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Latin America - part III

Copan, Roatan, Tegucigalpa, Granada

Hector Yague
2005-10-11 10:45:08

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Copan

The arrival at Copan town, on the 4th of January 2005, was messy. I had jumped into a small shuttle bus along with a few other backpackers from Antigua (Guatemala) in order to cross the border early in the morning. Well, we sort of got confused at the border control booth and forgot to get our passports stamped, and thus we walked unaware into Honduras illegally, from a technical point of view at least. I had never been an illegal immigrant before so that's one more thing ticked off the list. Of course, when we realized half a hour later and well into Honduran territory, we had to bribe the bus driver (who was a perfect cretin) to drive back to the border crossing to sort the mess out.

Eventually I arrived at Copan proper, barely 1km away from the Mayan ruins. By then, and after having thoroughly explored Palenque, Tikal and Chichen Itza, I was done with the Mayan Trail but being so nearby and stuff I figured I might as well spend the day at the ruins. Well, I could have perfectly skipped them really because they pale in comparison with any of the three before mentioned. Plus the US$10 entrance fee didn't help either. Indeed, I was soon to learn that Honduras has some crazy prices for some specific things hardly justifiable.

The Mayans at Copan had encountered a similar fate than those in other contemporaneous cities: overgrowth forced them to abandon the site as local agriculture was unable to keep up with the up-rising demand and population, triggering an age of famine, disease and decadence, turning yet one more formerly glorious settlement into a ghost town.

Anyway, like I said before Copan is no rival to other splendorous Mayan cities despite being Honduras' most representative archeological ruins. What can I say guys, some of them are worth the visit and some others ain't. So the morning after I woke up yet again at 4 am to get ...