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Antigua Guatemala, 4 May 2003

Copan, Lago Atitlan's flower power colony and Semana Santa in Antigua

Odv
2004-09-15 12:04:32

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broken or the battery was broken or the battery was as empty as it can be because of the contact with water that it needed to be charged much longer.

We decided to let it charge all night. In the morning I placed the battery in the camera, and the impossible happened, it turned on! On the screen was a single complaint: no CF card. So I put the memory card in, and all the pictures where still there! Great! We couldn't believe our luck. We still had all our pictures and we could take pictures of the Copan ruins as well.

The Maya ruins in Copan have been partially destroyed by the adjacent river many years ago, but most of it still remains to be admired. The river has since been diverted to flow further from the ruins and the ruins have been fortified.

Archaeologists have dug tunnels through some of the structures, revealing previous structures. Apparently the Mayas built structures upon previous structures every 52 years (a cycle in the Mayan calendar). Entry to the tunnels was overpriced at 12 USD per person. Our guide gave us an account of all the kings, I lost track, but remember king 18 Rabbit. Rabbits you see where holly animals just like jaguars and snakes.

One of the things Copan is famous for is a stairway with the entire history of Copan written on it in Mayan glyphs. Unfortunately some archaeologist restored the stairs, without taking care to replace each stone in its proper location losing invaluable information in the process.

We left Chiquimula again by bus (2.5 Euros for 170 km) for Guatemala City. Buses in Guatemala are definitively a lot cheaper than in Mexico or Belize. For only a couple of Euros you can travel hundreds of kilometers. The roads are not bad, and most even have all the lines painted on them, though these seem to be just for decoration.

Once in Guatemala City we urgently needed to find an ATM since we had run out of cash, ...