Adios Copan

Leaving Copan today.  We were scheduled on a 5:30 am bus to Antigua, Guatemala, but supposedly a landslide was blocking the road.  So, we killed some time playing cards in the park, eating breakfast, and are hoping to catch the 10:30 am bus. 

It was a good stay in Copan, but we’re looking forward to moving on to our next stops.  We’ll be spending the weekend in Antigua (road conditions permitting), and then off to Peru to visit Machu Picchu.

Da Beach

We’re definitely suckers for a nice beach. So after hearing so much praise about Honduras’ Bay Islands, we finally broke down and checked it out for ourselves. We’re pretty glad we did. 

After our classes ended on Thursday, we headed northeast to Roatan, the largest and most accessible of the three Bay Islands, via a three hour bus ride and two short flights on a plane that we’re pretty certain was older than us (possibly us combined). We stayed at the appropriately named West Bay Lodge in West Bay.  It was a great little place with five or six individual bungalows, a pool, a tasty breakfast served each morning and just a few minutes walk to the welcoming beach. Speaking of the beach. It was unbelievable! The sand was soft, and the water was warm and crystal clear.

 

Here was our weekend in a nutshell: wake up, eat, beach, eat, pool, eat, beer, sleep, repeat.

 

It was a much needed break from our stressful lives – at least that’s what we tell ourselves.

One other thing to add…. we did a little horseback riding excursion last Wednesday.  We rode to a small village in the hills above town.  It was a little rainy, but we had some great views of the valley and the Ruins of Copan. Our butts are still sore.  

Here are some pics of the horseback riding, beach, and the hot springs:

My-oh-Mayan

Our second week in Copan started off with a few trials and tribulations.

First, Jim came down with some sort of flu-ish type thing causing him to miss a day of school.  Symptoms included fever, aches and a mysterious rash covering a good portion of his body.  Jim was convinced he had Malaria (Web MD affirmed), but his theory has been cast aside and has since enjoyed a full recovery.

Second, we had a small crisis on our hands when we tried to procure our tickets from Cuzco to Machu Picchu and found out, to our shock and horror, that the tickets were all taken.  Not afforded four days to hike the Inca Trail (nor the strength, stamina or ambition), and with no mule, bus, helicopter or private jet options available, we stumbled upon an alternate train route from a little town called Ollaytambohippopotumus -or something similar.  The downside of this route is that the town is two hours outside of Cuzco – the standard Machu Picchu departure city - and costs just as much as the standard train route, yet half the distance. The upside is that there were still tickets available and we won´t have to re-visit Peru next year.

Our final road bump occurred when Haley´s brand new “world phone” somehow slipped into a parallel universe never to be seen again.  In non sci-fi terminology, she set it down in a phone booth and never bothered to pick it back up.  Hopefully someone will get to benefit from all of its fancy worldly capabilities. 

Other less dramatic events for the week included: our first load of laundry (oddly correlated with the new mosquito bites Jim suffered soon after); drinking local brews waiting for an afternoon storm to pass; diligently studying our Spanish; mucho siestas; and a fun little school outing to hot springs in the hills outside of Copan. 

The Aguas Calientes, or “hot waters” for you non-spanish speakers, are located about an hour drive into the hills via a pretty primitive road.  Ten bucks gained us access to a series of pools, waterfalls, mud baths and natural saunas. Folklore states that centuries before, the Mayan kings and royalty bathed in the very same waters and swore by their healing powers. With that in mind, and still suffering from a mysterious rash, Jim eagerly jumped into the mud tub.  Haley was skeptical, but we can proudly report the rash was long-gone by the next day.  We think those Mayans were really onto something.

Week 1

It’s been more than a full week now since we arrived in Copan, Honduras, so we figured it was probably about time to give everyone an idea of what we’ve been up to.  It has been hard to keep up because Internet and electricity has been a little inconsistent. We promise not to be so long-winded in the future, but wanted to give you the lay of the land.

We are staying with a Hondurian family located about a ten minute walk from our spanish school. There are five people living in the house – Rosita, the matriarch, her two daughters Karla and Hilda, Hilda’s two year-old son Christian, and an older gentleman who we believe to be Rosita’s husband and is still nameless at time of print. The house is pretty decent-sized by local standards, with several bedrooms, a living, dining room and kitchen towards the front. There is also a two-story extension to the rear, which is where we stay. Our room is pretty nice with a double-sized bed, bathroom, desk and fan (crucial for the humidity). Our own bathroom is a nice perk while traveling in a foreign land and consuming foreign meals. No need to say more. We also have a locked door leading to the outside so we can more or less come and go as we please. We have the luxury of hot water for showers, which would be great if our electricity and water were a little bit more reliable.

Rosita cooks us three meals a day, which have been pretty good (for Jim at least). Our meals typically are cereal and fruit for breakfast, a heaping plate of chicken or beef with veggies or rice for lunch, and breads, tortillas, eggs, beans, and cheeses for dinner. The best part of our meals are the Tang sugarwaters that we normally get to drink.  Nothing is as quite refreshing as Tang! If some don’t know already, Haley is a very selective eater so this immersion thing can be tricky at times.

Sleep was pretty irregular the first week – new surroundings, different bed, and mosquitoes.  The honking cars in NYC have been replaced with roosters (who have completely wrong body clocks), barking dogs and crickets.  Haley was the unlucky recipient of over 30 mosquito bites while Jim remains unscathed.  Thank goodness for the malaria pills.

The main reason we are in Copan is to learn Spanish.  Ixbalanque Spanish School is down the hill one block and over one block from our house.  The school is in a two storied u-shaped building with a garden in the center.  There are approximately twenty classrooms with large windows and doors that open to the garden or terrace.  There is also a kitchen, a few offices, and two over used bathrooms (read: many foreign stomachs).

Our spanish really sucks but we’re getting better… slowly.  Every student gets four hours of one-on-one instruction per day.  Jim’s teacher Carmen is a wee 17 years old but seems up to the challenge that Jim’s lack of spanish provides.  Haley’s teacher Orbely is 30, has a similar style as Haley and they are beginning to forge ahead.  None of the teachers in the school know english apart from their vocab words, so espanol is the way.  In addition to classroom lessons, we have done vocab field trips to the market with our teachers, played vocab pictionary & bingo, and went on our 1^st excursion with other students.

The excursion began with 10 people piling into the back of a Toyota pickup truck with a rope down the middle for a hand grip.  The driver drove us out of Copan into the hills above the city via a very rugged dirt road.  After 30 minutes or so we arrived at the house of a local ceramic maker who showed us her craft and then let us try out our skills. Jim, who proudly took a ceramics class in high school was able to retrieve his forgotten skills to construct a pretty impressive bowl. Haley’s was a close second. Our host made us tortillas and beans while we waited for a thunderstorm to pass through.  After nearly being struck by lightning (seriously), and our driver considered it safe enough, we all piled back into the bed of the truck for our descent.  Just as we started down the hill the skies open up and poured on us the entire way home.  Needless to say we were pretty soaked but at least the locals got a kick out of seeing us crazy soaked gringos being paraded through town. It was a good afternoon trip and gave us a chance to see how others make their living in the hills outside the city.

Copan Ruinas is built around their central park. Not quite like the one we are used to, but a nice little concrete gathering place nonetheless.  The streets are very narrow and made of huge cobble stones.  The taxis are little 3 wheeled red cars that turn on a dime, but seriously look like they might fall apart at anytime.

Haley’s fear of dogs has been pushed to the limits in Copan as many scraggly looking mutts roam the street. But apart from one barking incident (Haley bolted to nearest truck bed), the dogs have been very non-challant.

The town sees a moderate flow of tourists but many are just passing through to see the Mayan ruins. The locals seem to be pretty used to the foreign visitors and they continue to go about their business and seem to be very friendly.  There are a few places in town that cater to foreigners, but otherwise is pretty untainted. Our dollar definitely goes much further here than it will in Europe. A coffee and soda sets us back $1.50, and an hour on the internet is a mere $.75. We’ve only tried a few restaurants in town, but they have all been pretty tasty and cheap. We’ve also found a nice cafe with a roof-top terrace with a nice view of the town and surrounding hills. The coffee is good and the staff is friendly, and we find ourselves lounging the afternoons away.

On Saturday we visited the Mayan Ruins de Copan. The ruins are located about 3/4 of a mile outside town and are connected by a nicely manicured stone walking path. We spent about 3 hours exploring the ballcourt, plazas, stairways, and temples; and wondering how the Maya built such impressive structures out of such massive stones.  We were surpised how much vistors were allowed to explore the structures, but it was great to crawl all over and view the ruins from all different vantage points.

Here are the pics:

We’re Here…

Our brief stay in Guatemala City was about as smooth and easy as it gets- as if we had been planning it for months.  Our flight from Dallas arrived on-time and our shuttle bus driver from the hotel was waiting for us with a “Haley & Jim” sign in-hand.  The Hotel Cuidad Vieja was pretty nice, with a neat little courtyard garden area.  After our mediocre dinner that evening (Jim’s chicken cooked medium), we asked for directions to the bus terminal for the following morning’s trip and surprisingly it was located a block away!  Jim gets the MVP award for the choice hotel pick! 

The following day’s 5 hour bus ride was about as comfortable as a 5 hour bus ride can be.  The ride started out, weirdly enough, with a quick Burger King pit stop to feed breakfast to us lucky 1st class passengers.  The seats were enormous and comfortable, but were still no match for the windy roads of Guatemala. We would be shocked to hear if there was a single stretch of straight or flat road in all of Guatemala.

After crossing the border into Honduras it was a short trip to our destination of Copan Ruinas, where Kathy from Ixbalanque Spanish School was waiting for our arrival.  After a quick tour through town she dropped us off with our host family and from there our month long Honduras adventure begins.