Visit Copan

A good travel memory while we are writing from home in our December 2019 Wisconsin winter: We had finished our visit to the women’s chicken project on Thursday and on the drive back to San Salvador Daniel asked what we wanted to do for the weekend. He suggested we check into the famous resort De Cameron which features ocean view rooms, pools and all the drinks you can or can‘t handle. His Dad was not too keen on the idea. On Friday we got a call from Dad asking if we wanted to visit Copan. Not knowing what Copan is or where it is we said yes. We were picked up early Saturday morning and were on our way to the frontier (border with Guatemala). We passed through customs and absent any highway signs had to ask people the way to Honduras. The highway is full of pot holes and our truck took some big hits. It wasn’t too long and again we crossed the border into Honduras. Getting out of Guatemala was more difficult this time. Gladis was in the border station with our passports for 30 minutes and was all fired up upon returning to the truck. Like Guatemala, the highways in Honduras are absent any signage and we had to ask people the way. (Note: asking people directions is different in Latin American. They are delighted to be asked but will never admit they have no idea. They will waive their arms and point in opposite directions.) After turning around several times we finally arrived. Copan is a large city that is a world heritage site featuring the huge ancient Mayan civilization ruins of Copan. At admission the sign read admissions $7.50. I used my credit card and next month discovered I was charged $35. Unlike El Salvador that uses the US dollar, Guatemala and Honduras have their own national currency. We have visited Mayan sites in El Salvador but this was beyond anything we had seen before. Many of these sites are under restoration. In Copan the Mayans used sandstone for their buildings and monuments. Many of the outside monuments were reproductions as the original adornments are in the museum. Some of the Temples or Pyramids are fully restored and others are severely damaged by prior earth quakes and the effects of trees growing in cracks, pushing these large stones down the side of the structure. Mayan rulers would make their temples larger by building around the earlier temples. By encapsulating prior temples, thousands of artifacts of the inner most temples allow archeologists the information to identify the history of the site. We never made it into the museum and missed way too much, as our visit was shortened by lack of time. We will revisit Copan but plan to take a tour bus and spend two days at this breath taking site. Check out Copan at Wikipedia. It was dark when we passed through customs on the way back. This time we only had to say Copan and they waved us through. At the border from Guatemala to El Salvador we were the only car entering El Salvador, but this border crossing had 2 miles of semitrailers on both sides of the highway waiting to pass through customs to deliver goods and produce to El Salvador. It was an unusual community environment of men who have learned to patiently wait their turn. David y Nancy