Copan
HONDURAS
Mayans & Machetes
By LYNDI
Saturday, April 12, 2008
After a marathon day of ferries, buses, and taxis, Aaron and I finally made it to Copan Ruinas near the Honduran border with Guatemala. The main reason most tourists come this way is to see the ancient Mayan ruins about 1km from the city and is supposedly one of the top 3 Mayan ruin sites (next to Chichen Itza in Mexico and Tikal in Guatemala).
The bus ride itself was quite a tour as we entered the hilly and mountainous terrain of western Honduras. The scenery was beautiful, so I ended up looking out the window most of the time. Well, that and the fact that the air brakes were screeching so loudly that sleeping or concentrating on a book was out of the question. Or, if you could tune out the screeching, the mariachi music blaring from the sometimes-tuned-in radio would keep you up. But I’m getting off track, so I digress…
Where was I? Anyways, Aaron and I arrived in Copan at about 4 or 5pm and attempted to find a place to stay. We were really impressed with Copan’s natural beauty, and the city itself is very colonial with cobblestone streets, steep hills that overlook green valleys, and cute little tuk-tuks zooming back and forth. However, when you have 30lb backpacks on your back – the hills, uneven terrain, and traffic are all much less appealing. It took us awhile to find availability – partly because we weren’t prepared to spend so much on a place to stay. Having just come from the Bay Islands where prices are supposed to be the highest in the country, we expected Copan to be a welcome respite from expensive hotels. Now, granted, “expensive” is $12/night, but we were determined to find something cheaper. But we failed. All the hotels were either full or past our meager budget. But we did find a nice dorm for $4 pp and settled in there.
As we were walking around our first night looking for (what else?) a nice cold beer, we ran into our friend Greg from Utila. He had met up with his friend Brian and had come in on the bus after ours. So the four of us grabbed dinner and some drinks and agreed to hit the ruins in the morning. We asked some of the tuk-tuk drivers how much it would cost for a ride to the ruins, and they told us it would be an hour walk or about $5 one-way. Then another guy in our hostel told us it was a 5 minute walk. It may have taken us 8 minutes, but he was definitely closer.
We paid the $15 entrance fee and walked to the main courtyard. Now, these are my first Mayan ruins, so I have nothing to compare it to, but I was surprised how not-busy it was. (Is “not-busy” a word?) The only other ruins I’ve seen were Angkor Wat in Cambodia that is literally swarming with tourists. At Angkor – if you want a picture of just the ancient ruins without little heads everywhere, you better have a good PhotoShop application. Some of the ruins at Copan had short descriptions, but we got most of our information from the less-than-reliable Lonely Planet book. It gave a little background information, but in hindsight it would have been much better to hire a guide or buy an actual guidebook. I’m sure there are so many stories to the ruins and so much history of which I am completely unaware that it probably would have made the day much more interesting. (By the way, Aaron and I decided we’re definitely getting a guide when we get to Tikal in Guatemala so we can actually get the whole story). It probably took us 3 hours or so to go through all the ruins, climb on top of the sacrificial altars, and read all we could from our Cliffnotes-of-a-guidebook. From on top of one of the ancient staircases, I was impressed to see an entire class of little fifth or sixth graders walking around the ruins in their school uniforms. I couldn’t help but think of my fifth grade field trips… to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. Or Alpenrose Dairy Farm. These kids get to go to an ancient Mayan kingdom????? Well, fine, but I hope they don’t get jealous if they never learn the correct way to milk a cow.
After the ruins, we headed back to our hostel for the daily siesta, then conveniently woke up in time for happy hour. We met up with Greg and Brian again and headed out only to uncover an ugly truth about Copan. During so-called “happy hour”, bars and restaurants just double the prices of drinks and then charge you half price. They must think we’re reeeeally dumb. Granted, we were in the mood for a good Salva Vida so we just paid what’s-really-full-price-half-price. So, maybe we are that dumb. But at least we were on to them.
I’m not really sure how we spent the next day, sort of bumming around, running errands, etc. Having walked through the entire city several times over, I was pretty impressed to learn that it must be a city ordinance that all men carry machetes at all times. Driving their cars, riding their bikes, standing in line at the bank. Just gotta have that machete. It took me awhile, but I think I figured out why they are needed at all times:
a) to ward off all the wild Honduras bears. If there were any.
b) so they don´t have to get a knife dirty each time they eat.
c) maybe it’s their Second Amendment right? And if everyone else is carrying one, it´s safer for them to carry one too.
Someone told me all these men actually work in the fields and use machetes for the livelihood, but that’s not nearly as interesting. On Saturday, Aaron and I decided to visit the much-hyped about hot springs just outside of town. You can buy a package from any tour agency for $15 pp or so, so we decided to save a bit of money and do it ourselves. We caught a “chicken bus” from the edge of town to Agua Caliente (for those not in the know – a chicken bus is an old American Bluebird school bus from 1988 that they cram full of as many people as possible. I’m pretty sure those old buses have a capacity for about 30 or so, so when you get on and see 80 little faces staring back at you, you just sit in someone’s lap or squeeze in between a few of the standers. And I’m not kidding – a family of 5 can fit into one seat for 2. The bus driver somehow magically knows where to pick people up and drop people off, and when he pulled up to Agua Caliente, we gladly hopped off.
Now, apparently, by “hot springs”, they actually mean “one-stream-of-hot-water-that-warms-up-a-2ft-circle-of-water-underneath-where-all-the-locals-bathe”. Granted, if I didn’t have an indoor shower, I’d go to the hot springs too. So, since there were grown men bathing in our luxurious spa, we sort of stayed clear and walked down the river a bit. To be honest, there wasn’t much there. It was a river. With grown-up, almost naked people soaping themselves. So, it didn´t take us long to clear out. We were just glad we didn’t get suckered into paying $15 for it.
Once we were ready to go, we hitched a ride in the back of a guy’s truck (it’s very common in Honduras since so many people don’t have cars. The truck drivers charge you a little bit and make a little money driving where they were going anyways) and got to enjoy the beautiful scenery on the way back.
That night Aaron had organized a poker tournament at our hostel. He went to the bank and got 1 lempira notes, and then everyone bought in for how much they needed. I had every intentions of losing, er, playing, but come about 7pm, I felt really nauseous. I’m not sure what I ate, but my body didn’t like it. So I spent the evening praying to the porcelain god while Aaron played poker. He ended up doing really well, at least, so one of us had a good night. I felt worse for the other people in our dorm. Regurgitating is not a pleasant experience, but neither is listening to it. We decided to head out the next morning at 6am. In retrospect, riding chicken buses when you’re really nauseous is not a good idea. More on that later.
