Copan Ruinas - beautiful hieroglyphs

No electricity so enjoying candelit drink
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Friday 28th September – San Pedro Sula – Copan Ruinas

Thankfully we had a good nights sleep and got up at 8.30am. We again decided to have breakfast at our hostel and Leigh was a little disappointed that the breakfast was exactly the same as the dinner, while Jo had cornflakes. After packing up we were advised to take a taxi the 8 blocks to the bus station so Leigh in full force haggled with a few taxi drivers who all drove off as they realised they couldn't rip us off. Finally we jumped in the biggest heap of junk that had taxi written on it and got it for the price we wanted. We got to the bus station and were escorted to the waiting room by fully armed guards.

Copan Ruinas
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As we were called to board the bus we each had our photo taken and Leigh was pulled to one side as apparently he wasn't wearing appropriate attire i.e. He was wearing a singlet mainly because it was 30 degrees, (naughty Leigh!). Luckily he had a rain jacket in his bag which he put on and the attendants kind of snarled at. We boarded our executive bus and were given a juice and a biscuit each and DVD's to watch for the 3 hour journey. One good thing about splashing out for an expensive bus ride is that you don't have to stop at the road blocks so we flew through them while all other buses were sitting there looking very restless! It was a pleasant bus ride and we arrived into Copan at around 1pm and were greeted by a hoard of hoteliers selling us their rooms. Leigh towered above them all, raised even higher as he was standing on the curb trying to bring order to the fiasco. We agreed to to view a place which included the tuc tuc ride. With our packs uncomfortably on our laps we squeezed in to the tuc tuc and hurried off. Upon arrival the man tried it on by saying the room was $15US PP. Not realising who he was dealing with he continuously lowered his price by the second as we told him what the agreed price was, while putting back on our packs ready to leave and go elsewhere. The funny thing was he was going to charge us for the tuc tuc ride if we did not stay. After all the dishonesty we decided to stay there as the rooms were very clean and we got the right price...eventually.

At the kids museum
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We headed out straight away, and with Copan being tiny we had explored the town in an hour, so we headed out for lunch at a place called Cafe Via Via. The cafe is owned by a couple from Belgium. Usually we like to eat at local places but the food is probably the best food in town and they are very involved with local projects so we were more than happy to support their business. After lunch we went to the Mayan museum. Although very small and designed for kids, it was a great place to learn a few things about the Mayan civilization and understand their forms of communication etc. From there we explored the upper suburbs and found a very old abandoned jail. With its 4 corner towers still standing (just) and a few walls, we had to use your imagination to work out how it functioned. After having such a great lunch we decided in the evening to head by to Via Via for dinner, where yes, we experienced another power outage. So we enjoyed a candle lit dinner before heading back home, when the electricity started back.

At the less excavated part of the ruins
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Saturday 29th September – Copan Ruinas

After not a great nights sleep due to the racket our friendly neighbours had been making until all hours, we got up at a reasonable time and decided to head over to Via Via for pancakes, fruit and fresh homemade bread. The food is so good there, it's hard to not keep returning! After breakfast we walked to a local tienda and bought some rolls, tuna, mango and snacks for the upcoming visit to the ruins.

We decided to walk to the ruins, about 1km from town. In the heat we slowly made our way and were charged an extortionate $15 each to enter. We were disappointed as it was too expensive to hire a guide and the books were not very informative so we decided to use our lonely planet guide to try and understand what life would have been like around 1200 BC – 900 AD when it was occupied by the Mayan civilization. At the peak of civilization it is believed 20,000 people lived there. It was quite sad as the civilization of Copan was believed to have collapsed, due to the amount of people and the strain on resources. There have been studies done on skeletal remains which have found that they suffered from malnutrition, diseases and a shortened lifespan. We both reckon there must have been more than 20,000 people living there at the peak, because there was a 3-D graphic of the central plaza which could hold up to 120,000 people and also there is 30,000 people living in Copan and the areas resources easily support this amount of people now. Anyway that's our thought!

At the ruins
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The site itself is quite magnificent and the great plaza is surrounded by stelae (which are like tall slabs of stone) intricately carved and some even have colour remaining. The site is surrounded in very lush green grass and very tall beautiful trees on the outskirts. The most well known structure is the hieroglyphic stairway. It has 63 steps which have several thousand glyphs about the royal house of Copan. It was quite funny as we listened to a guide explain that it had to be restored as only the first 15 flights were in tact when it was discovered, but it was put back together in the wrong order by archaeologists, so no one really knows what it means. Next to this is the second largest juego de pelota or to us like a small football field. Apparently they played some kind of football back in the day which we saw reenacted at the museum the day before, but it looked strange as they used their hips instead of their feet!

Parrots at the gate to the ruins
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We wandered around and explored the site before working up an appetite for lunch. After spending half an hour trying to remember how to use our can opener, we enjoyed our lunch with some very sweet mango! We then had a look at the grave site and explored areas that hadn't been fully excavated, mainly because of money. There are apparently heaps of sites that could be excavated, but the cost of doing this is just huge!

As we had paid so much for our ticket which included entrance to Las Sepulturas, where the rich use to live, we decided to walk down and check out the less touristy and also only partially excavated site. When we got there, we were politely spoken to by a guide who began walking us around. We had to tell him that we didn't need his services given it was going to cost $30 and we can just use our imagination. We wandered around and saw where the supposed rich people lived before getting very tired and thirsty. So after half an hour or so we headed back to town. Leigh looked like he was going to faint from the heat and lack of liquids so we stopped at the nearest cafe which had a lovely outdoor area.

Beautiful waterfall in the heart of the jungle during our walk
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In the evening we thought we should branch out and try a different restaurant, but after they didn't have any of the food on the menu except burgers we headed back to Via Via! Dinner was again delicious and we enjoyed watching cable in the evening.

Sunday 30th September – Copan Ruinas – Antigua

Today we had planned to get up and make a huge amount of noise given what our unfriendly neighbours had been doing the night before and in the early hours! We were so annoyed when they ended up waking us up at 5.30am, with a racket! So we both (in a grumpy mood) got up at 6.30am and headed over to meet our guide. It ended up that he was the owner of Via Via, so we popped over there first for Leigh to have a pick me up coffee. The tuc tuc driver eventually arrived and raced us up the hill with 3 of us squashed in the back seat along with the guides dog. The tuc tuc driver dropped us at the starting point and we agreed a meeting time to go back.

Tuc tuc delivering wood
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Our guide was very interesting and he is a ex back packer and very well travelled and had vast knowledge of the local area which made for some interesting conversations throughout the walk. We headed into the forest and visited some very remote Mayan ruins that were totally untouched. Unfortunately at the first stop Jo got spooked by the guides very large dog who came charging at her and lost her footing and could only find a barbed wire fence to break her fall leading to very nasty cuts along her hand and fingers. Although a little shaken and bleeding we pushed on and learnt more about the tiny villages on our way. The track took us though a project only just completed which was a new water pump for local villages to receive fresh water. It is such a shame that even such a small project can be riddled with corruption and theft and took a massive 6 years to complete! We pushed on into the spider valley and were given a lesson on how the highland farmers make there “extra cash”. These farmer are a key part in the cocaine trade to the US and offer their services to walk the drugs through the highlands to a drop point. Interestingly drug planes are not used and the farmers earn a whopping $50 - it seems a perfect way to get the drugs through without any notice. We finally came out a another small village with our guide having banter with all the locals along the way.

The very famous hieroglyphic stairway
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The tuc tuc driver was suppose to meet us at a certain point but with his failure to turn up we walked along the highway and waved down another tuc tuc. With just enough time to have a shower we raced over and boarded our bus to Antigua. It was a bit of a squeeze as it was in a mini van that was jam packed with not much leg room. The border crossing was simple although we were quoted 3 different prices we were eventually charged $3 to enter Guatemala. The trip was slow but is is always exciting to enter a new country! We finally arrived into Antigua late at night, but were fortunate enough to come across a lady in the street who ran a hostel. We followed her and agreed to stay for the night. We then ventured out into the beautiful town and found an awesome restaurant to really blow the budget with. The food was amazing, wrapped in banana leafs, really spicy and lots of tortillas to accompany it. We walked back to the hostel and discussed our plans for trying to find a Spanish school the next day.