9781422286562

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Honduras

and the Cerro de Las Minas at 9,349 feet (2,850 m). Pine forests cover the slopes of these mountains. In the east, the mountains merge with those in Nicaragua. Although generally not as high as the mountains near the Guatemalan border, the eastern ranges thrust up some tall peaks, such as the Montaña de la Flor, Monte El Boquerón, and Pico Bonito—all over 8,000 feet (2,439 m). Scattered throughout the interior highlands are numerous flat-floored valleys. The floors of the large valleys provide grassland to support livestock and, in some cases, commercial agriculture. On the slopes of the valleys, farmers are able to raise only enough food to feed their families, relying on simple tools and their own hard labor. Villages and towns, including the capital, Tegucigalpa, are tucked into the larger valleys. Vegetation in the interior highlands varies from pine forests on the western, southern, and central mountains to evergreen forests on the eastern ranges. Clinging to the highest peaks are the last patches of dense rain forest that once covered much of the highlands. Caribbean Lowlands The Caribbean lowlands, which most Hondurans call “the north coast,” is a narrow coastal plain only a few miles wide occupying about one-fifth of the total land area of the country. Hot and humid, the Caribbean lowlands are densely forested in the interior— lumbering is an important economic activi- ty. To the east and west of this section, the lowlands widen and jut into broad river valleys. The broadest river valley, along the Río Ulúa near the Guatemalan border, is Honduras’s most developed sector. Two economically