Guide to Trujillo, Honduras for tourists, travelers, and investors for hotels, restaurants, adventure, rental villas and houses, and real estate sales for beachfront and beachview properties on the Caribbean.

Trujillo lies on the “north” coast of Honduras at the foot of Mounts Capira and Calentura on a small bluff overlooking the beautiful and expansive bay of Trujillo. Those of us from the U. S. think of Central America as having an east (Caribbean) and west (Pacific) coast, but if you look at the map you will understand that a great deal of the Caribbean coast of Honduras runs east/west and in reality faces due north.

Behind the historic town of Trujillo (area population approximately 30,000), rise Mounts Capira and Calentura to an elevation slightly exceeding 4,000 feet. Luckily the mountains have been made a national park and have received some funding (mainly from Canada) that has insured some level of protection. The historic downtown encompasses only a dozen or so blocks, a cathedral, central plaza, historic Spanish fort, and unrenovated buildings of early Spanish and nineteenth century French colonial derivation. Hopefully, the powers that be in Honduras and Trujillo will insure that the appealing historic ambience of the city will be preserved and enhanced.
At the foot of the Spanish fort on the bluff is the lovely sand beach of Trujillo Bay. Numerous thatched roofed “champas” serve food, drinks and music. On the waters of the bay are few motorized boats except for the twice weekly banana boats of Dole visiting the modern harbor of Puerto Castillo eight miles across the bay. You will see most mornings, however, numerous Garifuna fishermen in their wind and paddle-powered dugout canoes, either fishing with hand lines or diving for conch and lobster. After the winds kick up at about 10:00 or 11:00 each morning, the bay is mostly deserted.

Just to the east of Trujillo on the “arm” of the bay is the Guaimoreto Lagoon. Also a protected area and national park, the lagoon, as well as Mounts Capira and Calentura are protected and directed by a quasi-independent foundation, FUCAGUA. The current chief of FUCAGUA is Freddy Matute, and he may be found  (phone no.:434-4294 )  at the FUCAGUA office on the road to the Villa Brinkley Hotel about one-half way up from town on the right. He is currently working hard to use the new funding recently received to genuinely protect the lagoon and the forests of the mountains.

Hopefully the government will, in the near future, add additional acres along the coastal mountain range to the park system before it is too late. Deforestation is proceeding at a fearful pace in unprotected areas as “campesinos” burn the trees on the steep slopes and create “milpas” to plant corn and beans in the ashes, only to move on the next year and repeat the process. Sometimes you can see an area that was obviously cleared year after year by one “family” with the successive growth of scrub palms that follows. Perhaps the incipient ecological and historic tourism growth, and the presence of new beach and beach-view homes in the area, will provide the needed boost to the economy so that deforestation becomes unacceptable and uneconomic.