After a week spent at Tegus (as people call it around here), I finally left the capital to better explore the country! After an 8 hour bus ride, I found myself in La Ceiba, on the Caribbean coast. The man sat by me on the bus told me that in Honduras they say ´in Tegucicalpa we think, in San Pedro we work and in La Ceiba we have fun!´. If the proverb is to be believed, I should be moving on from the ´quiet reflection´ stage and into the ´ let it flow´ stage; but not just yet, not right away at least! To begin this new week, Casa de Nery welcomes me, for the first of my 3 stops in ‘ Honduras, chapter 2’ !
Restaurant, Night Club… Hotel!
The Hector-Nery family has always been present in La Ceiba. They started up a long time ago with a family run traditional style restaurant; then they added a night club, before closing both and moving into hospitality. They have been building now for 3 years, starting with a first building, then adding two independent bungalows situated around it, on some land they had purchased by the sea a few years back. Nery, with whom I meet, has the same name as his father, in whose memory it was decided to christen the hotel.
For the moment, Casa de Nery consists of 5 rooms, 2 bungalows and a swimming pool; yet there is still space for more development, and this is the idea. The place is a nice mix between 4 star hotel on the beach front and a B&B: You get welcomed personally by Nery (who lives just next door), breakfast is different every morning and Nery is always around if you need anything or to accompany you. The hotel also boasts a swimming pool with a sea-view, as well as heating/air conditioning, amenities and a mini-bar in the rooms. Like I was saying…it really is like being in a hotel / B&B kind of model mix.
A short stop-over before heading towards Trujillo
I spent just a short weekend with Nery, and met his mother Nadia and sister Rosy. I had already confirmed a venue in a resort of Trujillo (a beach 3 hours away) and Andres, the marketing manager, kindly allowed me to recover in La Ceiba before continuing on to Trujillo; so it is a quick stop which I put to good use by helping him advance his different online blog articles as well as organizing the English version of Hopineo.org.
Between the two I gave Nery a hand with his website and with booking.com/Airbnb and we chatted about sustainable practices for his hotel. La Casa de Nery is not as yet an ´eco-hotel´, but in the mean time Nery already undertakes some gestures in that frame of mind which he would like to develop. You can take a look at the article I have already published on Hopineo.org, where I cite the different eco-practices that he has put in place.
I have also developed a succinct presentation on what could be called ´Eco-practices for hotels, Level 1´. The idea is to develop the top 10 must-do practices in energy, water and waste management in order to have a good base from which to move on to using the term Eco-Hotel. See the presentation here. What do you think? It´s only a rough version as yet, but I am counting on you to work on it!!
Translated by Holly Cooper Chima