Blogs from Copán Ruinas, Western, Honduras, Central America Caribbean - page 4

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Central America Caribbean » Honduras » Western » Copán Ruinas September 19th 2012

Went to Copan in Honduras, near the Copan Ruins...spent two nights here in a lovelhostel called via via. Cute town. This is where I eearthquake my first earthquake! About 4am everything starts to shake, John slept through it! 4.5 on the Richter scale, the source of it was about 25km from us..very strange feeling. On to Santa Rosa de copan via 3 interesting bus journeys, crammed in with the locals and the odd chicken. not much to do here and we were staying in a dingy hotel room more like a jail cell! So we decided to high tail it across the nearest border to El Salvador...... read more
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We had a lovely week in Lago de Yojoa with lots of relaxing, pints of ale and yummy food. We ended up spending 6 days there and although we didnt want to leave the D&D brewery we thought it was time to hit the road! 6 hours and 3 buses later we found ourselves in La Esperanza where for the first time in 3 months we were searching for our fleeces. La Esperanza, thinking it was going to be a quiet, off the beaten track, mountain village it turned out to be a busy trading community. La Esperanza was quite large in comparision to our last destination and we were by far the only foreigners around and it was obvious that we were the only visitors they had had for a while as they surrounded us ... read more
La Esperanza
View of La Esperanza
On top of the monument..


Dear Blog Readers, The alarm was set and we groggily made it to the Tica Bus terminal at 4am in Managua which was two minutes from the sketchy hostel that we stayed at in the even sketchier area that it resided. Tica Bus is probably the most famous long distance bus journey carrier in Central America and it gets you between large cities from different countries and the higher price is paid in comfort and convenience. Our 13 hour journey took us north through the highlands of Nicaragua and a stop at the border. The Lonely Planet tells you that the C4 agreement between Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador means that passing between these countries is free. Be warned, this is not always the case! The Nicaragua-Honduras border costs $6 to get through but the ... read more
Floaters
Nature Trail
King of the Mayans


Perched on the edge of the precipice staring at a black hole barely illuminated by a pair of solar lamps, it was going to be a leap of faith in our guide's promise that the natural pool below was 50 metres deep. We found ourselves here due to the type of about face that can present itself when your itinerary isn't exactly set in stone. The initial idea was to spend a week or so in the Honduran Bay Islands wallowing on a beach but instead wound up deep underground in this cave. The Bay Islands sounded exotic but the more people we spoke to, the more we came to the conclusion that the islands were a bit of a one trick pony, even if lounging around a Carribean island isn't a bad trick to have ... read more
Tikal
Tikal
Copan


Hola todo el mundo. We found ourselves in a quaint little city called Copan Ruinas. And guess what? There were Mayan ruins called Copan Ruinas in the vicinity. What makes Copan so special from the other ruins that we have seen so far is that many of the carving details have been well preserved. This means that the symbols on the stelae (standing stones) tell the full story of the past leaders or kings. Even some of the paint is still intact. There were some cool names like The Temple of the Underworld and The Cemetery. The Cemetery was not even a cemetery, the Spanish just called it that due to the fact that they found skeletons underneath the brick-walled homes. The Mayans actually buried their ancestors under their homes, you know, to keep them nice ... read more
Ancient Texts
Artist´s Impression
The Ball Court Area


Jan 14... Feb 5 Let's see I didn't realize how long it has been since I have updated. I'll try and make it short and sweet but well see haha. So I arrived at copan took a taxi to the school where I met the 2 women who own the school. They showed me to my homestay, which is kind of a hostel. The first 2 days I slept in the dorm room because there were people staying in he private room. I spent the weekend walking around town trying to get oriented and did some window souvenir shopping. My first week of class was decent. I took 4 hours in the am and 3 hours in the pm for the first 3 days but a school group came so they didn't have any teachers for ... read more


Over winter break, I took a trip to Copán, Honduras, and Antigua, Guatemala. I was travelling with my friend, her two kids- one 2 years older than me and 1 in middle school, and her other friend. Copán is famous for its amazing Mayan ruins, or the Copán Ruinas. Antigua is known for being an amazing little town that’s surrounded by volcanoes. We did the whole trip using the Hedman Alas bus system, which meant that we took the route of La Ceiba-San Pedro Sula- Copán- Guatemala City- Antigua and then back again, stopping over in Copán. Note: the following blog comes from a day-by-day journal I kept during the trip, just to give you some perspective. Day 1: We left Roatan early in the morning on the ferry. It was a very calm ferry ride, ... read more
Our group in Copán
It's like a Central American San Francisco
Some of the Ruins


Days 13-14 I had to have an earlier night than the previous one as my shuttle was picking me up at 6 in the morning, why can’t they run these at sensible times – the reason is the poor driver has to do a return trip – 12 hours in one day on these roads – he earns every penny if you ask me. He drove us into my last new country of the trip - Honduras and from now on I'm heading back up to Cancun. El Salvador was a refreshing change as you didn’t have to pay to leave the country, however to get to Copan we had to cross into a bit of Guatemala first and then into Honduras, so had to pay a $2 exit fee to leave Guat and a $3 ... read more
Copan town centre
Copan town centre
Copan Ruinas


We expected to be picked up for the 45 minute drive from Copan Ruinas to Finca El Cisne, the coffee plantation we would be staying on for the next 2 days, in a pick up truck, which was a little concerning considering the light rain that was falling. So when a mini van arrived, we thought this is good, at least we will stay dry. That thought dissipated very quickly when we were sliding precariously along extremely muddy, steep roads not far from town. Alex was a very skilled driver but when your van with no seatbelts, full of 4 Australians, 3 Americans, 2 French Canadians and 2 Hondurans is sliding sideways, just inches from the edge of a very steep embankment, you start to get very nervous. There were several times where we called out ... read more
Tasting some of the fruit on horseback
Great local food  -Finca El Cisne
Coffee beans out to dry


As we crossed the border into Honduras on our Hedman Alas bus trip, we were hit up for 40 Quetzales, departure tax from the Guatemalan official. We had not noticed anyone else having to pay when they handed over their passports and customs declarations, nor had we read of any fees payable to leave the country on land. But it is hard to argue with someone who is holding your passports, so despite having spent all our Quetzales (they kindly agreed to take US$) we paid up and walked across the road to Honduras and their officials. While waiting there for the rest of the bus passengers to clear customs we spotted a unique take on a no smoking sign on the window. The English translation is "Smoking is suicidal. Please go commit suicide somewhere else."Don't ... read more
Chilling out in Copan Ruinas
Macaws at Copan Ruinas
Copan Ruinas - ruins




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