Copán Ruinas

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 18^th 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 10^th 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.