Copan Ruinas, Honduras, A Long Day's Journey to an Ancient Mayan Civilization

An overhead shot of The Great Plaza of Copan Ruinas...WE MADE IT!!!

Our trip to Honduras began with quite a long journey on buses starting with a 20 minute ride on the chicken bus from La Palma to the border town of El Poy. After leaving the bus, it was a short walk across the border where we paid the $3 entry fee into Honduras, but did not receive a passport stamp. Not to mention it was not well-labeled at all for where to even pay the fee, so we had to search a little through the big building. Since we’d heard some horror stories of people having trouble leaving Honduras without a stamp, we found La Oficina de Migracion and promptly went into ask for our stamp. At this point we quickly learned that Honduran Spanish is spoken in such a way that it is tricky to comprehend (unlike our experience in El Salvador, despite reading that Salvadoran Spanish was tough to understand…) as it is spoken in almost one breath. We were able to decipher that the people inside were not much help. As we turned to go, two gentlemen entered, one in a uniform. We asked him about the stamp and he informed us it was not necessary as our El Salvador stamp gave us entry into the neighboring Central American countries for 90 days. To be on the safe side, we kept the receipts for the entry and it is good we did as the agent at the airport searched our passports for the stamp as we shared this story. She kept the receipt with our departure documentation as proof of coming in legally. We simply asked ourselves, why not just stamp the passport on entry, Honduras? Why?

How much money? $175Lempiras, or about $9.50USD, Lots 'o cash to carry

After this little conversation, we hopped in a colectivo taxi to the town of Nuevo Ocotepeque, just a few minutes away, where we were to catch our next bus to the town of La Entrada to again transfer to Copan Ruinas. Our guidebook provided times for this travel in multiple locations and each was different, so we were unsure of the correct travel time and seeing as how the book had been wrong on a few recent trips in El Salvador, we wanted to hear from a local. Our driver said it would be 2 hours, which sounded better than the 3.5 listed as the longest time in the book. We were dropped off at the terminal (only to realize later that it was one of many for the various bus companies traveling out to La Entrada, but we also weren’t likely to wander through the town since it didn’t look like a good place to do so) a little after 10am and learned the next bus out was at 11am. The “terminal” consists of one open room with a dark, creepy bathroom with no light and a pupusa lady at the front with a sandia (watermelon) lady, also the lady to pay to use the (no luz) unlit bathroom. Not very much space, so when the bus pulled up at 10:15, we just went ahead and waited there. The cupadora took our fare right away and left for change, only to return about 25 minutes later as we wondered if he would ever return. The bus was not the typical American school bus, but more like a really old Peter Pan with all the amenities removed, which in theory would be better but in reality is not due to the high seats, limited visibility out the front, and less air coming through the windows – a motion sickness-prone person’s nightmare. Fortunately, we travel with Dramamine, and lots of it since we would never check how much we had whenever we traveled and found we have quite the supply that would likely last us for a trip around the world. At any rate, we waited with a few other passengers and 11 finally came around. The driver started up the bus, then spoke to the cupadora and both went out to check on something that didn’t seem right. Now, why didn’t anyone check on the bus for the 45 minutes it sat there? As people tried to determine the source of trouble, we just waited another 25 minutes, then finally headed out, only to stop a few feet ahead at a gas station where more people checked out the bus… Meanwhile, we’d seen other buses leave and wished we had known about a different terminal, but it was too late now. Finally, by about 11:40 we made our way toward La Entrada. What a crazy ride – it was mountainous, which is nice for beautiful views, but not for the rocking and swaying of the bus. Not to mention it was also rainy, so the bus was stuffy as we took this crazy tour.

For those of you who have visited to Maui and driven the Road to Hana, you can get a sense of the trip, only it’s much longer and this time it’s in a bus, not a car or SUV. The same twists and turns, cliffs with no guardrails and motion sickness applies. The only difference is no Pacific Ocean is just out your side window! Anyway, hopefully that gives a little idea of what the trip was like.

Two hours finally passed when the driver stopped in the middle of nowhere – just mountains all around and a small little stand. We stayed for 20 minutes, not sure why or what for, finally Anthony found the driver to inquire as to how much longer we had to go (since clearly we are not in La Entrada and we hadn’t passed through the one town noted on our map that is along the way). The driver saids “dos, dos y treinta?” which means 2 or 2.5 hours! What! Between the taxi driver and our book we expected somewhere between and 2 and 3.5, not 4.5! Things were not looking good for this trip. After just a little while longer, we came to Santa Rosa do Copan (not near Copan Ruinas, but the town on the map that claims to be 1.25 hours from La Entrada) so we were hopeful we would arrive in La Entrada sooner than the driver claimed, though with his miscellaneous long stops, e also wondered if we’d ever arrive. We did finally reach another crazy terminal in La Entrada at 2:45. This one had a much larger bathroom area, with light, though it was pretty dingy and stinky, so not much better, but after that ride, we had to just brave it and pay the man our 3 Lempiras ($0.15). There really was nowhere to wait, so we got onto the school bus that would take us on to Copan at 3:30. As usual, several women and children came on the bus to sell things – pepino (cucumber) was a big one, pork meals, and chicken meals were also common. The most interesting, though, was the man who came on with a briefcase full of designer knock-off watches. It was just like waiting in line for the Statue of Liberty in NYC! He tried to convince Anthony to buy an army watch despite repeatedly telling him “no necessito, Tengo un reloj” and showing him his fully functional watch. The vendors are certainly much more persistent in Honduras, not believing you the first time you say “no” and putting the item closer to you so that you may be convinced of its importance to your life.

When 3:30 came, we headed off… across the street to a market where we stopped, and waited for more passengers. Why they couldn’t just catch the bus from the terminal, we really don’t know. After another 15 minutes, we left and began the next twisty, rocking ride through more mountains to Copan. The rain fell harder now and all of the windows were closed, but at least we could see all around. To our disappointment, Honduras also does not decorate their buses in fun colors and such like Belize. We enjoyed the liveliness of the buses in El Salvador and thought only Belize was lacking creativity; even ours are painted with the colors of the bus line on the outside. The Honduran bus was still school bus yellow with black paint covering the school district, so we are ahead of them! Anyway, the ride was expected to be 2-2.5 hours and we seemed to hear that from more than one place, so felt it was accurate. With the rain, not too many people were out waiting for the bus, so we didn’t stop too frequently. The bus itself was fairly empty, which was nice. We seemed to be making great progress when suddenly we had to pull over to change a flat tire. All the men helped, even Anthony participated as they attempted to repack tools and move the old tire into the bus. About 15 minutes later we headed out again…we have to give these guys credit, they changed the tire in no time. A bit further ahead we stopped at a little shop and our driver got out and a man who seemed to be a passenger, but was in fact a back-up driver, took the wheel and off we went. Never saw such a switch before, and when we were just a few towns outside of Copan we came to a gas station where a man who looked a lot like our previous driver was working on the engine of another school bus. The cupadora and back-up driver got out to chat with the man, who definitely was our original driver, and a few minutes later he was back at the wheel for the remaining portion of the trip. Still not sure how he got
ahead of us

If you look closely at the gas prices you can see that Hondurnas were definitely paying a premium at the pump, about $5 a gallon...Yikes!!! This station was down the road from the entrance to the town

Not long after, we reached Copan at about 5:30pm where we were immediately greeted by a man trying to push his hostel on us (one we read about in the guidebook that did not seem remotely pleasant) even though we let him know we had a reservation. He asked where and then proceeded to inform us they were charging $1 more than he charged, which we didn’t care. The man just called to us about how much better his place is and got his taxi driver friends to join in and yell to us as we navigated the slippery cobblestone streets traveling uphill in the pouring rain. Our place, Hostal Iguana Azul was really nice. We weren’t looking forward to another shared bathroom, but this place is set up in the European hostel style so it is done well with separate toilet stalls, shower stalls, and sinks – so there’s privacy and no forced waiting for the shower or toilet. It was a really nice place and at a great price of $6.50 per person, we couldn’t complain at all! It is set a few blocks outside of the center of town, but nothing is really too far of a walk.

After a full day of buses and eating lone Nature Valley and Special K bars, we were starving! Copan has so many restaurants we just walked to the center of town and found ourselves at Vamos a Ver Café where we had vegetarian lasagna and a chicken and French fries dinner. It was so good to get some food into our systems and then we stopped in the nearby shop for some treats for the next day when we would be touring the ruins.

Ginnie striking a pose in front of temple #4

Copan Archaeological Site
The next morning, we first made our way to the Transportes Hedman Alas bus terminal to book ourselves on the luxury bus for our next trip out to Tela; no more school buses for these long journeys because we have to take them all the time. This was vacation! Afterward was a quick breakfast of ginormous cinnamon rolls and tasty pineapple pastries at Espresso Americano. While there, we met a very friendly woman who was excited to have us visiting her home of Copan and the ruins. We made our way out of town for the 10 minute walk to the site where we encountered some stelae along the way (showing how far out this site must really span) and passing a large group of European tourists. When we reached the visitor’s center, the ambiguous line situation caused us to end up behind the large tour group, so we had a bit of a wait until we could get to the front to pay. When we got our passes, we headed into the site to take a look back into the past at what is called the artistic center of the Maya civilization (it has been written that Copan would be like Paris of today). The site is full of intricate, detailed carvings and hieroglyphs that tell the tales of different rulers and events occurring during the time Copan was thriving. We picked up History Carved in Stone to give us more information on the carvings and the site as well.

Ginnie thought she saw a resemblence in the carving, I just didn't see any...oh well.

Oso de Paz chilling out en La Plaza de Estelas

Copan was initially discovered in 1576, but no one took interest in pursuing it until another discovery in 1839 when a Spaniard named Colonel Juan Galindo visited it and mapped the ruins, sparking others to explore the site. Archaeologists have found the remains of 3450 structures in the 24 square kilometers surrounding the Principal Group (most of those being within half a kilometer of the Principal Group) and 4509 structures have been detected in 1420 sites within 135 sq km of the ruins. The peak of Maya civilization here was around the end of the 8th century and these discoveries indicate that over 20,000 people inhabited the valley. Scientists continue to explore the site and have found several ruins buried underneath the visible ruins. They have dug out tunnels underneath the visible structures to explore further and have found whole temples.

Finally...a picture together. It happens, but all too seldom. This was taken among the stelae of the great plaza.

Stelae of the Great Plaza
When we came into the entrance to the site, we were greeted by a large group of wild scarlet macaws hanging out on the fence and the grass. It was quite a site. A short walk into the Great Plaza leads us right to huge, intricately carved stelae which portray the rulers of Copan. We walked from stelae to stelae admiring the carvings and the fact that they are so detailed and in such good shape after so many thousands of years.
A couple of Scarlet Macaws living it up at the entrance. There were about 20-25 others just hanging out and being quite photogenic. The scarlet macaw was a highly revered bird by the people of ancient Copan.

Hieroglyphic Stairway and Ball Court area
The famous stairway to the Temple of the Inscriptions

As we leave the area of the stelae, we walk through the second largest ball court (Juego de Pelota) in Central America on the way to the Hieroglyphic Stairway, the most famous monument at the site and the work of King Smoke Shell. It is a flight of 63 steps which bears a history of the royal house of Copan in several thousand glyphs. The steps are also bordered by ramps inscribed with more reliefs and glyphs and at the base is another stela of a ruler of Copan. Scientists are still working to decipher the glyphs to better understand the story they tell, though the stairway has been partially ruined. There are glyphs that tell the story of the solar eclipse that happened during a year in the valley, as well. The stairway is very impressive and many people stop to admire the carvings and glyphs.


Hanging out in the main plaza


Looking down from the Acropolis in the West Plaza


Acropolis
Beyond the stairway are more structures. We passed the Temple of Inscriptions, another flight of steps with more hieroglyphs on the walls at the top. Further along are the East and West Plazas, where one of the most famous sculptures, Altar Q, was found, which is carved with the 16 great kings of Copan and behind which are the bones of 15 jaguars and several macaws in a sacrificial vault. We wandered throughout the site looking at the various temples, inscriptions, and other ruins, thinking again about how it must have been when these civilizations flourished.

The Acropolis in the West Plaza. I think Ginnie's in this one, but she kind of blends into the background

Back in Town
After our visit at the site, we returned to the town of Copan and spent the afternoon walking throughout the cobblestone streets enjoying the shops and some more good food. We found Jim’s Pizza for lunch and then spent the day around town. For dinner, we headed to Café ViaVia, which received a lot of positive reviews (but was a bit overrated and too touristy) for a dinner of chicken burgers – what strange looking burgers, but not bad at all. Here we befriended a very adorable dog who simply begged for food from Ginnie despite Anthony offering fries. The dog ignored the fries and just looked at Ginnie wondering when she would pass food. It was noticed later in the meal that the fried mysteriously disappeared, so clearly they were not that unappealing! We also heard a loud explosion and realized fireworks were being shot during a concert for Copan happening at the futbol field. We made our way to Café Welchez for what our hostel said has the best dessert and got the Pan de Banano, which translates as Banana Bread, but was actually banana cake and was quite fabulous!


The main church at the center of town and a bustling street market on Saturday afternoon


Vendors selling everything from jewelry to replica Maya statues; The infamous dog that attempted to thief some of our dinner at Via Via Cafe

The following morning we picked up another cinnamon roll and walked down to the Hedman Alas terminal to wait for our luxury ride to Tela for the beach portion of the vacation. The bus was a nice big air conditioned bus with comfy seats, a bathroom, and free drinks and snacks. It was really nice, though still rocky through the mountains, but not so stuffy. We rode about 3 hours to San Pedro Sula, then had a layover for the next ride onto Tela. We were supposed to have just an hour and ten minute wait, but the bus was not at the terminal, so we didn’t get out until nearly 3:30pm, another hour later. We just watched the movie playing in the waiting area and then when our bus was called, made our way to the next comfortable ride for the remaining hour and a half of our journey. It was another travel day, but much better than the previous one! And now, we were to spend some time in a beach town to relax for the last few days of the vacation.