THE COPAN RUINAS

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We left Antigua very early 4am for our quick hop over the Guatemalan border into Copan, Honduras. We both wanted to visit the Copan Ruins and the easiest way with the route we were taking was from Guatemala. So we boarded our little mini bus and spent the next 6 hours on a bone crunching ride through the ever changing landscape. From high hills to sweeping valleys and the many villages along the way. We had booked this trip through a travel agent and so we were dropped right off in Copan town at our hotel. There was a little confusion as to details of the trip as the guys english and our spanish were not quite making sense. In the end we worked out that we would have an hour to rest and then we would be taken to the ruins. We would have preferred to have gone straight there as we only had the day to see them but we were assured an afternoon was plenty of time. Having checked into the hotel and quickly visited the bank we were soon in the mini van being driven to the ruins. The town of Copan is very quaint and the ruins are only 1km from the town so they are very close. Easy enough to walk to and from. Once we got to the entrance our guide allocated us an english speaking guide who we instantly liked.

He started by giving us some background on the Maya cities across the CA continent. He discussed the migration of the Maya people and the size and scale the cities would have been in their height. He also explained that Guatemala is the most indigenous maya descendant country in CA accounting for 75% of the total population. The maya people lived across the continent up to 4000 years ago, Copan was one of the major cities. We started our tour which took us through the vegetation and into the actual national park. On the way we saw some beautiful Macaws vibrant and red with plenty to say for themselves!! We started our climb round the back of the main city plaza. The first thing that struck both of us is that you pass many large mounds that are still covered in vegetation. You can make out the bricks and rocks but otherwise they are just a pile of stones with grass and trees growing out of them. Before Copan was made a UNESCO site in the early 80's local people would come and take the stone from the area to use on their houses etc... For this reason a lot of the areas cannot be restored or possibly even understood. However, Copan has many schemes underway with archaeologists painstakingly cataloguing all of the excavated individual stones and trying with new computer skills to find evidence of what some of the untouched structures would have been. One of the problems they have at the site in some areas is that early archaeologist’s involvement has left lots of bricks in piles all over the place and with no cataloguing of where they came from it makes restoring the buildings even more difficult. A lot of Copan has been restored though and our guide led us to the residential area for the royal quarters. One of the mysteries of the Maya world is the fact that at the height of success the maya population hit hard times and whole cities were lost. Our guide was very passionate and sat with us as we looked out over the stone buildings explaining how the people lived and functioned day to day.

The Maya were exceptionally intelligent people and the educated were a tightly fixed community. These very educated people would live within the main city of Copan. On the outskirts of the city across the river were the poorest villages. Sanitary conditions would have been terrible the people completely uneducated and dependant upon the rich city. Most of the local people would take the bridge across the river each day to work on the rich peoples city. They would build all day long in the blistering heat paid with food and then sent home to their slums as the rich sat back and enjoyed the fruits of their labour. To the maya knowledge was power and they used their teaching and religious rituals to keep not only the poor people under control but also the high society people. The maya were so paranoid of information getting into the wrong hands that children of the rich would become property of the King, educated integrally within the city completely controlled by the high society classes. As we moved away from the residential area we arrived into an open plaza area there seem to be many of these within a Maya city. Large steps rise on each side of a square floor area. Our guide explained that this would have been a place for festivities. Religion was a key part of the mayan life and temples rise from many different areas within the city. In this area there were large statues with inscriptions, it seems many of these would have been as offerings or as a way of commemorating certain kings. What was interesting here is that the whole plaza area has been found to have been flooded during the wet season. This could have been for two reasons. One was back up for the rich that they always had a water supply and secondly to create a large lake for leisure. Around the outside of the tall stairs which would actually have been seats you can see part of the way up carvings of frogs and crocodiles that would have sat right where the water level reached, quite unique. Our guide made it very clear that a lot of the information about the Maya can be circumstantial built up from surmising or guessing what happened. The whole lake story in this plaza has been scientifically proven, amazing what they can find out these days. The city of Copan was not only huge in size it was very rich and successful. The population grew and became so big that their success was actually their downfall. With over population came a food supply problems and the city could no longer we self sufficient. Food had to be traded outside of the tight community and water became a problem too. All of the stone carvings and buildings would have at one time been painted mainly in a deep red. It was this paint that caused one of the problems. When the city became too populated and the rich people had to rely on the reserve rain water collected in the plaza they did not know it would prove fatal. The rain had ran over the buildings first and the paint on the walls contained a level of mercury. Some skeletons tested at the city were found to have traces of mercury. A lot of the rich were killed by their own vanity. The other thing that we found quite surprising was the levels the rich would go to prove there wealth. When a child was born it would have a plank of wood attached to the front of it's forehead for the first 6-7 weeks of life. This plank would push the skull into a very flat shape which in future years would distinguish the rich children from the others. They would implant jade into their teeth and it had been found that they had developed their own anaesthetics to be able to do this (damn impressive for their time). Tattooing and piercing were also highly popular.

As we left this area we moved onto another plaza, one which gave a very good view of the river. Originally the river ran right to the edge of the city walls. The walls cannot be seen now as they have been eroded away by the force of the river over the years. The river has since been redirected but the view was really good over the surrounding jungle. Hard to imagine all the villages and people that once lived here. One of the other problems for the Maya seemed to be that at some point the rich people lost faith in some of the teachings of the "educated" and the poor people also started to rebel. At the same time the city had started to trade over the mexican border where they were introduced to quite a few intoxicating herbal plants. Records show that a drink from mexico was introduced into the city and shortly after this things seemed to take a nose dive too. Our guide pointed out that some of the last relics and sculptures in the city took a much darker and scary look about them. There is a possibility that this was caused by the effects of the drugs. To counteract the disgruntled rich the king introduced festivals that would go on for months lavish and highly religious the intoxicated people started to make less sensible decisions and although it was a short term fix the overall effects for the city was catastrophic.

So we move away from the river plaza and make our way out into the main plaza which our guide has left until last. As we came round the top of the hill the view of it was just breathtaking. The plaza is huge and would have been the hub of the city. All the trading and daily activity would have centred on and around this large open area. Temples rise from the now lush green plaza floor and there are many sculptures standing around the sides. We sat for a time enjoying the view and then made our way down to the bottom of the hill. One of the most interesting and unique things at Copan is called the stairway. This is under cover for protection purposes so you have to go right up close to appreciate it. It is one of the longest and most documented pieces of Maya history. Restored in the 1930's each brick tells the maya history via several thousand glyphs. The main problem here is the fact that when the stairway was discovered it was a mass of fallen bricks so although it has been restored and looks fabulous the restorers were not sure what order to put them so it is pretty jumbled up. Looks impressive though. So our guide left us to explore on our own and we sat for some time on top of one of the temples looking at the view. As we sat pondering the history of the site a large thunder clap brought us back to the present day and the fact that the sky had gone very black. As the rain started to spit and spot we ran back to the entrance area. We made it just in time as the heavens opened to a pretty impressive rain storm. We watched it from the restaurant deck which was nicely dry and after it had subsided we went to take a look at the museum.

A lot of the relics have been taken from the site and out in the museum for protection. The other interest in the museum is a full scale model of the nicknamed Rosalina. This temple has been found underneath one of the existing sites. Every 52 years the maya people would rebuild the main temple. Rosalina must have been a pretty important temple for the fact that they built directly over it and have left it complete. Can you imagine excavating beneath a temple and finding another one still intact. What’s more the paint has been well preserved and it has a lot of the colour left. The model in the museum gives you a good idea of the size it's just a shame it is considered too dangerous to take the tunnels and view the temple yourself. Our LP did say you could do it but it is a few years old so we figured they must have stopped this activity as men guard all the tunnel openings. We wondered around the museum and in all honesty we were both a bit disappointed it looks strange to have original artefacts set into modern day stone workings. It seems that Copan is going through a time of change as our guide had already told us that a lot of the originals sculptures in the plazas are now being replaced with copies. Although we both understand the need to preserve history it just seems a shame to move things that have stood for so many thousands of years.

So we left the museum and with the evening drawing in we took the short tuk tuk ride back into Copan town. We set out from our hotel to find a place to eat dinner and stumbled across a bar off the main plaza. As it turned out it was ran by a British lady and her husband. We got chatting over various things and she recommended her restaurant. She tempted us into going by telling us about her fresh roasted pork, beef and chicken. We were soon off to sample her home cooking and were not disappointed. It has been over 10 months since we have had roast pork and it was truly delicious. After all the early mornings of the recent 10 days we took to our beds pretty much straight after dinner and woke the next day bright and breezy. Our bus back to Antigua was leaving at 12pm so we had a couple of hours before that. We went for breakfast and then took a wonder into the market which was pretty much all local food. We then had some confusion over when the bus was due but finally we got that sorted and found ourselves packed into yet another mini bus. It was fully booked too so it was a rather hot and uncomfortable 5 hours back. Finally we got back to Antigua about 6pm having been roughed up over all the cobble streets to get into the town!!

We had the whole of the next day to enjoy our last bit of time in Antigua before we headed off on an overnight bus to Flores and the ruins of Tikal in northern Guatemala. Our bus tickets were booked for 6pm the next evening. We spent most of the day using the internet and trying to keep up to date with everything we have been doing. We then had a wonder around the market in Antigua which was quite disappointing as markets go. How they manage to sell some of the trinkets still astounds us all the stalls are the same and the range of choice is very small. Whats worse is that in the clothing part they wanted more than we would pay at home for basic t-shirts and tops. We gave up in the end and went for dinner!!

We left Antigua for the 1 hour ride into Guatemala city, here we had about 2 hours before our connecting "luxury" bus left for the 10 hour journey to Flores. The bus left on time and for Central American standard the it was roomy and reasonably comfortable. We just hope we would get some sleep as we had yet another busy day planned in Tikal.............................

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Photos

King of the castle
or is that a temple????

Happy as larry!!
Not sure if it was rolled on the thigh of a virgin though??