Day 13: Copan Ruinas, Honduras

Got up really early (it’s totally worth it to beat the hordes of tourists who arrive about 9 or 10:00) and walked to the ruins (to learn more about the Copan Ruins click here for the wiki-link).

Takes about 15 minutes from the center of town. It’s a really nice walk on a stone walkway that runs alongside the road.

Nice walk to Copan Ruins

We arrived just after the park opened so we had the whole complex to ourselves for a couple of hours before the tour buses started rolling in. It was amazing! It’s very quiet when you first walk onto the grounds. The only sounds you can hear are the wild macaws, quetzals, and other unnamed birds and animals in the surrounding woods. Since Copan is an ongoing archaeological site, some of the structures are covered with tarps and scaffolding while they are restored or completely dug out from beneath the thousands of years of vegetation that have overgrown them. It’s incredibly difficult to capture the magnitude in photos or even videos. What an indescribable feeling to stand and look out over the Main Plaza from where the king would have sat high above in his Royal Palace. To think that such an amazing and complex civilization lived thousands of years ago and made such phenomenal buildings, games, ornate decor, complex cities is enough to blow your mind. It’s beyond description.

(Below is a small sampling of photos from Copan but you can find many more on the Honduras photo gallery)

Lindsey at the main temple structure at Copan

Carved statue at Copan

Ball game field at Copan

Statue "Old man of Copan"

Skull carving at copan

Over Copan

After spending almost 5 hours wandering through Copan, we walked the extra 2 km to Las Sepulturas. It’s very easy to get to and only takes about 15-20 minutes to walk to from the gates of Copan Ruins. When we arrived, we took a look at the big wooden map near the guide building and because we took our sweet time looking it over, we accidentally picked up a guide. Guided tours are not free but you will get a great deal of interesting facts about Las Sepulturas, in spanish of course. We politely followed the guide through the first little complex before he wanted to negotiate a price for the rest of the 3-hour tour. We were able to follow along pretty well while he gave us some info about the place but when he started to talk about prices and explaining the rest of the tour, we got really confused and our spanglish and hand gestures failed us. “Habla espanol?” We grin stupidly and shake our heads no. He laughs really hard and we deliberate at how much money to pay him for the 10 minutes or so that he guided us (which we didn’t want in the first place but we felt it would be really rude not to give him anything for his time) and, upon deciding a hopefully appropriate sum, we try to explain that we would rather guide ourselves but “muchas gracias” anyway.

We trekked through the rest of the complex and literally did not see a single other tourist the entire time we were there! It was nice though because it kind of feels like you are discovering it yourself. Las Sepulturas was the living complex for the middle class Mayans. The rich and the royals lived in the Main Complex and the poorest citizens lived in the mountains and were the ones who cut the large rectangular stones that partially comprise the Copan Ruins. The structures are made by stacking laying two rows of blocks, one for the insidewalland one for the outside wall, and then filling the empty space between with riverstones for solidarity. Apparently, the poor people who lived in the mountains would take the stone slabs they cut and put them on logs to move (roll) them down to the river to transport them to the main complex.

Most of the structures at both the main ruins and Las Sepulturas were originally painted, often white (the stones were white lime) and/or red. Red symbolized blood, or the life force. Near many of the structures in the royal palace there are little signs that are painted interpretations of the assumed reconstructions. These provide little more than neat ideas about the past but are still pretty neat. We spent quite a lot of time at Las Sepulturas enjoying the place to ourselves.

Lindsey Discovering Las Sepulturas

Las Supulturas

Took the long walk back to Copan to grab some lunch but were disappointed with another atrocious meal. We’re wondering if there is any good food in this town at all…

Travel Tip:

Las Supulturas is a travelers goldmine. The complex is outstanding yet it is not advertised at all so it is almost always tourist free. To get to Las Sepulturas walk out from the main gate at Copan and head to the right, down along the fence, past the touts and vendors. There will be a small stone path that will take you all the way there. Their is no sign for the ruins but the walk way ends at what looks like a farm gate. Walk right in and you will see down the lane a guide shack and a map of the sight.