The next time you plan a trip to Copan Ruinas, either go or come back along the beautiful “Ruta Lenca” Trail. I was able to return to Tegucigalpa along the trail and it was fantastic. The first stop after leaving the ruinas is Santa Rosa Copan, the delightful major city of the “Occidente,” with cobblestone streets, a colonial cathedral and a beautiful parque central complete with a tourist kiosk with information about the “ruta lenca” and other tourism opportunities in the city and surrounding campo.

It is well worth staying overnight in Santa Rosa – it’s cool and pleasant in the evening. I stayed at the charming Hotel Casa Real with a good restaurant with tables in a patio around the pool. I do suggest you get a room on the opposite side of the pool and patio to avoid some of the night and morning noises. In the also good Hotel Elvir you can find Lenca Land Trails, which offers tours throughout the region.

It is a treat to walk around the town which is full of high school students from throughout western Honduras living in Santa Rosa. My favorite coffee shop is the “Ten Napel Café” which has a very pleasant patio, sells some local artisan goods, and even has wi fi. There are a number of good restaurants with “comida tipica.” However, a diamond in the rough for me is “Weekends Pizza,” run by a family who plants most of the herbs and vegetables used on their nice variety of pizzas.

From Santa Rosa, go to Gracias, the gateway to the Ruta Lenca, about 45 kilometers away going toward La Esperanza. The road is paved and takes about forty minutes through the usual spectacular mountain scenery of western Honduras. One could easily spend two nights in Gracias which briefly was one of the early capitals of Central America (from 1544 to 1548) but was eclipsed by Antigua, Guatemala and Comayagua. The building that housed the tribunal ruling Central America for this brief time was called the “Real Audiencia de los Confines.” It is now the Catholic parish’s training center.

The functioning parish church in Gracias is San Marcos which is on the parque central.

The façade could have fooled me into believing it was colonial, but the original was constructed in the mid 1800s and destroyed by an earthquake on December 26, 1915. I was incredibly lucky to unknowingly stumble into the church on Saturday, April 25. It was the feast day of the evangelist himself. All of the statues of the saints from surrounding aldeas were in the church to accompany St. Mark in the procession through town after Mass. The display of devotion by the people of the surrounding villages was palpable.

The town does have a genuine colonial church a few blocks away called La Merced. Construction of the church began in 1616 and took 15 or 20 years to complete (sort of like the road between Santa Rosa and La Esperanza). Unfortunately the tourist must be content with only the outside of the church. As a local high school student wrote in his photocopied guide, “the inside of the church is in ruins caused by those who sacked it for international collectors.” He goes on to cite local lore that there were paintings of Michelangelo and Rafael carried away. (I’m not so sure about that part of the account---but who knows now?).

The San Cristobal Fort, built in the mid 19th century, is of interest itself, but also offers a spectacular view of the city and the surrounding mountains. A delightful place to visit is the Casa Galeano which has a museum of local Lenca customs and a large botanical garden behind the house established by the late Alberto Galeano, an esteemed professor in Gracias. It is open every day, thanks to assistance from Spain in renovating the building and setting up the exhibits. Galeano’s son, Eduardo Galeano, is a renowned painter whose studio is next to the museum. (Let’s call him by his nick name “Mito” to not confuse him with the Uruguayan author of “Open Veins of Latin America” written in 1971, but re-discovered when Hugo Chavez gave it to Barack Obama in Trinidad and Tobago recently.)

Gracias has always been known for several hot springs outside of town. All of the guide books highlight the Aguas Termales de Arcilaca six and a half kilometers down the road toward Esperanza. However, about a year ago Termas del Rio opened its facilities on 17 hectares including new changing rooms, pools of different temperatures, hiking trails, barbecue grills, volley ball and soccer fields, restaurant and handicap access! It is located seven kilometers in the opposite direction on the highway back to Santa Rosa.

The Lenca Trail has many offshoots to towns with one or more colonial churches. Highly recommended is a 16 kilometer drive on a decent gravel road to the town of La Campa. San Matias Church in the town center built in 1690. The small La Ermita (hermitage) church on a hill above the village was built in 1890.

La Campa also has a tourist kiosk and a Lenca pottery museum called La Escuelona. There is a cooperative store with Lenca ceramics, small community based B & Bs and guided hikes on foot or horseback. Neftaly Garcia is an English speaking local who is a guide and runs Hostal J.B. The feast of San Matias is February 22 and throughout the preceding week the town is flooded with pilgrims from western Honduras and from Guatemala.

There are numerous other picturesque towns (actually ‘municipios’) with colonial churches, but the roads get dicey and the churches are rarely open except on Sunday. The townspeople are wary due to the fact that there are present day thieves of colonial art. San Manuel Colohete is a pretty town with a spectacular colonial church and 400 year old frescos. Another municipal seat, Erandique, has three colonial churches.

Gracias is also the gateway to one of the largest and most pristine national parks in Honduras, Montana de Celaque, containing the highest peak in the country, Cerro Las Minas (2,849 meters). Celaque means “box of water” in Lenca and its eleven rivers go to the Caribbean in Honduras and to El Salvador’s Pacific Ocean.

The Rio Lempa becomes El Salvador’s largest river and source of several hydro-electric dams. The park is home to jaguars, pumas, ocelots, spider monkeys and quetzals. The main entrance to the park is only six kilometers from Gracias.

A perfect place to stage day trips to the surrounding area is the Hotel Guanacaste overlooking the city of Gracias with seventeen rooms, a good restaurant with a great view, and wifi. A room for one person is L. 370, two is 420 and so on. The owner, Froni Miedema, came to Honduras over twenty years ago as a Dutch volunteer and never left. The hotel also offers numerous guided tours and hikes ranging from the hot springs to the colonial town of your choice to a five hour (or three day) trek in Celaque National Park.

Gracias is the capital of Lempira, named after the national indigenous hero of resistance who was ambushed by the Spaniards near Erandique in 1537. During the week leading up to Lempira’s day on July 20, Gracias celebrates him, including a re-enactment of his final battle and the crowning of the “India Bonita” as in the rest of the country.

Thirty-seven kilometers further down the road to La Esperanza is San Juan where at least two generations of Peace Corps volunteers have developed a rural tourism network. Ask for Gladys Nolasco who has a tourist information office in her house and she will steer you to a B & B or comedor and if you want to stay, there are options to ride horses, indulge in hot springs, have a coffee roasting demonstration, or take guided hikes.

Leaving San Juan you pass through Yamaranguilla and then arrive in La Esperanza which is the highest municipio in Honduras (it’s cold) and a bustling town with several good hotels. Hotel Los Pinos, down the road toward Siguate is quite nice with its cabins in the woods.

I can hear you saying such things as “too far,” “too isolated,” or “bad roads.” In fact, the distance from Santa Rosa de Copan to Tegucigalpa vs. Gracias is 290 km compared to 371 returning via the conventional route. Although the 122 km. road from Santa Rosa to La Esperanza has been under construction ‘forever’ it is paved for about 77 km of that and is a good, wide, all weather road prepared to be paved for about 25 km. Upon reaching Yamaranguila the last 20 kilometers are on a narrower, but drivable road.

If you are coming from La Esperanza to Yamaranguila you must be careful as there is no signage and there are several forks in the road. Ask four people and when the vote is 3-1, take the majority opinion.

This is only part of the Ruta Lenca. Go to Marcala La Paz from La Esperanza and get to know the picturesque Lenca villages of that region.