Copan is cool too!
Trip Start
Sep 17, 2007
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14
272
Trip End
Oct 08, 2008
Copan Ruinas,
Honduras
Thursday, October 4, 2007
prickly tree
.I was in the middle of a reply (and in the middle of shaving) when the sink fell on my foot. Everything seemed to move slowly in that moment. I was turning with my mouth open and the sink ripped itself out of the wall and its pipes, fell to the ground, and exploded into several pieces. The water pipe, which used to be connected to the sink, started fountaining water into the bathroom. Yeah...it was bad. Erin hurriedly put on some clothes while I ran to find the guy at the front desk. He took one look and then looked at us as if to say "What the hell just happened in here?" Luckily, the water stopped gushing a couple minutes later, stopping all water in the building for the night. I turned my attention to my foot, which was bleeding in three places (not badly). After cleaning up, the guy moved us to a nicer room upstairs while he started calling people. I looked in the mirror and realized I had conducted the entire thing with exactly half a big black beard. I looked ridiculous. We didn't leave the room again that night.
***
The border crossing into Honduras was pretty easy. There were four windows. Enter Honduras, Leave Honduras, Enter Guatemala, Leave Guatemala. It cost us a dollar each to leave and three dollars each to get in. Then we drove off. Easy as that. When we arrived in Copan Ruinas (the town right next to the ruins), we dropped our stuff in a hostel and walked for 15 minutes to get to the entrance to the park. It was low season...very low season...and there was a line of hungry looking tour guides just waiting to show us around. After politely shaking the over-friendly guy who wanted to guide us around, we wandered into the park
macaws at the entrance
. This place was much much expensive than Tikal at $7. It cost us $15 to see the ruins, another $15 to see the underground temples, and $7 to see the museum. We bought tickets for the ruins first. At the gate there was a neat set up for tourists - tame macaws were hanging out at the gates. A little farther in a feeding bowl attracted a family of capybara, big guinea pig creatures. Many travelers start in Mexico and see the chain of great Mayan cities as they travel south. By the time they get to Copan, many skip it because it can't compare to the others. One traveler we were talking to spent a week in Copan Ruinas but never even bothered to see the ruins. We weren't templed out, but we had seen Tikal and we thought that Copan was worth coming to see.
Copan has a rather strange history. The Copan dynasty was founded in 426 by Yax Kúk´Mo, who displaced the previous ruler and rose to power at the end of Baktun, a 400 year period (similar to our millennium). This beginning led to an intense belief in numerology. In 763 a new king Yax Pasah rose to the throne. With the end of another 400 year period ahead, Yax foresaw the end of the Copan dynasty. The city had been ruled by 16 kings, four sets of four over 400 years. A perfect end. He dedicated his rule to finishing up the structures his predecessors had begun
Hallo, welcome to Copan.
. When Yax died in 820, the people accepted the end of the dynasty and abandoned the city of Copan. Copan is famous for its stelae, hieroglyphics, and carvings. We started in the Plaza of the Stela, which was lined with large upright stone monuments to the various kings of Copan. Generally there was an image of the king on the front while the back and sides were lined with descriptions of their exploits. There were also various altars in front of the stelae, all wonderfully carved. We progressed over to the ball court, which was lined with six macaw heads for scoring purposes. A solid rubber ball was directed towards the goals without hands or feet. The winning team was sacrificed to the gods. Sucks to be good. Behind this was a big stadium area leading up to the high city. Here was the famous hieroglyphic stairway. It was huge and led up the slope to the high city. In the middle of the stairway were statues of the various kings. The entire stairway was actually a book detailing the history of Copan. It was a pretty cool sight. We climbed up to the high city to look around. The views over the valley were magnificent and the buildings were decorated with various sculptures. A lot of faces were lying around to find. We looked around the jaguar court, which was graced with the sun god and two jaguar statues. The king would sit here and watch the dance of the jaguar performed below. We had the entire site all to ourselves and it was a beautiful (if really hot) day. The leaves falling from the trees over the ruins set the scene perfectly. It was the detail in the carvings at Copan that set it apart from Tikal. Tikal was magnificent but Copan was beautiful and I'm glad I was able to see both sites.
After seeing the ruins we decided to get tickets to the museum for a little more background
Copan is famous for its stela
. It was a really nice museum. We entered through a serpentine tunnel that represented to entrance to the underworld. When we emerged into the huge room we were facing a reconstruction of the underground temple. Faced with stucco and painted bright colors, it was hard to imagine what the city would have looked like in its prime. The museum was mainly reconstructions and originals of various statues and facades in the city. The descriptions gave us a lot of information on the archaeological work that is going on here, as well as the complexity in the symbolism of the stelae and the temples. It was worth the visit. Tomorrow we head to La Ceiba and out to the Bay Islands
Travis
