Copan Ruins

Monday, 21 December 2009 17:18

Copan Ruins...what can I say? I’ve always wanted to see Mayan ruins. Copan was my 4th site, and I still found myself sitting on top of one of the pyramids, not believing I was here, or at one time there were thousands of Mayans running around this place.








To get to the Copan Ruins, we needed to cross the border and enter Honduras. We used the Florence crossing from Guatemala. We arrived at the border at 3:30 p.m. and were out 1 hour later which made this the fastest border crossing to date. The longest delay was waiting to restock the copy machine with paper. Once there was paper, we were out of there in 40 minutes.
Copan Ruinas, the town next to the ruins, is a nice small “tourist” town.

A good number of people speak English, which is both good and bad. Good because it makes life easy. Bad because I feel like I’m starting to forget the Spanish that I learned!

Almost every afternoon, the town loses power. At first, I thought they were kidding when they told me this, but at dinner that ,the power went out and within seconds the candles and storm lamps were lit and we continued eating in candlelight. The next day, while eating breakfast, I thought maybe this could be part of the problem.

After two days in Copan, it was time to push on to El Salvador. Originally, I thought I would skip this country, but at the last minute, I thought “why not?” Several locals said the fastest way to El Salvador was to go back into Guatemala, but I wanted to stay in Honduras as long as possible. A quick look in the travel guide and I had a destination, Suchitot, in the northern part of El Salvador on the shores of Lago de Suchitlan. Suchitot is described as a colonial town with coble stone streets - like Antigua was, before Antigua was overrun with visitors. In the 80s, Suchitot was a ghost town, as the military was in a bitter fight with FMLN guerrillas in the nearby mountains. The town has become popular with the people in San Salvador, and during the weekends, the place fills up. We arrived on the 12th of December and there was a large fiesta going on which meant finding a room was difficult. The only hotel with a room (the last room in town) was right on the el Centro which gave me a excellent view of the night’s activities (which didn’t end until 4:00 a.m.),

The next morning was Sunday which meant the custom office at the border would be closed, so the we stopped at San Miguel, about 30 miles short of the border. Nothing special about San Miguel, except they have traffic lights. I hadn’t seen those in weeks, so I blew through the first one and was halfway through the intersection when I realized it was a traffic light and that it was red. I guess that explained why the intersection was wide open with no traffic

In the morning, we got one of the earliest starts of the whole trip. I was riding by 8:00 a.m. knowing that I had 2 borders to cross and about 50 – 60 miles of roads in Honduras that are notorious for cops trying to shake you down for some bogus traffic fine.

The first border crossing from El Salvador to Honduras was a piece of cake, with the exception of a helper trying to convince me that it would take 6 hours to get through the border. I met him at a gas station about 1 kilometer from the border. I told him “no thanks” a few times, but he insisted that the lines where very long because it was a Monday. He jumped into his car and started to follow me to the border, but turned around when we got there. Maybe it was because somehow the ‘massive lines’ had vanished.

When I crossed the border into El Salvador 2 days earlier, I somehow managed to keep my Honduras custom papers for the motorcycle. So, I figured that as far as Honduras goes, my moto was still legal and I decided that I wouldn’t bother to get a new document. We where through that border in 30 minutes or less.

About 1 kilometer down the road was a police checkpoint and they asked for all my papers. I took a deep breath and handed him my old custom papers. The guy looked it over, gave it back, and motioned me to go. I asked him it everything was good and he assured me it was.

An hour or so later, we were at the Honduras and Nicaraguan border. As the first officer started looking at my old custom papers, he started asking some questions that I didn’t fully understand. One of the local helpers jumped in without asking and looked at the papers and talked to the officer. After a short conversation, I had my papers back and the helper was telling me it would be 6 hours to get through the border because it was Monday and the line was very long. I was a little concerned with the customs document and decided that since the helper had gotten me past the first officer, I’d use him for the rest of the process.

In the end, I think it was a mistake, because the border was actually empty and he took about 2 hours to complete the process. Then, I found out that he didn’t process my moto through customs in Nicaragua, so when I stopped on the Nicaraguan side to get my passport stamped, I processed the moto, too. It only cost me $5 for the helper, but I think I could have done all the work myself in about the same time. The best part, my original Honduras custom papers worked!

At the end of the day, we made it to Hotel Playa Roca, had a beer, and settled down for this -