To the east in the village of Triunfo de la Cruz, vacation mansions are popping up right next to ragged Garifuna homes. And just a bit farther east, hundreds of acres are blocked off by barbed-wire fences for a tourist development called Marbella. Manuel Marques, Tela director of tourism, says investors from Tegucigalpa and the United States have multimillion-dollar plans for Marbella, including hotels, apartments, a shopping mall, supermarket, swimming pools, a golf course, tennis courts and even an airport. Thomas just shakes her head at the loss of land. By law, the beaches are free and open to everyone.
Access is another matter.
By hook, crook and murder The developers and those in search of vacation property get the land in various ways. Some buy it legally, paying good lempiras, the inflation-battered Honduran currency. Others squat on what has been Garifuna land for 200 years. Most Garifuna never bothered to get deeds, because the land had always been theirs. Well, things can go badly.