Honduras Travels

COPAN, HONDURAS–Lying on the open-air yoga platform at the Hacienda San Lucas, a rustic but chic adobe resort, I try to ground my body and lengthen my spine, but really, I’m here for the view.

Spreading out below me are the lush Honduran mountains, the green river valley and, though I can’t see them from my lizard-like pose, the Mayan ruins of Copan.

Normally 8 a.m. wouldn’t see me doing anything remotely physical, but the chance to do yoga on a hill overlooking the ruins is just a great way of soaking up the atmosphere.

By Jolyon Attwooll

Whoever named Copán Ruinas had it easy.

A town springs up by mysterious Maya ruins in Honduras’ Copán Valley? Presto, just link the location to its main attraction.

Visitors often presume this tranquil town near the Guatemala border is all about the archaeology: Not true. If you only stop at the amazing Maya excavations - granted, no Central America jaunt is complete without doing so - you’ll miss the small town’s many beguiling charms.

Just take a look beyond the town’s buildings. From the outskirts you can watch morning mist unfurl around Guatemalan mountaintops. From the sloping streets, you can gaze out over the lush Copán valley.

ROATAN and COPAN RUINAS, Honduras

The woman on the plane studiously memorizes tropical fish. She pores over a picture of a blue tang, contemplates the features of the banded butterfly fish and wins respect by focusing on the mean-looking six-gill shark.

She is a diver, she says, and she wants to know what she is seeing under the sea.

She will see a lot, since the coral reef that surrounds Honduras’ Bay Islands is one of the largest and most diverse in the world, home to as many as 800 different types of fish.

On April 10th, James and I left lovely Roatan and sadly parted ways. We took an early flight (a scary propeller flight again) to San Pedro Sula, a grubby hole of a town on mainland Honduras (nice airport though). I had a bus to catch in the city centre and James decided to tag along as he had time before his next flights to Costa Rica.

COPAN RUINAS, Honduras

Men in jeans and straw hats walked along the highway that snaked through the mountains from San Pedro Sula to Copan Ruinas; fruit stands and shantytowns speckled the route.

A small landslide caused by some heavy rains made part of our drive difficult, but my local guide, Eli, told me this was nothing - there had been times when he was unable to bring tourists to Copan because labor strikes blockaded this road.

In my mid-20s, this was my first solo trip. And to a country where I didn’t speak the language, no less.

Copan Ruinas is a small town 2 kilometers west of the the site itself. Rugged mountainous terrain, ranches, and a rustic atmosphere. Highland location with cool nights and warm days: just the way I like it. The town is situated on a hillside with steep cobblestone streets that crisscross back and forth.

As is tradition in most Latin American towns, people gather in the town square in the early evening when the heat of the day is subsiding. Women prepare and sell snacks, children play games on the boardwalk, men sit and discuss affairs, while teens hope for romantic encounters.

The retro-looking buses slowed to a stop on the dirt road outside of our motel, La Casa de Café. With my day pack on my shoulder and suntan lotion slathered on my nose, I climbed into one of the vans.

As our Honduran driver, equipped with a Colgate baseball hat, maneuvered us through the center of Copán, Honduras, we passed people selling tortillas and trinkets on the sidewalks outside of restaurants and novelty shops. After a five-minute bumpy ride, the vans deposited us at the welcome center at the ruins of Copán.

Hola Amigos

I have finally started to make my way south and am currently in Copan Ruinas, Honduras. So I have finally left Guatemala for good. I ended up spending a lot more time there than I had originally planned. I guess that means that I enjoyed my time there more than I was expecting to.

It has actually been a little bit of a slower couple of days since I last wrote. I spent 2 nights at a farm that I had heard really good things about in a town called Poptun. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t that good and I just didn’t a good feeling from the other travelers there. So I just sort of hung out, got a lot of reading went for a sort hike, and then got out of dodge.

In a Honduras town, two moms and four kids learned a little Spanish — and a lot about trust.

By Steve Hendrix

The last shred of the bubble popped on their eighth day in Copan. A couple of suburban American mothers, walking up the street in this hilly mountain town in western Honduras, saw a motorscooter taxi careen by in the usual helter-skelter way. These red tuk-tuk cabs are the transit water bugs of Copan, scuttling around town, picking up passengers and depositing them a few blocks away for a handful of lempiras. Sometimes entire families of five or six would jam into the three-wheeled carts for a bouncing ride over the cobblestones. But in the back seat of this one were just two tiny blond heads, instantly recognizable to the surprised moms as their own youngest children, a couple of pre-kindergarten tourists on their own in Central America.

While purchasing water, I met a 14 year-old boy named Juan who led me to the charming Hotel Salvador. With only three rooms and a live-in proprietary family (same building, different entrances), Hotel Salvador is clean with a friendly atmosphere. It doesn’t stock large quantities of food or drink, so one evening when I wanted a second beer my hostess sent her young son to the store with an empty bottle to exchange for me. Rooms are L.60 (4.30 USD) per night.