I finally left Nicaragua not having achieved what I wanted to with the Ponies and Small Persons project and not knowing how best to progress with this next. However, it is an amazing country with amazing people and my time there was hugely fulfilling in many other ways.
And so to Honduras. The bus route across the border and through Honduras took us through ever changing mountain scenes, from the rough and dry to cool rocky pine clad slopes and finally to great dripping misty plantations and muddy pastures. We passed rows of big black vultures sitting on fence posts eyeing dog and horse corpses and little communities filled with cowboy hat and welly boot wearing gents. There is definately a significant change in atmoshere compared with Nicaragua and there seemed to be hardly anyone about. It was for this reason that I abandoned plans to stay at a micro brewery on the shores of Lago de Yajoa because when it came to my stop it was very deserted and I had no clue how to make the next connection. I carried on to San Pedro Sula where I spent the night. I was sad to just rip through Honduras without stopping anywhere along the way, but as a lone female I thought it best to be cautious.
The next day I travelled to the small town of Copan near Gatemalan border and famous for the Mayan Copan Ruinas (hence the dreadful Sun newspaper style title to this story - sorry!). Narrow, steep, cobbled streets wind themselves around the Parque Central where the cowboy hats and women in traditional Maya dress are ever more evident. Other than the ditinct change in local culture to Nica, the other immediately noticeable change is that this place was cold! Freezing in fact. I spent a few days here just wandering around, visiting an unremarkable but interesting butterfly farm before meeting up with my Dutch friend Jacqueline and going to the Ruins.
Many people had returned to the hostel saying 'its okay', '15 dollars is too expensive' or 'without a guide it is just some old rocks' so nothing had prepared us for this truely awesome sight. We were met at the gates by a swarm of huge red macaws preening each other on the fence and chattering in the trees. Despite arriving late, the large coach tours were absent and we pretty much had the entire place to ourselves apart from the elderly groundsman who kept pretending to draw double pistols on us as if in a Western movie (see photos).
First up was the petroglyphs and hieroglyphs (dunno the difference)and the massive carvings of pre-columbian kings of Waterlily Jaguar, Smoke Monkey, 18 Rabbit, First Dawn and Cauac Sky to name but a few of the funkiest names. The plazas, ball courts, altars and the jaw dropping Hieroglyphic Stairway all backed by mountainous forests were almost overwhelming. Having seen Mel Gibson's film Apocalypto, however innacurate, I could vividly imagine the bustling civilisation it would once have been and I could see those heads tumbling from the towering altars as human sacrfice to the gods were made. Visitors to the park were able to clamber over and through the ruins and really explore the nooks and crannies - this physical proximity to the ancient world would never be allowed in the UK. There was no litter and no graffitti - a little trust and less paranoia goes a long way.
We spent hours soaking this place up and were up for spending the night here. To those zipping through Copan, ticking it off the tourist list and just seeing a 'pile of rocks' - SLOW DOWN, OPEN YOUR EYES, YOUR MIND AND USE YOUR IMAGINATION! Rant over.
Enjoy the photos but know that they do not do it justice. (photos tommorrow)
