Following the Dream

Christian June 6th, 2008

     We woke up at 5am to leave the Bay Islands for Copan, Honduras, little did we know this was the start of a 14 hour travel day.  We hailed down a taxi to take us to the ferry terminal. We forked over an expensive $25 for the 2 hour ride to the mainland. They had just built a new terminal and we guessed that was why the fare had doubled in the last year.  So we finally board the ferry around 6:45am and are greeted by the mixed smells of lysol and puke. We had heard many horror stories of people puking on the ferry ride due to the choppy seas. We had also been told to sit on the bottom deck where the boat wouldn’t rock so much. So we quickly grab 2 seats by the window and the doors, so we could make a quick escape. After a couple hours on the ferry we couldnt wait to get off, the smell was making us sick. It turns out even after we are off the ferry we can still smell the puke. Its making us sick.  We were lucky to grab our luggage and grab a taxi. Two other people also joined us in the taxi and the 4 of us got to watch our luggage jammed into the trunk. The trunk would not close so we drove through the streets of La Ceiba with hopes that our luggage would not fall out. We were dropped at the bus terminal and grabbed bus tickets to Copan.  We realized while waiting for the bus that Casey was the one who really reaked of puke. Evidently, the seat she sat had at one point been puked on and the lysol was not getting the smell out. She spent the rest of the day miserable and spraying a lot of perfume.  We had to make a connection, with an hour and half layover which turned into 3 hours. By then it was pouring rain, and we guessed that had something to do with the delay. We finally left on our way crammed into the back seat of the bus with 5 other people. Some 5 hours later we arrived around 7:30 at night. From the bus terminal we took a motorcycle taxi.  I really felt great on the ride.  The air was crisp and wisped by us as we zoomed along the cobblestones streets.  We had not reserved a place to stay and our first choice was full, so we ended up wondering around and finally taking our chances walking 5 blocks outside of town to a hostal in our guidebook. We were not too happy walking around at night with our packs, but the people seemed friendly enough and gave us directions a couple times we were confused. After 14 hours we were exhausted and passed out. The next morning we got an early start, and grabbed a mini-taxi to the Copan Ruins.

      As we walked to the entrance we signed in at the guard tower.  It turns out we were the first ones in the park for the day.  We were greeted by about 6 brightly colored Macaws squalking away at the entrance.

We walked about 200 meters down a tree lined path to the ruins. Since we got there first we got to walk around the ruins in quiet and enjoy the sites.  The ruins are not huge but the detail and carvings are amazing. The main attraction is the Hieroglyphic Staircase.  It is a huge staircase with intricate carvings.  When discovered, only the first fifteen stairs were in tact.  Sometime in the 1900’s, the stairs were put back almost at random.  Since then, archeologists are trying to restore the stairs to thier original positions, but it is proving a daunting task since the relation in the carvings is not obvious. Since there were hardly any tourists you could really walk around and enjoy and imagine how life was.

     After a few hours there we walked back to town to enjoy a little breakfast and walk around town. It was a Sunday so we soon discovered not much was open and it started to rain. We spent most of the day inside working on photos and writing a post then grabbed a quick dinner and got ready for our early shuttle to Antigua the next morning.

• Honduras
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