Blogs from Copán Ruinas, Western, Honduras, Central America Caribbean - page 28

You've had to read enough horror stories about my transport throughout Central America. Today the travel Gods were smiling down on me. Today everything went right. Surprise! surprise! I left my sweet hotel in San Salvador at 5:30 this morning for an 8:30 flight to Honduras. I was checked in and waiting at the gate by 7 A:M that may not sound like anything special, but trust me, it is. Anyone who has flown out of a South or Central American airport knows that when they tell you to be there 3 hours ahead of flight time, they aren't kidding. Even though it looks like there are more than enough agents to process a football stadium full of people, the lines still move agonizingly slow. Not only did the flight leave on time but I had ... read more

It was still raining this morning when I awoke. I went with my instructor to the ruin museum and read the signs in Spanish out loud. The museum contained many Mayan artifacts. Sculpture and objects with hieroglyphs were everywhere. I was particularly interested in the Mayan calendar and the dates thereupon. The artwork was astounding too with such detail and imagination. The head dresses that they adorned were incredible and amazing. There were human bone artifacts as well. There pottery I think was just as good in many cases as that of the Greeks but sometimes tend to be a little less perfected in balanced shape. A lot of the descriptive signs were in Spanish and there was no English translation. I still have not visited the biggest ruins. I don’t know why but I ... read more

01/24/06 The mornings here in Copan are an explosion in one’s ear. At about 4:30 am the roosters start cock a doodling out of tune and that goes on until nearly noon. The trucks start cruising by at 5 and make such a loud racket it sounds like you are in a war zone with gunfire and bombs going off. For an American who hasn’t experience these things it’s quite the cultural shock. The shower is either freezing cold or scalding hot. Breakfast was pretty standard; cereal, plantains, and coffee. The cats were a little more relaxed this morning. They let me alone to my breakfast. The parakeet sure was making a racket though. Reyna who is the house mom that fixes me food yelled at it but it did no good to shut it up. ... read more

01/22/06 I have just arrived in Copan after a very queasy bus ride experience from San Pedro Sula. I left the team there at the airport to fly back to Richmond. Some of them seemed happy to be leaving others were jealous of me and wanted to stay. I’m going to miss all of them, each one had something special that they offered to the experience of being here and now they are gone. I said goodbye to Jose and Elmer at the bus station and waited for about a half hour for the bus to be loaded. The ride was nonstop curvy and the movie they showed on the bus was horrible, Radio with Cuba Gooding Jr. Arriving in Copan I thought for a moment that I was in the wrong place because the bus ... read more

The people of Honduras greet travellers with friendly and smiling faces, and the infectious nature of the locals quickly wins you over. This is a country that doesn't see many tourists, but the warm hearted locals make for a very pleasant stopover. My friend and I started our visit with a bus journey from beautiful Leon to the Nicaraguan border through an undeveloped area of the country. We were puzzled to see three very well dressed chicas jump on the bus in the middle of nowhere, only to jump off the bus after an hour or so ... still in the middle of nowhere! That experience will be filed under the category of a travel mystery. We crossed the border into Honduras with a high five while riding on a triciclero, which was certainly a new ... read more