Central America : The Rough Guide. Belize. Guatemala. El Salvador. Honduras. Nicaragua. Costa Rica. Panama
Language: English
Published by London : Rough Guides Ltd, 1999
- First Edition
- Softcover
- Used
Seller: Lirolay, Wilmington, DE, U.S.A.Lirolay
AbeBooks seller since May 25, 2005
Condition: Used - Very good
£ 22.64
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Item description from seller
Seller Inventory # 11331B
- Title
- Central America : The Rough Guide. Belize. Guatemala. El Salvador. Honduras. Nicaragua. Costa Rica. Panama
- Author
- Eltringham, Peter & Jean McNeil & James Read & Iain Stewart & Dominique Young & David Claughton
- Publisher
- London : Rough Guides Ltd
- Publication year
- 1999
- Condition
- Very Good
- Binding
- Soft cover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 1858283353
- ISBN 13
- 9781858283357
- Edition
- First Edition, February 1999.
- Seller catalogs
- Travel & Regions
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
This clash of tropical and temperate zones has created a startling, often surreal landscape in which dense, humid rainforests abound with the yelps of oropendola birds and the chattering of monkeys; somewhere inside the forest's dark mesh, the antediluvian form of the tapir lumbers and the endangered jaguar steals quietly through cobalt shadows. Carpeting the eastern halves of Honduras and Nicaragua are the impenetrable swamp-jungles of Mosquitia, whose curlicued lagoons harbour mirror-surfaced mangroves where shellfish and manatees breed among the gnarled roots. Beaches, coves, cayes and island archipelagos hem the coral-laced coasts, while volcanoes - some active - form a chain of fire that stretches from Guatemala to Costa Rica.
Central America had, until recently, receded in the public consciousness, as the 'news' (read: war and revolution) spotlight moved elsewhere; now, however, it's experiencing something of a tourism renaissance. Ten or fifteen years ago, visitors to the region largely consisted of the college backpacker contingent and groups on socialist-minded 'education' tours. Since the beginning of the 1990s, though, a wider variety of people, some with little knowledge of or interest in the region's turbulent past, have come here to experience its startling natural beauty on the back of another kind of revolution - this time in tourism.
Perhaps more than anywhere else in the world, Central America seems to have been designed with the ecotourist in mind. Costa Rica draws nature-lovers by the plane-load with its impressive system of National Parks, while English-speaking Belize, for much of its history a forgotten fragment of the British Empire, has reinvented itself as a prime diving and snorkelling destination, thanks to its offshore national treasury: the second-longest barrier reef in the world. The best place to experience the region's pre-Conquest culture is Guatemala, which has the strongest indigenous traditions, not to mention a stunning landscape of velvet volcanoes and amethyst lakes. Panama and Honduras are just waking up to the potential - at least in tourism terms - of their rainforests, rugged mountain cloudforests, mangroves and beaches. Tourists still tend to avoid Nicaragua and El Salvador - a misguided manoeuvre, as neither is more dangerous for visitors than its neighbours, and despite considerable poverty, the people are welcoming and the basic tourist infrastructure good; plus, they too have the volcanoes, beaches and rainforests that draw travellers to their more popular neighbours.
Amidst all the hype about the region's natural beauty, it's easy to forget that this rugged, humid part of the world was home (along with Mexico and Peru) to the most sophisticated pre-Columbian cultures of the Americas. The splendid Maya civilization, with its diaphanous pyramids and neurotic pursuit of time-keeping, flourished in Guatemala and to a lesser extent in modern-day Belize, Honduras and El Salvador between the years of 300 and 900 AD (although the Maya have been in existence for over 4000 years). During this time, termed the Classic period, the region was made up of independent, and often mutually antagonistic city-states - Tikal in Guatemala, Copan in Honduras and El Salvador's San Andres being three of the more prominent - which fought each other for prestige and economic dominance. As their civilization declined, the Maya became increasingly interested in blood-letting and the ritualizing of pain and death, while paradoxically setting their greatest minds the task of predicting the future through one of the most precise understandings of time in history. You can see shadows of their huge achievements in science and the arts by visiting the ruined cities and viewing their displays on calendrics, ceramics and the Maya's wildly illustrative glyphic scripts.
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