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Published: July 10th 2011
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K - I set the shower to hot and started my shower. It wasn’t hot so I fiddled with it - ouch! A quick fizz and a quick reminder from physics 101- water and electricity do not mix! Getting a shock from your shower is however a travelers rite of passage in Central America so I am in good or at least numerous company. Basically the showers are usually cold but the hotel owners have learned that tourists like “caliente”, so enter a drill and a few bits of electrical tape! Mark rolled his eyes on seeing the shower, rolled them again on hearing I touched it and then made a quick call to Prudential to increase my life insurance. Yes Mum - I am perfectly OK and I like my hair spiky!
Since my last blog we have passed through Honduras at great speed, which is a shame because it looks like a beautiful country. A long but uneventful 16-hour bus trip took us from Nicaragua to San Pedro Sula in Honduras. There we spent a night at a bizarre hotel that had a little bar in the back garden (appreciated), a karaoke barman (not quite so appreciated) and
appeared to turn in to a gambling den later in the evening. Unfortunately / fortunately we were too knackered to participate.
We then took the chicken bus to Copan Ruinas - a beautiful little town about 10KM from the Guatemala border to visit the Mayan ruins of the same name. The chicken buses are actually misnamed –although in some areas these old US school buses are often full of locals plus poultry we think that the term “disco bus” would be more appropriate. Music blares throughout the trip and at night the outside has flashing, colored neon lights. As we each had a double seat we enjoyed the 4 hour drive through beautiful green hills more than we had expected - remember, these are school bus seats with child sized leg room!
The Copan Ruinas civilization was considered the Paris of its day (AD250-900) and the ruins were very pleasant and interesting to visit – with some really colorful Macaws flying around the trees to give tropical atmosphere. They also had several artists reconstructions at appropriate spots which I appreciated as I am never able to visualize things in the abstract. However, it appears that the Mayans are
a pretty mysterious group and we were left not really knowing much more about them than we had before we went – except that they were good stone carvers.
The town itself has a lot of character and we enjoyed exploring it. However whilst enjoying a delicious breakfast in the market one of us was groped by a local……..I am not sure how to feel about the fact it was Mark! One of the local ladies became a little over excited by his forearms and gave them a good squeeze and a stroke as she went past!
Today we left Copan Ruinas and Honduras and are now in Antigua, Guatemala – another attractive colonial town. We have had a bit of an explore but are now relaxing at the hotel as we had a 6am start and a 5 hour bus trip to get here. We definitely short changed Honduras but have agreed to go back at some point either on this trip or for a vacation once we are back in “real life”.
Scroll down for all the photos!
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