The lush rain forests of northern Honduras are home to over 700 species of birds. Between 800 and 1,200 years ago, the great Mesoamerican Olmec civilization claimed this stretch of rain forest. At its height, the "mother culture" of the New World spanned as far north as Mexico City and as far south as Honduras.

(Photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "New Light on the Olmec," November 1993, National Geographic magazine)