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Outside Magazine December 2001

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Honduras Adventure
Jungle Gym
Welcome to Bigfoot's winter hideaway, where unclimbed mountains, roaring whitewater, and a new luxury eco-lodge await you
By Bucky McMahon


	Peak experience: Pico Bonito National Park

EVER SINCE I devoured the first of many 1950s jungle films—you know, those cheesy concoctions based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel, The Lost World—with explorers edging along precipitous ledges into the jaws of giant iguanas, I have harbored a secret hope that it wasn't too late to climb the walls of my own formidable gorge, to search out the marvels of the forest beyond the clouds. And then one day I finally got to do it.

Admittedly, this lost world was pretty convenient. Instead of a weeklong trek with grumbling bearers who would throw down their loads at the first sign of a pterodactyl, a courtesy van met me at the La Ceiba airport in northern Honduras for the 20-minute jaunt to The Lodge at Pico Bonito, the area's brand-new, and first, upscale eco-resort.

Located a few miles west of La Ceiba (the company headquarters of Standard Fruit de Honduras and a rough-and-tumble Caribbean party town), the lodge borders 429-square-mile Pico Bonito National Park, the second-largest in Honduras. In a generous 1987 decree, all land in the country above 6,000 feet was declared park territory, and around La Ceiba that meant the town's precipitous backyard.

I had seen the park before, through the plexiglass porthole of a puddle jumper bound for the Bay Islands. Gaping at the cloudforested peaks, misting waterfalls, and tumbling rivers, I'd thought: "What a cool place! But how do I get there?"

The lodge answers that question quite comprehensively. Set at the base of a ridge that divides the watersheds of the Corinto and Coloradito Rivers, the structure (built, eco-wisely, from timber downed by 1998's Hurricane Mitch), resembles a Wyoming millionaire's summer home, with 8,036-foot Pico Bonito dominating the view like a tropical version of Grand Teton. You could spend an entire vacation by the pool, watching that cone-headed brute break up the weather, if there weren't so much else to do. I spent five minutes in my room, admiring the craftsmanship of the rugs and furnishings, testing the mattress—superb!—before I was drawn back outside to watch the mountains fade into the night.

Since my camping gear had been erroneously routed to San Pedro Sula, I took advantage of the lodge's myriad amenities—no sense in rushing off into the sticky wilds when luxury and a jungle primer awaited on the premises. On its excellent hiking trail, a three-hour loop into the park, hundreds of wooden steps ease you up a ridge between the two rivers, through old-growth forests filled with trees as thick as silos. Spur trails along the way lead to three-story observation towers (one with a view of a colony of brilliant black-and-yellow birds, called chestnut-headed oropendolas, squabbling over their stocking-shaped nests); elaborate wooden stairways spill down to waterfalls and pristine swimming holes ideal for sluicing off a light jungle sweat. The trail runs right up to the ramparts of Pico Bonito itself before circling back to within a stone's throw of the pool and king-size bed of one's well-appointed casita.

Set aside a couple of hours for the lodge's butterfly farm, downslope in the orange grove. The farm includes a birthing shed, where you'll see all stages of metamorphosis in action. Then you can watch the adults flap about, sucking nectar in the screened butterfly house. Next door is the serpentarium, with its collection of boas and vipers, and a resident herpetologist, James Adams, who leads night hikes on the trail, shining his headlamp to look for eyelash vipers in bird-of-paradise bracts. You might see kinkajous, bats, super-size insects, armies of leaf-cutter ants, and even an elusive jaguar—all without leaving the property.

But birders, wildlife lovers, paddlers, and fishermen take note: The really cool stuff lies beyond the lodge, in the untapped wilderness that has become a boon for the region's burgeoning eco-adventure biz. I signed on for a half-day trip to Cuero y Salado Wildlife Reserve, where canoe trails weave through coastal mangrove forests accessible only by a 2.4-mile jaunt on a narrow-gauge railway car. Our guide, Jorge Salaverri, not only knew where to spot many of the 196 bird species found there, he could whistle many of their calls with perfect pitch.

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