| who love cigars know that Honduras is one of the | | | | to then-President Carlos Roberto Flores, the |
| world's best places to make them. After all, this Latin | | | | superstorm destroyed half a century's worth of |
| American country has been a prime tobacco-growing | | | | economic gain and developmental progress in less |
| location for centuries, and its cigar industry boomed | | | | than a week. Seventy percent of that year's crop |
| again after 1959, when many longtime Cuban cigar | | | | died—a small loss for smokers, who depend on |
| makers fled the Castro regime for neighboring | | | | the country for its sublime tobacco, but a |
| countries—including this one. No wonder that | | | | barely-survivable one for the nation's small farmers. |
| Honduran cigars—including those from La | | | | But the country did survive. In recent years it's even |
| Fontana, Camacho, Carlos Torano and La | | | | boasted an annual growth rate of seven |
| Libertad—sell better than any others in the | | | | percent—one of the best in Latin America. |
| United States, with the exception of the Dominican | | | | (Still, half the population remains in poverty.) |
| Republic. | | | | Along with the cultural and personal strength that |
| But how many of us know much about this rich, | | | | allowed Hondurans to survive such a disaster, the |
| fascinating country? Like the other Latin American | | | | country is also strong in another kind of resource: |
| countries which might be said to form the world's | | | | ecological ones. In less than fifty thousand square |
| "cigar belt"—Cuba, the Dominican Republic, | | | | miles, it contains over six thousand species of plants, |
| Nicaragua, Brazil, and Mexico—Honduras's past | | | | two hundred kinds of reptiles, and seven hundred |
| affects its position as a producer of fine | | | | bird species. In the Rio Platano Biosphere |
| tobaccos—and just possibly its future. | | | | Reserve—added to UNESCO's list of World |
| Honduras is, first of all, a proud and epic country: the | | | | Heritage sites in 1982—it boasts one of the |
| Mayan Empire, during its classic period (150-900 CE), | | | | world's great rainforests. These areas may hold the |
| built cities near the present-day site of Copan, | | | | key to greater understanding of evolutionary and |
| bequeathing a set of ruins that beguile archaeologists | | | | biological history, or to new drugs. Like several other |
| and inspire visitors. Christopher Columbus "discovered" | | | | Latin American countries which depend largely on |
| this country—already rich in lived | | | | farming, yet are blessed with ample ecological |
| history—on his fourth voyage of 1502, and | | | | resources which must be maintained, the country has |
| even the story behind the country's name is | | | | faced and will continue to face a difficult balancing act |
| romantic. Columbus, it is held, on reaching the Bay | | | | in deciding how to use, without exploiting, its |
| Islands near present-day Honduras's coast, whispered | | | | environmental riches (which include the soil in which its |
| the words "Gracias a Dios que hemos salido de esas | | | | excellent tobacco is grown). |
| Honduras": "Thank God we have emerged from | | | | Given tobacco's importance as a cash crop—it |
| those depths." "Honduras" means "depths," literally | | | | gives Hondurans something to sell to the United |
| and metaphorically. | | | | States, and it also gives them a certain leverage with |
| Honduras was run by the Spaniards until 1821, when | | | | other Latin American countries, as tobaccos of all |
| it, along with the other Spanish American provinces | | | | types flourish in its soil—it's not surprising that |
| of the Spanish Empire, gained independence. Border | | | | Honduras is not following in the anti-smoking |
| disputes with other Latin American countries, | | | | footsteps of, say, Brazil. Percentages of smokers are |
| especially El Salvador, have led to intermittent fighting | | | | still relatively high (in the low thirties for men, a rate |
| through the years, and the country has suffered | | | | comparable to that of the US) and public smoking |
| under bouts of political oppression, particularly during | | | | regulations are fairly light (you can't smoke on the |
| the 1980s (when extrajudicial executions, torture and | | | | bus or in the hospital, basically). Perhaps this is one |
| "disappearances" became frequent, albeit not as | | | | tobacco-producer that smokers should consider |
| common as in neighboring Nicaragua). Honduras | | | | seeing firsthand. After all, with its considerable natural |
| remains a developing country, especially after the | | | | beauty and light regulation of smoking, this could be a |
| devastation wrought by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 | | | | cigar lover's paradise! |
| (which also destroyed much of Nicaragua): according | | | | |