Wow! Today was great! We left Roatan yesterday, and we were all sad to go. It was Mom and Dad’s favorite place in the Caribbean, and it was me and my sister’s favorite (and only) place too. But now we have reached Copan Ruinas and having just as much fun. We are staying at a great place called the Iguana Azul. It has free Wi-Fi, ‘laundry facilities’ (a big sink), ceiling fans and hot showers for only $30 a night. We have recently gotten back from an excursion out to the Mayan ruins of Honduras. It was very fun. And it was only a short hike down from our hotel. We hired a guide who took us, and a few other people, to the ruins. The first things we saw when entering the park was a bunch of scarlet Macaws. They were really cool. At first it didn’t seem that interesting, as we saw only mounds of dirt and a few large trees, but as we crested a mound I saw a park, surrounded by temple ruins that were absolutely stunning.
From there we walked out to another courtyard, and that was were the Mayans supposedly burned their king’s blood as a way to communicate with their gods. You could walk up the steps that surrounded it, where the spectators were supposed to have sat to the kings throne area, which is just amazing. The view is spectacular of the courtyard.
if you walk away from that courtyard you come out looking at an amazing view of the central plaza, where the Mayans played their ball game. Apparently they tried to hit rubber balls at statues of parrots. The captain of the winning team had the ‘honor’ to be sacrificed to the gods. Not much of a motivation. Behind the ball court was a small pyramid and then a field of statues:
The central plaza
A statue of eight rabbit.
The tour guide left us and we went out to explore on our own. I found a side path that leads you to another inside of a stone building, where we hung out for a while. We went back to the other courtyards and took our time to take pictures of the sights. By that time me and Emma where exhausted and went back to the place.
-Bjorn
EDIT: later we found out that our guide was wrong. The museum said that the losing team got sacrificed, not the winning captain. I thought I had heard this before, and we decided to trust the Copan museum more than the tour guide. This is an edit that is long overdue, and only now have I gotten around to changing this.
long4adventure