Tela
Categories: Honduras geography stubs | Cities in Honduras
Tela is a municipality on the northern Caribbean coast of the Atlántida department of Honduras. The name Tela is derived from Triunfo de la Cruz. It became an important port in the early 1900s as headquarters of the Tela Railroad Company, later the United Fruit Company whose headquarters was there until 1970. The town's long dock burned in 1994; hasty replacement, opened in January 1995, collapsed due to high winds. The remnant is now used for fishing. The town had an extensive railyard, and trains used to run all the way out to the dock. Passenger trains still run twice a week from Tela to San Pedro Sula and Puerto Cortés, the only routes in the country still served by trains. To the west of town lie many miles of African palm plantations. Three national parks are within easy reach of the town, Lancetilla Botanical Garden lies to the south of town; it was originally the experimental botanical station for the fruit company. To the east is Punto Izopo National Wildlife refuge. To the west, Janette Kawas National Park.
The park was originally Punta Sal National Park, but the name was changed to Janette Kawas, an environmental activist who was slain in early 1995 for her work trying to keep the palm plantations out of the park. The municipality of Tela (a Honduran municipality corresponds roughly in area and population to a county in the U.S.) had, in 1988, a population of 65,146. Its area was 1163.3 ksquare kilometers, or 449.2 square miles. There were 13,760 dwellings in the municipality, 77 aldeas (small to medium sized settlements), and 294 caserios (extremely small hamlets, many with no more than 2 or 3 families). The aldea of Tela, the "real" Tela to most Hondurans, has a population of between 5000 and 10,000, with another 5000 or so people living in the outlying barrios. (Honduran aldeas and caserios are not legal or political entities; they have no self government or official bondaries. Honduran censuses do not collect population information for any entity smaller than municipalities; therefore any figures for aldeas are informal estimates.) Tela aldea is easily the biggest aldea in Tela municipality. Tela is one of many towns on the Caribbean Coast of Central America with many Garifuna towns nearby. Heading east along the beach from Tela, one first comes to Ensenada aldea, and then, beyond Punta del Trinfo de la Cruz, to the aldea of Truinfo de la Cruz; to the west along the beach, are San Juan aldea, which bleeds into Tela's western edge, then Tornabé aldea, and 10 miles or so beyond Tornabé, the tiny caserio of Miami. Tela's patron saint is San Antonio. Every June, the town holds its festival in honor of San Antonio, with parades and parties throughout the week. Tela is one the most popular beach destinations for Honduran beachgoers. It draws especially well in Easter Week, the week between Palm Sunday and Easter, when many tens of thousands of Hondurans crowd into town to party, drink, lie on the beach and swim in the Caribbean.