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Published: February 6th 2006
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Macaw!
The most beautiful bird of Honduras The first of our epic travel adventures across Central American borders began with our journey from Panajachel to Copan in Honduras. We rose earl for a 6 AM departure. If it was not so bloody early I am sure we would have appreciated the sight of the sun peeking over the vocanoes and bathing the lake in spectacular pastels of pink and orange. Instead we (well primarily me) grumbled and groaned as we piled into the bus bound for the second best Mayan ruins in Central America.
Our driver, Carlos, was a great guy who managed to steal 2 quetzales from Linda (the equivalent of 40 cents), a packet of M and Ms from me and convince us that there was only one person in the whole of Honduras who spoke English (Current count of English speakers is 157 excluding the an island of approximately 1500 people where English is their native tongue). The 8 hour bus ride sped past except for the time when we lost Julian in a petrol station queue and Carlos nearly lost his mind because he thought he would be behind his schedule - his cries of "where´s Jules, where´s Jules" quicly brought Julian bounding
Who me?
What a great name for a company... back to the bus.
Other highlights of the trip included a truck crash, a change of tire and Carlos bribing the border guards not to check our bags for the sake of efficiency - the poor guy had to drive all the way back to Guatemala that night and had done the full round trip the day before. Carlos truly was a shining example stop, revive survive if I ever saw one.
Arriving in Copan Ruinas was kind of like arriving in our very own piece of the Wild West. With a thin layer of white dust settled over the town and a baking sun scorching the streets, the men wearing big hats and brandishing even bigger guns looked straight out of any spaghetti western you would like to name.
Copan Ruinas (as the name may suggest) is basically a town that has sprung up next to the Mayan ruins of Copan purely because of the draw of the ruins themselves. There is very little of interest in the town except maybe the line of banks in the main street, each of which is flanked by two armed guards - each sporting their own big gun. Despite
Weighty issues.
Ten points for anyone who can guess why this photo was really taken. Cookie and Linda pose dutifully. me being patted down and protected by two beefy (for Central American standards) guys all of this protection did not save me from being ROBBED BY THE ATM!! In the true essence of a perfect crime the ATM rejected my card and gave me no cash but a few days later I discovered that it had generously taken the money from my account anyway. Sigh...
The day after arriving in Copan Ruinas we rose early to explore the actual ruins of Copan (rather than the tourist town baring its name). The group of us soon fell into the usual formation of James, Julian and Ben at the front and Linda and Patrick flailing a good 200 metres behind. However, on this day we were rewarded for our laziness by spying a cow causally munching on the weeds that were growing around an ancient Mayan stupa that had been dumped in a paddock. Man, those guys were pissed they missed it!
At the ruins our guide, Juan, provided us with a fascinating insight into the Mayan buildings and artwork that were on the site. Apparently there are four layers of ruins, each on top of each other. At the
TV these days.
Dancing girls on some Honduran children's TV program! end of certain reigns new kings would destroy the existing buildings, temples, tombs and artworks and construct their new structures right on top of the remains. Archaeologists have tunneled into these ruins to discover what lies beneath. Juan had worked on these tunnel projects but since the focus had moved to restoration and protection rather than exploration he had become a guide to the site. He peppered his talk with questions to test our memory of the names of the kings that ruled this Mayan civilisation. Copan’s kings had some kickarse names such as Smoke Jaguar, 18 Rabbit, Smoke Monkey, Smoke Shell and my personal favourite Great Sun Lord Quetzal Macaw (although if you ask me being named after two birds and a star is just plain greedy. My favourite part of the ruins were the ball court where the Mayans played a cool game where the best player was often sacrificed (now that’s what I call a man of the match prize) and the stupa of the dancing jaguar which is just plain FUNKY!
In a poignant reminder to all those reading this schlog who work for Rio Tinto or any investment bank, the Mayan civilisation was destroyed
On a clear day.
If you squint you can see Ben, Cookie and Julian in the distance. As usual we are lagging behind! by their exploitation of their natural surroundings. The more they over-farmed, over-populated and over-extended their land their returns diminished and soon severe erosion and degradation forced them to abandon this once triumphant acropolis.
That afternoon we packed our bags unaware that we were destined for the ride of our lives. If the American Department of Homeland Security thinks that it has tight security then they should take a ride on the Primera Class bus company of Hedman Alas. Ridiculously overpriced and decked out with the best security money can buy this bus company also proudly displays photos in its terminals of Miss Honduras 1994 which they sponsored to crowning glory that year. Its passengers are locked away from the driver and getting on the bus required production of your ticket AND your passport to the armed guard. The buses were serviced by a hosty who checked and re-checked our tickets ad infinitum (as well as the bus for anyone who somehow subverted the strict security measures) and got very shirty when people couldn’t find their ticket stubs three quarters of the way through the trip. Getting your luggage off the bus was an even greater ordeal - one guard
Road to Copan
To the left of this shot is a horse munching on Mayan ruins. hissed at me when I dared to grab my bag of dirty, skanky clothes without showing my corresponding stub beforehand. For the next week in Honduras we were in constant fear that the armed Hedman Alas guard would tap us on the shoulder at any moment asking for our ticket. The strange irony is that when we came into Honduras we didn’t even have to present our passports to immigration - Carlos took them up for us and got them stamped while we sat in the car and gawked at the money changers with their 30 centimetre high stacks of Honduran Lempiras (well some of us gawked, Ben insisted on pretending he was an international spy and tried to take photos of them without attracting their ire). Osama bin Laden could have slipped through the Honduran border but there was no way in hell he was catching a bus from Copan to La Ceiba without proper ID and a valid ticket.
Arriving in the beautiful port town of La Ceiba we strapped our packs to the roof of the “loco taxi” with a 20 centimetre length of rope and found our digs for the night.
In our endless
Mayan ruins
Very old tree growing on top of very old ruins. pursuit of finding money to spend in Honduras we went exploring late that night. In the deserted streets of La Ceiba we blithely stepped around men sitting idly in the street cradling machetes or rifles (and sometimes both). I guess they were guarding shops or each other but no matter what they were guarding I cant imagine how 5 nerdy westerners could scream “easy money, potential target” more loudly than us as we went from one ATM vestibule to another in a nervous huddle. However, it wasn’t the weaponry we had to fear. The beautiful, starry skies of this Honduran night belied what was to come next…
To be continued!
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Amy
non-member comment
What else could it be....
Hmmm, a fat American on some poor beasts back.... Do I win a prize Patrick??