Tela Activity #3: Lancetilla, the Botanical Gardens

Our time in Tela did have to come to an end, sadly, so the morning of our departure day, we decided to have one last adventure there. We had read about a Botanical Garden there called Lancetilla, and thought it worth a visit. It was created by United Fruit Company about 100 years ago for research purposes. Upon our arrival at the gardens, we were greeted by a sweet, soft-spoken young man named Lenin, who clearly wanted to be our guide. That’s all well and good, but this young man speaks not a lick of English. He was, however, passionate about the trees and plants that they had there, and was trying to make an honest living doing what he loves, so we decided to give it a whirl.

Surprisingly, we were able to understand a great deal of what he said, and he took us through the gardens in a much more meaningful way than we would have forged on our own. While it was lovely, there wasn’t a lot of color like you would see in an American botanical garden… just mostly green. I had to laugh, though, when this 18-year-old boy started explaining to us how the plants were green because of chlorophyll, produced through photosynthesis; this being a concept that I have taught to my 8-year-old students. By the end, Reade’s ADD and the heat kicked in (it’s almost “winter” here and 95 degrees), so we bid farewell to our young friend, ready to pack up and head on to our next destination.


This is the prety wax flower that tops the ginger root.



As we were walking along, we saw this iguana scurrying along just beside us.



Sporting some of the only color in the whole gardens, this red topped bamboo was one of Lisa´s favorites.



By far the coolest part of the gardens, this ¨Christ Flower¨ was named such to pay homage t0 the blood (the red base) and the purity of Christ (the white flower). They grow on large bushes and are just beautiful.



Us in front of the giant bamboo tunnel.