arriving in copan ruinas

We hopped off the bus and scrambled to get our big, overstuffed hikers' packs that were being thrown down to us by a guy perched on top of the bus. I looked around. It was already dark. People were staring at us. I could only imagine how much we stuck out- a tall, muscular, scholarly looking white man, and a short, muscular Asian girl standing there, with "Tourist!" written all over us. I was thankful that I was at least covered up and not showing too much skin or wearing any makeup. I didn't want to attract attention to myself.

We tried to look for a sign that could tell us what street we were on. We couldn't find one right away. I asked Paul what hostel he had in mind. We had no idea where it was and how far we had to walk. After walking up an especially steep uphill street, we decided to grab a "tuck-tuck." Our bags were feeling heavier by the minute and I was dying for some food and a beer. A tuck-tuck is a small, covered motorbike that can seat two in the back. As soon as we stopped walking, a tuck-tuck drove by and stopped in front of us, waving for us to hop in. We told him the name of the hostel and he nodded, putting his foot on the pedal and revving some power into his tiny little tuck-tuck engine.

We drove by the "Parque El Centro"- every Spanish-speaking village or city has one. It's the main square that helps us to figure out our bearings. We continued to drive. The village wasn't much. No majestic cathedral like we've seen in Mexico City or Cuzco, Peru. There was a plain-looking church, a square with fountains that didn't run water, and people just standing around, talking and smoking cigarettes. The streets were narrow and bumpy. The driver took us farther away from the main square and continued into a dark neighborhood.

When he finally reached a small building, it was on the outskirts of town, and I saw a big dog sitting in the entrance doorway. A white man came out to greet us. Thick with a Dutch-sounding accent, he welcomed us and asked if we'd like to stay. We asked him if he had any private rooms with hot running water available, and he said yes. We asked him how much. He said $20 a night per person. We read that it should be cheaper than that. We thought about it for a moment, and decided we'd keep looking. Now that we had taken a drive and seen the tiny town a bit, we knew we could start walking back towards the Parque El Centro and get our bearings there. We hopped off the tuck-tuck and began walking back into town.

Just as we saw bright lights again, an old woman walked by us, and then stopped and turned around. She asked, "Necessita hotel?" We said, "Si." She motioned for us to follow her. She led us to a hotel a few buildings away, with a sign that read "Hotel Moises" and took us inside to the reception desk. It was tiny, but I saw many signs with tourist attraction information, so I thought, this would probably work. A younger woman greeted us, and we asked her if there were any rooms available. She nodded and showed us to a room. It was ok, but it had a shared bathroom. We asked if there was anything else. She again nodded and led us upstairs. This room had a private bathroom. I asked her, "Agua as caliente?" She nodded again, "Si. Agua as caliente." The room was small and crowded, but I was tired. It was clean. I nodded to Paul and we agreed to take it. It was only 130 limperas, or about $7 per night.

Finally, we threw our bags down and ventured out into the village of Copan, in search of a restaurant. We were starving. Walking around, we saw that there wasn't much of a night life or scene. A few bars here and there, and a lot of random, skinny stray dogs sniffing around for food. At first I thought I was in dog heaven, thinking I'd pet them all and fall in love, but these dogs were not open to being petted. They stared at me, as if they can tell I didn't have any food, and then moved on without coming close. I tried to follow one, but he didn't let me get close or embrace him.

We walked through the Parque and tried to read the signs. We wondered why the fountains didn't run water.
Here's a picture of the Parque at night:



Here's a picture of one of their streets:



Streets were unfinished and would abruptly end. Paul joked, Tort all over this place. I laughed. I didn't even want to think about law school.

 

Finally we came across a restaurant that looked somewhat lively and had a balcony. We went in and were eager to take a look at their menu. We read in our guidebooks that they have dishes called "El Tipico" which literally just translates to "The Typical" and it consisted of beans, tortillas, eggs, avocados, plaintains, and a piece of salty cheese. We decided to try it out and ordered some "Salva Vidas"- their version of our Budweisers.

Here's my first Honduran meal:



I wasn't aware that it would come with steak, but anyway it was damn good. Here are pictures of us with our first Salva Vidas in Honduras:

 

After our meals, we were exhausted, but we decided to keep walking around as we tried to figure out what we will be doing for the few days we planned on staying in Copan. The first thing on our list was obviously, the Mayan ruins. So we talked about getting up early the next morning, heading straight for the ruins, and taking our time there. After a couple more hours of wandering around under the warm Honduran night sky, we headed back to our hotel and climbed into our bed. We knocked out in no time.

****

The next morning, we got up fairly early and looked for a place to have breakfast. We found another fun looking restaurant with an outdoor patio and ordered another plate of Tipico for each of us.



A little girl came up to me while we waited for our food and tried to sell me a corn-husk doll. It was only 20 limperas. A dollar.



We scarfed on the food and our bellies became full of beans, eggs, and tortillas. Everything tasted fresh and organic- nothing processed, no chemicals.



We paid our bill (dirt cheap) and left, eager to get on with our day. I was getting really really excited.
Here is a shot of the village by day:




Finally, we were headed for the Mayan ruins.