Copan Town

People are so laid back down here that nothing seems to run on a schedule, the time for anything to happen is whenever people feel like it. Take bus rides for example. In the United States you'd call ahead to a Greyhound station, ask about their schedule, and buy a ticket for a bus that would leave at a specific time on a specific day. Down here you wait on the side of the road and wave down the first bus going in your direction. During my journey today from Coban, Guatemala to Copan, Honduras I rode on no fewer than six different busses. Fortunately all the locals down here are very helpful and they were happy to point me in the right direction so I was waiting in the right place for the right busses. One bus I rode was a van built to hold nine or ten passengers that had a roof piled high with avacados and thirty-two people inside. I can only imagine how Guatemalans could fill the St. George house.

I was surprised by how beautiful the town of Copan is. I was expecting a dusty little Honduran village, existing only to facilitate the needs of travelers visiting the nearby Mayan ruins. It really is a very nice place though. The town is set in a lush green valley and has a beautifully designed Central Plaza surrounded by a whitewashed colonial-style cathederal and several tasteful restaurants and shops. It is a bit touristy, but it's classy at the same time, it isn't overdone.

This afternoon I took a rickshaw to a place just outside of town called “Parque de Aves”. The Parque de Aves is a reserve and rehabilitation center for exotic birds indiginous to South and Central America. This place really was outstanding. Again it was a bit touristy, but not kitchy or tacky, it was the real deal and was very well done, even by United States standards. I don't even really like birds but this place had some pretty awesome ones. During my one-hour tour by a park employee I walked through an enclosure with ten or fifteen colorful scarlet macaws, saw several varieties of bright green and red birds from all over the amazon, and even let a toucan gnaw on my fingers (trust me, it wasn't painful at all). My favorite part of the park though was an area where visitors could have their picture taken while holding one of several different varieties of birds. I gave my camera to a Honduran kid and had my picture taken with several different species of macaws as well as a smaller exotic bird that was perched on my finger.

As the sun set over Copan I hiked up a cobblestone street to the “Mirador de Cuartel”, which I think means, “view from the jail”. The jail is a whitewashed building that looks like it was built to sell Whitecastle burgers, but I'm pretty sure it isn't being used - either to house prisoners or to sell burgers. The view was worth the short hike though. I climbed a little ways down the hillside and snapped a few pictures of the town at sunset against the green hills, as well as a few pictures of a local soccer game taking place at a field nearby.

I figured that ten dollars wasn't an outrageous price to eat dinner at Copan's finest restaurant, so I went to “Glifo's” for a tasty meal. I enjoyed minestrone soup with garlic bread as well as filleted fish with a Mayan corn sauce and mashed potatoes and vegetables on the side. I was still hungry after such an exhausting day of bus rides, so I went to the Central Plaza and paid another dollar for a grilled sausage with tortillas, beans, and picante sauce.

Copan is a fun town at night. As I wandered around after dinner I stopped to watch a man performing Native American sounding music (Mayan, perhaps?). I also passed a semi-tasteful night market where for less than a dollar I bought a Mayan statue that is clearly manufactured, but still worthy of my collection back home.

I'm really looking forward to visiting the Copan Ruins tomorrow. With Tikal they are the most famous Mayan ruins outside of Mexico. Tikal was great because each of the temples was so huge, but Copan is known for it's abundance of Mayan carvings. My friend Mark, who I met in Belize, said that he enjoyed Copan even more than Tikal, so I'm pretty excited to see what it's all about.