Honduras Travel

COPAN RUINAS, Honduras – The three hour trip from the city of San Pedro Sula in the north coast of Honduras to Copan Ruins is like going into a time capsule.

Getting away from all the noise of a modern Honduran city and heading towards the land of the Mayan Indians. Here you see men cutting the grass with a machete on the road sides, women and children carrying firewood on their backs.

The roads are a museum of the framework of necessity where you pass by the mud-brick and thatch huts made of available materials and small cinder block stores with corrugated metal roofs and signs advertising Coca Cola, food and Alka-Seltzer. Cars and trucks go along, passing without paying attention to the double yellow lines, traffic, or the bikes, people and animals on the side of the road.

After the long journey, we reached Copan Ruinas, it’s a small charming town with a population of approximately 6,500 located on the far western edge of Honduras. The air in this town is cooler and drier. The noise of cars and crowds is replaced by the calls of unfamiliar birds.

A few journalism students came to Honduras with me in January to visit this village of cobblestone streets to spend three days visiting the ancient Mayan Ruins archeological site and learning about travel writing. Somewhere between the stray dogs and the enticing hills, the local beer and the baleadas, we fell in love with this laid-back town and its friendly residents.

By Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin