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 exerpts from the Outside article at left:
Jungle Gym
Honduras’s newest national park is home to raging whitewater, 8,000-foot cloudforested peaks, and one of the spiffiest eco-lodges north of the equator. Pico Bonito is heaven for birders, climbers and paddlers alike.
Set at the base of a ridge that divides the watersheds of the Corinto and Coloradito Rivers, the lodge (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 mattresses - superb! - before I was drawn back outside to watch the mountains fade into the night.
On the lodge’s 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.
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. 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.
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