5th April 2015 – Copan Ruinas

Today is Ross & Chez’s 40th wedding anniversary and they have a special intimate breakfast for 2 complete with rose petals and roses on the table with the rest of us looking on and cheering. Our guides Rambo & Mario are from Guatemala and they stayed at the hotel with us last night, they are with us for the next 5 days. Today we have a short trip of only 148 kilometers to Copan Ruinas, so we leave at 8:00 am. It’s lovely and cool and there is a very light sprinkling of rain which is perfect for driving. Rambo leads us out of town in his Toyota Prado 4WD, so we don’t have to worry about navigation today.Once we’re out of town we drive through pretty mountains on a winding road with plenty of coffee trees growing. After we settle into our hotel we go for a walk around the small town in search of a cafe, which we find right next to the hotel and we have a lovely Latte made from Honduran coffee. This afternoon we are going to the Copan Mayan ruins and we are picked up from the hotel in about 6 tuc tucs, we have 3 in ours, so the race is on to see who gets there first. It’s down to ours & 1 other, we were egging our driver on and he was loving it, although we didn’t get there first it was a lot of fun trying. These ruins date from between 300 AD and 900 AD, they had a system of hieroglyphics to document their civilization and to communicate with the other Mayan kingdoms which were dotted throughout Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and Southern Mexico. This archaeological site has been a UNESCO world heritage site since 1980 The hieroglyphics are carved into volcanic rock in tall stelae. The Copan kingdom which had a population of around 25,000 had 16 rulers over the 600 years whose images are carved around a volcanic rock altar.The great Plaza is an enormous ceremonial area about 200 meters long and has many stelae, the more prominent ones being monuments to 18 rabbit who was the 13th king.In the middle is the temple which is built to represent a mountain and has many steep steps to the top.At one end of the great plaza is the ball game area. They used to play a game with a latex ball but there is a great deal of speculation about how the game was played and what the purpose of the game was.Next to the ball game area is the hieroglyphic stairway that depicts the achievements of the dynasty up till 755 AD when it was built.This area has seiba tress which are 300 years old, they are huge with an amazing root system.We continue onto the Acropolis where the Rosalila temple was found buried beneath a later temple. A reproduction of the Rosalila temple resides in the museum, it is a glorious red colour. Off the Acropolis area are the royal dwellings where it is believed the king and his family lived. Under each house the archaeologists found tombs of previous generations of kings and the artifacts from these tombs are in the museum in town. We continued to the east plaza which the Mayans used to fill with water to create a link to the mountains which the temples represent and the water on earth and the underworld. The Macaws were very important to the Mayans and are represented in there carvings. There are still Macaws in the site, they are magnificent and fly above us as we walk around. Cocoa is native to this area and was used by the Mayans and there is also many beautiful orchids growing in the area. This afternoon we visit the museum in town.