to the highway to Gracias.

Gracias is an old colonial town that suffered a lot in the earthquakes and civil unrest, but is now undergoing a revival as a tourist town, art center and gateway to the Celaque Mountains National

Gracias, Honduras

Park. We enjoyed a hot breakfast on the veranda of the best hotel, overlooking the town. Walked around looking for a panaderia, called Jeny in Tegucigalpa from the Hondutel office, and bought some souvenirs at a local shop specializing artisanal pickles and jelly. I bought maracuya jam and a local hot chocolate mix with white corn and cinnamon, while Mike bought a small sculpture of a couple embracing, all for about US$8. The owner was very helpful and pleasant and spoke slowly and distinctly for the foreigners. She encouraged us to visit the sculpture garden at the fort, which we did. It was good stuff, by a local painter and

Artist unidentified

sculptor, but the name of the artist was nowhere to be found.

The 8km road up to the park was mostly brand new or under construction. The park facilities are also quite new. We paid over US$10 entrance fee each which includes secure parking: they lock the gate from 4pm to 8am. We saw no other visitors, though the log book showed visitors from many other countries; only one was from the US. We hiked up the forest trail for two hours to the first camping shelter. It was not very scenic—no view, lots of garbage and nothing but a dirty, concrete floor to sleep on—but by 4pm it was getting chilly and starting to get dark and damp, so we settled in. We ate a light supper and were in bed by 8:30.

Saturday February 13. We got up at daybreak, ate instant oatmeal, and were on the trail by 6:45. (It gets light early on the eastern side of the time zone.) The trail up to the next camp shelter was steep and slippery, with lengthy downs and ups for stream crossings, through mixed forest. It took us just under the normative time of two hours. That shelter was no more scenic: the main trail leads directly in front of the outhouse door, with a pile of burned garbage in front. The floor of the shelter is wood, but has three burn holes large enough to step through. These shelters look to be no more than two years old.

The summit of Cerro Las Minas

It is tragic to see how they are abused. L The toileting protocol in Central America is to throw the toilet paper in the waste can provided, not in the toilet. (The plumbing can’t tolerate it.) So the users of these latrines, with no waste can provided, pile their soiled toilet tissue on the floor. Yet others have thrown garbage in the latrine. There is no signage teaching latrine protocol.

Another one and a half hours to the summit of Cerro Las Minas, the highest point in Honduras. The trail passes through several ecozones. The most familiar plants we know as houseplants:

The cloud forest

philodendron, begonia, dozens of kinds of ferns, and many others I can’t name. The forest got more interesting as we climbed: larger trees, more moss, ferns, epiphytes and bromeliads. It was a cloud forest: everything was wet, especially the trail. The mirador at the top featured a view of clouds. It was windy in the canopy, but not on the ground.

Mike is fast going up, but he waits for me and I am not fast; I am about average. Going down though we are both fast. On the slopes with dominant pine forest, the trail is covered with needles and is not slippery, but on the slopes with dominant broad leaf trees the trail is covered in wet leaves and is quite slippery. Slipperiest of all is the trail laced with wet roots and mud. The sections with pumice and sand are not fun either. Four hours down to the parking lot, including our stop to pack up our camping gear.

We returned to Gracias to park and sleep for the night. The elderly dueña of a backpacker hotel let us park in her lot.  We spent an inordinate amount of time walking around town trying to find a bank with an ATM. Then went down the street to discover the best restaurant in Central America! Kandil is totally fusion, with tasteful décor and abstract paintings on the wall. The menu features gourmet pizza with wild, local ingredients. They have a decent selection of imported and local beers as well as wine. We had an appetizer that had a tamale slice, topped with a slice of tomato, mozzarella, and herbs, lightly broiled, served with pesto. Yum! The early crowd was majority touristas, but the later crowd—and every table was full!—was cosmopolitan Honduran.