First Steps in Honduras – Copan Ruinas

After the grueling trek up and down the volcanoes of Guatemala it was time again to retreat to the beach. I set my sights on Utila in Honduras, packed my 20 things, and shot out of Antigua. To split up the travel I stopped in Copan Ruinas on the way. Copan is directly on the other side of the border into Honduras so my shuttle crew and I had to suffer through another border crossing. Upon arriving at the border the *ssh*le immigration officers told me that I messed up by not ensuring that I had received a stamp when I entered the country through the airport. They made me sit in a corner and wait in the office for about an hour while I shook my head and whispered, “ladron” as he tried to solicit a bribe from me over a stamp. After an hour and a half he finally wrote some ticket that effectively took all the Guatemalan pesos I had and we were free to go again, taking our first steps into the lush green concrete of the Honduran side of the border.

I was in Copan trying to get to Utila ASAP so the night I got in, an American I met on the shuttle, Ryan, and I walked around and looked for shuttles leaving the next day. We found out quickly it was a much smaller place than we had thought and came to accept that the next shuttle left in about 2 days. We settled in the hotel we were staying at with an Irishman, Seanan, and German girl, Maria. Ryan and I set out to explore the town and find something to eat. The town reminded me of a slightly more broken down and less colorful Antigua. We found some of the most delicious burritos I have ever tasted at, “La Llama del Bosque” and returned to the hotel with a handful of cigars and a plastic bag full of clinking beer. We distributed the beers and helped Seanan write the play that he was creating for some theatre in Ireland.

Not having intended to do anything in Copan I set to research and found that there were some cool ruins a walk away to check out. Ryan and I hit the ruins and were pleasantly surprised to find that it was feeding time for the red macaws that live at the ruins.

They swooped in around us and knocked the sunglasses off of Ryan’s head at one point. They let us get close to them but kept their small beady eyes on us. At this point I was feeling pretty content with the experience but we trudged on anyways to see the ruins themselves.

We tired ourselves exploring the Mayan ruins and then settled in a tienda for some beers.

After getting just a small fix for large beautiful birds I headed to the other major attraction in Copan, Macaw Mountain where they rescue of birds that people have kept as pets and try to collect eggs to release back into the wild. They had about 10 different species my favorite certainly being the Toucan. They let you walk through an exhibit with them and at first I couldn’t see any but one flew out from a banana tree and landed on the path directly ahead of me, letting me take a few pictures before flying off again.