Copan, Honduras, is one of the best Mayan sites. It was built over a long period, 900 BC to 800 AD and was home to 50,000 people. We spent some time exploring the ruins. In the Grand Plaza stand stone stelae, each carved with a larger-then-life image of a scary king. A flight of 63 steps has thousands of hieroglyphs carved into it. The whole city is covered in intricate carvings. We find houses, palaces, temples and a pelota court. Pelota is a cross between tennis and squash but nobody knows how it was played. Over time, problems emerged. The city grew beyond the ability of the local agriculture to support it; generations of inter-breeding in the ruling royal family had predictable consequences; they got heavily into hallucinogenic drugs and held six-week long fiestas. Slowly, the
... read more