Blogs from Copán Ruinas, Western, Honduras, Central America Caribbean

It was a very smooth journey from Antigua Guatemala to Copan Ruinas including a trouble-free border crossing which really surprised us! We stayed at the Garden Hotelwhich, although it looks nice and had a lovely riverside location, disappointed us to the extent that we wished we had stayed in a backpacker hostel for half the price. There were constant problems with water which they were (two times out of three) able to resolve within moments which suggested they had done something in the first place! Anyway, let's not dwell on that. Copan Ruinas was a great place to hang out for a few days. It's a shame we didn't have better weather though. We wandered around as we usually do on our first day and really enjoyed the picturesque cobbled streets and the feel of the ... read more

Sat 24-Sun 25 November - Day 29 to 30 - Copán Ruinas, Honduras It was time to leave Guatemala after 11 fascinating, fun days in the country. We embarked on a lengthy bus ride to Honduras into the charming town of Copán. Starting off at 8.00am we stopped several times and arrived in Copán Ruinas at around 3.00pm. We checked into Hotel Lauros, which was family owned and soon found the town was small, hilly and with many cobble-stone roads. Alfredo had to take one of our NZ travel mates to see the doctor as she had bn very sick and ended up on a drip etc. The rest of us found ATMs to get some Lempira (17 Honduras Lempira to $1.00AUD). We then found the San Rafael wine & Cheese Restaurant and our Melbourne ... read more

First stop in Honduras was Copan Ruinas. I arrived in the evening at a pretty B&B just outside the centre to stay in a room called Luna (the moon) which had a lovely terrace to view the night sky. Not many street lights so I could see all the stars! I went to a local restaurant and luckily they managed to make me some dinner before the electricity cut out. It was quite windy so I ate my dinner using the torch light of my mobile rather than by candelight but it worked! Apparently they were doing some work on cables in the town so the electricity cut a few times whilst I was there. I had more great views from the B&B in the daytime as they have a lovely garden and the terrace overlooks ... read more

Shared taxis – like literally shared with strangers – are the norm here in Honduras and it was in such a cab that I made my way from the hostel to the ferry terminal, realising what a beautiful place Roatan Island is along the way. The place is a Caribbean paradise and it’s no wonder that the place has become over-developed and over-commercialised. There really needs to be a balance in places like this – enough development to give the place decent infrastructure but not so much that any sort of original ambience is completely destroyed by cruise ship passengers and hotel resorts. Thankfully the ferry back to La Ceiba wasn’t anything like the rollercoaster ride over here and I even managed to get some sleep along the way. It was the second leg of a ... read more

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 ... read more