On our second attempt to visit las ruinas in Copan Ruins, Honduras we succeeded! The park requires all visitors to show a passport or driver’s license and it costs 315 Limperas to enter. I had purchased a Promo Dias discount card when I booked the Hedman Alas bus ticket from Antigua to Guatemala (saved 25% off the cost of the bust ticket for me and Rhiannon). The ruins accepts the Promo Dias card, but only lets you use it for one person. Final price was 291 Limperas.
Since we didn’t get lost this time, we arrived around 8:15 a.m. Only to find it had not opened, yet. Around 8:30 a.m. the necessary employee strolled in and they finally opened (half an hour late). There are guias at the entrance, who for one fee for a group (negotiable price between $30 and $40) will give you a guided tour, but we decided to explore on our own. I highly recommend you get a guia, though. Most of the time I felt like I was just looking at piles of rocks (granted, well placed piles!) since I had no idea what anything was except in the most general way as depicted on the map.
Regardless, the ruins at Copan Ruins are spectacular, especially when visited early in the morning before it gets unbearably hot and before the rush of day trip tourists arrive around 11:00 a.m. Except for the 20 or so military persons standing guard, we practically had the whole place to ourselves.
This structure is where they played a game of some sort. The sign above depicts it as it is thought to have looked. The picture below is looking down at it as it is now.
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Of course, Rhiannon and I couldn’t leave without a picture with the Honduran military guards. When we asked these two kind of shook there heads and then motioned for us to follow them around a bend. Uh-oh…. But, we followed them. Turns out they were agreeable to a picture, but out of sight of one of the guards (we could only assume he was the boss man). Thankful for the picture, I didn’t want to press my luck, but I was really tempted to ask them to join me in a selfie. Lol. After we got our pictures, they each took a picture on their cameras posing with us. It was hysterical, a photo shoot with Uzi toting members of the Honduran military. Trent and Evelyn thought we were nuts.
There is also a macaw sanctuary within the ruins. Not one of them would talk to me, though, no matter how many holas I threw their way.
By 11:00 the hoards of tourist had descended upon the ruins. Trent and Evelyn had to leave Copan Ruins around noon, so we returned to ViaVia hostel (a fantastic place!) and said our goodbyes.
Rhi and I then walked down the hill to the Hedman Alas bus station to buy our tickets for the 2:20 p.m. train. We didn't get that train, but how we ended up "captive" in Copan Ruins is story for another post. We did, however, stop for a beer at a local bar that is basically a pavilion with some beers in a cooler behind the bar. In the 20 minutes that we sat there four men walked around the side of the pavilion and peed along side an old coke machine. It seems that peeing wherever you happen to be is fairly common in Central America! Between the men and the dogs, there is a whole lot of peeing going on.
The best part of the bar, though, was meeting two little boys. They were just hanging around and I offered them each a lollipop. Both broke out grins from ear to ear and agreed to take a picture with me. To our delight we would run into these boys again tomorrow.
Audrey, Trent, Rhiannon and Evelyn – four amigos whose new friendship wasn’t ruined in Honduras.
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