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Published: April 2nd 2013
Gracias...Eleanor
The fort at GraciasAs far as unpleasant cities go, Tegucigalpa probably jumps to the top of my list. I just want to get the negativity out of the way first because Honduras, the little I've seen of it, is a beautiful place. But the capital is pretty grim, it's polluted, disorientating, seemingly very dangerous (police are in teams at al times with fully automatic weapons like AK-47s) and full of horrific taxi drivers. I'm pretty sure the taxi drivers are criminals protected by the law, after getting off the bus from the border we were given several farcical quotes for a journey of 2km ($25 anyone) and derision and aggression when we refused to take up the offer. We'd missed the connection to our intended destination by about 30 minutes and had the unenviable choice of catching a night bus which would arrive at 3am or staying overnight in the city. We chose the latter, primarily to get some sleep, but to also see the countryside. Inevitably, we almost missed our bus in the morning as the hotel owner had locked us into the hotel (or at least locked the criminal element out) and then not arisen at the appointed hour. Thankfully, we left
that cesspit of humanity behind and got to see the beautiful, green, undulating countryside of Honduras. The bus stumbled along the winding road, northwards towards the Caribbean, and the sun slowly baked us like a lemon merangue pie in an oven. The views were a distraction and the journey wasn't too long, we got off our luxurious coach and jumped on to a Chicken Bus (old US school buses, pimped to the max) to conclude our journey to the mountain village of Gracias. This particular bus had a 50 inch wide screen TV at the front! Ludicrous really, we didn't even get to watch a violent martial arts movie!
So we arrived in Gracias. Strange name for a town you'd think..."Thank You" but no prizes for guessing that it has to do with God. Apparently, some Spanish nobleman was made to come here and establish a town and exclaimed "Thank you God, we have found flat land." I guess he practiced that line, otherwise there could have been a whole different town here. Rather amusingly there are towns on the same road named "La Esperanza" (Hope) and "La Paz" (Peace), it's probably the most optimistic and polite
Mayan Pyramids
There are bigger ones, but I couldn´t find the photos... road in the world! The guide books, in my opinion, over state Gracias' beauty in comparing it to Antigua de Guatemala (in the same manner in which they overstated Granada in Nicaragua) and in doing so actually miss that it's a charming place in it's own right. The place is tiny and on any given street no two adjacent houses are the same colour. It's tranquil. It's bloody hot. It has a fort on the hill overlooking the town too. It's all very pleasant, and a good place to relax and pause for a few days. It's also near a national park that has good walking and great coffee (Comedor at the enterance is great, if actually just the kitchen of an elderly lady's shack). We breezed around several of the trails, and in hindsight should have gone for the big one up a volcano but that's the downside of not being able to see in to the future. Well, one of the downsides anyway; it'd be good to know other things too, like lottery numbers, weather (lets face it, the Met Office just guess) and who is more likely to start World War III: The Armageddon. For the record,
Coban
It´s very peaceful here. my money is definitely on Russia for that, or possibly Belgium (they do nothing but be boring, and making good ale, for all of history! I'm just saying it makes me suspicious, like they're up to something and trying very hard, too hard perhaps, to cover it up). But the walking was great and, due to the altitude, you get both pine forests and the cloud forests which is pretty neat. You can actually see the level at which this changes on the way up. The heat extacts a brutal toll on your body though!
And after the quaintness of Gracias we moved on to Copan. This used to be one of the great Mayan city states. I'd heard a fair bit about Copan, which was unusual as Tikal and Chichen Itza (Guatemala and Mexico respectively) are apparenty more famous, and had been looking forward to visiting ever since we'd set foot on Central American soil. It's pretty much the only reason we came to Honduras really, Gracias was just a side trip because the Bay Islands would have been too time consuming.
Copan town is small, but manages to blend touristy restaurants and bars with local places
Rain God Sacrifice Stone
Bit of killing in the name of... and isn't completely swallowed by the backpacking/drinking crowd (although the western part of the town has a quite a few places that were targeting this market. There's a German guy, married to a local and been here for time immemorial, who has his won brewery and both the ales and food are well worth the visit. I had a dark weissbier...sounds contradictory but its all to do with them burning the malt beforehand, gives a similar flavour to a weissbier but is the colour of Guiness...heaven in a Stein!
But anyway, the ruins are the real attraction. Wonderfully, they are about 500m from the edge of the town. It wasn't too expensive to get in, and a private guide was about $25. The museum houses a full scale replica of one of the old Mayan temples (currently encased in a later temple) and many of the important stone artifacts from the site (there are copies at in-situ on the site). Many of the US universities have taken important relics back to their institutions...the price paid by Honduras for their intervention I guess, although the small museum in town has a few trinkets. It's definitely worth paying extra
for the museum, the art work of Copan sets it apart from Tikal, Chichen Itza and Palenque. Our guide for the day was Tony. Tony is a character, and also in the Guiness Book of Records for a reason I forget. He speaks around 5 languages too and is about 70. He was awesome, we'd hired him for an hour, but he stuck with us for abut 3 and really made the place come alive. He lost us for a bit when waffling on about dreams but then came back to mention the magnificient names the kings of Copan gave themselves; Smoke Jaguar, 18 Rabbit, Great Sun Lord Quetzal Mcaw and Smoke Monkey (smoke was mythical to the Mayans) Copan is very green, but the jungle has been cut back from the main site to give a sense of scale. The plaza is huge and the pyramids, overbearing! It's wicked, and because there aren't more than 300-400 visitors per day,once lunch time comes around it's empty. We had the place to ourselves, like some kind of post-apocolyptic-mayan-zombie movie plot...or not. It was very tranquil here, only the Macaws giving offf any noise, and you can't begrudge them that, they were
Puzzle?
The largest heiroglyphic in the world here first afterall! The scale of the city is breath taking, it's also beutifuly located in the valley basin, and the craftsmanship of the buildings is awe inspiring. It's a shame that the ancient civilization came to an end, but then they'd overpopulated the region and caused vast deforestation, leading to erosion and declining agricultural output. The Mayan people abandoned the cities around 900 (all of them, except those in Mexico which were conquered by other civilizations), but they still live in Guatemala, Belize and Mexico to this day. The heiryroglyphics at the site are well preserved, especially on the staircase...possibly the longest heiroglyphic in exisitence, it probably tells a story, but since it fell down, no one knows the order of the stones. The ball court was neat too, and sounded like a brutal game. They wore body armour, it was full contact and the winners occassionally had the (dubious) honour of being sacrificed to the gods. It wasn't always the case, but I imagine a fair few people could have been accused of match fixing. Winning kind of loses its charm if it's succeeded by a bit of painful, bloody death, don't you think? Luckily, no one had
Main Temple
No running up the steps though... brought a ball the day we were there so we were safe to hang around, enjoy the peacefulness of the plaza and playout our Zombie fantasies.
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mlmcadams
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No Tegucigalpa, it's not my preference =)
so B&W rules now? Did you know that they show the colors of the Soul? =) I enjoyed Copan, what's next? Hugs, maria