Kicking it off in Copan...

Let the holidays begin!! School finished on Friday, November 15, which means that the 2 months of exploring Central America can commence and I couldn’t be more excited. It was hard to say goodbye to the family and packing was difficult with Samuel and Genesis clambering all over our stuff, begging us to take them with us, and Lety sending me off with a somewhat stern but cheeky warning about how to stay safe during my travels...We soon waved adios and with our extremely heavy rucksacks loaded on our shoulders, we hopped on the bus to Mapulaca to stay the night with Libby and Esther. It was crazy to think that this was actually happening, however unfortunately Esther and I started off the big trip feeling ill, and after a feverish night, we just about made it onto the 4am bus to Santa Rosa where we would change buses for the one to Copan Ruinas.

So tired I nearly fell asleep at the table - the energising smoothie I ordered definitely did not energise me

The journey itself wasn’t too bad at all, but it was much longer than we had anticipated, so by the time we eventually arrived in Copan, we were hot and bothered and starving which meant that the poor mototaxi driver really chose the wrong group of white girls to con. After telling him what for and paying the proper price - not the extortionate one he had initially asked for - we checked into the hostel, Hostel Berakah, unloaded our backpacks and chilled for a while. Esther and I still weren’t feeling great so after meeting with the rest of the girls and grabbing dinner, we crashed almost as soon as our heads hit the pillow.

Copan Ruinas is located in the Western corner of Honduras, close to the border of Guatemala, and is known for being an archaeological site of Maya civilisation. As a result, it has become one of Honduras’ few tourist spots and people come to visit the Mayan ruins (which are about a 10 minute walk out of the town) as well as the Mayan museum and the Bird Sanctuary. Straight away it was pretty clear that Copan was a tourist trap - in the best possible way - as we immediately spotted other foreigners, the majority of whom seemed to be from the States or Europe, so we knew we had hit the tourist trail that we would be following for the next few months, whooo! Copan is a gorgeous town. While it is most definitely the most touristy place I have been to in Honduras so far, it was lovely nonetheless. Tall, colourful buildings lined the cobbled streets, with little red mototaxis zipping up and down and the odd horse clip-clopping along the pavements. The central square was by far my favourite part; as it was mid November, Christmas lights had started to be put up and were hanging casually in the trees and looped around the arms of benches, making it an adorable place for hot chocolate drinking in the evenings. The Catholic church opposite the park was just as beautiful, if not more so, especially when the sun was setting and washed the white walls in an orange glow. Tourist shops could be found on every corner, however when we were exploring and trying to find a supermarket, we stumbled across an enclosed fruit and veg market behind a brick wall and through a little walkway which was wonderful - I have never seen so many oranges in one place! And, much to amazement as Copan was not the cheapest, the prices were incredibly low which meant we could get things like a bag of tomatoes, peppers, a cucumber, onions and more for less than £2!

Hostel Berakah was lovely as well, with lots of hammocks and a fully equipped kitchen with plenty of outdoor space decorated with fairy lights. It was exactly what we had wanted for our first stop - peaceful and spacious, plus the kitchen facilities gave us the freedom to make our own food for what felt like the first time in forever and, let me tell you, cheese and cucumber sandwiches have never tasted so good.

After a good night’s rest, we decided to spend the day at Copan's main attraction, the ruins. While you can pay for a guide to walk you around the site and tell you about them, we decided we didn’t need that as we had Esther and her handy travel book so just pushed her in front and made her tell us about everything. With her explorer hat, I have to say she fit the bill, a little too well….there are numerous trails you can take around the site, but if you go through the main entrance to the ruins, you are greeted with what seems like hundreds of red macaws which took us by surprise. the sheer amount of them was incredible, to go from getting excited about seeing the one which sits outside the hotel in Candelaria, to then being faced with seeing about 10 in every single tree was overwhelming and left us all a little speechless. The guards at the front gate laughed at us a we whipped out our cameras and start snapping, and to be honest I think I got a bit carried away but they're just too beautiful :))

Copan Ruinas itself is quite big, and as I suppose because I had never been to anything like it before, I was very impressed, especially by how much had been preserved. Many of the artefacts on display were replicas as the real things were kept in the museum in town for preservation, however the main temples were still there, standing almost exactly as they would have during the 5th century AD.

I was not a fan of the temple staircases - the steps are HUGE

We spent a few hours wandering around, admiring the decorative alters and and then found ourselves in the ballcourt. With her little book in hand, Esther explained how the Mayans had been fans of the ballgame ‘Pitz’ where the aim of the game was to try and bounce a rubber ball, about the size of a football, through stone hoops attached to the sides of the court. It was a huge part of Mayan religious, political and social life as in most cases, the two teams were made up of players of lower status, and after the 2 week period of playing, the losers were often decapitated and used as sacrifices. Looking at the stone stands, now empty and just grey or orange in colour, it was hard to imagine how it would have looked with the stands filled with spectators and players running back and forth. The ballcourt would have been covered in powerful murals depicting creation myths as well as warriors and captives, religious and political scenes all around. Eating our cheese sandwiches at the top of the court, we were able to look all around and spot the huge stone macaw heads located all around - the macaw is the native bird of Honduras, and were very sacred to Mayans, and for some reason which still remains a mystery to historians, they are extremely prevalent in Mayan architecture in Copan. At one point, a flock of red macaws flew across the pitch, screeching and screaming, coming to roost in a nearby tree. Atmospheric or what?

We explored the grounds for the rest of the afternoon, discovering more and more ruins as we walked until we came across a huge stone staircase. It turns out that this is the World Heritage Site of the 'Hieroglyphic Stairway of Copan'. It is currently under reconstruction - and has been for the last century - but is still very impressive at 30m long with over 2000 glyphs carved into the sides of the steps. They tell stories of 16 Mayan kings, all with names that I can't even begin to try to pronounce, and what happened during their rule, starting with Yax k’uk Moh (see what I mean about pronunciation) at the bottom step and ending with King 18 Rabbit (that’s a little easier to say) at the top.

Esther and I began to feel a little ill again so after finishing our rounds, we headed back to the hostel in a mototaxi to sleep it off before the others got back, only to wake up in the evening to Libby bringing us homemade vegetable wraps - Libby, you are a GEM.

The next day we walked to the Parrot Sanctuary which we had been told we just had to visit, and I am so glad we did. The 2.5km walk from the hostel is scorching sunshine was fuuuun, and along the way we wandered past a Mayan primary school with a 'no firearms' sign outside the front gate - I haven't seen something that Honduran in a while :') The sanctuary itself is officially called ‘Macaw Mountain - Bird Park and Nature Reserve’ and is a bird rescue, rehabilitation and release centre. The variety of birds they have there is huge, ranging from macaws to toucans to vultures to parakeets. The concept behind the sanctuary was wonderful to read about, and we learnt that many of the birds have been rescued from the illegal bird trade or donated by individuals concerned for their condition or unable to care for them long-term.

***Fun fact - Macaws can live to surpass 100 years old! How crazy is that??

As we were in Copan outside of peak tourist season, we had the park completely to ourselves which meant we could wander around in peace, admiring the birds inside the enclosures as well as those flying free, enjoying the 10 acres of park land. The birds themselves were magical, like something straight out of a kid’s story book - the reds, blues, yellows and greens were so bright they seemed as though the feathers had been painted on.

Satisfied after a day of bird watching, we walked back to the hostel and while some of the others went out for food, Esther and I made nachos (which were amazing), then we all got to packing as we were headed off to Rio Dulce in Guatemala the next day :))