Honduras

Honduras retains a low profile on the tourist map of Central America. The original Banana Republic, it was out of bounds for decades due to its political upheaval. A brief war with El Salvador in 1969 and its complicity with the USA as a training ground for the Contras in the war against the revolutionary Sandinista government in Nicaragua brought instability to a country always on the brink of economic meltdown.

Now, with all that in the past, it’s a diamond waiting to be unearthed: Mayan ruins, white sand beaches and tropical rainforest abound. Its prospects suffered a setback in 1998 when it was devastated by Hurricane Mitch, one of the strongest hurricanes in the twentieth century, but with its history of misfortune Honduras has been quick to bounce back.

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