Copan Ruinas

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Best night sleep in some time! The temperature was perfect last night & the bed is just comfy enough & it was super quiet! Love it. Nothing beats a good nights sleep.

The Honcho near us clearly hasn't gotten his doodling pipes worked up to snuff yet. His cock-a-doodle-do sounds more like cock-a-dool-ack. It literally made me wake up laughing. He has a bit of a hack at the end & it gets really quiet. Maybe he's a teenager?

We got up & headed out. We've decided to take it easy today & just chill around town. We need a day of rest after yesterday. Plus the weather is kinda crappy & cloudy & drizzly so not the perfect conditions for viewing the ruins of Copan.

Outside we were met with the delicious smell of fried chicken. I think that may be our demise. It just smells sooooo good. Directly in front of our hostel. Rude. Geoff asked if it was wrong to want fried chicken for breakfast. I said no, so that's what we ate. I naively thought I'd lose weight on this travel adventure....I may have to go on a diet/cleanse when we get home. We joked about our cholesterol through most of our fried chicken breakfast. At least we drank water instead of Fanta.... Yikes, I would never eat like this at home. Unless a fried chicken stand was in front of my house or I had a fanta tap on my fridge. I have absolutely no willpower. Oh well!

After our healthy & delicious breakfast we headed out to walk. The town is cobblestone streets, colorful buildings, a colonial mountain town. The jungle around us is green & dense. It's pretty how the clouds are hugging us all around the town. Although it is chilly & damp. We walked through the outdoor market in the middle of town. All the farmers bring in all their vegetables & meat & sell them right there. It's always a mad house in these markets. Women yelling all around you. Why the women have to yell I don't know, but they do. One of the meat shops we walked by had a huge cows nose, really the entire snout, just sitting there on the table. It was weird & icky. My mind kept looking for the rest of the cows head. It was strange. Do you eat cows nose? I hope I don't. Ick. I wanted to take a pic but the guy was mean mugging us probably because we had grossed out looks on our faces. Gringos!

We walked through the center town plaza. Lot's of men were hanging out together with their cowboy hats, just chilling on a saturday morning. We've decided the Honduran men win the prize for leering in all the countries we've been to thus far. Geoff said we walked through the courtyard & he just watched men stare at me. I feel way overdressed compared to the rest of the ladies around here, so it's kinda surprising, but once he mentioned it I noticed the trend. Any woman that walks by & the men all turn their heads to watch her walk away. Calling it staring would be an understatement. It is full attention, stop everything else you are doing, don't look away until out of sight or another woman walks by, kind of leering. Almost impressive actually.

We bought a few trinkets around town & headed back to the room to rest. I still get tired pretty easily from this damn cold. The cough I have now is lovely as well. I sound like a 2 pack a day smoker & I usually have to spit afterwards. It's so graceful & makes me feel like such a lady. Ugh.

We spent a little time reading, emailing, typing, the usual. Headed back out to town to eat some more food. 😊 We found a tiny little comedor in the outdoor market area. I picked it because all the people outside were eating soup & that sounded perfect for my throat. The soup was to die for. It reminded me of a soup my Grandma used to make. Corned beef & Cabbage with veggies. OMG! Wow, it was delicious. Geoff had more fried chicken (that's twice before noon)......Their outdoor tables were full so we sat at a little table in their kitchen. It was a mom & daughter team doing all the cooking. It is soooo crazy the amount of food they give one person. My soup was a huge bowl of broth that came with a plate full of different steamed veggies & a big slab of cooked stew beef, as well as a plate of rice & salsa. The soup was amazing. I wish I had it right now actually. Geoff is going to have to learn how to cook it when we get home. Since he'll be the house-husband I keep telling him my fav foods that he's going to have to learn to cook. He says he will. It was fun, although really hot, sitting in the kitchen with the ladies. I chatted with them & they seemed to enjoy us enjoying our food. I told them it reminded me of my Grandma.
With our full bellies we headed out. Did a little window shopping. The cowboy boots they sell here are incredible & beautiful. There were a few that looked & felt like snake skin in various colors & there was one pair with the super spiny part of the alligator on the toe of the shoe. So many different kinds.

My middle finger that I hurt in the waterfall incident still really hurts, maybe even more now that it's not swollen. I think I actually broke it because there's this new knob sticking out the side of my finger that really hurts to push on. I can barely brush my hair like a normal person. Too bad it's on my right hand & not my left. Now I have a really ugly middle finger on my right hand. Oh well, it was fun.

We headed back to the hostal to rest some more. I swear this respiratory infection is super annoying & kicking our booties. Worked some more on downloading pics. It's a process, but when you take as many pics as I like to take (& now Geoff is on my bandwagon as well, since we have two cameras with us), it's a constant work in process. Worth every second. We talked with some guys who had just gotten into town from Utila. They saw a whale shark on one of their dives so we are super hopeful! They also got to dive with dolphins. Twice in fact and once they stuck around and played with the divers. They have us all excited about getting there. Although after much discussion, we've compromised & decided to take our time getting there. We need to heal our lungs in order to dive safely & I want to see the Lenca area of Honduras. So, we have come up with a plan! But we are super stoked to get to the beach & dive again! I really hope it's not raining when we arrive. Thanks Seattle curse!

Actually it has started raining & it's kinda chilly. We just hung out inside & took it easy this afternoon. After awhile we decided to head out & see if we could find faster wifi at a restaurant. Sometimes it works better. We headed to ViaVia & were able to get some pics downloaded. Then we headed out to find some dinner. Where did we end up? In front of our hostal at the taco stand of course. Just too good & so cheap & soooo good!

Inside the hostal we sat downstairs & I had the longest conversations in Spanish since we left. I talked with one of the men who works here about his work & the Honduran lifestyle. It was really interesting. Kinda sad too because he & his wife can't have kids & literally everyone has at least a handful of children. He said it's been hard but what can you do. Then I started talking with the Senora, the woman who owns the hostal, & her kids. She has the cutest little boy, 1.5 years, who they nicknamed Chino because he was born with slanty eyes (not a whole lot of PC in these parts). Geoff got up to leave for a bit & Chino sat next to me & started tickling me. What a flirt! Geoff got back & he was giving him fist pumps. It was fun to be able to carry a conversation & pretty much hold my own. After 6 weeks my Spanish has improved so much. I just love being able to communicate. It's really fun because we get more of a firsthand experience with the culture & the people. They love to talk to us & share with us. Geoff is starting to understand more too. People always ask why he doesn't talk, which we always laugh at, & then they tell him he should just start talking. He's trying to talk a bit which is great. There are always people lighting firecrackers it seems & we heard some go off when I was talking with the Senora. I asked why they light them & she said because they're crazy. I assumed there had to be some good reason. Nope, just boys being boys I guess.

Off to bed & lots & lots of noise. Oh, Saturday nights & the constant boom of techno. There's also a karaoke bar across the street from us. It's going off! Earplugs in & goodnight.

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Photos

Fried Chicken
for breakfast.

And fried chicken
for lunch. Horchata!

Boots!
If we weren't backpacking Kassandra would own them all.

Beef Buckets and of course chips.
Can you find the tongue? Blech!