Our first real venturing out, our trip to Copán in Honduras went relatively smoothly. With a lengthy drive through Guatemala city itself and lots of beautiful mountains to see, there was always something to look at.

Guatemala city itself is quite an interesting and chaotic place, with an odd mix of street vendors selling anything and everything, but placed right next to a McDonald’s, Wendy’s or any of your other favourite American fast-food stores. Once we’d made it through the craziness of the city we set out into the beautiful country-side of Guatemala. With not much in the way of towns between Guatemala city and Copán, it was pretty easy to take in the breath-taking mountain scenery. Very reminiscent of the South Island. One thing there isn’t a lack of here though is the billboards. Even in the most remote of places, you’d find a billboard advertising how to spot fake currency, or Gallo beer (which isn’t surprising as they seem to sponsor everything in Guatemala. Everything. Think Coke-level branding).

Once we made it to the border and saw plenty of soldiers with assault rifles, we thought the process of crossing may be a bit intimidating. As it turned out, it was anything but – the bus driver was quickly heading behind the immigration desk (marked with big “Immigration personnel only”) and started handing out forms. Easy. Twenty minutes later, we made it to Copán.

Copán

Instantly you could feel that this was a very different place to Antigua. Everyone was still out in the streets after dark – men, women, children, all hanging around in the central park. We quickly felt at ease and even though we´re trying our best to arrive during daylight, we didn’t feel worried about being tourists or finding our way to our hostel.

After dropping our bags and getting suggestions from Fernando, one of the nicest hostel owners ever, we headed out to try some of the local street food – the favourite being tortillas filled with cheese, chicken and salad. With each serving going for only 62c, it seemed worth the risk of some food poisoning. As it turns out, they were delicious and safe to eat. Pupusas and horchata were our other great food discoveries from this part of the trip.

Copán ruinas

The ruins are, of course, what we came to Copán for. Only partly excavated before the site was turned into a UNESCO World Heritage site, the site is now stuck with only some of the parts being excavated. It´s quite sad because each tree is now protected and is slowly tearing apart the parts that remain covered. We spent a good 4 hours exploring this site and the underground tunnels between the temples with our guide/local archaeologist  Virilljo. One interesting thing we discovered about the way Mayans built temples is that they´re solid, filled in with lots of tiny stones rather than having tunnels like other civilizations. The temple of each ruler is also built on top of by the next ruler, so they don´t have to start again each time. Kind of like Russian dolls. We got to go down into the underground tunnels between some of these layers where archaeologists have removed some of the layering between temples, where the intricate artwork has been immaculately preserved – lots of the outer detail has been destroyed as the most common stone for building temples was limestone which hasn´t weathered well.

We were also lucky enough to spot the brilliantly coloured Macaw, and the agouti (a bigger, shorter-haired cousin to the guinea pig).

Luna Jaguar – the mayan hot springs

Located about an hours (four-wheeled) drive from Copán town, we discovered the local hot springs. We were a little hesitant at first to be going to hot springs in an already scorching place. As it turns out, it was pretty good way to spend recovering on New Year’s day. Fernando, the very generous owner of the hostel we were staying at, took us on the very bumpy ride on the back of the truck. Aoife rode in the back with his son, Fernando jr., and Jeremy from California, another guy that was staying at the hostel.

Being uninitiated, we discovered there were a series of steps that you had to follow as part of the Mayan tradition, like placing mud on the face, then walking around an idol of the Mayan queen seven times, and finally splashing your shoulders with hot water. After that we could finally get down to lounging around in the natural hot pools and steam bath which was basically just a steam geyser in the side of a cliff. It was great fun, and a really nice to finish up our time in Copán.