Two Worlds

A blog about UK housing, Latin America, migration and the environment

  • Home
  • Housing
  • Migration
  • Housing and migration publications
  • About
  • Contact
You are here: Home > Latin America > Letter from Honduras

Letter from Honduras

January 30, 2009

train in Honduras

Which country has a railway network but never built a station in its capital city?  The answer to such a quiz question would be Honduras.  An extensive rail system was built a century ago by the international banana companies, United Fruit and Standard Fruit, to get their products to the Caribbean ports.  Even fifteen years ago, there were still more than 700 kilometres of track, but none passed through the capital of Tegucigalpa.  Now, in any event, only three tiny remnants survive. One of these runs for just nine kilometres, connecting the small village of La Union with the even smaller coastal settlement of Salado Barra.

The line’s original purpose was to carry coconuts and the workers that cut them. It was built by Standard Fruit. Now owned by the grandly-named Honduras National Railways, it provides a daily train leaving La Union at 7.00am, carrying locals and perhaps a few tourists in two open cars, one of which has a diesel engine, with the driver seated between the passengers.

On a sunny morning in December, we were the only people waiting for the train.  The driver had set off early and had to be called back so that we could get on it.  We passed the backyards of houses in La Union, whose main inhabitants are Garifuna people, descended from slaves who originally escaped from shipwrecked slave traders, and who maintain their own language as well as speaking Spanish. (If you miss the train completely, a couple of villagers will ‘punt’ you down the line on a flat truck called a ‘burra’ or donkey, for the same price as a ticket on the train.)

Outside La Union the houses give way to cattle country.  The cattle, accompanied by white egrets, were grazing the grass on the track and had to be shooed away to allow our train to pass.  Reaching its full speed of perhaps 20 kph, the driver didn’t slow down for the one passenger he picked up, despite the rickety tracks and shaky bridges.  We were headed not just to the coast but to the riverine nature reserve of Cuero y Salado (literally ‘Leather and Salty’, the names of two of the rivers whose estuaries form the reserve).

From Salado Barra you can hire a boat to look for crocodiles, iguana and turtles in the tranquil mangrove inlets of the coastal lagoons.  If you are lucky (we weren’t) you might even spot a manatee, as this is one of only two reserves in Central America where this strange mammal can still be found.  Although local people appear to support the reserve for the handfuls of tourists it brings, we learnt that many cattle ranchers do not: some had tried to clear parts of the forest in the reserve or had started fires, to extend their ranches.

The driver got ready for the return journey by tipping out the children who were enjoying the shaded seats of the train. Several men (no women) came aboard for the journey back to La Union, sitting with and chatting to the driver, who now had his back to the direction of travel. As we got up speed, he looked over his shoulder from time to time to check that nothing was in the way.  This time, the only obstacle was a horse, who grudgingly moved away of his own accord.

As long as outside visitors continue to use it, the line may well outlast the other two remnants of the Honduras National Railways: there is no road to Salado Barra, so it is the only one of the surviving services that can’t easily be replaced by a bus.

Original post: Guardian Weekly

Category: Latin America, Central America wildlife | Tags: Honduras

« Previous Next »

Subscribe

Subscribe to the Two Worlds blog and we'll send you an email alert when we publish a new post. Please review our Privacy Policy if you have any questions or concerns.

Categories

  • Housing
  • Migration
  • Latin America
  • Masaya project updates
  • Energy and the environment
  • Central America wildlife
  • Book reviews
  • Obituaries

Tags

allocations ALMOs Amazon river Argentina armadillos asylum beds in sheds Berta Cáceres birds Bolivar borrowing rules Bosawás Brazil budget butterflies caribbean census chile climate change Colombia community cohesion coronavirus Costa Rica council housing Covid-19 Cuba daily life destitution dictators drugs economics Ecuador El Salvador energy efficiency env environment Green Deal Guatemala Gypsies and Travellers Haiti homelessness homeownership Honduras housing housing associations housing benefit housing finance housing i housing investment housing market housing policy hum human rights iguanas immigration checks India Indigenous people inequality integration interoceanic canal investment Ireland Latin America Latin writers local authorities Malvinas Masaya media Mexico migration migration policy migration statistics mining model cities Nicaragua Nicaragua crisis Nicaraguan elections Northern Ireland outsourcing panama Paraguay pension funds planning private rented sector public transport race refugees regeneration rents right to buy right to rent Scotland sloths slums solar energy Spain Spanish conquest stock transfer syria tenancy reform tenant involvement transport ukraine US intervention Venezuela Vista Alegre volcanoes welfare reform

Blogroll

  • Blogs for the London Review of Books
  • Articles for The Guardian
  • Blogs for Open Democracy
  • Blogs for Council on Hemispheric Affairs
  • Articles for Counterpunch
  • Articles for The Grayzone
  • Articles for NACLA
  • Posts for Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
  • Articles for Global Research
  • Articles for LA Progressive
  • Two Worlds on Substack

Related websites

  • Chartered Institute of Housing
  • Housing Rights
  • Leicester Masaya Link Group
  • Council on Hemispheric Affairs
  • UK Housing Review
Housing Guardian contributor

Admin

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
John Perry John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on
UK housing and migration issues and writes about those
and other topics covered in this blog.
Copyright © 2012- Two Worlds. Privacy & Cookie Policy. Powered by WordPress and Hybrid.