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Roatán's Understated Other End

To compare the east and west ends of Roatán would be like comparing apples and oranges -- the East End represents a completely different, exotic, and untouched realm, perhaps reminiscent of the one that visitors came to see decades ago on the west side, before tourism-oriented development took over.

By Kimberley Player
What comes to mind when you think of Roatán, Honduras? A typical answer would be West End (the lively mix of quirky bars and restaurants that comprises the island’s most popular entertainment venue); or West Bay (recently voted one of the world’s best beaches); or Coxen Hole (where the airport and an expanding cruise ship terminal serve as entry points for growing numbers of tourists); in short, pretty much everything west of French Harbor. But there’s far more to Roatán, namely the more understated, lesser-known East End. This huge, still relatively undeveloped region offers gorgeous landscapes and authentic island experiences in an environment a world away from the west side.

Black Pearl Ranked Top Golf Course in Honduras

Honduras Weekly
Pristine Bay Resort in Roatán (Bay Islands), Honduras, today announced that its Pete and Perry Dye-designed golf course, The Black Pearl, has been ranked No. 1 in the country by Golf Digest. Opened last year, the par-72, 7,179-yard layout features 17 holes with unfettered ocean views and recently hosted the 69th edition of the Central American Golf Championships. Only 15 minutes from Roatán International Airport (RTB), Pristine Bay and The Black Pearl are accessible from a number of North American cities via non-stop flights. "We're honored to have been recognized by Golf Digest," says Luis Pedro Toriello, Chief Operating Officer of Pristine Bay Resort. "We invite you to come see what makes The Black Pearl the Caribbean's newest 'must play' golf experience."

Mesoamerican Coral Reef: A Marine Desert in the Making

In Honduras, coral is an important source of income for two sectors: industrial and artisanal fishing, "which provides food for thousands of people," and tourism...

By Danilo Valladares
Scientific studies show that global warming is causing irreversible damage to the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, the worldï¿½s second largest coral reef, yet efforts to protect this biologically and economically vital ecosystem remain insufficient.Rising sea temperatures provoke an increase in "bleaching" or loss of pigmentation in coral reefs. "This basically means the death of the coral due to the disappearance of the zooxanthellae algae that live in symbiosis with these ecosystems," expert Juan Carlos Villagrán from the Guatemalan branch of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) told Inter Press Service's (IPS) Tierramérica. Coral gets its colors from the zooxanthellae that cover the polyps -- the tiny individual animals that make up a piece of coral -- and produce sugars and amino acids to feed them. In exchange, the algae get a safe place to live with just enough light to grow through photosynthesis.

Pristine Bay Will Host Central American Golf Championships

Honduras Weekly
Roatán's Pristine Bay Resort and its Pete- and Perry Dye-designed Black Pearl Golf Course are ready to host the Central American Golf Championships, February 28-March 3. A field of 180 amateurs from six countries (30 each from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama) will battle for men's and women's titles in regular and senior divisions. Established in 1943 and regarded as the region's most important golf competition, the Central American Golf Championships come to Roatan for the first time. Participants will concurrently compete in both an individual and team, Ryder Cup-style format. The team event has been won 18 times by Costa Rica, followed by Guatemala with 14 titles. Headline competitors include former touring professionals Geoffrey Schacher (Honduras), Alejandro Villavicencio (Guatemala) and Alvaro Ortiz (Costa Rica). The tournament carries points for the World Amateur Golf Rankings.

Central America Sees Boom in European Visitors

In Honduras, there was a five per cent increase in the total number of visitors, 1,753,441 from January to October 2011, compared to 1,670,109 the previous year.

Breaking Travel News
Central America received a total of 9,577,114 foreign visitors during the first ten months of 2011, according to preliminary data provided by the ministries of tourism of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. While this figure is similar to the one registered in the same period in 2010, there is a remarkable increase in the number of European visitors (from 637,879 in 2010 to 675,471 in 2011, January to October), with British visitors up by seven per cent, from 79,995 in 2010 to 85,305 in 2011, January to October.

Honduras' North Coast, A Jewel

The landscape with its jungles, rivers, and waterfalls is breathtaking; the beaches are endless and devoid of sun worshipping crowds; the history is fascinating; and the numerous Garifuna villages that dot the shoreline remain some of the most authentic and picturesque places in the country.

By Kimberley Player
"I’m leaving Roatán to explore the north coast of the mainland.” This statement caused a bit of a stir amongst my island acquaintances. “You’re leaving Roatán? Why? For the mainland? Don’t you know it’s not nearly as nice or safe over there?” Maybe this was true; maybe it wasn’t, but I needed a change of scenery. I needed to get away from the concentrated tourist environment of Roatán, from the hordes of cruise shippers and expat residents and the feeling that I’d been dropped into a Canadian province, albeit one that more resembled Margaritaville than my home country’s more stereotypical snowy vistas. The bottom line was that my current surroundings, while unquestionably gorgeous and fun, were nothing like the Honduras that I had originally come to Central America to see.

Housing Market in Honduras Recovering

Roatán’s real-estate development started in 1991 with a road extension opening up West End beach. In 1995, land on a beach was three thousand dollars per acre. Now it exceeds three hundred thousand dollars per acre, with much of the property appreciation occurring after 2001.

Global Property Guide
Honduras' house prices started picking up at the beginning of 2010 from a low base, following the traumatic military coup of 2009, which ousted the leftist former president Manuel Zelaya. Soldiers took Mr. Zelaya in his pajamas early on June 28 2009 to an Air Force base, where he was put on a plane that carried him to Costa Rica. The Honduran Congress voted for Zelaya's ouster later that day, replacing him with Congress president Roberto Micheletti. The main cause behind Zelaya's ouster was a dispute over rewriting the 1982 Constitution, which Zelaya believed had helped worsen the country's widening poverty gap. However the Supreme Court, as well as the National Congress and all other democratic institutions in Honduras opposed Zelaya's plans, arguing that the attempt to eliminate presidential term limits could initiate one-man rule like that of his friend, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

Honduras Among World's Top Retirement Havens

Take Daphne Newman, who lives in Caribbean Honduras. She’s spending just US$1,400 a month to live yards from a white-sand beach on the island of Roatán. Only a three-hour flight from the US, English-speaking Roatán with its world-class reef just offshore, is an easy place to make friends and fit in.

International Living
IIn the United States today, the discussion about retirement orbits around how much less of it we’re all going to have. While the cost of everything from healthcare to food swells… incomes, pensions and nest eggs erode, leaving baby boomers fewer and fewer options for retirement at home. But look at the right places beyond our borders today, and you’ll find you have more good choices than ever for a comfortable -- even a pampered -- retirement. In any one of our top 19 havens for 2012, a lifestyle well beyond your reach in the States could be yours for pennies on the dollar. In this, our annual Global Retirement Index, we bring you the top choices available on the planet today. From beachfront hideaways to arts-rich colonial cities, from cosmopolitan capitals to small highland villages, there’s an overseas haven to fit your fantasy… and your budget. For our Retirement Index, we only measure the very best havens against one other. So the country last on our list is still the 19th best in the world.

Flights to Copán Ruinas Authorized

Honduras Weekly
The president of the National Tourism Board of Honduras (Canaturh), Epaminondas Marinakys, yesterday announced that the country's Civil Aeronautics agency has authorized airline flights to Copán Ruinas in northwestern Honduras. "We can now fly to Copán from Roatán and Tegucigalpa," said Mr. Marinakys. Aircraft can land on the runway in the community of Tablones located in Guatemala just across the border with Honduras. Tablones is approximately 9 kilometers away from Copán and its Maya archaeological ruins. According to Mr. Marinakys, "Both the civil aeronautics authorities of Honduras and Guatemala permit the use the Tablones runway. The aircraft are now ready to begin flights. We only need to repair the road [from Guatemala to Honduras]."

The Value of Social Tourism in Honduras

There is a tendency in Honduras to look at "social tourists" as do-gooders who are nice to have around. Somebody's got to help the poor, and these cheerful foreigners in their colorful T-shirts are clearly good at what they do. But the fact is that these visitors contribute a substantial amount of hard currency to the country as well.

By Marco Cáceres
I have been tracking volunteer mission teams traveling to Honduras since 1998. I estimate that there are more than 1,000 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that sponsor these type of teams each year or every few years. These NGOs are mostly medical brigade groups, churches, universities, high schools, hospitals, clinics, civic clubs (such as Rotary), and individual missionaries. I estimate that an average of 7 to 10 mission teams enter Honduras daily aboard airline flights –- mainly from Miami, Atlanta, and Houston. Teams vary in size from 1 to 5 individuals to as many as 100. Most of the teams consist of 15-25 members. Based on these figures, I estimate that 2,500 to 3,600 teams travel to Honduras annually. This represents 50,000 to 72,000 individual volunteers (mainly from the United States and Canada) who visit Honduras each year.