We awoke to find ourselves in a rather bleak hotel in Tegucigalpa early on the morning of Sun 30th November. Early being 4.30am. Yep. We were hoping to catch the 5.30am coach to Copan Ruinas in the northern most part of Honduras. We woke the security guard who was kipping on the sofa in reception to let us out and got a taxi from the street to the bus terminal. We had emailed ahead to reserve seats but unfortunately they mustn't have received it as there were no spaces available on the service we wanted. Instead we had to wait until 10am. Not very impressed. Since we hadn't really eaten anything the day before we were pretty hungry and waited eagerly for the bus station cafe to open. It would appear that Honduran Spanish is not the same as the Spanish we learnt and I had so much difficulty making myself understand to the lady serving that I ended up being served a portion of plaintain chips with mince beef for breakfast. Which being veggie is not my idea of yumminess. Luckily I also managed to get coffee and a couple of stale pastries so we could stave off the hunger pangs for a little longer. The bus staff all thought it was highly amusing that we waited for 5 hours in the bus station and chuckled heartily as they took our photos ready for boarding the bus. (I still don't know why they did that - for body identification?!) Unfortunately we had to put all our bags in the storage compartment under the bus so the meagre snacks I had managed to obtain were out of reach for the whole journey and although they served us sandwiches they contained meat. We were being teased with food we couldn't eat. Needless to say by the time we arrived in Copan Ruinas 8 hours later I was ready to eat my own face I was so hungry. We hastily found a place to stay and then found somewhere to eat and literally demolished veggie burgers with chips AND pudding. Food never tasted so good. They say humans can live for up a week without food. We went 48 hours and it was touch and go.
Mon 1st Dec starts in Copan Ruinas, the little town which serves as a base for visitors wanting to visit the Mayan ruins of Copan. We had spoken to several people about what there is to do in Honduras and we had heard the same thing from almost everyone. Copan and the Bay Islands - if you want to dive. We didn't want to dive so that just left Copan. Hence travelling for 2 whole days all the way through practically an entire country. Luckily there is quite a bit going on around Copan Ruinas so we knew we could fill several days there. We went to Macaw Mountain on Monday which is a bird sanctuary up in the hills. We saw macaws (naturally), parrots, toucans, hawks, owls etc. All the animals had been brought the the park either by the authorities who had confiscated them from illegal sellers or by people who no longer wanted them as pets. In one section they let the birds fly completely free but they always come back as they know they'll get food. James got himself decked out in macaws and even had his t-shirt munched by one of them. I guess that'll be why it was no longer wanted as a pet then. We also looked around the town museum that afternoon to get some background on Copan ready for our trip to the ruins the next day.
We were up and out early on Tues morning, eager to be history boffs. The ruins are a short walk out of town so we strolled out at about 8am. The site was quiet at that time in morning and we were able to take our time looking round. Copan is famous for it's sculptures and there are lots of stelae (carved standing stones) dotted around the place. The carvings are remarkable - very detailed and surprisingly intact. The Mayans built temples over the top of previous ones and there is actually a beautiful temple (Rosalila) buried inside another one, which they have built a full size replica of in the museum on the site. It was amazing to walk around the ruins of what was once a really powerful city. Copan isn't a vast site and we were back in town by the afternoon which we spent relaxing and doing laundry etc until a powercut hit the town in the early evening. Fortunately we were still able to get food. I think they have contingency plans for such situations as it is quite a common occurence.
Wednesday morning started with a horse riding trip into the hills first thing. A local girl called Carolina was our guide and took us right up to a little Chorti Indian village where we were taken around a women's weaving cooperative and shown how they create their beautiful blankets and mats. Neither of us had ever ridden before but apparently impressed Carolina with our skills, even though my horse kept cutting James' up and James' only seemed to want to eat. That afternoon we went out of town a little way to look around a butterfly house and, even though it was the wrong season for many species, we saw several huge and beautiful butterflies. We had a great 3-course backpacker special meal at 'Twisted Tanya's restaurant that night which I can highly recommend! Good cocktails too, apparently....
We were up and out at the crack of dawn (literally) on Thurs 4th. We caught a shuttle bus to Antigua in Guatemala which got in at around 2pm. We checked into our hostel which had a lovely roof terrace and as the sun was shining (something it didn't do that much in Honduras) we spent the afternoon in the sunshine reading and writing up journals.
We well and truly checked out Antigua on Friday and it is a really gorgeous town. Many guidebooks will tell you that it's not the REAL Guatemala as it's affluent, clean and totally unfrenzied! Ok, maybe that's true, but it's still full of stunning ruined churches and cathedrals which were damaged in earthquakes and wars, as in Granada and it's a real pleasure to walk around. There is also a great artisans market where we bought some more Christmas presents. Our favourite church was the Iglesia de Nuestra Senora de la Merced (Church of our Lady of Mercy). It was having it's yellow and white relief frontage redone when we were there and it is stunning. I'll definitely get some photos of it up when I can. Antigua is surrounded by huge volcanoes and we had great views all day of them, some with plumes of cloud and ash erupting from their tops! After a very nice day of strolling around the town and sampling local chocolates, we had a much longed for thai meal for dinner.
We had a proper Saturday morning lie-in on 6th Dec as our hostel (The Yellow House) was extremely comfortable and even included a buffet breakfast in the price so we didn't even have to venture far when we got hungry! We did head out into town eventually though and got a coffee on the Parque Central. Well, James had coffee, I had the yummiest hot chocolate on the face of the planet. Seriously - Guatemalan's know chocolate. We fuelled up with a decent lunch ready for our trek up Volcan Pacaya that afternoon. Pacaya is still a very active volcano and we were assured of seeing real, actual red hot magma. James could barely contain the Geography teacher inside him at the prospect. Our tour bus picked us up from the Yellow House and drove us for an hour and a half out to Volcan Pacaya National Park. We then had a long walk up. We got fantastic views of surrounding volcanoes on the way up. The last part of the climb was definitely the worst as we had to scramble up very loose and very, very sharp lava scree - basically chunks of solidied lava that came in all different shapes and sizes but not of them stable or easy to walk on. It was a case of 2 steps forward, one step back the whole way. And it was hot and steep. But it was most definitely worth it as at the top we were rewarded with an up close and personal view of real lava oozing out of the side of the volcano. I'm not totally convinced of the safety of having 20-30 people all standing on a thin rock crust right above molten lava, all jostling for the best position to get photos and toast marshmallows but, this is Central America, and besides, it was so hot that you didn't hang around too close for long! The climb down was even sketchier than the way up as the whole mountain side seemed to shift with every step plus it was getting dark. But that just made it more spectacular when you looked back up the mountain side and saw the lava tumbling down! I had to make a few stops to empty the lava gravel out of my walking boots. We celebrated with a beer when we made it safely back down and then the tour bus took us back to Antigua. As it was late we went out for a quick bite and then hit the hay for a much needed sleep after such a strenuous and exciting day!
