Viva Honduras, such a wonderful destination
MY job has taken me all over the world and a lot of my holidays tend to be part of my work as a TV director or in my role as chairman of children’s charity the Casey Trust.
And the one that sticks most vividly in my mind was to Honduras, where I managed to really see the place as well as to work.
The capital, Tegucigalpa, is a nice, modern place with smart restaurants, luxury hotels and mountain-top mansions.
And there’s a huge hilltop statue of Christ gazing down on it all.
Sadly, there are poverty-stricken favelas, too, and the buses are yellow hand-me-downs from American schools, with “Chattanooga School District” emblazoned on them.
I was in the country to film high in the mountains at Santiago Puringla.
It happened to be Independence Day and on the three-hour journey up a dirt road and schoolkids lined the route shouting, “Viva Honduras” with their hands across the heart.
Not many tourists venture up into this area but the scenery is terrific and they grow coffee which is so strong you hardly need the mug.
We’d come to film the youngsters who had created a play about how they turned round the town’s fortunes, and they did a marvellous dance for us.
One of the other things I did was take a coach trip from the capital to see the Mayan ruins at Copan Ruinas.
They are on the Guatemalan border and it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site which has become quite an attraction for visitors.
It was built between 400 and 800AD and is an extraordinary place with a huge Acropolis and a hieroglyphic staircase.
You can’t help but think back to when 20,000 people lived there.
Tourists are increasingly discovering the country, not least the Bay Islands which I also visited.
They have become a major diving centre because Roatan has the second-biggest coral reef in the world.
It’s a sleepy kind of a place but the reef is so spectacular that it has become an absolute Mecca for divers.