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Postcards from:
Big Bear Lake USA San Jose Costa Rica Granada Nicaragua Managua Nicaragua San Salvador ElSalvador Tegucigalpa Honduras San Pedro Sula Honduras Copan Ruinas Honduras La Ceiba Honduras Orange Walk Belize Panama City Panama Popayan Colombia Ipiales Colombia Quito Ecuador Galapagos Is. Ecuador Cuenca Ecuador Tumbes Peru Lima Peru Nazca Peru Cuzco Peru Machu Pichu Peru Cuzco Again Lake Titicaca Peru La Paz Bolivia Santiago Chile Valparaiso Chile Easter Island Chile Puerto Montt Chile Castro Chile Coyhaique Chile Puerto Chacabuco Chile Punta Arenas Chile Puerto Natalas Chile Puerto Williams Chile Ushuaia Argentina Buenos Aires Argentina Puerto Iguazu Argentina Montevideo Uruguay Caracas Venezuela PortOSpain Trinidad Georgetown Guyana Paramaribo Suriname Cayenne French Guiana Dominican Republic Back Home in California
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Bienvenidos from the Mayan ruins of Copan Honduras,
We arrived on the outskirts of Copan shortly after lunchtime and I immediately started my exploration of the city which in this case sits on the side of a steep hill about half a kilometer from the bus terminal. Dogs lazed about and men walked their horses or trudged up the hill slowly carrying loads of firewood cut with those long machetes hanging from their belts. In all of my nine days in Copan Ruinas only once did I hear a dog bark and then only briefly. That took me back to my days in Africa where dogs don't bark either.
Colorful butterflies flit from one place to another; reds, yellows, strips, iridescent greens and violet, blacks, beautiful. I must wonder if the mosquitoes harass the butterflies as much as they do tourists. That would explains their erratic flight behavior. There sure are a lot of mosquitoes here. I have been bitten as many as ten times in one day. The cyber cafes are the worst as my attention is focused on work and the little sneaks have time to dig in before arousing my awareness that something is amiss.
Other than the armed uniformed national police who hang around the central plaza and the private security guards hired by the banks, I have seen very little in the way of security personnel anywhere in or around town. This little tourist town has a deserved reputation for being very safe for foreign visitors. People on the street always smile, greeting strangers either in Spanish or English and they good naturedly return my greetings delivered in broken Spanish. While there are a few automobile taxis around town, most people use the ubiquitous Mototaxis, little three wheel motorbikes with covered passenger compartments seating three tightly packed teenagers plus someone sharing the driver's seat in a pinch. The fare is 10 Lempiras per person from anywhere to anywhere, as long as you are willing to occasionally tolerate being packed like sardines in the cramped enclosure. No ride is more than a few minutes in duration, so for fifty cents no one complains.
 I am really enjoying this old Spanish colonial town and the totally wonderful deluxe hotel I found. Why it is named Hotel Marina Copan I never learned; there certainly is no large body of water nearby. At this time of year the river is shallow enough to wade across, though I did see fishermen out in the middle casting nets with the water up to their chests. At first quoted the rack rate of $75 plus tax, I asked about promotional rates and the assistant manager, Miguel noted he could drop the rate to $51 if I were going to stay a week or more. Though I wouldn´t guarantee such a long stay, he still gave me the lower rate... and after my less than enthusiastic first night in the dark dungeon of an authentically old colonial room I'd initially been assigned, he upgraded me to one of the modern rooms in the hotel's newest structure. It pays to ask. When I went to check out nine days later I learned he had further reduced my daily rate to $45!
The best restaurant in town clearly is the one in the hotel; air conditioned, modern, with a full range of excellent food from typical Honduran to familiar Western. My first morning I chose Huevo Marinita (Mama´s recipe): homemade tomato sauce over fried egg, ham slice, tortilla, cheese with a large glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and some of the country's excellent coffee, all for about $4.
After a few days of getting oriented and locating the cyber cafes, I finally made the short hike over to the archaeological park. The grass along the kilometer long flagstone foot path had recently been cut and the smell mingled with the odors of farm animals. New mowed grass smells a bit different here... more vegetable, earthy. At several places fence posts have taken root and sprouted new growth, some having done so long ago are now full grown trees. I now suspect the long rows of trees I saw on distant hills coming down from San Pedro Sula may have started off as mere fence posts delineating property lines many years ago.
Copan
Ruinas displays an amazing
record of
Aside from small
cramped "mom and pop" general stores stocked with Pepsi, Snickers
and hand soap demanded by the tourists, there is little in the way
of shopping in Copan Ruinas. What clothing stores I found seemed to
anticipate the needs of foreign souvenir hunters. Nothing like a
super market or shopping mall exists here. Even the central Mercado
is scaled to a small rural village. Needless to say, one doesn't
visit Copan for the fashion shopping.
So, with some
interest I learned of a shopping mall a mere eight kilometers back
down the road towards San Pedro Sula. A city bus got me to the
intermediate village of Santa Rita where I hopped off to walk the
remaining 2km to the El
Jaral Water Park and "shopping mall." The 2km turned out to be more
like 5km along the nearly deserted highway following the river and
the shopping mall turned out to be a metal roofed warehouse
containing six shops selling bathing suits and souvenirs... half of
them closed and two refreshment stands where the girls spent all
their time chatting with one another.
Desperate for
the sight of real civilization I grabbed one of the converted
American school buses heading to
La Entrada de
Copבn some 45 minutes further down the road and
wandered around this small city for an hour before lunch in a home
grown fast food joint. Pointing at potato salad, bottled Coke and
what looked like sausage links I hunkered down to enjoy my lunch...
of potato salad, Coca Cola and... dark brown grilled spicy bananas!
The meatless repast surprisingly satisfied my acute hunger and
underscored the need to learn more Spanish.
Having finished the Alexander Dumas classic Ange Pitou, I selected a short story by Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener. It is classic Mellville in the language of Moby Dick about a document copier (scrivener) employed by an attorney during the 1700's before the advent of typewriters. A strange story about a strange character. I'm pondering my list of books stored on the iPAQ for a next read.
Photos taken
during my two week leisurely stay in this delightful town have been
grouped in three albums. The one for photos taken in and around the
town itself is
here. The one for the main archaeological park is
here. And the one for the secondary archaeological site, Las
Sepulturas is
here.
Peace,
Fred Bellomy
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  My excellent $5/mo web-host Reference photo August 2002 |
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