Back from Copan, Honduras
24 October 2013 | Bahia Del Sol
Hot with rain nightly
We are back from Copan and had a great time there. We stayed at a little hostel (small hotel with a restaurant and bar) for only $16 a night. We had a great dinner with our buddy boater Dennis and drug a Canadian we found on the bus with us. The next day we headed out to the Copan ruins. The site is much smaller (and more expensive) than Tikal or Palanque. Yet it had some interesting points that the others we have seen did not. Like an engraved staircase with hieroglyphics giving the entire history of the site from 400 - 700 AD. Also one of the pyramids has a hidden temple inside with unbelievable carvings and red color. It was awesome to be able to climb down inside a pyramid that is 1500 years old. The next day we spent walking around the little town of Copan which started out as a base camp for the early explorers that first discovered Copan back the the 1800's. We toured a local school and talked to the director about their efforts to be a bilingual school which will give the children a huge step up in finding jobs later. Next we visited Macaw Mountain where there are working to repopulate the Macaw population and have released many onto the ruins site. We had seen many Macaws flying at the ruins and it was magical to see a flock of them fly from tree to tree. We also saw many other rare birds there that they have in the breeding program. Leiann nearly jumped out of her pants when see saw her first banana spider there, they get about three inches long and we are told the bite is painful but not deadly. The next day we spent going to another museum that showed black and white's of the early days going back a hundred years. We had a taxi driver take us all over town and out into the back woods. We visited a woman who has lived in a 20 X 20 adobe house for 28 years. She supports her children by baking bread in a ancient wood fired oven. She then walks all the way down the mountain to sell her bread in the morning then brings back flour and firewood to make the next days breads. Her children were happy and she was too with having so little and before leaving we bought some incredibly good bread. Visiting these humble people was the highlight of our trip. We ended up getting stuck in Copan for another few days as the shuttle decided not to run because they had no one to bring up. Pretty tough having to hang out another fews days in a place most will never be able to visit. We're now busy provisioning and finishing boat projects. We have replaced all our lights with LED's and bought new batteries so we will not run out of power. We have crammed enough food in the boat to last us at least 2 months so we won't starve. We have been having a good time visiting with other cruisers like us who are getting ready to leave, most we will never see again. We still plan to leave some time after the first of Nov, but that could change. Stay tuned for more Chrysalis adventures.