Right
after our weekend in Tela we had the blessing of yet another 3-day weekend, so
we took off to Copán Ruinas. Simply put these are Honduras’ biggest and most
impressive Maya ruins, and the most tourist-ready town we have been to. It wasn’t
the relaxing, white-sand beaches of Tela, but it was my favorite place that we
have visited so far!
This
time we left at 5 in the morning for a long day of traveling on 4 different
buses to get to our destination. All of our rides were smooth and problem-free
(thank the Lord!) except for a little overcrowding and invasion of our personal
spaces, but that is to be expected. We made it to Copán by 1 and checked into
our hostel, the Blue Iguana. It was actually a very nice hostel! We had
well-pressurized, hot showers and internet (unlike our homes in La Unión), and
it was a very clean place with decently comfortable beds. My only complaint is
that both mornings we were rudely awoken with fireworks (once for some unknown
reason and the second time for another wild birthday party) – so much for a
quiet get-away! The bulk of our trip was dedicated to embracing our inner
tourists: we spent a lot of time souvenir and gift shopping, eating amazing
meals, and visiting the ruins.
Souvenir and gift shopping. A little retail therapy is
good for the soul, and we needed a lot of therapy. I can only speak for myself,
but I am pretty certain everyone else would agree with me – I easily spent way
too much money for only being there two days, but I would not return a thing
that I bought! Is it too early to talk or think about Christmas? Not for me! I
got all of my Christmas shopping done in one hit :) (I am extremely proud of
myself.) In all fairness, like I said, Copán is probably the most tourist-friendly
town in all of Honduras so we all had the mindset of getting our souvenirs here
where they were available. I am not going to reveal any of my secrets of what I
bought for whom, but I will share with you the treasures that I found for
myself. I splurged and purchased quite a few things: a necklace with a royal
blue charm, miniature statues from the ruins to use as book ends or as future
classroom decorations, a painted mask, an English-Spanish book about the ruins
for my future classroom, a fish puzzle-box, a hanging Maya calendar wall-piece,
a colorful belt to jazz up my school uniform, a very nice leather backpack
(this one is my favorite and was my biggest treat to myself), and a Honduran flag,
button, sticker, and t-shirt. I am still excited about all my new goodies and I
cannot wait to share more with my friends, family, and future students!
Amazing meals. Normally I wouldn't bore you
with the details of what food I digested over the weekend, but we had such
special meals and such treats that the re-telling of my trip wouldn't be the
same without these descriptions. Saturday lunch we went to a place called Via Via and I had delectable chicken
fajitas with cheese empanadas and a strawberry smoothie. For happy hour we
experienced some fine dining at San
Rafael Café. This place is a wine and cheese bar, and it certainly was the
happiest of hours with our 5-cheese platter and glasses of Chardonnay! For
dinner we ordered small plates at Twisted
Tania’s because we were still quite full from our other meals. I shared a
nacho platter and then finished my day off with a mouth-watering piece of
carrot cake. Sunday morning we wandered into Café Welchez for coffee with milk and a ham and cheese croissant.
For lunch we visited Mary’s Pupusería for
pupusas (tortillas stuffed with your filling of choice) and smoothies. I, of course, ordered a chocolate and banana
smoothie to satisfy my sweet tooth. Then for our final meal we returned to Twisted Tania’s because all of their
menu options sounds incredible the night before and we were sad that we weren't more hungry then to try things! Lori and I decided to share dishes because, as I
said, everything sounded fantastic and we couldn't settle on one thing. We devoured
tequila shrimp in spicy pasta, a rib eye steak with a jalapeño sauce drizzle
over it, fresh sautéed veggies, and a brownie with ice cream for the grand
finale. We ate so much rich and delicious food this weekend! You may notice
that a lot of what I ordered had cheese in it because we do not have normal
cheese in La Unión so that was the best treat.
The ruins. Here we bought tickets to
see the residential and ceremonial ruins, and to go underground to walk through
the excavating tunnels that archaeologists created to see hidden ruins. We also
hired a tour guide to show us around because we figured he was worth the price
to hear all about the history of these ruins. We visited a residential area
first where it is believe that families would live in little compounds. It was
common for a Maya man to marry multiple wives and then have all of his families
live in the houses adjacent to him. (Sister Wives anyone?) There were pods of
these ‘communities’ all around. The houses were small little structures that
had mostly been destroyed. All that we could tell that was inside of them were
beds. Around the homes archaeologists found skeletons and built replicas of
them to show to visitors. When the people died they were generally buried with
all their belongings right next to their houses. We also saw a well that served
as that area’s primary water source.
The
ceremonial center was the most impressive. It was a big open area that served
for community gatherings. In the center was a small pyramid where the king would
sit to look over all his people. There were a few still-standing statues here. These
represented the gods that the Maya worshipped and the king(s) of their time. A fascinating
sculpture that we saw was just a round sacrificial piece. Supposedly that was
where the human sacrifices would occur; the heart would be placed in the center
of this globe and there was a line carved around the rock to allow the blood to
trickle down from the heart in the middle. We also got to get up close to the
intricate carvings of the king statues. Our guide told us all about the last
king that was believed to rule – King 18 Rabbit. He will tell you that the
archaeologists named the king this because he was the 18th on they
found and all the depictions of him (that are carved in stone) look like a
rabbit; I personally don’t see the resemblance and would be more convinced if
you told me he was King 18 Goat.
We wandered
through the grounds to get a feeling of what it was like to live with the Maya.
At this site is a famous staircase that boasts the longest hieroglyph in the
world with 64 stairs etched with a single hieroglyph. The first ten stairs are
the only ones that are guaranteed to be in order because the rest of the stairs
were found in shambles and had to be pieced together to the best of archaeologists’
judgment. You cannot climb the stairs because they are well protected, but they
look very intricate. You can walk through the ball courts where men would play
some sort of ball game to decide who would be sacrificed to the gods. They would
play with a ball, which was presumed to be about 8 pounds, that they would hit
with their shoulder and hips to try to score points (can imagine using your body
to launch a bowling ball?). The historians can only assume that it was the
person who won who would be sacrificed to the gods because the Maya would only
want to send up someone who was honorable. We also walked among various
temples: the jaguar temple which had depictions of jaguars dancing which was
used to praise and please the gods, and ask for favors; the underworld temple
that was adorned with skulls to represent the entrance to a kind of hell; and a
temple that represented the 13 layers of heaven that the Maya believed in.
At the
end of our tour we traveled underground throughout the caves. They did a very
good job at selling this part of the tour and convincing us to buy tickets, but
the tunnels were not worth the $15 we spent to see them. They were just hot and
muggy, and all you really saw were walls of previous temples. The only cool
thing that I took away from the tunnels was that they proved that temples had
been built upon temples by the Maya. Apparently, every time there was a new
king in power, they would completely rebuild the city. So while it would appear
that the city was constructed on a hill because it was raised up, in reality
the city was continuously built upon itself. I did think it was neat to see how
these structures had been built upon each other – it was like discovering a
whole other world inside of this historic place. All in all the tour took
almost 3 hours and it was well worth it with our guide. We learned so much
about the Maya cultures and truly enjoyed seeing the remains of this ancient
civilization.
*Side
note about our bus ride home: on the last bus – from Gracias to La Unión – we managed
to get on the bus that took the worst roads to get home. I have never been
bounced around that much (it kind of felt like I was getting a good work-out)!
At one point the seat that Beth and I were sharing fell out of its holds and we
almost ended up folding in half and falling on the ground. There was also a
lovely drunk man on the bus who was trying to chat with us; he did manage to
get uncomfortable close to Beth’s face so we moved seats. Randomly he decided
to get out his hand gun and just wave it around in the air as he too was
bounced around like a rag doll. The worst part? Nobody on the bus cared! Apparently
it’s normal for people to wave around guns on buses?
This
week be praying for a student who decided to run away from home. The majority
of these students, if not all, come from tough homes and their lives outside of
school are dismal. A girl in 10th grade, her mother just up and left
last year to go work in Spain. A few weeks ago the woman returned, also unannounced,
and this set off her daughter. Her anger was so strong that she felt the need
to run away. luckily they were able to find her in San Pedro Sula and at least
convince her to come back to a neighboring aldea where a family member lives. Currently
they are trying to talk her into coming back to La Unión to keep up with her
schooling. As you can imagine she needs a lot of prayers through this troubling
time.