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La Mosquitia, HondurasJungle AdventureBy Sandra Scott
La Mosquitia is a large region in eastern Honduras and Nicaragua that encompasses the largest wilderness area in Central America. It has one of the earth's last great tracts of primary forest. An area of biological and cultural variety, La Mosquitia includes diverse ecosystems: mangrove swamps, lagoons, river, savannas, and tropical rain forest. Since 1972 biologists, forestry workers, and conservationists have been working to develop a system of parks and reserves in Honduras. One of these parks, the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve, was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1976. The Reserve will keep intact one of the most valuable tracts of primary tropical forest left in Central America. The Rio Platano is not only important biologically and ecologically but culturally. The area is home to the Miskito and Pesch Indians. The lure of the city and western technology is threatening their culture. There are no roads into La Mosquitia, but daily connections, via Islena Airlines, connects La Ceiba with Palacios in La Mosquitia. Travel continues in traditional dugouts – “tuk-tuks” and cayucos. The first night is spent in the guesthouse of a Miskito family in Kuri, a small village on the coast.. From Kuri it is eight hours up the Rio Platano to the Pesch Village of Las Marias, the last village on the river. Beyond the village the rapids begin and the rain forest becomes more pristine and impenetrable.
Even though the area seldom receives visitors, arrival at the Pesch village of Las Marias causes little excitement. The host family provides guests with a basic but clean wooden house raised on stilts. The guide brings along bedding and mosquito netting. Quickly the visitors slip into the easy pace of village life. There is a serene harmony between the people, their animals, and nature that has been lost to most of the world. The Pesch, the oldest of the rain forest people, are only 350 strong. It is estimated that before the Spanish conquest they numbered over a million. The isolated communities continue to practice subsistence farming, fishing, and hunting as they have for years. Today, their culture is being overpowered by the Miskito Indians. One magical day is spent being poled up the Rio Platano River through the rapids in a hand-hewn mahogany pipante. Great strength and endurance, coupled with an intimate knowledge of the river, is needed to navigate the pipante to the site of the ancient petroglyphs. Long ago petroglyphs were carved into the massive rocks by some long-forgotten people. To some the petroglyphs support the belief in the myth of the "White City". The story of the "White City" was recorded in the journal of a Spanish missionary and related by people who stumbled out of the jungle. Some people claim to have caught a glimpse of the city as they were flying over the jungle. Attempts to locate it have not been successful. However, recent archeological discoveries in the area have archeologists excited. Swimming in a calm area next to the carved rocks surrounded by the towering walls of the jungle is spiritual in nature and gives new meaning to the phrase, the "Cathedral of the Jungle." One wonders why it is necessary to ever leave, for here the entire world seems at peace. If you go:Turtle Tours, www.turtletours.de Tourist Options Travel Agency, touristoptions@caribe.hn Honduras Tips: www.hondurastips.honduras.com Images courtesy of Turtle Tours |
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A Pesch Indian expertly poles the mahogany pipante, a
long narrow dugout, through the churning rapids. The shallow boat slips
between large rocks barely visible above the frothy water. A toucan darts
across the river and quickly disappears into the wall of green velvet
vegetation that soars skyward from the shore. An iridescent blue Morphus
butterfly flits along the water's edge. Ahead is a view of the world as it
must have looked on the dawn of creation, and yet, carvings on huge boulders
are a tantalizing reminder that a civilization once thrived along this river
deep in the heart of La Mosquitia. 
Every bend in the river brings new and interesting
sights. Snow-white birds glide from one side of the river to the other.
Yellow-beaked toucans chatter in the trees. Blotches of color dance along
the shoreline as butterfly’s flit from plant to plant. Occasionally a cream
colored hump-necked cow ambles down to the water for a drink. Smoke from a
cooking fire rises from a bamboo house with a thatched roof. Women, waist
deep in water, laboriously scrub clothes on a log. The clean clothes are
spread on nearby bushes to dry like dabs of paint on a giant green palate.
A dugout loaded with bananas quietly glides by on its way to the seaside
port. A curious child clinging to his mother waves slyly from the bank.
Every scene is a postcard for the memory.