Totally ruined

Copan Ruinas, Honduras

We had an exciting trip from Antigua to Copan.

We left at 4:30AM from our hotel, joining about a dozen other travellers in a Toyota van.  It was dark and pouring rain for the first couple of hours - I had the front seat and was able to see enough of the twisty rain-soaked highway to be glad that I wasn't driving.  Once daylight came and the rain slacked off, the ride was quite pleasant.  We hit the Honduran border around 10AM, where we had to check out of Guatemala and into Honduras, paying $2 and $3 each respectively for the honor, in spite of the fact that our visas, issued in El Salvador, are good for both countries.

The town of Copan Ruinas is only about 12km from the border and we were nicely accommodated in a very cozy B&B (Casa del Café) before noon.  This left the rest of day for us to do some exploring around the town (not that large so easy to do in a couple of hours) and catch up on some sleep with an afternoon nap.  We had a terrific, typical Honduran, lunch at the Llama del Bosque restaurant and an incredible supper later at Twisted Tanya's, a very upscale and relatively expensive place.  It was a bit rainy in the afternoon but fortunately we slept through most of that.

Breakfast is served outside on the lawn at the Casa del Café B&B

Yesterday, we spent a large amount of the day at the Mayan ruins at the Copan Archaeological Site, spread out over a huge amount of real estate.  Very impressive in both size and amount of surviving detail.  The rain held off and we had a great day, walking many miles through the main structures, the tunnels excavated beneath some of the temples (revealing older temples below), the sculpture museum, and a visit to the more distant site of some of the homes of the aristocracy of the time.  All in all, a very impressive site; much more that we were expecting.  One of the best things about the site is that it is only a 1km walk from the town where we are staying.

I'm pretty sure this bridge was not on the official tour

Following the advice of a local man, who may or may not have had any official status, we ended up exploring some of the countryside around the archaeological site as well.  It was interesting to see how the farming methods used by the ancient Mayans is still in use today - not a lot of automation here.

Note: Shortly after returning to our hotel, at 4PM, the skies opened up and we had a real heavy downpour for about a half hour.  It then continued with light rain all evening and night - really quite pleasant when you are safely indoors at the time.  There are several small restaurants close by so we really didn't have to get very wet when going out for supper.

Today, we perused a couple of the smaller museums around town and paid a visit to  a nearby bird sanctuary know as Macaw Mountain, where birds formerly held in captivity are being cared for.  The main project here is a breeding program for re-introducing more Scarlet Macaws (the national bird of Honduras) into the wild.  There is a very lively community of these birds that now thrive around the Copan Archaeological site itself - a real treat to see them in the semi-wild.

Tomorrow, we plan to try an make our way to the town of Rio Dulce, back in Guatemala.  Unfortunately there is no direct way to get there from here, so it will take a combination of a shuttle van to a town called Rio Hondo and hopefully a local bus to take us the rest of the way - should be an adventure.

{GMST}14|50.178|N|89|9.5418|W|Copan Ruinas, Honduras|Copan Ruinas, Honduras{GEND}