Days 22-24, Copan Ruinas, Honduras

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I'd be lying if I said any travel agencies recommended our 'Get to Copan' in one day plan/request. All of them recommended an overnight in Antigua. But we've been there, and didn't want to waste a night. So off we trotted on the route sold as tourist van to Guatemala City, then double decker local bus to the border - in Honduras by half 6.

Apart from not. We had to change van at Antigua, no biggie, and arrived in GC at about the right time, and got on our big bus (not a double decker) at 14.45, figuring we were good. Wrongggg...

It started to go a little wrong when our bus was literally at a standstill for 2.5 hours not long after GC. Lots of emergency vehicles went passed but no emergency was apparent even after we started moving again. Having caught up on the news, it appears the traffic was all tied up with a devastating mudslide in the area the night before, and the rescue effort which is still ongoing.

Then, our bus terminated at a random town. And we were directed onto a collectivo. Hm. By the time we arrived at the border at gone 9pm, we were the only people left. And the border was dark, and empty.

We left Guatemala, and were pointed to a dark immigration office to enter Honduras. There was still an official there - phew - and we were processed and out into the dark with not too much bother (although, c'mon, if you're going to charge an exit fee, have some change so we don't have to over pay!?) and that was that.

A local woman was very helpful, and tried to direct us to the nearest bus stop - half a kilometre away down a dark road in some woods - but we seemed pretty stuck. Until the police and a security guy took pity on us, and said they'd called us a ride, and it would be here to collect us in ten minutes. They were very confused that we were crossing the border after all the buses stop at 5pm.

An hour later, a Honduran police pick up arrived, complete with 4 very armed police officers to drive us to Copan Ruinas. Sam sat on a gun, I nearly kicked a baton out, and two officers had to sit outside. They were incredibly nice despite the huge language barrier - us with a smattering of Spanish words, them the same with English - and their Google Translate totally failing.

As we got closer to our hostel for the night, we crossed everything that someone would be there to let us in.... and there was - phewwww!

After a decidedly interesting crossing, we both almost immediately decided we really liked Copan (which is still true), because of how nice the police had been.

The next day we decided to check out the Copan archaeological site, which was really cool - although the site is much smaller than Tikal or Chichen Itza, these Mayans carved into stone well as painting decoration, so you can still see the original artwork which was really cool. At Copan there is a resident population of scarlet macaws, and seeing so many of them so close was incredible!!

After the ruins we checked out a small brewery in Copan which came highly recommended and tried their two current beers on tap.

The next day we headed up to the highest point of the town before heading to Macaw Mountain, a bird sanctuary that looks after rescued pet and injured birds. We saw macaws and toucans and hawks... Basically it was really cool. It's entirely funded by donations and tickets, and a small coffee plantation they have (yes, this coffee was good!!)

After Macaw Mountain we visited a cheese place (apparently dairy is big here??) and had an amazing cheese platter, while discussing our new business venture - a fondue restaurant... Definitely has legs to it! Hahaha!!

Absolutely loved Copan, next stop: Lago De Yojoa!

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