Mayan Life, Jungle Jaguar Baths, and crazy truck rides,oh my!

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We didn’t have to head to the ruins until 08:30 but being on holidays I’m to bed early after full days and up early, which fortunately gives me time to blog, and catch up on life. Wi-Fi is provided in all the hotels we are staying at; however whether it is working or not is yet another story. So I’m blogging, but posting isn’t working out so well! Thankfully all my faithful, loyal readers, while breathless with anticipation of my next blog also have lives and while eager to read the next one (please?) will survive until the modern world can get my word out!

The ruins are less than a KM away, so we walked the road to them with another group of very young travellers, dressed in flip flops, short shorts, itsy bits tank tops and sunglasses. That’s pretty much it. Many generation “Y” never ceases to amaze me - or maybe I”m too naive to remember that I did that too at that age. Either way I wasn’t overly looking forward to spending the morning with them, but turns out we didn’t have to. The guide had been pre-booked by Justin a week prior, however he decided to double dip which Justin didn’t appreciate so he called another guide he knew, and Marvin (the Martian) dragged himself out of bed and showed up 20 minutes later, looking a bit groggy but was well worth the wait! He had a great dry sense of humour, the one that because English is his second language you think you have misunderstood, then you realize he’s taking the piss out of you (in a good way) and laugh even harder! Incredibly knowledgeable and we spent over 3 hours with him exploring the ruins, and taking heaps of photos (or so we thought). We have a professional photographer with us, Randy from Kelowna and he was hoping to get some extra time for photos and he was not disappointed, as with Benny from Texas asking heaps of questions we didn’t move very fast. I enjoyed that as well, not being in a rush, and being able to listen to Marvin about the Mayan history and also enjoy it through the eye of the camera (Larry’s body and my lens). I’ve been to a few other Mayan, Aztec and Inca sights, but always enjoy learning about the history, trying desperately to remember it all, and never quite succeeding. SO if you would like a history lesson on Copan, I highly recommend this great thing called Google *wink*!!!

It does date back to 400 BC and at one point and time there were over 25,000 people just in Copan alone, but the entire region was closer to 100,000. Eventually they died out, anthropologists believe mostly due to drought, and change in the soil as they cut down all the trees to use to create fires to burn limestone to make the cement to create their buildings. Reminded me of Easter Island; they died out probably because they had no trees after cutting all of them down to move the Moai heads, and then the soil changed, and all the birds left and vegetation stopped growing and, well, no more people.

One of the coolest things at Copan are the stelae; I’ve not seen them anywhere else (see photo). They are what we could call Totem Poles in Canada, and have faces carved into them of the past kings. What is so incredible is they are all one piece of stone, that obviously took a lot of people a lot of hours and patience to carve out as they are incredibly detailed. The best one of all had 3 kings faces, with their staffs, their predecessors skulls, their jewels, long, long loin clothes and so on. The more you looked, the more you saw in it - really impressive.

Then there were the stairs - row upon row upon row of stairs with hieroglyphics and statues built into the staircase. Again, shockingly impressive, and the archeologists found the first 15 rows still intact and the rest had fallen around it. They have put it back together and are only starting to fully understand the language and are hoping to put them back in order one day, once they are fully deciphered.

Overall the site was fascinating, and despite this being my fourth (?) Mayan site I really enjoyed it as they are all different, in details, in stories, in excavation level etc. Well worth the drive.

Larry and I walked back to the city; the others took a tuk-tuk. Larry is very intimidated by them, and despite being the crazy guy he is, doesn't want to ride one, as he doesn’t trust them. Mind you we both wanted some exercise and it’s just under a KM so not exactly far. Went to a coffee shop; grabbed a take-away coffee each, and met the gang for lunch at Via Via, as they had kindly left us a note in our door of our hotel room.

Once again had a delicious salad, and once again this restaurant (also a hotel) was in the Lonely Planet guide and recommended by Justin and did not disappoint. I loved their homemade salad dressing so much I wanted to ask what the ingredients were, but trust me my Spanish isn’t that good!

After lunch we had time to change, pack up and head to the Jaguar Hot springs, about an hour and a bit on a wonderful dirt, bumpy road, in the back of a pick up truck again. I knew the road was rough, and let’s just say as much as I loved having the fresh air in my hair, and bugs in my teeth, my back is feeling, um, well OLD the day after! Would I do it again? Yup:-)

So we sat in the back of the pick-up truck - but this time we had actual benches - with our cooler wedged between us and watched the sleepy countryside of Honduras go by. From large, rather rich looking houses, to glorified shacks it was an interesting journey full of kids, fields, dogs, settlements and lots of puddles. Being as we were in the dry season I was curious to see how bad it would be in the wet! The trip out was great, and the one back was even better; with the stars overhead, an almost half moon and clear skies, and no light pollution other than ourselves. I must say, fresh air in the countryside, any countryside is magnificent and is such good medicine for the soul.

The hot springs were magnificent, and we all loved them. Natural hot springs some over 85 degrees centigrade (no one was ballsy enough to go into that one) but many different temperatures and depths as well. One mud bath - I went in there, mudded (Verb?) my feet, my face to dry out, and rubbed my arms enthusiastically with the mud. The secret was to let the mud dry - which I did on my face, and after I washed it off I was amazed how soft my face felt - like a baby’s bottom. Wait, um, is that truly a good analogy? Yes, dear, my cheeks are as soft as a baby’s cheek in their neither region. UM, OK.

Anyhoo………

We spent a few hours in the springs, trying different pools, playing stopper and filler. one of the actual stoppers came out of a spring we were in, which was part of a 4 tiered one - top one was fed by the stream, which fed the second one and so on. Well 3 pools down the stopper actually came out and the entire thing drained in about 2 minutes with all of us sitting in there wondering WTF? We laughed when the stopper was finally found (in the pool below) as we had joked about that happening, but didn’t realize it was a real thing! Who knew?

So we replaced the stopper, and spent the next 1/2 hour trying to refill the tub by the higher up ones, splashing extra water, and being general goofs, worried that we had upset the natural nature of the hot springs. how dorky can you get? And besides, we hadn’t even started drinking yet! Eventually we succeeded, and all spread out, leaving me solo laying on the natural rocks in-between a hot and cold pool; one arm in the hot water, one arm in the cool, staring at the jungle canopy and the sky in between. Wow. Need I say more????

After dark, and drinks, we headed back to the main area, had a delicious dinner, fed the local dogs (who apparently don’t like root vegetables - mine was the least favourite offering) and then made our way back to town. Just like Justin had said, once we got back everyone was SO ready for bed, and away we went.

G’night Honduras, you did not disappoint. (SCROLL DOWN FOR MORE PHOTOS)

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Photos

Macaw
Mayans rulers wore their feathers in their headdress

Copan Ruins
Before and after picture, half excavated which gives you an idea what they find and how much they clear

Copan
Filled with different carved stone heads like this

skull
almost buried in the side, nearly missed it

Copan Ruins
Ball Court

Stelae
This was for the Rabbit 18 king - the most famous of the Copan history

Hierglyphic Staircase
First 15 rows were still intact, rest they rebuilt using best guesses

Comments

[Wolf]

Great account of Copan and the rest (stoppers :))
Good story telling Ned - really enjoyable read and an inspiration to go there. Keep blogging!