Haylock gestures at the wide, wet, grassy clearing through which the rail car slowly rattles. A huge fallen ceiba tree provides a backdrop. His fences still stand, and his cattle graze the land. Upon reaching the headquarters, we pile into a large motorboat and set out with a local guide to explore some of the backwaters of the 32,700-acre refuge. We ride across glassy open water and are soon swallowed up in a tangled forest of red and white mangrove.
Sunlight glints off the dazzling blue wings of a large morpho butterfly that flits past.
A troop of mantled howler monkeys roar in the distance and a striking keel-billed toucan flaps overhead. Our boat drifts close to three green iguanas and a basking, gaping American crocodile. Back on shore, we meet some of the people who live and work in the park. In Honduras' refuges, people are allowed to fish with single lines and residents, usually those inhabiting the area before a park was declared, may collect wood for cooking fires and building. Tito, a compact, barrel-chested man wearing a baseball cap, pulls his dugout canoe to shore and starts unloading firewood he gathered in the park, while his sons splash in the water beside him.