Kilotonnes of Seaweed become a Curse to Many, a Resource to a Few

You can look at the Sargassum overabundance as a curse, and you can also look at it as a blessing. In February, when millions of cubic meters of Sargassum washed onto beaches and mangroves along the Roatan shoreline, many islanders took action. Others did nothing at all. After two months, the results are in.
The winter of 2026 broke records, creating a Sargassum bloom never before seen at this scale in the western Caribbean. The 2025 Sargassum biomass was estimated at 37 million tons, but this year will surely smash the record once the tally is in.

The extraordinarily large bloom is attributed to wind-driven upwelling in the Atlantic, which brought extra nutrients to the Sargassum belt.
On Roatan, two species of Sargassum have wreaked havoc: Sargassum natans and Sargassum fluitans have been washing up. Sargassum is a type of brown macroalgae, or seaweed, that grows in the Atlantic and is pushed eastward by wind onto the shores of islands and continents. Things get out of hand when Sargassum quantities become 50 or 100 times greater than in a typical year.

The Sargassum Impact

Sargassum disrupts ecosystems, creates a foul odor and traps tiny fish. The seaweed depletes oxygen in the surrounding water. As it breaks down and decomposes, Sargassum produces hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, resulting in a low pH level. This further harms the aquatic environment and the animals that live there. The result is the creation of dead zones under and around floating, decomposing Sargassum.

In other words, Sargassum degrades water quality and makes the marine environment inhospitable. The number of species and the density of marine life drop. Once Sargassum leaves the island’s coast, the true scale of those negative effects can be assessed. When Sargassum envelops mangrove areas, it also stifles local fish species that use mangroves as nurseries.

Another negative effect is the microplastics that are brought in by the Sargassum. The pieces of Sargassum float hundreds of meters from beaches, and swimming or snorkeling can be a less pleasant experience.

There are a few benefits of this seaweed for critters that feed on it. Sargassum provides a rich environment for organisms such as bacteria and fungi, which grow on decomposing plant matter, breaking it down and turning it into nutrients. Some fish, including juvenile triggerfish and filefish, feed on the invertebrates that live with the Sargassum. Tiny amphipods and isopods graze on the decaying Sargassum, and those, in turn, become food for crabs and fish.

There are examples of such events in the recent past. In 2018, Mexico’s Caribbean coast was so inundated with Sargassum that it caused a die-off of dozens of animal species. This year, Sargassum has overwhelmed Roatan’s beaches, and the island’s marine life has been hit hard.

While Roatan is about 42 kilometers long, its meandering shoreline stretches well over 160 kilometers. Tens of millions of cubic meters of Sargassum have washed ashore on Roatan.

WEST BAY UNDER SARGASSUM SIEGE

On Feb. 9 and 10, the situation got out of control. As rainy weather kept most West Bay tourists from going to the beach, Roatan’s premier beach shore was packed with Sargassum. West Bay, the jewel of Roatan tourism, has been affected as never before. The 1,000-meter-long beach was surrounded by a belt of Sargassum that was 100 meters wide and half a meter thick.

Local authorities became preoccupied with solving the immediate problem of Sargassum affecting the beach experience for thousands of tourists visiting the jewel of Roatan. They felt they needed to act quickly, and that solution was to truck the Sargassum to dumping sites across the western side of the island and bury the rest under the white beach sand with heavy machinery and plenty of manpower.

Sargassum has been racked by hand by dozens of municipal workers, wheel barrowed onto trucks and dumped by the side of West Bay Road and at the municipal dump. Paya Magazine calculates that more than 300,000 cubic meters of Sargassum were removed from West Bay Beach in the winter of 2026.

While covering tons of Sargassum directly beneath two meters of white West Bay sand seemed to solve the aesthetic problem in a matter of days, as with many quick decisions, the unintended consequences might take several months or years to be realized. “Burying the Sargassum on a white sandy beach like West Bay can result in changing the color of the sand over time,” said Darrell Humphries, HOA manager at Palmetto Bay since 2016. “If you start placing Sargassum there, you can end up with darker, browner-colored sand eventually.”

According to Humphries, turtle grass and spaghetti grass, with their high calcium content, eventually turn into sand, but Sargassum turns into a solid, darker material. “Sargassum is a darker type of product once it is broken down,” Humphries says. “It’s empirical, a lot of observational stuff we have learned over time.”

Another potential unintended consequence of burying Sargassum under a relatively narrow and steep West Bay Beach is the potential to speed up beach erosion. While burying Sargassum along West Bay Beach has given beach users a wider and taller beach, that effect could be only temporary.

Sargassum blocks sunlight reaching both coral and sea grass.

The higher beach will erode more quickly from currents and storms in the coming months, and perhaps a year or two. The waterlogged, spongy Sargassum will eventually be compressed into a minuscule layer of brown solids. When the currents finish their equalizing work and the Sargassum compression process ends, West Bay Beach might be narrower and lower. The beautiful beach might be less wide after Sargassum floated into West Bay in February 2026.

BEYOND WEST BAY

While the attention of Roatan Municipality authorities focused resources and manpower on tourist areas such as West Bay and West End, the rest of the island was left to fend for itself. The communities of Punta Gorda and Brick Bay were particularly affected by the tons of decomposing, foul-smelling seaweed.

Some places have had it worse than others. In the Brick Bay community, the Sargassum has been accumulating and decomposing for more than six weeks. Several hundred people live in this densely populated south side seaside village.

As older seaweed decomposes, new waves of Sargassum wash ashore, replacing it. The stench of rotting Sargassum is similar to that of a failed septic system. While no one has become ill, constant exposure to the stench of decomposing Sargassum has been stressful and miserable. “People are getting accustomed. In their homes, the smell seems less strong,” said Ricardo Hernández, a longtime Brick Bay resident.

The Honduran Navy has considered bringing in a floating barrier to prevent more Sargassum from floating into Brick Bay. The most likely outcome is that the problem will solve itself naturally. Nature will take away what nature has created. “We are waiting for a northern that would move the Sargassum out to sea,” says Hernández, whose Brick Bay home is 15 meters from the sea.

SARGASSUM AS A RESOURCE

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, goes the proverbial phrase. The ideal situation would be to treat Sargassum as a periodic resource: a fertilizer, a building material for roads and landfills, and even an element for creating building blocks.

In Mexico, local entrepreneurs have found a way to turn Sargassum into a construction material. They gather Sargassum from beaches, and then wash it with fresh water to remove the salt. Next, the Sargassum is dried and shredded, and a cement mixture is added. The rectangular Sargassum building blocks are then dried in the sun. The resulting Sargassum-cement blocks are strong, fire-resistant, thermally massive and inexpensive.

On Roatan, some islanders have been using Sargassum as fertilizer for well over a decade. They pick up the seaweed from the beaches, rinse it with fresh water, and then spread it around the base of their fruit trees. “We let it dry out and put it all over the plants,” said Richard Anderson, a hotel owner from West End. “It’s like Popeye when you give him spinach.” Anderson rinses the Sargassum and then dries it out before using it all over his property.

There are also islanders who use Sargassum as a construction material and landfill material. Over the years, the Palmetto Bay maintenance staff has become expert at quickly gathering Sargassum from the beach and using it for improvements in community areas.

Islanders have been using Sargassum as a fertilizer.

Palmetto Bay maintenance staff has been using washed-out Sargassum, turtle grass and spaghetti grass to construct a walking trail and road system in its low-lying Bird Sanctuary community area. This project began in 2014, so the Palmetto Bay HOA staff has gained extensive experience handling Sargassum and using it in careful, strategic ways.

Palmetto Bay maintenance staff have been using Sargassum as a natural, free fertilizer for some of their plants. “It’s a great fertilizer; it’s great for mixing in with regular soil,” says Darell Humphries, manager at Palmetto Bay.

The steps in producing this free plant stimulant are minimal. Workers gather the Sargassum with a tractor, place it on a trailer, and dump it in an area where rain rinses it down. Then the Palmetto Bay staff places the broken-down Sargassum at the base of plants and trees. “Peppers and other vegetables do very well with Sargassum,” says Humphries.

The maintenance tractor operators try to avoid picking up Sargassum that has rolled around in the water and become entangled with a lot of sand. They try to keep picking up Sargassum and keeping the entangled sand to a minimum, somewhere around 5% to 10%.

There has always been good, locally raised food on Roatan. As far back as 500 years ago, Paya Indians living on the island supplied food staples to the Spanish in Trujillo on a regular basis. The same Paya Indians provided supplies to English and Dutch pirates who used the island as a base.
The well-being of islanders depended on the food they ate. Today, some of the food consumed on the islands is still locally sourced, locally raised and locally butchered. There are a still a few organic farmers on the island. Several hundred homesteads keep their own chickens, ducks and pigs. Dozens of island farmers raise cattle to keep their land free of brush. In fact, Bay Islanders have continuously kept cattle, hogs and chickens here since the 1830s, and probably longer — since the Garifuna settled here in 1797. The Bay Islands archipelago has enough fertile ground to produce plentiful crops of sweet potatoes, corn, cassava, chatas and bananas. 

The islands have plenty of grass to support cattle, pigs and goats brought in by the Spanish from Europe.
In addition to an abundance of staples on land, the Bay Islands have a steady supply of seafood caught nearby and processed in packing plants on the island. Shrimp, wild-caught in the clean waters of Honduras, is a better alternative to the farm-raised shrimp consumed in much of the U.S.
Since the middle of XX century here was a gradual increase in dependence on food imported from mainland Honduras, Belize, the United States and beyond. While in the 1950s most island families still produced their own food, today this local production accounts for less and less. Here are some island farmers that keep the farming traditions on Roatan alive.

Island Grown Solutions for Healthy, Autonomous Living

Goats Galore

The couple’s one-acre Sandy Bay homestead is in the hills overlooking the northern shore of the island. It is quite feasible to support oneself with very little land, as efficient organic farming can yield significant harvests from small plots. In fact, smart, noncommercial farmers don’t need dozens of acres to support their families. Yourgin’s ambition is to expand his farm to three acres to include a food forest that produces ample food for the goats.

The couple started their ranch with sheep in 2015. They later expanded their operations to include five milk cows and as many as 64 sheep.

The Sandy Bay farmers were focused on raising the Black belly sheep crossed with the Dorper. The sheep eat leaves and grass, but their demand for grass was not as significant as that of cattle. Sheep are picky eaters and typically refuse to eat anything other than grass, which is why their meat is considered sweeter.

The island goats on the other hand are less picky and eat many more leaves. “Goats are more like deer in this respect. […] They have limited grass digestion,” says Yourgin. If a sheep stops eating, you have 24 hours to help it, and if you lose a sheep, you lose the work and effort you put into raising it. “You lose nine months of work.”

The Levys scaled down recently and focused their efforts on hardier goats. “The winters were too hard for the sheep,” said Yourgin. The sheep’s wool would absorb water and took an entire day to dry. “It would have easily four inches of hair on their backs,” said Yourgin. The wetness would make the sheep susceptible to illness and death.

This made raising the sheep and keeping them healthy a difficult and time-consuming undertaking.

Currently Yourgin has five male goats and five females. His two goat pens are just a few meters from his house, so he can keep watch over his flock. The young mothers are kept for their milk production, which provides the farm with a steady income. He has several breeds: Saanens, a Swiss breed of domestic goat known for its milk. Yourgin also has Boer goats, a South African breed known for meat production.

Yourgin’s goats produce milk daily for up to 10 months after giving birth. After that, the female goat is given one or two months to recover before she can become pregnant again. After about 150 days of pregnancy, she gives birth to one, sometimes two kids. First-time mother goats usually have one offspring, but more experienced mothers tend to have twins and occasionally triplets.

Yourgin says that milking just one cup is not good for business. He likes his milk goats to produce at least two liters of milk per day, and some of them do. His best producer can give him almost three liters of milk in 24 hours. Yourgin’s record-producing female goat is named Blue String.

Yourgin milks his goats twice a day and sells the raw, unboiled milk to regular customers. Appreciation for raw milk, especially raw goat milk, is rising on the island. “Raw milk is very important to our gut,” said Yourgin. His clientele includes islanders, mainlanders and foreigners. He says there is a tradition in Honduras that if you feel unwell, you should drink goat’s milk. Yourgin has had clients feeling unwell who come seeking goat’s milk for their needs.

The goat’s milk is also used as an ideal alternative for mothers who don’t want to feed their children formula. Some of his customers use the goat milk to make delicious yogurt. The milk is also beneficial for cats and baby lambs abandoned by their mothers.

Yourgin treats his goats with affection and care. At least twice a week, around 3 PM, the goats go outside and play. They search for grass, leaves and plants to supplement their diet. The animals also de-stress, and their milk and meat taste better. “It’s more nutrients for us, and they are happier. I call it ‘physical therapy for the goats,’” Yourgin says about his goat roaming in the island forest. “There is vegetation that makes the milk richer.”

The goats eat vegetation consisting of grass, wild basil leaves, quiebra-piedra, and hundreds of other leaves and grasses that are vital to their health and coat color. Yourgin sometimes buys animals that are pale, and within a month, their color changes—it becomes red.

The goats instinctively know what is good for them and what keeps them healthy. They know what works for headaches and what stimulates appetite. “An animal with no appetite will die within a week,” says Yourgin.

Farmers don’t need dozens of acres.

The goats provide not only milk, but also meat. While goat meat is not widely known on the island, it is appreciated by those who have tried it before. “It is a very red meat. When you tenderize it with rosemary, it is very close to calf meat.”

Yourgin’s goal is to build up his milking herd to 10 animals. He gets his goats from Santa Bárbara, Copán — Honduras’ cold country. Transitioning sheep and goats from the cool Honduran interior to hot and humid Roatan can be a challenge. When the animals arrive on the island, some goats will eat only a little and lose strength.

Some animals have difficulty adjusting to the tropical climate of the island. To help the goats adjust, he feeds them the leaves of the fence post tree (Gliricidia sepium) for two days, which he says ‘heals all the sickness’ they might have had before.

To keep an eye on his stock, Yourgin built his two goat pen just a few meters from his wooden, two-story home. The fence is not very high for high jumping, atletic goat. “They don’t jump over the fence because they are treated with love,” says Yourgin. The goats know they have their feed 24 hours a day, so they are not interested in running away.

It is important to keep a tight feeding schedule for the goats. “If I go over 30 minutes, he will react,” says Yourgin.

If a sheep stops eating, you have 24 hours.

The alpha goat of his herd is a four-year-old Boer goat named Bear. He is quiet, purposeful in his movements, and watches the herd behind him as he climbs a slope filled with brush. Yourgin throws a few pebbles to chase Bear away from taller trees that grow on the edge of the forest. It’s better for the goats to stay in the open, and the herd will follow Bear wherever he leads them. “This is happiness, this is living: being an animal, pushing the trees, feeling your strength, making your mark,” said Yourgin. “Physical therapy, we call it.”

The two large male goats in the group challenge each other every day. While Bear is still the alpha goat, he must defend his position. In his youth learned how to fight with bigger goats.

“He knows how to fight to maintain his spot,” says Yourgin. “[Challenger] Milk face is not as friendly. He is stronger, like his grandfather.”

Yourgin is one of several goat herders on the island, and they all know each other. There are goats just east of the municipal garbage dump, and some are near Colonia Smith. “We drive hard bargains. The competition is fierce,” Yourgin says about his fellow island goat owners. “Everybody holds on to their good goat.”

Goats offer more benefits than just clearing land and providing meat and milk. Some people receive therapy by interacting with goats. Touching a goat can help reduce anxiety. “A lot of people want to touch a domesticated animal that looks like a wild animal with horns. Many are scared of them,” said Yourgin. “When they touch it, they get a release — a feeling of, ‘I did that.’”

Yourgin had two pigs that gave birth to seven piglets on his farm. He said it costs 37 Lempiras daily to feed each pig and looking after pigs is also time-consuming and risky. “If the pig has no water, it will break everything,” said Yourgin. The venture proved too labor-intensive for his small farm.

Eventually, the ranchers sold all their pigs, cows and sheep. The Levys focused on goats, which require less maintenance and are more hardy animals better suited for island life.

Bee Sanctuary

There are several beekeepers and apiaries across Roatan. Most bee-related businesses are typically run by individuals or families, but there is also one co-op.

Arguably the best bee professional on Roatan is Mr. Dave from Diamond Rock. He can catch a bee swarm, move wild bees into boxes, and harvest honey for beekeepers who are busy with other things.

There is a family apiary in Palmetto Bay – Roatan Bees, that was launched in 2019. Roatan Bee sells its honey in several places around the island. Their honey is organic, raw and unfiltered.

Further west in Corozal, a beekeepers co-op was started in 2013 with just three beehives and is going strong. In 2019, they had 70 beehives, and by 2025, they had well over 100. The co-op sells its products under the label Island Honey and also makes other honey-related products such as soaps, creams and shampoos.

Cattle King

Ronnie Wright’s Lucas looks after a vast ranch in the middle of Roatan. Ronnie’s cattle herd of 22 cows and bulls navigate the steep terrain of Brick Bay with the skill of acrobats. They descend down steep slopes of the narrow valleys to a smaller area with a trough adjacent to Roatan’s main road. Ronnie does a head count and comes up with 17. There are five cows missing, but “they stayed behind in the other valley,” says Ronnie.

The Litrico Ranch starts on the island’s southern seashore in Brick Bay and extends into the hills. The land resembles large areas of Roatan from 50 to 100 years ago, with dozens of cattle grazing on grass and resting in the shade of jobo trees. Shade is also provided by cohune palms and madreado trees.

Goats instinctively know what is good for them.

At this point the cattle herd serves the purpose of keeping the property clean. The cows are walking and pooping grass trimmers. The cattle eat grass and some bushes. “If you let them go onto a farm, they will eat the whole farm too,” says Ronnie. The Litrico ranch is large. The property has 700 cashew trees, 600 coconut trees and 43,000 plantains.

Raising cattle on the island can be a good business. The intrepid islander sells the meat to local restaurants and residents, as a 2-year-old calf can yield around 250 to 300 pounds of meat. A big bull can cost Lps. 60,000, and a cow can bring Lps. 30,000.

The price depends on the size and the breed. “The best breed is Pardo Suizo,” says Ronnie. Brown Swiss cattle have become a world brand and can be seen all over Roatan. The Holstein breed produces better milk, and the Charolais variety is known for its meat.

There are four bulls in the herd. One, a black Pardo bull, is the alpha of the group. He is more aggressive. “Come! Come! Come!” shouts Ronnie to the cattle. “If you don’t mess with them, they become wild,” says Ronnie, who comes and checks on them every week or two. “I call them, and they come.”

When Ronnie doesn’t show up for his visit for a few weeks, it shows. The cattle become less responsive to his call and whistle. They are not feral, but they are stubborn. The alpha bull of the herd was born on another ranch and knows Ronnie less well.

The dominant bull scrapes its rear hoof and lowers its head as it stands ground in front of his heard. Ronnie calmly picks up a branch, raises his hand and swings at the bull. The Alfa bull makes a ballet like pirouette move pivoting 180 degrees and trots away. The showdown is over. After two weeks away from the ranch, Ronnie re-establishes control of the heard.

Once a year, Ronnie injects each cow with Dectomax, an antiparasitic used for both internal and external parasites. A 700-pound bull gets 7 cc. “It’s expensive, but it is really good,” says Ronnie. The pregnant females only receive the vitamin injection.

When you are in the cattle business, you have to be your own sheriff. You can’t count on the Preventiva Police to help you. During the COVID operation, the herd numbers maxed out at 52.
The government-imposed lockdowns and desperation drove some island residents to extreme measures. In an effort to get food, several men came from Los Fuertes to the Litrico Ranch and stole two of its cows. “Three of them had guns, and they shot at us, and we shot back,” remembers Ronnie. “From then on, we did not have any more problems. We ran them out, and they didn’t come back.”

The ranch also has deer and agoutis and the large property attracts hunters. “We don’t hunt them, and people who want to hunt them, we run off.”

The Litrico Ranch has been supporting island families for many generations. According to Ronnie the land’s documents date back to Queen Elizabeth. Ronnie is family with the Litricos and for 19 years has been in charge of the Brick Bay ranch. “I used to do carpentry work, but I gave that up. I like farming and dealing with cattle,” he is in charge of the property.

“Trujillo has a great future, and it always will.” The town has always been, on paper at least, a very attractive, well-situated and strategic place. It sits in a large, deep bay; it has access to the fertile Aguán Valley and is a launching point on a natural land route leading to Olancho and Nicaragua.
It is also true that Trujillo has always been a bit out of the way, and other cities in Honduras have been stealing its spotlight. Tela was founded a year before Trujillo. Its status as the capital moved to Comayagua in 1821, soon after independence from Spain.

Trujillo is a time capsule, and that is perhaps why it is so attractive. The town has seen many booms and busts, and today it is quaint, handsome and not overbuilt — a rarity in Honduras. While nearby Tocoa and the Aguán Valley are booming, Trujillo is still a sleepy town where one can stroll safely at any time of day or night. There are no malls, no supermarkets and no Megapacas and the biggest grocery store is still located on the main square. The town’s children play in the streets, unbothered by worries. It is a place that time forgot. 

TRUJILLO AND ROATAN CONNECTION

Columbus was not spared the embarrassment.

PUNTA CASTILLA

Punta Castilla, or Punta Caxinas, just 21 kilometers north of Trujillo, is an extremely important place in the history of the Americas. It is the first place where Christopher Columbus set foot on the North American continent on Aug. 14, 1502. Sadly, neither Hondurans, nor Honduran authorities recognize that fact, let alone celebrate Punta Castilla’s historical importance.

There are interesting parallels with the Venezuelan communist government treatment of Columbus’ legacy in that country. The handsome bronze statue of Columbus that marked the spot where he landed for the first time in South America on August 5, 1498 is no more. Activists destroyed that Paria Peninsula statue in 2004 and all statues dedicated to Christopher Columbus in Venezuela were destroyed in 2009. Sadly Honduras is slowly following the Venezuelan revolutionary example of vandalism and self hatred.

NOT CELEBRATING

On May 18, 2025, Trujillo should have celebrated 500 years since its founding. Still, there was very little fanfare to mark the city’s half a millennium of existence. Making it this far is quite the feat, as the city—for example—is 40 years older than St. Augustine, Florida.

Before the anniversary, many promises were made by Tegucigalpa ministers, but none were kept. Trujillo’s mayor Hector Mendoza was encouraged to leave it up to the central government. Yet, when the date of the celebrations approached, nothing was finished.

Even Christopher Columbus was not spared embarrassment. His four-foot-tall concrete and diminutive statue, located one block from the main plaza, was neither repaired nor properly disposed of. The great navigator’s “midget” bust remained missing a head and a hand. No one bothered to invest a bit of money to even rudimentarily repair the statue ahead of the town’s anniversary.

Trujillo’s central park paving wasn’t finished, and the park’s gazebo wasn’t constructed. The entrance gate to the city wasn’t built, nor was a new dock on the shore. Xiomara Castro, president of the country, failed to show up— let alone send anyone of consequence to represent the Tegucigalpa authorities. The most important officials were from the local Red Cross and the army. Ironically, perhaps, the guest of honor was Moonup Sung, ambassador of South Korea.

There was a rumor that the King of Spain might show up.

While some might see incompetence in this, others see a hint of malice and even hatred. The lack of appreciation for 500 years of Catholic sacraments, civilization, written language, law and education is beyond perplexing. Sadly, Honduran authorities promote ideologically driven hatred of Christianity, Spain, European culture, and the halfhearted celebrations in Trujillo were yet another example of that phenomenon.

According to Jon Thompson, an English amateur historian and a 30-year resident of Trujillo, at one point there was a rumor that the king of Spain might show up for the occasion. While King Felipe VI had plenty of more enjoyable activities on his calendar, he wisely stayed away from a place where his presence would not be welcome.

500 YEARS EARLIER

On May 3, 1524, the feast day of the holy Cross, Tela became Honduras’ first city. Triunfo de la Cruz, as the settlement was originally called beat Trujillo by almost exactly one year.

In 1525, after declaring his loyalty to Hernán Cortés, Francisco de las Casas decided to return to Mexico but left his deputy, Juan López de Aguirre, to establish a settlement in Honduras. De Aguirre was not happy with Puerto Cortés and traveled east to Trujillo.

Ultimately de Aguirre left the task of founding its first capital, Trujillo, to his deputy, Juan de Medina. On May 18, 1525, the settlement of Trujillo—named after a town in the province of Cáceres, Spain—was founded. Medina became Trujillo’s first mayor.

A few years later, in 1532, Trujillo obtained the status of a town, and in 1539 its church was declared a cathedral by Pope Pius II. Bishop Cristóbal de Pedraza became Honduras’ first bishop.

ROOTLESS PIRATES

In the mid-1500s, Trujillo became a gold and silver depot for mines in Honduras’ interior. There was a security problem, as the lack of sufficient population made the port an easy target for pirates attempting to enrich themselves by raiding Spanish ships and settlements.

The threat of Dutch and English pirates incentivized the Spanish to construct Trujillo’s Santa Bárbara Fort. The pirate raids in the Caribbean were part of the Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648), a primarily religious conflict in Europe. The pirates often made it their life’s work to raid Catholic, be it Spanish or Portuguese, ports and destroy ships.

As part of the war against Spain, the Dutch West India Company instructed pirate Jan Janszoon to sack Trujillo and possibly intercept the Spanish silver fleet there. In July 1633, Janszoon attacked Trujillo and burned two-thirds of the houses covered by palms. The governor of Trujillo paid 20 pounds of silver as ransom for the pirates to leave.

Pirates based on Roatan raided Trujillo several times in fact, causing death, destruction, economic downturns and crisis. English pirate, William Jackson, sacked Trujillo in 1643. He arrived with 16 ships and 1,500 men and took the city without much of a fight.

In the 1600s, the nearby Bay Islands had no Spanish settlers whatsoever, and the Paya Indians living there were coerced into helping the pirates with provisions, careening their ships, and logistics. As a result, Spanish authorities made the decision to resettle the Paya Indians who lived in the Bay Islands to Trujillo and later to Río Dulce, Guatemala.

GARIFUNA AND WALKER

For Trujillo, the best part of 1700s were largely uneventful. That changed in 1797, when three ships departed the island of Saint Vincent carrying thousands of Garifuna as cargo. The Black Caribs had just lost a war with the British and were considered too rebellious to manage in the eastern Caribbean. Only half of the roughly 5,000 Garifuna survived the voyage across the Caribbean.

Trujillo found itself as a constant target of attacks.

The ships with the conquered Garifuna stopped in Jamaica and eventually arrived on Roatan to abandon the Black Caribs there. The Spanish quickly found out about the British actions, and as Roatan was not able to support such a number of new arrivals, the vast majority of the Garifuna were transported to Trujillo.

Trujillo became the epicenter for the dissemination of the Garifuna and their culture along the coasts of Central America. In the 1840s, Garifuna communities that allied themselves with Spanish loyalists, moved east and west of Trujillo. They eventually settled as far as Belize to the west and to the east in Pearl Lagoon, Nicaragua.

In 1821 Trujillo lost its status as the capital of Honduras. The capital of the newly formed republic was transferred to Comayagua, and eventually to Tegucigalpa. This date marked yet another period of decline for the town.

In 1860, Trujillo had a bout with another troublemaker, this time an American. As Great Britain was preparing to surrender the Bay Islands back to Honduras, a group of Roatanians invited buccaneer William Walker to come to the island and help them preserve their independence from Honduras.

Representing some anti-Honduran Bay Islanders, Roatan resident Uwins Elwyn traveled to New Orleans in March 1860 to look for Walker and invite him to come to the island. Elwyn essentially asked for his help in reversing the upcoming transfer of the archipelago from Great Britain to Honduras. As Walker was absent, Elwyn met with his deputy, Callender Fayssoux.

Elwyn proposed that Walker’s filibusters would travel to Roatan at their own expense, but once there, their expenses would be covered by the islanders. The subsequent plan was to help Walker with his invasion of Nicaragua

The proposal quickly materialized into concrete action. Walker sent some of his filibusters —essentially soldiers of fortune— to Roatan in June. He even stayed on the island from June 16 to 21, 1860. As the British caught wind of the possible damage his actions could cause to the U.S.-British agreement on returning the islands to Honduras, tensions rose.

As British authorities realized that the American was up to no good, Walker left Roatan for Cozumel. One way to look at it is that it was Roatanians who brought about Walker’s ultimate demise in Trujillo just a few months later.

On Aug. 5, 1860, Walker landed his ship with 91 filibusters near Trujillo and attempted to take the city. He failed and, after a chase, was eventually arrested by British navy officer Nowell Salomon.

The British surrendered Walker to Honduran authorities and he was tried by Honduran military court on charges of piracy and “filibusterism.” Walker, 36, was executed on September 12, 1860 by order of president José Santos Guardiola. William Walker, a prominent freemason, was buried in Trujillo’s Catholic cemetery.

BANANAS AND CABBAGES

When bananas became a booming industry in Central America in the 1890s, Trujillo also began to thrive. It became a refuge for American criminals fleeing justice in the North. Some were famous, others infamous.

In 1896, Trujillo hosted William Sydney Porter, known by his pen name O. Henry, when he fled justice in Texas, where he was charged with embezzlement. He was not the only American taking advantage of the lack of an extradition treaty between Honduras and the United States. His drinking companion in town was Al “Alphonso” Jennings, an Oklahoma lawyer turned train robber. They both hid in Trujillo, spending their time drinking and adventuring.

O. Henry began writing his book of short stories, “Cabbages and Kings,” while in Trujillo. His most well-known contribution to Honduras was coining the phrase “banana republic,” which is still used to describe the country and, in fact, many other countries around the world.

“It was upon this hint that the minister of war acted, executing a rare piece of drollery that so enlivened the tedium of executive session. In the constitution of this small, maritime banana republic was a forgotten section that provided for the maintenance of a navy,” O. Henry wrote in “Cabbages and Kings.”

From the 1890s onward, Trujillo was a banana town. The boom lasted about half of a century, but come to an abrupt stop. Banana operations were scaled down there in the 1930s, as United Fruit’s Castilla Division, which grew Gros Michel bananas, closed down operations due to Panama disease that decimated the region’s banana crops.

World War II came to Trujillo’s rescue when the U.S. built a small Navy base at nearby Punta Castilla. The Americans also established a seaplane base there. As the war subsided, Trujillo lingered on into the second half of the 20th century.

The 21st century for Trujillo was a roller coaster of emotions, expectations and, ultimately, disappointments. In 2001, the government approved the Honduran construction of the world’s largest vessel—a one-mile-long floating city for 90,000 residents. The 25-story-tall Freedom Ship was estimated to cost $8.5 billion. Its construction in the deep bay was expected to change Trujillo forever.

That project eventually fizzled out.
Around 2009, there were plans for Trujillo to become Honduras’ first charter city. President Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo Sosa, the country’s leader at the time and a native of Trujillo, strongly promoted the idea. However the concept of a charter city was not realized in Trujillo during the 2010s, but instead on Roatan with the implementation of Economic Development and Employment Zone (ZEDE) laws and the establishment of Próspera in the 2020s.

There were attempts to turn Trujillo into a minor cruise ship destination in the mid-2010s. The town was marketed as “Banana Coast” and promoted to cruise ships with a planned $50,000 seafront shopping center. The project ultimately faded.

In 1890s bananas became the boom industry.

Then there is the idea of building a housing community for retired Canadians looking for tranquility and warm weather. The project is called Alta Vista and is the brainchild of Randy Jorgensen, who made his fortune in the pornographic industry and promoting vice in Canada. Jorgensen has been in conflict, in and out of court, with the Garifuna, who claim that the land he acquired for his project was sold illegally.

The land owned by Canada’s so-called porn king was occupied by Garifuna activists, some armed with machetes and allegedly bused in from outside the area. The situation grows more complex from there. The Garifuna activists are affiliated with the Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña, or OFRANEH, and are believed to be supported by more powerful interests often overlooked. OFRANEH receives funding and training from organizations such as the Open Society Foundations. Larger global players also appear to be connected to developments in the small town of Trujillo.

“Trujillo has a great future, and it always will.” That potential is different from what many people think it is or would like it to be. It is a beautiful, quiet place soaked in history and contradictions. It is a place that time almost forgot. There are certainly more booms and busts ahead for the 500-year-old city by Trujillo Bay.

The Mighty Trees of Roatan

Island communities centered their lives around trees for generations. Sometimes villages bordered forests, built homes in the shade of mango trees and planted coconuts to stabilize soil and earn income. The islanders’ relationship with trees was complex and ever evolving. “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in,” goes the anonymous Greek proverb.
As they grew, children played games in the shade of these trees. Some island teachers conducted classes under large trees in their communities. When a community didn’t have the resources to build a school building, classes would be held under the canopies of old, impressive mangoes, ceibas, guanacastes, or rain trees. Island folks would also have parties, hold meetings, and conduct church services in the shade of the trees.

The trees marked important and mundane events. “You would never take that tree down, because it was the center of the community,” said Helen Murphy, an island expat horticulturist. The trees would also be a shelter from the sun and the rain.
Some islanders would bury the placenta of their children underneath a tree in their garden. That connected them both to the earth under their feet and trees above their heads. People’s memories intertwined with the memory of the trees as live, present participants in their lives.
Roatan has many places on the island named after trees. There is Oak Ridge, Mango Creek, Calabash Bight and Mangrove Bight. There is the Oak Hill area where in 1878 the cemetery was created in French Harbour. The entire area was covered by oak trees, but now only the name remains. Trees have shaped the island since before Paya Indians set foot on the ground here about 1,000 years ago.

Norfolk Island Pines Leaning West

While there are a couple of pine species growing on the island, the Norfolk Island pine is not one of them; it is a species of conifer. “It’s not a true pine tree, because it doesn’t produce a cone or even pine,” said Bill Brady, a U.S. expat who has lived on the island since the 1970s. “The Norfolk Island pine would be a bit too flexible to be used as a mast.”

The row of 23 Norfolk Island pines (Araucaria heterophylla) is impressive by many standards. They have grown to an impressive height, lining the road in French Cay, right across from the children’s playground in French Cay. Julie Guerra’s husband planted those trees in 1980. He was José Amilcar Guerra, and he was the island’s emigration officer for decades.

He came to work at Coxen Hole’s immigration office from Tegucigalpa and stayed on the island and had a family. The pines are now 45 years old. A handful of them didn’t make it, but the ones that did are tall, strong and majestic. The tallest trees are about 25 meters tall and leaning to the west. The steady eastern trade winds marked them in such a way.

Memories intertwined with the memory of the trees.

The pines were shipped from La Ceiba, and great care was given to not only plant them, but to keep them alive and growing in the harsh sun and salty air. They had to bring water in 55-gallon drums to water them. “Early every morning,” remembers Julie Guerra, recalling the years of watering the northern Pines. “We lost one or two, but he did replace them.”

Chester Guerra, Julie and José Guerra’s son, had an idea: he decided to come back from the US to his island and start a business, “La Hacienda del Cielo”. In early 2025, he built a petting farm, a marketplace, an aviary and a tropical tree garden. Chester then returned to his native island. “It came from an idea of building a small parrot cage for his two children,” said Guerra.

ESBIR’s Guanacaste

The four Guanacaste (Enterolobium cyclocarpum) trees at Coxen Hole’s ESBIR school entrance have been there for four decades. They were there before the Coxen Hole school was built. They are 120 feet tall and provide great shade for the parking lot at the school.

The Guanacaste trees were planted by Sheryl Galindo, the school’s owner, in the early 1990s. One of ESBIR’s Guanacastes was struck by lightning, and its fallen trunk was made into furniture. One of those furniture pieces is a stunning meeting table used by the ESBIR teachers in the school.

ESBIR’s Guanacaste was struck by lightning.

Guanacaste and Ceiba trees are the biggest island trees by volume of trunk and size of their canopy. Their canopies span 30 meters across, and they, if circumstances allow, grow as tall as 30 meters. “Guanacaste has got all that great seedpod that drops to the ground entirely so the birds are not carrying that around,” says Murphy.

Almond Trees

In the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s in Sandy Bay, everyone would gather on Friday to watch a cow being slaughtered and its meat being cut and prepared for sale. This was done just east of AKR, on Mr. Dyke Grant’s property.

A giant almond tree (Terminalia catappa) served that purpose. The butcher would hoist the carcass of the cow up by one of the almond tree’s limbs. This was a regular, weekly Sandy Bay spectacle and a chance for locals to meet, laugh and gossip. In the mid-2000s, the almond tree was cut down to make room for a house.

Sea Grape Survivors

Sea grape (Coccoloba uvifera) trees are valuable resources and contribute to the longevity of the island’s natural ecosystem. Sea grapes are the most personable trees on the island, with specimens hundreds of years old. Their roots stabilize beach sand, preventing erosion.

These incredible survivors can be taken down by storms and hurricanes but manage to hold on to life. They turn their downward branches into roots and their upward branches into trunks, continuing to live and produce fruit.

The fruits of the sea grape, as they turn from green to purple, are harvested and fermented to make island wine. Their sweet-tasting grapes are sometimes used to make jams and jellies.

Some builders ensure they preserve as many trees as they can. The Watercolors development project in West Bay features sea grapes that are large, old, and full of character. “What also has surprised me is how much visitors and tourists like and appreciate the fact that I am preserving the trees and incorporating them into my project,” said Murphy, who worked on the landscaping of that West Bay project. “My advice to all developers is you will attract a lot more buyers by preserving your trees. Make sure you protect them carefully during your construction.”

Giant Coconut King

The tallest coconut on the island was the king coconut that towered above all others on the beach at Palmetto Bay. It was visible from the water from 200 meters away. In 2023, this coconut giant died and the beach lost its old landmark.

The coconut was more than 80 feet tall, it survived Hurricane Mitch and was likely around 100 years old when it withered and died. It was perhaps the tallest coconut on the island. “I came to the island in 1996; it was already very tall,” said Gary Chamer, a resident of Palmetto Bay Plantation since 1998.

Diseases like White Fly and Lethal Yellowing decimated the coconut groves all over the island. Thousands of coconuts died in the 1990s. “Their name was Jamaican tall; they grew 200 feet tall and would sway side to side. They had hundreds of them in West Bay,” says Brady.

Their roots stabilize beach sand.

A few of the king coconuts survived on Roatan here and there. Some of them were lucky, and some had better genetics and were more resistant to Lethal Yellowing. According to Murphy, maybe 5% of the Jamaican Talls coconuts made it unscathed. They were tall, handsome, and all-around good-for-everything providers. The King coconut is a great all-around tree. “They are good for everything. They are good for water, for milk, for making oil, for all of it,” says Murphy.

This wasn’t the first time the disease pillaged across the region. Lethal Yellowing was already noted in Grand Cayman in 1834 and in Jamaica in 1884. Lethal Yellowing symptoms include premature nut fall, yellowing of the leaves, and defoliation. It affects not only the coconut palms but many palm species.

To remedy the decimation of coconuts in Honduras, in the early 2000s, Standard Fruit and Tela Railroad Company started to bring in coconuts from many different places. They imported a couple of containers of coconuts from Costa Rica — Malaysian Shorts and Pacific Talls. The Malaysian produces a yellow, elongated coconut fruit, and the Pacific Talls is stunningly tall and elongated.

Cemetery Acacias

Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia) Trees compete for resources: water, good soil, sun and air. They angle themselves at precarious angles to take in the sun, even if this means growing at 45 degrees and away from taller trees above them.

The Royal Poinciana acacia, when it blooms with its red flowers, is arguably the most attractive tree on the island. Its red flowers are a beacon of beauty that appears in places all around the island. A couple of them grow by the French Harbour cemetery.

Rubber Fig Tree of AKR

The Anthony’s Key Resort fig (Ficus elastica) is a tree to behold. Four grown men would need to wrap their hands around it. This particular tree was planted by Julio Galindo, AKR’s owner, in 1973 or 1974.

The fig tree is full of surprises. “It’s a rubber tree. Some of the old people would call it the ‘walking tree’ because it spreads so big,” says Galindo. This tree is native to South Asia, can grow to be 150 feet tall, and its trunk maxes out at seven feet in diameter. The tree is getting bigger and grows right next to a bathroom building at the resort. “It busts everything apart — the concrete, the wood,” says Galindo. “We constantly have to expand that every couple of years.”

To live near this type of fig is a challenge, and not everyone likes these giants. “There is nothing good about them,” says Murphy. “They are super messy. The roots are invasive. It is not a pleasure to trim them or cut them.” Indeed, their roots are opportunistic at locating any moisture in the ground. They travel 30 to 40 meters, and their brown, hard roots find their way into the smallest cracks of piping.

Long-Living Oak Trees

There is an impressive, old oak tree (Quercus oleoides) behind the plant nursery in Carniagro in French Harbour. Oaks are a tree species that is more abundant on the southern slopes of Roatan. They thrive in dry forests and pasturelands from Mexico to Costa Rica and reach 50 feet in height.

Their pale gray leaves are evergreen.
Live oaks stay green all the time. They are not deciduous; they don’t drop their leaves all at the same time like other types of oak trees sometimes do. As a consequence, their leaves are very acidic, and this acid prevents grass from growing underneath them. “You can’t really grow a lawn underneath an oak tree,” says Murphy.

The availability of oak made Roatan attractive to pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries. They needed hardwood for ship repairs, and they had plenty in Port Royal. “Hard to work with, but strong,” Murphy said about this lumber.

These oaks are some of the oldest trees we see on the island. They are easily 120 to 150, even 200 years old. Some of the older ones were here when the first Cayman Islander settlers came to the island in the 1830s. “I used to see entire rows of 200-year-old oak trees,” says Mr. Brady. “They used them for masts. It was a strong wood.”

Oak made Roatan attractive to pirates.

Oak lumber was a valuable resource for boat builders in Oak Ridge and French Cay who appreciated the hardness of the lumber that came from oak. “Ceibas, oaks, sea grape, figs and Santa Marias that used to be abundant were used by the boat builders,” said Julio Galindo.

Crawfish Rock Mangos

The mango trees [Mangifera indica] of Crawfish Rock are the center of the community. This is a place to pick up a snack, play football, chat with a neighbor or have a community meeting. You always found people talking in the shade of a mango. “Mango trees were sacred,” said Murphy. “They loved their mango so much.”

The Creole mangoes are abundant and abundantly fruitful. Haden mango is the second most popular mango tree on Roatan. There is even a mango festival in West End organized by Susie Ebanks. “My dad Keiffer Ebanks planted eight papaya mango trees in the mid-1970s,” said Ebanks who remembers making mango jam with her mother. “For many, many years; we were the only ones who had them in West End.”

Old Mangrove of Coxen Hole

White mangrove trees (Avicennia marina) were a part of Coxen Hole since the 1830s, when Cayman Islanders came here to settle. As Coxen Hole becomes more and more urban, the island’s biggest settlement is running high on cement and low on trees. “Anyone who had a private home, they always had plants and trees,” Murphy remembers of Coxen Hole in the 1980s. “Everybody had a lime tree.”

While the white mangrove tree across from the old municipal building in Coxen Hole is probably not the biggest mangrove on the island, it has plenty of character and plenty of size. It has been giving shade to cars parked underneath its branches. The parking fee is Lps. 20 an hour.

The site of the old tree is just a stone’s throw from the old municipal dock, just three or four feet above sea level. It is right in front of the Cooper Building and not far from the old Roatan Municipality. It looks like a tired, venerable giant. One of its giant branches fell to the ground and lifted itself up again — like a resting colossus.

This particular white mangrove looks like it has been in that spot well over 100 years. It looks like a fallen soldier in battle. It is 20 meters tall, and it has a beautiful and weathered trunk: a faded black color.

It has openings and crevices in its weathered trunk. A local builder has abandoned some construction wood next to it, and eight cars can park under its shade easily.

This old mangrove is flanked by almond trees and sea grape trees, not quite as old as the mangrove. The soil is sandy and compact. It has a lot of character. Some of its branches have been sawn off.

Ceibon of La Colonia Higuerito

La ceiba (Ceiba pentandra) is a giant tree that gave its name to Roatan’s maritime gateway on the Honduran mainland. There are a few ceibas on the island, but a particularly impressive specimen grows right across the street from Colonia’s Ramírez Supermarket in Sandy Bay.

When the Sandy Bay colonia canal was dredged out, some tree lovers worried whether the tree would survive. “I was worried they were going to damage the roots of that tree,” said Helen Murphy. “But it seems to be a survivor.”

Heavy construction and disruption of the soil have not helped the tree, which has become a reference point for locals and a bit of a landmark with its giant size. “It is hanging between life and death. Sometimes you see it with leaves,” says Mr. Bill Brady.

The ceiba is now 25 meters tall, and its canopy is over 30 meters across, but that is not the end. “They [ceibas] are medium-fast growers,” says Murphy. “It is 70 to 80, maybe 100 years old, so it’s worth saving.” While some of the Roatan ceibas are big and old, the biggest specimens can be found right across the water in La Ceiba, named after the tree. One of the largest specimens is in the Higuerito neighborhood. “It would take four people to surround it and touch hands,” says Murphy.

Roatan is Used Clothes Giant Mega Important Location

Megapaca has brought dignity to discarded, donated, and used clothing. The store has also brought excitement and self esteem to shoppers who browse the aisles looking for inexpensive but attractive items that are sold at a fraction of what they would cost in nearby Carrion or Lady Lee. The stigma of shopping at a used clothing store has been practically eliminated.
Megapaca is the ultimate recycler. The company not only recycles donated and sometimes discarded clothes from the US, it also repairs, washes, and returns bicycles to their best shape before putting them up on display. “We give value to all our products. Our shoes, our toy all have value,”

said Julio Orozco, El Progreso based Megapaca regional supervisor. “You can find something here that you cannot find anywhere else.”
The employees at Megapaca are instructed to say “Welcome to Megapaca” every time they interact with a customer, and they do so with conviction. The company, a large used clothing and home items chain retailer, trains its employees to provide the best shopping experience possible. “We want to have a
client to have good experience. [to know] they were taken care of well, said hello, took me to the changing rooms,” says Orozco who is
responsible for Megapaca’s two Roatan stores. “We display our clothes as if they were never used.”

Megapaca brings the islanders together. At Roatan stores, you can find the island’s poorest population scanning the store’s 90-percent-off section, and right next to them are the island’s affluent with their Prados and Toyota Tundras parked right outside. Some wealthy island residents still might not like to be noticed there, but by now everyone is used to this and is no longer surprised to see them looking for bargains in nice, designer quality clothes.

Megapaca traces its roots to 2001, when eight friends from Guatemala City decided to create a car import business. One had $8,000 and the other had $10,000. It is a classic rags to riches story, literally. The Megapaca story will make a great script for a movie one day.

They are rubbing shoulders with people who cut their grass.

Over the years, Megapaca became a family business. From the eight original founders, only two remain – brothers Mario and Gustavo Peña. Megapaca’s CEO is Mario Peña. Gustavo Peña, his brother, is the director of production. The brothers trace their roots to service in Guatemalan Military. “We need to deliver what we promise” is their motto.

The company has been different from other used clothing stores since the beginning. They hired a tailor that fixed some tears and reattached buttons of the clothes that were slightly damaged. They began introducing other features that other used clothes importers in Guatemala did not. “No one put used clothes on hangers,” said Orozco. “Until then, everyone placed the used clothes in bins.” These were the first innovations that were setting Megapaca apart from the crowd.

In Honduras, the story was not much different. Catrachos called their used clothing businesses “bulto” and treated it with disdain. Once Megapaca came to Honduras, their presence also changed people’s attitude towards used clothes. In 2015, Megapaca opened a store in El Progreso and Roatan.

Now, after 24 years and not without irony, Megapaca has an online store for Americans in the United States selling them clothes donated by their compatriots.
The company even has plans to open a physical Megapaca store in the USA.

The company operates 145 stores across Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Its expansion further south has been tricky, as Nicaragua has been difficult for the used clothing retailer to enter due to its policies. Megapaca wishes to come to Costa Rica and Panama. In all three countries, used clothes are imported from the USA tax free, obviously a much better deal that new cloth importers have. Nonetheless, Megapaca is proud to say that it is a sizable contributor in sales, municipal, and other taxes in places it operates.

It is a classic rags to riches story, literally.

Megapaca’s economic footprint covers Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, consisting of 33 million people with an annual GDP of $122 billion. That is similar in size to Texas’s population of 31 million people, but is just 8 percent of the Texas’s $1.8 trillion GDP.

In Mexico, Megapaca works a bit differently. It sells unsold clothes from manufacturers in the country. “Mexico is a complicated market, because it protects its manufacturers,” says Orozco.

Megapaca is a large importer, bringing in 2,650 containers a year to ports in Guatamala and Honduras. In all, Megapaca imported 84 million pounds in 2022, which translates to 840,000 pairs of shoes a month. It’s a sizeable portion of the 33 million Central Americans who dress in hand-me-downs imported from the United States.

The store has several innovative practices other than how they sell, There is also a hierarchical structure to Megapaca staff; at each store there are cashiers, second assistants, assistants, and a store manager. There are also supervisors that overlook 7-8 stores, visiting them every three-four weeks. Orozco is one of 13 supervisors in Central America and knows the used clothing business in and out.

Megapaca also has a department for employee well being. The company took on the responsibility of teaching its employees how to conduct themselves and be healthy. “Our culture is based in human values: respect, honesty, discipline, commitment,” said Orozco. “We train our employees from the moment they set foot in our stores.”

The tradition of all the 124 Megapacas stores is that every Saturday of the year, they open their shipped-from distribution center bundles, which in Spanish are called “Pacas”. “We open without exception. This is a law for us,” says Orozco. For example, Roatan’s French Harbour store typically has 60-80 clients waiting at 8am on a Saturday – some of which have been waiting since 4 am. “For us, this Roatan store is one of our best stores,” says Orozco.

You just never know what you will find.

Some people are lining up at Megapaca at 5am on Saturday to take advantage of the opening of the paca. It is a weekly ritual, and it’s not only clothes. Their retailer has books, children’s toys, cookware, and sport items. There are children toys from the 1980s that look like they have never used. In the miscellaneous section, you can find a used badminton racket, an English porcelain figurine, and a 1960s pop-up children’s book about Paddington bear.

Some Megapaca items are in oversupply. Long sleeve shirts and knot shirts that are popular in the US have few aficionados in Honduras. The store has way too many clothes in XXL and XXXL sizes.

Megapaca relies on self promotion. The company does not buy advertising on the radio or TV. It relies on word of mouth and on its high visibility, distinctly colored stores that are always in malls and other premium locations. There are however advertisement announced over the store’s loudspeaker about job vacancies all over the country. Latin dance and romantic music beam across a good sound system, and on occasion alerts interrupt shoppers with announcements about upcoming sales or staff educational programs.

The used items store has provided a badly needed retail service across Central America. “In 21 years we have been a part of millions of people’s lives, providing them an alternative of how to dress well,” says Megapaca’s general manager Mario Peña in an online promotional video.

Megapaca distribution centers amass themed items over the calendar year and then strategically ship them to the stores. That is why at all Megapaca stores you can find bundles of Halloween items in September and Christmas decorations in late November. When Megapaca distribution center ships pillows to a particular store, it doesn’t just ship one or two, it ships all 20 or 30. The strategy works.

Another valuable group to the company and consumers are the resellers. These are entrepreneurial buyers who wake up at 3am on Saturday to be at Megapaca at 4am and have a look at the best selection of clothes available. “There are many clients that buy us to resell, because our prices are low,” says Orozco. There is a name for this type of Megapaca customer -“Mayorista” – someone who buys in bulk.

Many of these Mayoristas supply communities and people that are far way from big towns and retail stores. Some of the mayoristas have clients and know their needs, others travel to villages that are inaccessible by public transport.

You just never know what you will find when you come to a Megapaca store on any given day. “We had a blazer that came into our premium store and we didn’t know what brand it was,” says about a recent item Orozco. The Megapaca employees googled it and found it was sold for $400 in the US. As the “chumpa” was with tags and brand new, it was listed at 10,000 Lps. and sold right away.

Indeed some Megapaca sold items have original store tags and have never been used. But a vast majority of others have signs that the items had a prior owner. Some clothing items have children’s names written on them, books have written-in dedications and puzzles are missing pieces.

The Honduran items arrive from the US in a container to Puerto Cortés, and from there are brought by Megapaca trucks to an evaluation center in El Progreso. The center’s employees sort the clothes by type, size, and damage. Some are repaired, and others, like shoes and stuffed baby toys, are washed. Each item is inspected for issues and damages. In case of bicycles, the mechanics change each bicycle seat, pedals, and tires. The idea is that a client can ride off on the bicycle after purchasing.

We affect their sales, but they don’t see us as competitor.

There are strategies in which clothes are shipped to specific parts of Honduras. “Cold weather clothing is sent to the western part of Honduras,” said Orozco. “The larger shoe sizes we send to La Ceiba and Roatan.” The company uses a system of QR codes to track its shipments, and each individual item is accessible in its database.

Each week an item is discounted more and more. It starts with 15% discount after one week, then 30% off after the second week, and 50% on the third week. It goes like that all the way to 90% discount at week seven. If no one buys an item after eight weeks the Roatan items are returned to El Progreso. “Don’t sell to people something that they did not want to buy,” says Orozco.

Every year on the third week on November, the Megapaca items receive an additional 25% off for the entire week. That is a sure to get an extra bargain. Another way to spot bargains is to perform a quick, on the spot Google search to see what a particular item costs on eBay or Amazon.

You just never know what you will find.

There is also a group of customers who buy some of the unsold clothes in bulk. The clothes that are not bought are processed for mulch at a Megapaca subsidiary company that cuts them and makes them into floor mats and sleeping mattresses. These items are original, they are recycled and sold at Megapaca stores.

The used clothing store has a growing impact on the retail market on the island. There are several national retail stores that are selling new clothes and home items on the island, and both Carrion and Lady Lee have been hit by Megapaca’s presence. “We affect their sales, but they don’t see us as competitor because they bring in new clothes and we don’t,” says Orozco.

In fact, all Honduran cities with a population of 60,000 or more now have Megapacas. There are stores in Catacamas, Olancho, and La Entrada, Copán. La Ceiba has a store nearly as large as the one in Roatán. It is located on the national road that traverses the city, right next to the City Mall of La Ceiba, and it is two stories tall.

San Pedro is dotted with Megapacas – there are six of them. One of them is the Megapaca premium, a store that receives articles with higher quality brands and does not offer discounts.

Megapaca always tries to secure a location that has good visibility and good access. Outside of Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, the stores occupy prime locations in malls. In smaller towns, they are in malls and places with good access and good parking.

There are two Megapaca premiums in Honduras – one in San Pedro Sula and the other one in Tegucigalpa. There the items sold without discounts. Fifteen percent of the items coming to Roatan are those that did not sell at one of the two Honduran premium stores.

The company operates 24 stores in Honduras, including the 2,200-square-meter Megapaca in Roatan’s Megaplaza Mall, which is a significant revenue generator for the Guatemalan brand. The store with the highest sales volume is in Zona 17, Guatemala City, followed by the Zona 11 Miraflores location. In 2018 and 2019, Roatan ranked third in sales, but the opening of two Megapaca Premium stores has since moved it down a notch. Nevertheless, the French Harbour store on Roatan remains a key pillar in the Megapaca empire.

Megapaca has 47 employees in its French Harbour store and over 2,000 employees in Honduras. To keep up with the growing market, Megapaca opened a second store on the island in September 2024. The two story building is owned by the company and located in Coxen Hole, right on the main road and right across from Serrano’s Hardware store. Megapaca strives to have good visibility and ample parking for their customers.

The Coxen Hole Megapaca has 3,200 square meters – some of the largest Megapaca stores in Honduras. According to Orozco, 25% of the Megapaca stores in Honduras operate out of facilities owned by the company.

Many islanders were impressed with how quickly Megapaca built their second store on the island. “They did Megapaca in just a couple months, why couldn’t we finish the [Dixon Cove] hospital just as quickly?” said prof. Miguel Angel Mathis, a schoolteacher from Dixon Cove.

High inflation and a sometimes faltering economy has forced an average Honduran family to look for ways to save money. Megapaca has provided a way to do that. With rising food costs, transportation expenses, and increasing rent, the budget for clothing and children’s toys has become much smaller. The purchasing power of the average islander has dwindled, and eaten away at Honduras’ middle class in general. Perhaps not without irony, in the first decade of the XXI century the most popular store on the island of Roatan is the used clothing store.

Five Centuries of European Presence in Honduras

This year, 2024, marks 500 years of a permanent European presence in Honduras. The civilization brought here by Spanish conquistadors half a millennium ago set Honduras on a path to poses a common language, Christianity, an administrative system, schools, roads, and a legal system. All which glues Honduran society together began in March 1524. Yet, you would not know that living here.
The Honduran government held no celebrations to mark this occasion. The Catholic Church in Honduras held no celebrations of 500 years of presence of Catholic sacraments in the country. Even the Spanish embassy in Honduras showed limited interest in talking about the mid-millennial anniversary with Paya Magazine. This willful disinterest in celebrating – or even acknowledging – the Christian, western roots of Honduras signifies something. It signifies that the powers that control the discourse in Honduras hold European and Christians culture in little regard. That of the religion and Christianity of the country’s fathers and forefathers.
There are also no Spanish embassy lectures or exhibitions. Spanish themselves have bought into the idea that for 300 years they have raped and pillaged the indigenous population, and that there is no reason to celebrate the half-millennium anniversary this year.
Honduras has but a peripheral battlefield in the culture wars taking place across the globe. The European and Christian civilization is increasingly vilified and devalued. There are groups interested in debasing not only European culture, but Christianity in particular.

The reality was that the Spanish came to the Americas for a variety of reasons. Some came to gain fame, glory, and riches. Other came to set up roads and build churches and cities. Others yet came to spread Christian faith and educate the natives.

That is a rich tapestry of Spanish men, who sacrificed, suffered, and died while creating the foundation of what is today Honduras. They brought with them the Catholic sacraments, Spanish language, Latin alphabet, a moral code, construction, administration, and a monetary and legal system.

All that laid a foundation of today’s Honduran identity.

You would not know this by visiting the museum of National Identity in Tegucigalpa. There, the Spanish across 300 years are given almost no credit. The sad fact is that Honduras’ history and identity has been captured by forces opposed to Western and Catholic values.

European and Christian civilization is increasingly vilified and devalued.

The 500 year anniversary of European and Christian presence in Honduras was not and will not be celebrated. Except for local events in Tela, there were no celebrations of the events that took place exactly 500 years ago in what is today Honduras. There were no celebrations of first European colonist’s arrival in the country. There were no celebrations of the arrival of Christianity and the first sacraments that took place in Honduras in 1524.

Honduras’ Discovery

On Columbus’s fourth voyage (1502-04) to the Americas, the great explorer finally set foot on the American continent. He did this on Honduran soil. This fact is little appreciated and even less celebrated in this Central American nation. His fourth expedition was made in his final attempt to find a maritime route to the Far East. While failing to do so, Columbus begun a chapter in Spanish and European colonization of the Americas.

The explorer’s first sitting of what is today Honduras took place on July 30, 1502, when he visited Guanaja, which he named Isla de Pinos – Pine island. He spent several days with the local Paya Indians and then continued to the coast, visible in the distance only 40 miles away. He named the mainland Honduras – depths after the deep water off the coast.

Capitanía, Santiago, Gallego and Vizcaíno, sailed 40 miles south to reach Punta Castilla.

While at sea Columbus came upon a Maya canoe on a trading expedition to the Payas. The canoe, captained by an elderly man, likely came from Nito – a Mayan port 200 miles west at the mouth of Río Dulce. The Mayan canoe was large and seaworthy: eight feet wide and 100 feet in length.

The canoe was covered by a canopy in its middle portion. It accommodated 25 men, women, and children. It carried large and varied goods: cacao, cotton ornamented garments, crucibles for melting copper, flint-edged wooden swords, stone axes, and knives. This was the first interaction between Europeans and Mayas.

Columbus’ four Spanish ships: Capitanía, Santiago, Gallego and Vizcaíno, sailed 40 miles south to reach Punta Castilla. It was the first landing of the Spanish on the American mainland, and it took place in Honduras. It took the Spanish a decade of exploration in the Caribbean to finally land on the mainland.

On August 13, 1502, the first Catholic mass was celebrated on the American continent. Brother Alejandro of Barcelona celebrated that mass in Puerto Castilla, and then named Punta Caxinas. Columbus, who was given the authority of the Spanish crown to do so, claimed the territory that we know today as Honduras for the king, Ferdinand the V of Spain.

Unlike the 2024 missing celebrations, on August 13, 2002, Honduran and other bishops celebrated the 500 year anniversary of the first mass on the American continent. This was celebrated near Punta Caxina, or just outside of Puerto Castillo. Columbus also sailed further into the Trujillo Bay, to Trujillo itself.

Honduras’ Conquista

After the conquest of Mexico in 1519-1521 the Spanish turned their attention to lands south: Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. They also continued looking for a maritime passage to the East Indies.

The terra incognita that was America was still mostly an unexplored and open book. While Hernán Cortés was the grand explorer of Mexico, his captains kept discovering populous areas full of riches promising them income from tributes, plantations, and gold. The idea of being a governor of a large province made one Spanish conquistador turn against the other. The territory of Honduras and Nicaragua attracted three suitors. The permanent presence of the Spanish in Honduras came three years later, in the spring of 1524.

Velázquez managed to convince Olid to betray Cortés.

The first to land in Honduras was Gil González Dávila, who claimed the land under the auspices of the Spanish crown. The Spanish king authorized González to seek passage to the Pacific along the Honduran coast. On March 19, 1524 González left Santo Domingo with four ships. He commanded an impressive force of 300 men and 50 horses. He landed in an area called Cieneguita, and funded Villa de la Natividad de Nuestra Señora near today’s Puerto Cortés.

He had to lighten the ship by throwing 17 of his 50 horses overboard, hence the name Puerto Caballos (now Puerto Cortés). González then sailed further west, to the Bay of Amatique and the Río Dulce, where he founded the town of San Gil de Buenavista.

The second conquistador to arrive in Honduras was Cristóbal de Olid. Olid was Cortés’ trusted and tested man. He had served Cortés well being one of his four captains that lead Spanish forces in the conquest of Mexico. Olid helped to capture Xochimilco in a key battle of the Mexican campaign. At one point Olid even saved Cortés from certain death as Cortés was captured by the Aztecs.

The Spanish conquest of the Americas was full of intrigue between the conquistadores themselves who competed not only in spreading the Spanish empire, but in creating provinces and territories of which they could become governors.

Olid was camp commander in May 1520, while a trial of Juan de Villafaña, on charge of plotting to assassinate Cortés, was being held. Four years later, as a form of reward, Hernán Cortés dispatched Olid by ship to Honduras with orders to establish a town.

In January 1524, Olid departed with six ships and 400 men for Cuba. He also brought many arms, artillery pieces, and 8,000 pieces of gold to buy horses and vestments. In Cuba, he met with Diego Velázquez, the island’s governor and a known political enemy of Cortés.

Velázquez was aware of Cortés being appointed by King Carlos, governor of New Spain, and resented his success. Velázquez managed to convince Olid to betray Cortés and accept his sponsorship during the conquista of Honduras.

On May 3, 1524 Olid landed in today’s Tela bay, likely to avoid confronting the expedition of González which had arrived in Puerto Cabezas just a few weeks earlier. Thus Olid founded the port of Triunfo de la Cruz, a town that is known today as Tela.

Upon landing on Honduras’ coast, Olid acted in a resolute manner. He decided not to act quickly, but to better establish himself, gain strength, and gather knowledge in order to truly understand if the new lands were worth the political risk of standing up to Cortés. Olid took position of Honduras in the name of Cortés, but held papers that referred to himself, a shrewd but ultimately disastrous strategy.

Olid can arguably be considered the founder of what would eventually become Honduras.

In June 1524, Cortés acted upon his knowledge of Olid betraying him. He sent his trusted lieutenant and cousin Francisco de Las Casas with five well-armed ships and men to Honduras to confront and arrest Olid. All of a sudden, Olid found himself fighting on two fronts. He was confronting the expedition of Gil González Dávila on land and de las Casas at Sea.

Fate intervened as Las Casas sailed to Puerto Caballos, now controlled by Olid. “Olid decided to launch an attack with two caravels. Las Casas returned fire and sent boarding parties, which captured Olid’s ships. Under the circumstances, Olid proposed a truce to which Las Casas agreed, and he did not land his forces. During the night, a fierce storm destroyed his fleet and about a third of his men were lost. The remainder was taken prisoner after two days of exposure and without food. After being forced to swear loyalty to Olid, they were released,” writes Robustiano Vera in his 1899 book “Notes on the history of Honduras.”

Fate has favored Olid until that time. “Las Casas was kept a prisoner, soon to be joined by González, who had been captured by Olid’s inland force,” writes Robustiano Vera. As he fled, González was surprised near Choloma and brought to Olid by Briones, one of Olid’s captains.

Olid became victorious against two divided foes, and moved the men to the town of Naco, a large pre-Hispanic town right outside of the Maya territory, but certainly with contact and trade with the Maya. While Naco today is an unimpressive dirt road settlement, 500 years ago it was the center of a three way competition of Spanish conquistadores trying to secure land that promised perhaps as many resources and opportunities as Mexico just a couple of years before.

Fortunes turned on Olid’s miscalculation. Olid allowed his two prisoners to leave their prison and have dinner with him. “One night after the snack, and Olid being alone with his prisoners, Las Casas got up and grabbed Olid by the beard and buried a sharp knife that he had hidden under his dress in his throat. Gil González threw himself at the same time and also cruelly wounded him… Thus he was able to escape and went to hide in some bushes,” writes Robustiano Vera in his 1899 book “Notes on the history of Honduras.”

Olid was eventually found out and brought back. Olid was accused of treason against the Spain’s royal power. A brief trial took place and Olid was found guilty and sentenced to death. On January 16, 1525, his head was cut off and placed on a spike on the main plaza in the town of Naco. This rushed judgment and execution came into question soon after in Mexico. Even the locals felt this was not a fair treatment for Olid.

The relationship with the new Spanish bosses and local population deteriorated. The locals refused to supply more food and the Spanish left. Las Casas and González left for Mexico, and other settler went to establish settlements in other parts of Honduras.

Olid can arguably be considered the founder of what would eventually become Honduras. To other conquistadors, Olid was seen as an independent operator, dangerous to other Spanish players – especially Cortés.

When Las Casa and González returned to Mexico, the new man in charge – Salazar de la Pedrada – had replaced Cortés as governor and didn’t like them making themselves the judge and executioner of a well respected Olid. What didn’t help was that the two continued to insist they owed their alliance to Cortés and not to Pedrada. So Salazar de la Pedrada had them arrested and tried for Olid’s execution. He was determined to execute them, but finally, the two were taken to Spain as prisoners and avoided further consequences.

Cortés himself avoided travelling through Naco.

Cortés in Honduras

Hernán Cortés decided to head to Honduras himself in 1525, via a land route. Cortés’s main force headed for the coast, while a smaller force travelled by land, south to Naco.
When Cortés arrived in Nito, on the tip of the Bay of Honduras on his overland journey from Mexico, the settlement was manned with a few dozen Spaniards, ill-provisioned and unhealthy form malaria and other diseases. A Spanish ship full of provisions arrived just in time.

The Spanish raced to repair a caravel and a brigantine and sail east to arrive in Honduras by sea. Nito was judged too unhealthy to remain. Cortés himself avoided travelling through Naco on his march across Mayan country and travelled from Río Dulce via boat to Puerto Cortés, then Trujillo, then set off north to Havana.

Captain Sandoval of Cortés’s crew went with soldiers and settlers to the valley of Naco, where Olid made his headquarters earlier. Sandoval found Naco deserted right before their arrival. This was not uncommon. The Spanish would find abandoned towns on their paths of conquest as populations fearing for their lives would scatter and leave everything behind. “We took up our quarters in some very large courts where they had beheaded Cristobal de Olid. The pueblo was well provisioned with maize and beans and Chili peppers, and we also found a little salt which was the thing we needed most,” wrote Bernal Díaz of his arrival in Naco. Even though Spanish conquest disrupted trade, Naco recovered and continued operating as a trade center.

Paya Magazine went looking for the unknown burial site of de Olid.

Nonetheless, the Spanish were impressed with the natural resource of the valley and Naco river. “In this pueblo is the best water we have found in New Spain, and a tree which in the noon-day heat, be the sun ever so fierce, appears to refresh the heart with its shade, and there falls from it a sort of very fine dew which comforts the head,” according to 1539 accounts of Francisco de Montejo.

1525 and After

One of Francisco de Las Casas parting contributions to Honduran History was the founding of the country’s third oldest city, and later its first capital, Trujillo. On May 18, 1525 de las Casas founded Trujillo before departing with his prisoner Gil González Dávila.

Later in 1520s Honduras saw several explorers and conquistadores from Spain. One of them was the Juan de Grijalva who explored Cuba in 1511 and then Mexican coasts on Yucatan and Tabasco in 1518. In 1527 de Grijalva joined Pedro Arias Dávila in exploration of Honduras and Nicaragua. Grijalva was killed by natives in Olancho and buried there.

Olid’s Lost Grave

Without a doubt the principal historical figure of Honduras’ Conquista was that of Cristóbal de Olid. He is the country’s forgotten conquistador, and an overlooked hero that brought the first vestiges of western civilization, Christianity, and European administration.

Paya Magazine went looking for the unknown burial site of de Olid. We made two trips to Naco, Cortés, and areas surrounding that town. While Naco is now a backwater town, it was once a well known and well inhabited place.

The town is located where Naco river runs into Chamelecón river and where the valley widens, allowing ample area for cultivation. The Naco Valley is situated in the middle part of the Chamelecón Valley. In the 1500s, Naco was estimated to have as many as 10,000 inhabitants and was located on the edge of Mayan civilization. Mayan language was certainly spoken, or at least known to the natives. The Spanish were already familiar with Mayan civilization and dialects during their conquest of Mexico in the years prior.

His contribution to the Honduran nation remain unacknowledged.

The foothill area where we focused our search for de Olid’s grave is known to be under control of narco gangs. While we looked for Olid’s grave, we found many abandoned graves but nothing dating further than maybe a century.

While Naco is forgotten, it is still one of Honduras’ premier colonial archeological sites. It was located in a transitional zone between the Maya to the west and non-Maya tribes to the East. “Historical and archaeological evidence indicates that Naco, one of the principal late pre-Hispanic centers in the region, maintained strong ties with the rest of the Maya world and with non-Maya Central America,” writes John Henderson of Cornell University.

The archeological location of the Naco can be traced to Naco Nuevo and Las Flores de Naco. Local oral tradition remembers “El Rey” who fled wounded to the El Salto waterfall on the Naco River. According to the story, he was brought back from there and killed. In high likelihood, the story described Cristobal de Olid final days.

Where to Honduran Man?

A man who not knows his father, will not know his past and will not be in control of his destiny. The people who are in charge in Honduras, those obliging memorization of national hymns and requiring school children parades in Lempira costumes, are interested in keeping the memory of Olid and other Spanish conquistadors unknown.

While Olid was accused of treason and executed, that is nothing new. Fierce competition and even summary execution of conquistadors was not without precedent.
Olid met the same fate as reputed founder of Nicaragua, Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, two years later in 1526. Cordoba, the founder of Granada and Leon, was executed in Leon Viejo by the order of Pedro Arias de Ávila, the colonial administrator who was named governor of Nicaragua a year later.

Since Córdoba was accused as an insurrectionist and a traitor, he was beheaded. His headless remains were discovered in 2000, in a crypt at the church of La Merced in León Viejo. That same year his remains were moved to a monument at the old Managua cathedral and honored with a 21 cannon salute.

Olid’s remains, on the other hand, remain undiscovered. His contribution to the Honduran nation remain unacknowledged. While ignored, the undisputed fact is that Cristobal del Olid was a first class adventurer and valiant conquistador. There is a valid case for Hondurans to claim Olid as their founding father.

For a long time now, Santos Guardiola has been the forgotten, ugly sister of Roatan. But lately, that forgotten sister has been getting an increasing number of suitors asking for a dance. Developers are buying up sizable pieces of land and dividing them into smaller lots, creating networks of interior roads with underground wires and services.
On the east side of Roatan, near Mount Picacho, the island’s tallest hill, the views are often stunning. The nature is still relatively unspoiled, and perhaps most important of all for developers, there is a 10.6 kilometer road that is being paved that will reach the very far end of the island.

Paya Magazine has surveyed 18 housing developments in JSG at different stages of completion. The developers here are an international mix. There are Czechs, Danes, Americans, Canadians, and Hondurans. They have backgrounds in construction, sales, furniture, and even veterinary science. Roatan is a cake that has been cut into 20 different pieces. “The advantage that José Santos Guardiola [JSG] has is that it is a cleaner canvas,” said Hugo Coello, a Roatan based architect with 20 years of design experience here. “This municipality has an opportunity to create a great place.” In José Santos Guardiola, one can still find large tracks of undeveloped land. There is plenty of room to grow and the population is relatively small.

Camp Bay Beach for the Famous?

Just like billionaire Kelcy Warren on JSG’s nearby Barbareta island, other rich and sometimes famous Americans have noticed the beaches’ beauty and potential. Actor Michael Douglas has been coming to Roatan for over a decade, and purchased 25 acres of land, with around 1,300 feet of water frontage. According to Erick Anderson, an American who has been living here since the 1960s and knows Douglas well, the actor is looking at a project to potentially incorporate organic gardens and solar power.

Anderson believes that good development is achieved by combining good master planning, good architecture, and good investors. If any one of these elements is missing, bad things begin to happen, especially in the challenging topography and sensitive environment of Roatan’s Far East.

According to Anderson, some developers see the limited in scope and quantity JSG municipal fines as a cost of doing business. “It is a moral failure on their [developer’s] part,” he said. “They need to understand they are destroying a resource that should belong to a community for a long term use.” Anderson says that it is bad for the neighborhood to have developments like that on Roatan. These types of developments discourage potential investors that are looking for pristine, beautiful environment to situate their development.

Diamond Rock Rocks

The Czech investment in land development on the island’s Far East dates back to the early 2000s. Businessman Iri Maska has built a brewery off the main road south of Punta Gorda, and since then has had many Czech investors come to the island.

The biggest of them all is developer Ivan Soška, who came to Roatan 14 years ago. In 2013, he purchased 13 acres with the idea to develop 53 homes in Diamond Rock. “I started to feel the nature here,” says Soška. “The municipal requires a 10 percent green area to be set aside. I set aside 65 percent. If I cut a tree, I plant 20 other.”

After selling out the lots to his fellow Czechs, Soška purchased another 27 acres up the hill from his development and named it Diamond Hill. In 2018, he added another 40 acres to his growing development right on the waterfront.

His sensible approach to developing land is paying off. Soška believes that the green, respectful-to-nature Diamond Hill development has attracted a more varied clientele for his house lots which now include Americans and Canadians. “They are using construction with step-down instead of just counter livered instead and of cutting the hill with big bulldozers,” said Anderson. “That would create erosion and upset the environment.”

The locals have taken notice and warmed up to the tall Czech developer and his three sons. “They are one of the better developments out there,” said Anderson. “They did a good job with landscaping and respect for the environment.”

Santos Guardiola has been the forgotten, ugly sister of Roatan.

Paya Bay for Boaters

Paya Bay has been a sleepy, overlooked, and spectacular beach just west of Camp Bay beach. Now, even sleepy Paya Bay is getting its share of development dollars. The gated, high end community will have access to Paya Bay Resort.

The project consists of two parts: a 180 room condo hotel on the beach and 18 canal front house lots.

Managing partner for the project is Henrik Jensen, a long time Danish Roatan businessman who has build both commercial and housing projects all over the island. The development is located on 19 acres and should be operational by 2027.

Golfing in Luna Azul

Bordering Media Luna to its West, Luna Azul is the largest development ever undertaken in José Santos Guardiola. The 110-acre development, with 380 lots, even surpasses the large 200-acre Parrot Tree development with the number of lots.

Adam Gram, a Danish developer who developed several projects on the western side of the island, is the developer of this now third golf course community project on Roatan. The development is planned in three phases and centers around a golf course, a beach club, a tennis court, and a private beach. As of March 2024, around 60 percent of the roads have been completed, and the golf course design is in progress.

No More Stilts

Scott Miller has stealthily become the man with the most land under development on the island. He is developing three projects in and around Camp Bay: Caribbean Bliss, Camp Bay Estates, and Sunset Vistas. Miller is also developing a project inside West End’s Luna Beach, as well as his biggest project called Sea Breeze just east of Luna Azul. While most of Roatan developers started locally, or came from abroad and focused solely on one development, Miller comes with plenty of experience, cash, and a soon-to-boom vision for Roatan.

Miller comes from a long line a bridge and dam builders in California and Arizona. He has also developed resorts and properties in Belize and Costa Rica. He has three development companies in the US: one in Arizona, one in California, and one in Washington State. He has also developed resorts and apartment complexes all over the Caribbean. “I depend on a really good team of professionals,” says Miller.

They need to understand they are destroying a resource.

In 2013, Miller came to Roatan scouting the island for Hilton Hotels to see if the island was ready for the chain. “I told them it wasn’t,” said Miller, who ended up building a house on the island the following year. “I love it here. People are not after your money like in Costa Rica or Belize,” says Miller. Now Miller believes Hilton and Marriot should be just about ready to invest here.

Back in the US, Miller is friends with quite a few professional athletes potentially interested in having second homes here. With new roads and new airlines eyeing Roatan, he believes the island is on a trajectory to attract a more affluent and demanding clientele made up of home owners from the US. “One thing they will not do is live in a house on stilts,” said Miller. That is the main reason his developments create slab-on-grade type of construction, which require aggressive soil displacement, something some of his neighbors are not always happy about.

Above Punta Blanca

Punta Blanca is Santos Guardiola’s north shore community and dates back to the 1990s. It is surrounded by rolling hills with plenty of development opportunities and fantastic views to the north, south, and east.

Fernando Santana found his 5.5 acre Aroha Estates Punta Blanca development site almost by chance. “As I was walking through the jungle, I found an old ‘for sale’ sign on the property,” said Santana, who was a furniture vendor several years before transitioning to being a home construction supervisor and developer.

The property was originally called Buena Vista, and featured sprawling views in all directions. “I called the person and purchased it even before seeing what I was purchasing. It was a leap of faith,” said Santana, who also helps a local architect with design ideas.

Las Vistas in Camp Bay

Las Vistas is located right across from the entrance to Camp Bay’s public beach. Las Vistas was originally five acres of development by American developer Blaine Bell, who later purchased another six acres adjacent to the property, and the Port Royal National Park. There is an added ecological responsibility to building next to a [Port Royal] National Park. “The idea is to build something in an eco sensitive feel,” said Hugo Coello, a principal at Hugo Coello Architects and also a builder for Las Vistas.

Las Vistas development is planned to accommodate 40 home sites. Underground utilities have been laid in place for the first 25 lots and an impressive entry gate is almost finished. Coello is working with Bell, who has been on the island for ten years and decided to become a developer.

Coello believes the roads should follow as much as possible the contour lines of the topography of the often steep landscape on the island. The idea is to disrupt the soil as little as possible and maintain the location of the site. Acting a bit like a “horse whisperer,” Coello depends and listens to his surroundings to tell him what is appropriate and what is not. “I wait for the land to suggest what is needed,” said Coello.

Coello is known for making master plans, and he created the master plan for Las Vistas and Luna Azul. “Clients hire me because they want something nice, in budget, and something that is respectful of the ecosystem,” said Coello. He makes an effort to give a distinctive identity to each of his projects with materials, colors, and details. Coello has been designing homes on Roatan for 20 years. “We pick the type of home, the type of material that fits,” he said. “I like glass walls, to take advantage as much as possible of the views.”

The Concerns

There are quite a few people concerned with how quickly the land is being developed, and with how it is being done without much regard for the fragile environment of the island. One of these voices is Erick Anderson, an expat who has lived on Roatan since the 1960s. He founded Bay Islands Conservation Association [BICA] from his home in Port Royal.

Anderson says he supports projects that are respectful of the environment, architecturally attractive, and provide a sustainable and long-term benefit to the community. Local jobs are important, but preservation of the soil and vegetation and protecting animals is as well. That, according to Anderson, does not always happen. “I used to push, push for developments and roads and infrastructure,” said Anderson. “What I am worried about is too much development too fast, and that it would spiral out of control.”

East of Roatan has a different climate than the west of the island: different vegetation, different soil. Building here is a bit trickier than on the west side. “They are destroying the exact thing that makes it attractive and beautiful,” said Anderson. “We [BICA] have been petitioning through for SERNA to come and look at these developments so they can understand what is going on.”

The idea is to disrupt the soil as little as possible.

There are new developers, good developers, and sometime not so good developers. Some developers get in trouble on the financing front, others get in trouble working on steep sites that are all over Roatan. “They don’t have a right to destroy this if you have a good master plan,” said Anderson. “They [some developers] are cutting all the trees on site, and cutting them down with bulldozers.”

Anderson believes the JSG development projects should be done with proper master planning, in a way that is sustainable for the future of the community. “Someone who is doing a master plan has to be someone who has a huge experience in what they are doing,” said Coello. “The most important is the approach of the design,” said Coello. “There are several examples [of development] that are just terrible.”

Environmental licenses are given out by SERNA, and typically are not easy to get. “For my lotification [at Camp Bay beach], it took me two years and $20,000 for my development to get all the permits,” said Anderson. “The idea is to protect the reef, mangroves, and all the assets that we have.”

Unfortunately, as copies of SERNA or Municipal permits are not displayed on construction sites, it is difficult for the public to understand what is planned. When work takes place, it is all yesterday’s news. There is no manner to move back hills, uncut roads, replant 100-year-old trees.

The projects that have caused environmental damage are usually an example of the failure of four entities: the failure of supervision on the national Honduran level by SERNA- the Honduran Ministry of Environment, the JSG Municipality’s environmental department, the developers themselves, and the local communities themselves, represented by patronatos.

Unspoiled land in José Santos Guardiola is like Bitcoin.

The Future

What could lie ahead for the island are zoning laws like in the nearby La Ceiba. According to Coello, some more populous municipalities in Honduras developed zoning restrictions and enforcement as they grew in size. Those are principally cities of Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula, and La Ceiba. Coello believes building restrictions on Roatan should be done not on a zoning level, but on the consciousness level of the stakeholders involved in developing land across Roatan. The architect believes that more education of people doing master planning and construction should be done.

Much of the land on Roatan’s Far East side remains unspoiled, filled with rolling hills of old growth forests and teaming with wildlife. That is what past generations of islanders have bestowed to the Roatanians in the 21st century. That innumerable resource is not always appreciated.

The Roatan land has served as shelter, food and building resources for islanders for 227 years now. Today, that resource is at risk. If it is destroyed, there will be practically no way of getting it back. The haphazard development of West Bay hopefully will serve as an example of what to do, and what not to do.

For now, the unspoiled land in José Santos Guardiola is like Bitcoin, the longer you keep it as it is, the higher value it will achieve – barring any unpredictable world crisis and catastrophic weather events, of course.

The Melancholic Oak Ridge Cay has almost Two centuries of History

Indeed, Oak Ridge Cay is unlike any other place on Roatan. Here, people don’t lock their front doors. It is a sizable cay with around 40 houses and no bridge connecting it to the main island. Most people like it that way. “Here it’s quiet. I have the loveliest neighbors,” says Debra Sellers, one of the cays half a dozen foreign residents.

Most everyone here understands the intricacies of living on a flat, limited space, exposed to the elements. As the sea tide comes up, things get tricky, and people typically don’t mind if someone uses their dock to access their property.

“September tides” are the year’s highest tides, which periodically flood the cay, especially its eastern portion. Once called Curtis Point, this area is now referred to as Mission Point by the locals. “Now, in October and November, you still get the tides,” says Mr. Miguel. The end of the year is when the eastern wind brings in plenty of heavy logs, plastics, and other floating debris, depositing them all over the cay.

Across from the canal, the increasingly busy Pandy Town is intersected by a road frequented by vehicles navigating its dead-end street. Many people from Oak Ridge Cay prefer to keep things quiet and simple. It’s Roatan’s most populated cay, but it doesn’t have a bridge connecting it to the main island. The cay acts as a natural barrier, which has turned the cay into a sort of time capsule.

The history of Oak Ridge Cay began with the first settlers around 170 years ago. The first inhabitant was Thomas Alexander Cooper, born in Belize in 1834. “He had his home on the cay and all his descendants lived on the Cay,” says Keila Thompson, native islander and history researcher.

Cooper’s older brother John purchased 354 Acres from the British Crown sometime in 1850s -a surviving document refers to having the property re-measured in 1859. Thompson said that John Cooper most likely gave Oak Ridge Cay, the Point, and Pandy Town to his younger brother as a gift.

Over the last 170 years, properties on the cay have been sold and resold numerous times. Today, approximately 40 houses stand on the cay. There are about half a dozen Americans living there, and the presence of fences is increasing, with many being tall, chain-link, and strong. “Everybody didn’t used have fences,” said Keila Thompson Gaugh. “Everybody was family.” Wooden and chain-link fences divide the cay into increasingly smaller portions – the largest open area is just north of the Reef House. On the cay, everything is private property, except for the road, which is a common asset used by all cay residents.

The cay once had a population of agoutis but Mr. Miguel suspects they were hunted to extinction by the locals… Now, there are none. However, there are quite a few domesticated animals: dogs, cats, and some cay residents keep chickens and pigs for food. The cay never had any cows, sheep, or goats. There were also iguanas and Roatan island agoutis. “The dogs learned how to live with them. The people got them,” said Mr. Miguel.

First inhabitant was Thomas Alexander Cooper.

The Cay is dotted with old, wooden homes, weathered by time, wind, and use. Several of these older homes date back to the 1960s and 70s. The stilts of these old homes are made out of sunwood, dogwood, iron dogwood, and craboo wood. “They last a long time,” says Mr. Miguel.

A few years back, a public wharf at the east end of the cay served the community, but it has since weathered and disintegrated over time. Now, the only public spaces accessible to and shared by all are the road and the sea. Couple bicycles can be spotted on what the Caytons refer to as “the road,” but motorcycles are not welcome. The cay features many boats and plenty of private docks. There are two concrete wharfs jetting south, built over shallow coral, projecting into the sea.

Oak Ridge Cay is not as bustling and full of life as it was just a couple of decades ago. There were a couple of stores on the island in the 1980s and 90s, and maybe a school or two. “The last store that operated on the Cay was the Unicorn… but that burned down,” said Mr. De la Cruz. His mother, America Bodden de la Cruz, had the last small store on the Cay until it closed 2005.

Two “old heads” reside on the island: Mr. Miguel De La Cruz, 100, and Mrs. Lita Bodden, 84. De La Cruz was born in Mexico and has lived in Roatan since 1958. He is the Cay’s oldest resident, and lives in a modest wooden house on the far eastern side of the Cay, where he is taken care of by his son and daughter-in-law. Bodden is the Cay’s second oldest resident and came to Oak Ridge Cay form Guanaja when she was 12.

In 1960s and 70s, Oak Ridge Cay was a hive of activity. The heart of the Cay centered around the sand volleyball court, complete with two bleachers. “A lot of tournaments went on here,” remembers Mr. Miguel. The volleyball court, also the highest point of the cay, is located on Oak Ridge Cay’s western end.

In late 1960s, several Americans moved to the Cay. Gene Isbel, from Tampa, founded the Oak Ridge Chapel sometime in the late 1960s. “She was in the process of building a school when [hurricane] Francelia came and knocked it down,” says Mr. Miguel.

Several houses were swept across the channel to Pandy Town. A category 3 hurricane, Francelia passed south of Bay Islands in the early days of September 1969. A majority of the houses in Oak Ridge, French Harbour, and Coxen Hole were damaged and destroyed by the high tide. Several hundred families were made homeless.

Reef House dive resort has been catering to visitors on the cay since late 1960s. Bill Kepper came to the island in 1968 and built the resort as a fishing and diving destination. Kepper was Reef House’s original owner. Today, Reef House has a 10 rooms. Expats from the east of the island gather there for drinks and live music on Fridays.

Ms. Sissy James arrived with a Christian Pentecostal mission and built a school. Another American named Mrs. Gale Hutton started a health clinic that provided services in the late 1960s and 70s. Writer and map maker Ann Jennings lived on the Cay in 1970s as well.

For a very long time, Oak Ridge Cay was home to a busy school called Joseph L. Gough school, until 1978. “It served both Cay and Pandy Town,” says Mr. Miguel. The María Aurelio Soto School in Pandy town replaced it.

Is dotted with old, wooden homes, weathered by time.

“When Francelia hit in September 1969, a two story school building was swept across to the other side [Pandy Town],” says Miguel de la Cruz. Hurricane Greta in 1978 was also not kind to the cay. In nine years, Roatan and Oak Ridge Cay suffered three major hurricanes.

The hurricanes had a dramatic impact not only on the way people lived, but also on the flora of the cay. “This place used to have a lot of sage bush when I was a kid,” remembered Mr. Miguel. “Hurricanes took them out.”

Until the 1990s, the Cay was dotted with coconut trees until the lethal yellowing disease reached Roatan. More than 90 percent of Roatan’s coconut palms (Cocos nucifera L.) were affected and died gradually. This saddened the local community a great deal. Affected trees would prematurely lose their coconuts, followed by yellowing leaves and, eventually, the death of the palm.

The original coconut palms were tall, skinny, and often bent with plenty of personality. These palms also produced a superior coconut, characterized by more white meat, which made them ideal for producing coconut oil. Only a few of the original big coconut trees survived. They are much taller than the coconuts that are now grown on the cay and around the island. “I’m talking about tall, real tall,” says Mr. Miguel. They are much better to use in making coconut oil.

As coconut palms and sage disappeared over the last thirty years, the Oak Ridge Cay also eroded into the sea. The erosion was worse on the southern side, where the cay lost about 1/3 acre, and on its eastern side, where it lost a quarter acre. The cay is now a bit lower, making it more susceptible to flooding and exposed to strong eastern winds and tides. With the decline of the king coconuts, wind-borne seedlings of the Australian Pine (Casuarina) took root and are now prolific on the Cay. This tree species is invasive and often destructive, but according to Helen Murphy, island expat and professional gardener, it does help with soil stabilization.

In 1960s and 70s, Oak Ridge Cay was a hive of activity.

In the salty air and poor sandy soil of the Cay, not many trees thrive. Still, there are many new coconuts, almond trees, sea grape tree, and cocoplums. The cay also hosts a mango tree and, incredibly, two date palms situated right on the water’s edge on its southern side. According to Mr. Miguel, the date palm seedlings were brought by one of the islanders who worked on boats in the Middle East.

Physical remnants – or at least lingering memories – of buildings and businesses that thrived on Oak Ridge Cay decades ago still remain. One such establishment was the Unicorn store, run by Mrs. Lurlene Cooper de McNab from the early 1970s until 1993, when it caught fire and burned down. More recently, the San José Motel, located on the channel facing Pandy Town, was demolished. This motel, with six rooms, served as lodging for salespeople coming to Oak Ridge. It was knocked down in 2022.

When Roatan was Part of The Mexican Empire

Two hundred years ago, Roatan was a part of Mexico, and the island’s head of state was Augustin I. The several hundred Garifuna living on the east side of the island enjoyed the freedom to travel as far as California or Tejas if they wished. While the First Mexican Empire lasted only 18 months, it established a precedent for larger geopolitical agreements like NAFTA (The North American Free Trade Agreement) or CAFTA (Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement) on a regional and global scale that continue to have a significant impact to this day. On January 5, 1822, Roatan, along with the rest of Central America, became part of the Mexican Empire as the territory was annexed by Mexico. The period from 1822 to 1823 marked the second of three times when Roatan and the Bay Islands were integrated into a larger geopolitical entity with a king, queen, or emperor serving as its top executive. Prior to this, for 297 years, from 1524 to 1821, the islands were formally a part of the Spanish Empire as part of the Captaincy General of Guatemala. Thirty years after the First Mexican Empire, in 1852, the Bay Islands became a part of another empire, the British Empire, under Queen Victoria. The Bay Islands Colony remained under British rule for a bit longer, lasting nine years until 1861.

Provincial governors appointed by the Spanish still held sway in the region.

Honduras’ Place in the Empire

In the 1820s, the elites of Honduras’ then-capital, Comayagua, along with those in Nicaragua’s León, were among the more supportive groups favoring annexation. Of the five Central American countries, Honduras was perhaps the most enthusiastic about becoming part of the Mexican Empire.
In contrast, other provinces in Central America, aside from Chiapas, were less keen on gaining independence from Spain only to relinquish it to a Mexican Empire. The political elites in El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Granada, Nicaragua, were so opposed to the idea that they even considered military resistance.
The political dilemma primarily concerned the political elite of the Central American countries. For the majority of the region’s population, who lived their lives on a local scale, such matters were of little concern. They were not preoccupied with analyzing the nuances, benefits, or opportunities of living in either a republic or an empire governed by a crowned head of state in Mexico or Spain. Most indigenous peoples remained indifferent to the issue of Honduras’ annexation into Mexico.
On November 28, 1821, Agustín de Iturbide formally requested the annexation of Central America into the Mexican Empire in a letter. He argued that stability and security in Central America could only be achieved through union with Mexico. “My object is only to manifest to you that the present interest of Mexico and Guatemala is so identical or indivisible that they cannot constitute themselves in separate or independent nations without risking the security of each,” he wrote.
Agustín de Iturbide sought a peaceful annexation and took decisive steps to ensure its success. He dispatched troops to Central America to maintain civil order and appointed Brigadier General Vicente Filísola to establish and solidify Mexican control over the region.

Honduras was perhaps the most enthusiastic about becoming part of the Mexican Empire.

In response to Agustín’s letter, all 237 municipalities across Central America published its contents and held open municipal council meetings to allow citizens to weigh in on the government’s decisions. After 30 days, a vote on annexation was conducted. The cabildos voted for complete annexation without conditions. On January 5, 1822, the Consultative Junta voted unanimously in favor of annexing Central America to the Mexican Empire.
As a result of the annexation, this included Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, Mexico reached its greatest territorial extent. The people of Central America, as well as Roatán’s Garifuna population, were automatically granted Mexican citizenship.

Roatan’s Place in the Mexican Empire

In 1823, Roatan was part of an empire that stretched from mission settlements in San Francisco, California, to Costa Rica. Unlike its nearby desert islands of Utila and Guanaja, Roatan was inhabited on its eastern end by several hundred Garifuna people.
Interestingly, it was the British who sowed the seeds of colonization, initially aligning the island with the Spanish Empire, then the Mexican Empire, and eventually Honduras. The Garifuna, brought by the British military, landed on Roatan on the stormy day of February 25, 1797. These Roatan Garifuna were part of a larger group of 5,000 who were forcibly removed by the British from the island of St. Vincent. Known as the Black Caribs, they were transported from St. Vincent via Jamaica to Roatan aboard the HMS Experiment.
By 1822, Roatan was a distant Mexican possession, much like Tejas, California, and New Mexico. However, Roatan was far from a deserted island; it had a vibrant population of a few hundred Garifuna who had experienced two wars with Great Britain. While Roatan and Trujillo were the original points of Garifuna settlement, the Black Caribs were also establishing communities along the Honduran coast, reaching as far as Tela and the Mosquito Coast.
The Garifuna of Roatan received support from the Catholic Church and the Diocese of Trujillo. A common approach for aiding a remote Catholic community like Roatan’s was to periodically send a Catholic priest to the island to celebrate Mass and administer sacraments such as baptisms and marriages.

Roatan’s Garifuna population, were automatically granted Mexican citizenship.

Tragedy of Agustin I

On May 18, 1822, the military in Mexico City proclaimed Iturbide as Emperor Agustín I. A day later, a majority in the Mexican Congress ratified the decision and recommended that the Mexican monarchy be hereditary.
Developments unfolded rapidly, and on July 21, Iturbide was consecrated as Emperor in Mexico City’s cathedral in a grand ceremony. His wife, Ana María Huarte, was crowned
Empress of Mexico. The event bore similarities to the 1804 crowning of Napoleon Bonaparte in Reims Cathedral.
Agustín’s prestige began to wane rapidly, and a rift developed between the army supporting him and the civilian Congress. Just three months after his coronation, on October 31, 1822, Agustín dissolved Congress and began ruling through an appointed 45-member junta. This act served as a pretext for the subsequent revolt against him.
On March 19, 1823, in the wake of a plot against him, Agustín abdicated the Mexican throne and went into exile, bringing an end to the history of the first Mexican Empire. In its stead, three Mexican military officers – Nicolás Bravo, Guadalupe Victoria, and Pedro Negrete – established the Supreme Executive Power.
The abdication of Emperor Agustín marked the end of Central America and Honduras being part of Mexico. On March 29, 1823, after news of Agustín’s abdication reached the region, plans were made to form a Central American congress to determine its future. On April 1, 1823, the Mexican Constituent Congress instructed the Mexican military in Central America to cease hostilities with anti-annexation forces.

Central American Congress

On June 18, 1823, the Mexican congress instructed Filísola to attend the upcoming session of the Central American congress. He received instructions to respect the Central American congress’s decision on whether to remain in union with Mexico or become an independent state.
The final chapter of Bay Islands being part of Mexico unfolded on June 29, 1823. Out of the 41 representatives in Congress, 37 voted to appoint Delgado as the president of the National Constituent Assembly of Central America. On July 1, 1823, this assembly declared independence from Mexico and reaffirmed their independence from Spain. This historic declaration marked the birth of the United Provinces of Central America, with all states except Chiapas choosing to be independent.

I die with honor, not as a traitor.

Why the Empire didn’t last

The short-lived Mexican Empire faced numerous adversaries and conspirators who were opposed to the idea of a powerful, Catholic nation spanning from the Pacific to the Atlantic across such a vast territory. During the reign of Augustin I, U.S. envoys were already engaged in efforts to persuade Mexican officials to sell their northern territory. This precedent had been established two decades earlier, in 1803, with the questionable acquisition of 530 million acres of French Louisiana from Emperor Napoleon.
The French Revolution of 1789 and the American Revolution both had a dominant, albeit not frequently discussed, presence of Freemasonry within the ranks of the revolutionaries. The Freemasonic influences and their agendas, which included anti-monarchism and opposition to the Church, played a prevailing role in these revolutions. Freemasonry was also pivotal in the overthrow of Spanish rule and the Spanish monarchy in the Americas.
Following the departure of the Spanish and a weakened Catholic Church, Mexico turned into a tumultuous battleground marked by the presence of three secret societies: York Rite Masonry, Continental Masonry, and National Mexican Rite Masonry. The situation escalated to such an extent that just five years after the dissolution of the Mexican Empire, in 1827, the Montaño rebellion called for the prohibition of secret societies throughout the country. The scheming York Rite Freemason and U.S. diplomat, Joel Roberts Poinsett, was expelled from Mexico during this turbulent period.

Iturbide’s Death

After his abdication, Iturbide chose to seek refuge first in Italy and later in England. In England, he earned income by writing memoirs. Unbeknownst to him, the Mexican Congress, fearful of his return, had issued a decree condemning him to death as a traitor in case he set foot in Mexico again.
Iturbide arrived in Mexico in July 1824. Just four days later, on July 19, in Padilla, Tamaulipas, Iturbide, often referred to as the Iron Dragon, received his last rites and was executed by firing squad. His final words were: “Mexicans! In the very moment of my death, I implore you to love your homeland and to uphold our religion, for it will lead you to glory. I die having come here to assist you, and I face death with courage, for I die among you. I die with honor, not as a traitor. I leave no stain on my children or my legacy. I am not a traitor. No.”

The idea for the Dolphin Program at AKR came to Julio Galindo, the resort’s owner, via an idea made by a couple of the guests in 1987. “We made a trip to a facility in Gulfport to look at their dolphins,” says Julio Galindo. Galindo began the program with two other partners, but by 1993 he bought them out. “Its [dolphin program] been good for business,” says Galindo.

The Honduran government permits needed to capture the wild dolphins was not easy to obtain. “It took a while to get permission to do this. The government wanted to know what we were up to,” says Eldon Bolton, Director of Roatan Institute for Marine Sciences. In 1989 Eldon was hired by AKR to locate, catch, and move the bottlenose dolphins to their Sandy Bay facility.

Eldon worked for Marine Animal Productions, a company that amongst other clients supplied the US Navy with bottlenose dolphins for their military program. In early 1980s until 1987 the Mississippi based company was providing dolphins for US clients.

At first it was not even known if the team would be successful at catching bottlenose dolphins. Bottlenose dolphins can be found on three Oceans in the world: Indian, Pacific and Atlantic. They are only absent from the Arctic Ocean. They are plentiful and feel right at home in warm waters off the Honduras’ Caribbean coast.

The key step in catching dolphins in Honduran waters was finding the right location to capture a group of bottlenose dolphins large enough to make it viable in a pen off Roatan. “It took some scouting. We took several boats and stayed several weeks at a time,” says Eldon about locating Honduran coast for the bottlenose dolphins.

The dolphin search focused in areas both east and west of the Trujillo peninsula. Once the team would spot the dolphin pod they would feed the dolphins and using a 1000 foot long net the capture team would encircle the dolphin pod.

The dolphin scouts determined the best location and the way to capture the aquatic mammals. “We would circle a group of animals and try to find a right group. Maybe half a dozen or fewer,” says Eldon. They would run a net forming a big circle or compass around the pod.

Their gear was designed to work in less than 20 feet of water.
The team consisted of 18 dolphin “trappers” that would start in as deep as 40 feet of water and stealthily move the net around the dolphin pod. They would keep the net intact and slowly wring in the whole thing on shore, shallow enough where the crew could stand up and safely manage the dolphins. The entire process would take half-a-day’s time.

Dolphin scouts determined the best location and the way to capture the aquatic mammals.

Each time the animals were then placed on specially designed slings, lifted out of the water, but kept moist and cool. The transfer of the animals between Trujillo to Roatan took four to five hours.

Three different trips were conducted from October 1989 to November 1990. In three capture operations five, three and eventually seven dolphins were caught in this manner. Fifteen bottle nose dolphins were brought in to AKR altogether.

The Dolphins are quite territorial, so it is possible that the three dolphin catches all came from two or even just one pod.

Originally AKR had constructed a dolphin enclosure facility near its museum building. The pen blew down three to four times before it was dismantled and in 2003, replaced by new pens.

In order to help with the beginning of the dolphin facility in the Bay Islands, Marine Animal Productions would send some of their trainers from Mississippi to Roatan do start working with and training the dolphins. “We hired local people right off the bat,” says Eldon. “They began teaching local trainers essentially.”

The AKR dolphin program started with four trainers and five dolphins. The original pen enclosure offered, adjacent bleacher seating and “classic dolphin performance with a commentary.”

All the dolphins from the first 1980s capture died from old age. In 2017, Paya, the last of the original dolphins, who lived up to the venerable dolphin age of 34 died. He was around five when he was caught in 1989.

Out of the 17 dolphins that live in AKR facility in 2023, two females were caught wild. Only two wild caught dolphins remain at the AKR. Gracie was caught in 1998 and Elita was caught in 2003.

The actual number of dolphins has been up and down over the years. In 1998, 2002 and 2003 the AKR went to Bay of Trujillo and Honduran coast to replenish their dolphin stocks. In March 2023 AKR had 17 dolphins: eight males and nine females, including a one year old dolphin. One or two dolphins are born in AKR each year.

While AKR’s dolphin facility is unique in Central America, there are around a dozen dolphin aquariums in Mexico, half a dozen in Cancún alone. AKR has maxed at 32 dolphins. “From the management standpoint that is a nightmare,” says Eldon.

As the dolphins began to reproduce more steadily AKR had more than enough dolphins and even provided other sea mammals facilities with their dolphins. In 2003 AKR provided animals to the Curaçao Sea Aquarium and Ocean World in Dominican Republic. In 2013 they provided dolphins to Nassau Bahamas. AKR helped in designing and sometime staffing those facilities, the influence of AKR on the dolphins is quite considerable.

AKR dolphin facilities are unique because the dolphins are allowed to spend time in the bay. So the animals are familiar with the space outside the pen in case of bad weather and break down. “We don’t have any problems with animals trying to escape,” says Eldon. “If we took the nets down they would not leave the lagoon.”

One male, two mothers and two calves were lost during Hurricane Mitch. The pen holding them disintegrated in the water storm surge and dolphins escaped. “They made their way out of the channel and we never saw them again. We looked all over,” says Eldon. Three of these were wild caught and remembered how to provide for themselves. They most likely made their way to the coast.

According to Eldon the dolphins don’t escape, they are content in the enclosed, but not escape tight facility in Sandy Bay. “I prefer to think that we give them everything that they need, good food and each other” says Teri Bolton, Assistant Director at Roatan Institute for Marine Sciences Honduras. “They have a pod and they are more important to each other than we ever will be.”

The dolphins not only have their physical needs met, they are entertained, stimulated and have enough social interactions to keep them happy. “They have that family structure so there is no need for them to want to leave,” says Teri.

The dolphins have a variety of tasks and activities throughout the day to keep them occupied and entertained. “It’s more complicated than it looks. We are dealing with living, breathing, soulful animals that are much more important to each other than we are to them,” says Teri Bolton.

Every September and October AKR has been offering dolphin therapies for kids with disabilities. Groups of 20 disabled children travel to Roatan every September and October to have twice-a-day interaction sessions with the bottlenose Dolphins at AKR. “I only wish we could do more of that,” says Julio Galindo, about the 25 year old program.

AKR dolphin facility also gets involved in rescue operations from time to time. During Hurricane Mitch, the Bay Islands and especially Guanaja were pounded by ferocious winds causing enormous damage to the reef, and forests of the islands. Many dolphins died, or barely survived. In Guanaja a dolphin washed into a swampy area, unable to swim back to open water. It managed to survive for several days and was spotted by islanders who alerted AKR. Eldon brought the animal to AKR and tried to nurse the bottlenose female back to health for a week, but she was too worn down and wounded to survive. “Its skin was peeling off. It was a bad, bad situation,” says Eldon. “That was the only time we had to put an animal down.”

They have several enclosure pens that are used for housing and training during the day. “We tend to move them around to prevent boredom,” says Eldon. The enclosures range from zero depth at shoreline to 20 feet deep. The biggest dolphin pen is ¾ acre. There are several isolation holding pens that could be used as maternity areas. “Occasionally males are isolated from a newborn baby calf to assure safety of that calf,” says Eldon. “The males can get aggressive, like a lion would.”

AKR dolphin trainers take out their dolphins from their pens on a regular basis. “At the end of the day we draw all the gates down and let our animals run,” says Eldon. “We are very unique in the way we manage our heard.” Only facilities in Curaçao and Bahamas take their bottlenose dolphins out on regular basis. All-in-all the AKR dolphins have one acre of enclosed area to swim in.

Feeding the dolphins and keeping them healthy with good, consistent feed is a key task. The dolphins receive four feedings a day. While a small 12 month dolphin eats as little as two pounds of fish a day, a grown dolphin eats over 30 pounds per day.

As main source of food for the AKR’s bottlenose dolphins is Capelin fish from Newfoundland, Iceland and Norway. The staffs sometime buy juvenile herring from France and occasionally Atlantic herring from North America and Norway. “The prices went sky high in the last five years. 30-40 percent increase in price,” says Eldon. “We are buying feed worldwide.”

Each dolphin is assigned a place on board of how many and what type of fish food it is given during each of four daily feeding sessions. For every five pounds of feed a vitamin tablet is placed in the gills of the fish fed to the dolphins.

Every couple weeks each dolphin’s length and girth is measured to monitor their weight. “The idea is not to over feed them and not to underfeed them,” says Kenly McCoy, one of 12 dolphin caretakers who have been with AKR since 1996.

The AKR dolphins supplement their diet by catching fish and other sea creatures that stray into their pens. They feed on unsuspecting snappers and blue tang. “I have seen them eat lobsters,” says McCoy.

About every three months AKR dolphins have a shipment of food arriving from the US. A specialty supplier in US out of Newport, Rhode Island ships two 20 foot freezer containers via Naviera Hybur. Then the fish, up to 40,000 pounds, is stored in freezers at the AKR’s dolphin facility.

As the AKR facility uses 400 Lbs of fish a day getting local feed for the dolphins has proved difficult. “We tried for years to work with our shrimp fleet because they have a lot of by catch. They have a lot of dead fish that they bring in when they are shrimping,” says Eldon. To make an optimum feed for the dolphins, the entire fish has to be frozen quickly to eliminate the possibility of the intestines beginning to rot.

Dolphins cannot eat gutted fish as that food has not enough nutrients for the sea mammal. According to Eldon, the Roatan shrimp boats are not geared for processing and freezing which creates a health risk for the dolphins that would consume these fish. “They get parasite loads from food they take in,” explains Eldon.

Anthony’s Key Resort facility uses 400 Lbs of fish a day.

AKR runs a variety of educational programs with the dolphins. There is a volunteer program, a six week internship program and a scientist programs at the Dolphin center. “Bottlenose dolphins are the ones we know the most about because we have been exposed to them for the longest time,” says Teri. “It is a very exciting time for research on the dolphins.”

The number and variety of careers associated with dolphin research and keep has multiplied over the last three decades. “You can be in animal care, you can be a lab technician, an educator, a research scientist,” says Terri. “It is a very exciting time because technology has caught up with the dolphins.”

Teri Bolton oversees researchers who come to study dolphin behavior at AKR. There is a strong and ongoing connection of AKR’s dolphin program with several academic institutions. Dolphin observation study has been conducted by Rees Magnasco’s group Lab out of Columbia University and Rockefeller University. Most reputable facilities are also promoting conservation, education, providing opportunities for scientists.

It is a very exciting time for research on the dolphins.

AKR’s dolphin program is host to several scientists and doctoral candidates. One of them is PhD candidate Melissa Voisinet who studies dolphin cognition and communication at Hunter College and Rockefeller University. Voisinet spent many weeks observing the AKR dolphins.

Public display of the dolphins and activities with them provide major economic sources for the upkeep of the dolphins. The bottlenose dolphin is exposed to guests for three to three-and-a-half hour a day.

The twice-a-day dolphin programs at AKR has allowed others to sell island boat tour packages that include a stop-by-the AKR dolphin pens. In high season as many as 17 tourist boats make their way to AKR’s Bailey’s Key. “The noise and fumes are bad for the dolphins,” says Teri. “They need good water, good food and clean air just like we do,” says Eldon.