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The first of our epic travel adventures across Central American borders began with our journey from Panajachel to Copan in Honduras. We rose earl for a 6 AM departure. If it was not so bloody early I am sure we would have appreciated the sight of the sun peeking over the vocanoes and bathing the lake in spectacular pastels of pink and orange. Instead we (well primarily me) grumbled and groaned as we piled into the bus bound for the second best Mayan ruins in Central America.

Great Sun Lord Quetzal Macaw denied passage on Honduran bus line

Patrick Gatland
2006-04-05 09:35:05

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The first of our epic travel adventures across Central American borders began with our journey from Panajachel to Copan in Honduras. We rose earl for a 6 AM departure. If it was not so bloody early I am sure we would have appreciated the sight of the sun peeking over the vocanoes and bathing the lake in spectacular pastels of pink and orange. Instead we (well primarily me) grumbled and groaned as we piled into the bus bound for the second best Mayan ruins in Central America.

Our driver, Carlos, was a great guy who managed to steal 2 quetzales from Linda (the equivalent of 40 cents), a packet of M and Ms from me and convince us that there was only one person in the whole of Honduras who spoke English (Current count of English speakers is 157 excluding the an island of approximately 1500 people where English is their native tongue). The 8 hour bus ride sped past except for the time when we lost Julian in a petrol station queue and Carlos nearly lost his mind because he thought he would be behind his schedule - his cries of "where´s Jules, where´s Jules" quicly brought Julian bounding back to the bus.

Other highlights of the trip included a truck crash, a change of tire and Carlos bribing the border guards not to check our bags for the sake of efficiency - the poor guy had to drive all the way back to Guatemala that night and had done the full round trip the day before. Carlos truly was a shining example stop, revive survive if I ever saw one.

Arriving in Copan Ruinas was kind of like arriving in our very own piece of the Wild West. With a thin layer of white dust settled over the town and a baking sun scorching the streets, the men wearing big hats and brandishing even bigger guns looked straight out of any spaghetti western you would like to name.

Copan Ruinas (as the name may suggest) is basically a town that has sprung up next to the Mayan ruins of Copan purely because of the draw of the ruins themselves. There is very little ...