Semana Santa

Copan: Day 2

Today was our Ruins day! We made a quick breakfast out of Espresso Americano and baleadas. Tad decided he wanted some fruit instead so he went in search of some bananas. He comes back with this bag and I look inside and informed him he had just bought platanos, not bananas haha. He was disappointed, but we gave them to the restaurant where we ate baleadas so they could use them. We started our short walk to the ruins and it was already a warm one in the morning. Again, I had already been to the ruins once, but it was great seeing them again at a different time of the day with different people. Everyone thought it was amazing, which they are; it’s also amazing that they let you just walk on the ruins instead of just staring at them. We met some other people from the States vacationing there, including some guys from University of Wisconsin; we asked them why they chose Honduras and they were like it as cheaper than Mexico (so true). I wish more people knew about how much Honduras has to offer vacation-wise; I know I’ll keep coming back to Honduras from now on for vacation before I think about other countries.

After a hot day at the ruins, we decided to go back to Macaw Mountain and use our tickets for the natural pool. It felt amazing and refreshing; we just got to relax by the water or in the hammocks near the pool. We ate lunch at the park and then headed back to get ready for our horseback ride. I haven’t ridden a horse since I was around 10, so I was anxious to see how it went. The horses weren’t huge (thank goodness), but some of them had a little feistiness and kept biting each other when another would get close. So that made for an interesting ride. Our guides only spoke Spanish, but between Mike, Laura Beth and I we did fine communicating what was needed and even got to joke around with them a bit. Our guides were a father/daughter team; the girl was hilarious and spoke Spanish more clearly than her father, so I had fun talking with her. Our ride went through the country side, across the river and up to a Mayan village, La Pintada, where we got to see the school there and meet some of the kids who live in the village. They’re poor and sell corn-husk dolls to help make money.

I had a blast riding my horse; whenever he saw another horse starting to do anything besides walking, he would follow. So I got to trot quite a bit and actually got to a canter or gallop, which was my favorite. Trotting is just so bouncy; cantering or galloping (I’m not sure which it was) is a lot smoother. After our hot horse ride, we freshened up for dinner at Pizza Jims, the local pizza joint in Copan. It was so good! We wanted dessert after dinner and went to ViaVia, this great little café, for brownies and Belgium beer. We were all pooped from our action-filled day that we crashed into bed.