Copan Ruinas

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September 20th 2011

Published: September 21st 2011

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Gitche Gumee

Huge Tree!

Scale is always hard to show in pictures but this three was gigantic. Look at the house is the background.

This morning we headed for some breakfast at Comedor Mary. We had a traditional Central American breakfast with some coffee and a Mango licuado (smoothie). I believe the whole meal for the two of us was about L150 (Limpira is the currency of Honduras) - which is probably about $8. After our meal we headed to the Copan Ruins - the main reason for our stop here.

The ruins are located about one kilometer outside of the town of Copan Ruinas - but there is a footpath the whole way and it is a very easy walk. On the way to the ruins we crossed the copan river and saw a huge tree! We also saw an interesting caterpillar that was a super bright green. The entrance to the ruins costs L285 or $15 - I thought quite expensive relative to what we have paid on past trips to see ruins. However, I would say that the admission charge is worth it once you go through the whole area. We did not hire a guide as both Amy and I prefer to explore at our own pace and leave a lot of the details about how things happened to our

Caterpillar

Vibrant green caterpillar on our walk to the ruins.

imagination. Overall I would say that the ruins are less developed than Chichen Itza (Mexico) but more developed than Tulum (Mexico). However, Copan is much larger (square meters) than either of those ruins. There seems to be something new to see each time you go over the next pyramid. I would highly recommend going to the ruins in the mornign as we did because there were not many people at all. As we left, closer to noon, the ruins had filled up a bit. I'm always amazed that a city such as Copan can be forgotten and uncovered over a 1000 years later. I try to imagine what someone might think uncovering New York in 1000 years. In the present, it is difficult to imagine New York ceasing to exist, but it is almost no different than Copan ceasing to exist and just recently being rediscovered. Overall - we really enjoyed the ruins.

On our walk to the ruins we saw a hostel that looked really nice so on our way back we checked it out and it was fantastic! They were charging L350, slightly more than Don Moseis at L320, but said they would match our price. We

Residence

This is believed to be where the elite residence lived. Remains were found in this area and there were about 25 houses uncovered.

went back to Don Moseis, packed up, and headed to Hostel/Hotel Berakah. In my opinion we got a place that is twice as nice for the same price - we will see how the rest of the stay here goes, but so far I would highly recommend this place if you come to Copan Ruinas (about $17 per night). I might add - it has the fasted wifi we have had on our trip thus far.

We have yet to decide our next move - which may be tomorrow. We are debating on heading to an inland lake in Honduras or taking off for the coast to El Salvador. As I understand, wifi may be limited on the El Sal coast, so this may be the last blog for a bit - we'll see what happens.

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