Cofradia to Copan

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After the final morning at school we went for a baleada lunch at Clarita’s. Already there were the parents of Katie (Maureen’s roommate), and her boyfriend Chris, who teaches in Copan. He recommended we get Juan Carlos as our guide to tour the Mayan ruins.

Tourist story #2: Katy’s father had just returned from fly fishing Rio Dulce and was looking forward to trying some river in SE Honduras. He brought special glass flyrods here from Oregon on Taca Airlines. When they changed planes at LAX he was prevented from bringing the rods, though collapsed in their case, on board. “Too long.” “But,” he protested, “They just came here as carryon from Portland.” “Sorry, sir, regulations. Four inches too long.” “OK,” he offered, “I’ll cut four inches off the end and put the reels in the end.” They said that would be fine. “Of, course, then you would have two pieces of luggage, which will be an extra $70.” While his jaw was dropping, they realized that actually this tube contained “sports luggage,” adding another $50. To mollify him they suggested that he check the baggage as “mail,” which would only be $15. Sounded good. “And

we will guarantee delivery within 90 days.” He was unhappy with Taca.😞

We walked ¼ mile out to the highway to catch a chicken bus to Copan (from green dot to first red dot). Primed for a seat in the middle, I learned it is not a real chicken bus until they sell ten more tickets than they have seats. The corollary to the first lesson is “Always sit in the middle, if you can sit.” If you are lucky, they provide plastic wastebaskets you can turn upside down to sit in the aisle. We were not lucky. Second lesson is “Peek before getting on to see if there are any seats.” After a couple hours we were more than halfway there and enough people got off so we could take seats.

The town of Copan

We rolled into the town of Copan at sundown. The girls walked toward our hostel and chatted, stopping at times to watch the spectacle of me trudging laboriously, lugging my suitcase up the cobblestone mountain. “No, no, I’m fine,” I gasped. Their expressions said, “You don’t look fine.” Anyway, Maureen had secured a picturesque colonial style place (third

red dot). Maureen had reserved all the places we stayed in Guatemala, which made life easy. They were wonderful places except the one night stays that were cheap and somewhat less than wonderful, but safe and clean. And then there’s that last one back in Honduras, omygod. You might just want to skip the last one. I wish I did.

We walked back down the cobblestone mountain, and found Twisted Tanya’s (final red dot). Happy hour serves two drinks for $5. My personal favorite was “Jamacianmecrazy” a concoction of three kinds of rum, grenadine, and triple sec served in a Margarita glass the size of Lake Huron. That and appetizers were good for three hours. After that we were good for nothing.

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[Marcia Billings]

Still reading and enjoying. I wanna go.