Copan to Panajachel - long and informative journey

Wow! What a bus ride-6.5 hours. We are camped with our luggage at the Rainbow Room for a nice lunch. Darren has gone to get tickets for the next leg to the famed Lake Atitlan, which is 2.5 hrs away.

We had a hodge podge of foreigners on our minibus. Most got off south of Guatemala City to connect to Tikal and areas east, which left a lot more room.
 
We had a very enlightening bus ride with some Americans from Seattle who put us in the know about Central American travel. Seems we were worried about nothing. Most of her explanations were entertaining. They were hard core travelers who had done most of Central and South America. Here is what she had to say about the scary news reports we saw before leaving home:
 
Bus robberies in the Peten Region(Flores and Tikal): after the war, the local militia didn't get paid and the government doesn't put a lot of effort into maintaining peace there. So these ex-soldiers periodically stop buses for an unofficial toll. Pay the bribe and be on your way.
 
Brigands blocking roads: protests against some government ruling, the locals simply get off the bus at the road block and are allowed to walk through it to the next bus on the other side. The brigands are only interested in impeding government and businesses.
 
The drug cartels are pretty established and the locals don't care as long as they are not violent and don't bring drug addictions into the community. The drug violence in Mexico is mostly between fighting cartels.
 
She did warn that Managua is bad news, but the rest of Nicaragua is great.
 
Very informative conversation. We suspected, but they verified that Copan was a tourist trap with most things being overpriced. She described a lagoon excursion where you used to be able to go out all day with lunch included for $1.50. As wealthy tourists went out with the guides and tipped them $5, the fare is now $7.
 
They got off in Guatemala City to continue to the border as their three month visa for the region was expiring (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador).

One item I must relate: saw some goats in the middle of Guatemala City on the way in. Apparently they are the latest in fast food here. You can get goat milk on the spot on the sidewalk. A new niche in the market. You never know, it could take off in America.

We got lunch at the rainbow cafe. Darren was very frustrated trying to change our remaining dollars to Guatemalan for possible shopping tomorrow. The bank demands a lot of info- like what address are you staying at? As we were in transit we didn't know where we were staying.

We got to Panajachel just as the sun was setting. The view of the volcanoes as the sun set was marred somewhat by our co-passenger who was sick out the window. There were only 4 of us on the shuttle from Antigua. The other couple was students from Iowa and Minnesota. Poor girl was sick all the way. We discussed health care policy with the med student.

We did a quick turn around the main street lined with tourist shops and restaurants. Darren only took one photo today – amazing - at the border crossing.
 
It's been a long day. I almost felt like puking with the poor girl today.

Our hotel in Panajachel is the best so far and at $12 per night a bargain. They didn't have a double bed, so we got the widish twins with private bath. It's in a quiet alley near the church. The owner is friendly and speaks a little English. He told us where to pick up the local bus to Chichicastenango.
 
After 13 hrs in transit, I don't want to sit on another bus for a very long time. But being a glutton for punishment, I've convinced Darren that we should brave the chicken bus tomorrow on our day trip to the Chichicastenango market 2.5 hrs away. I know, stupid right? I would like to give a chicken bus a go at least once and this may be our last chance. Due to the long distances needed to travel in a short time, we’ve opted for the speedier tourist shuttles.
 
This market is well known to be colorful with lots of souvenirs and possibly pickpockets if the State Department is to be believed. We will leave everything behind but the cameras.
 

Macaw Mountain, Honduras

We then swung around the outskirts of town. Darren tried to get a photo of some men shoeing a horse in the street. Saw lots of dogs. Most were too skinny. One was eating what appeared to be the plastic wrapping for loo roll. Darren fished out some bread for him. The dogs seemed better fed in Guatemala.
 
After a bit of a trek, we ended up on a well maintained dirt road that ran around the mountain. Darren had been looking forward to visiting Macaw Mountain this whole trip. And it was definitely worth the trek.
 
A guide comes with the cost of admission. He was a bit surly at first, but once he saw we were really interested, he thawed. His mom lives in Gaithersburg, not ten miles away from us. He called her while we were lingering looking at birds.
 
Macaw Mountain is a bird sanctuary. They take in birds people no longer want. The macaws live 100 yrs in captivity - many of the others 60-80 yrs. Several mate for life and we could see they were highly social - just the most beautiful birds. A well run, beautiful setting.
 
They had an area where some of birds sit on perches in the open and place the birds on your arms for photos. One scarlet macaw took a real liking to the plastic toggle on my hat string.
 
We went back by there before leaving. We kept snapping pics of parrots, toucans, macaws. The scarlet macaws exhibited definite attention seeking behavior. They were on the front perches and if you went further into the group of perches to get closer to the parrots and blue macaws, the scarlet ones would make a ruckus fighting with their mates (marital issues I guess) until you turned and started photographing them, they then piped down. One wanted to eat my hat - also tried to chew on my camera.
 

  All the birds seemedintently interested in what we were doing - watching us as we went around the group. An awesome place to visit if you ever make it down this way.
 
The next order of the day was a pizza splurge (Mama Mia makes excellent veggie pizza) and to spend the rest of our Honduran money. We leave first thing in the morning. So we went shopping for souvenirs.  We then tried to pack previously mentioned souvenirs in our packs.
 
An excellent day. I took more pics today than I have the whole trip.

Copan Ruinas, Honduras

Even though the guidebook said most western nationalities did not have to pay the $3 fee at the border, we didn't quibble with the uniforms. The Aussie law student had massive holes in his pants just below his rear pockets. He was rather tall. Maybe he couldn't find a pair locally?

From the border, it was only 20 min to the town of Copan Ruinas. We immediately went to the cheapest hostel listed in the book. The 4 ft tall little old lady in charge ran a tight ship - as evidenced by the rules listed on the board. There's a lovely little garden in the courtyard. The room was clean and the whole establishment was quiet in general. Not bad for $10.


We were horrified when the first ATM spit our card back out at us – one of a short list of travelers’ worst nightmares. We had no local money and it was Sunday afternoon. Thankfully, we were more successful when we tried a different bank. We took out 2000 in local currency with no idea what the exchange rate was. I looked it up on the Blackberry. We’d withdrawn $106.

While the room is a great buy, the food is pricey. Simple meals for 2 run around $15. Today we stopped at a grocery and loaded up on some semi-stale hotdog buns, peanut butter, tostadas, salsa, apple juice, muesli and soy milk for less than one meal.


The town of Copan is different from Guatemala. People here seem very serious - I will not be hola-ing people willy nilly here. Lots of cowboy hats abound. Five seriously armed guards surrounded the Western Union this morning.

We had a lay in this morning, breakfast, and headed for the Mayan ruins. They are not as majestic as the temples at Tikal, but the stela carvings are more impressive. These date from 600-800 AD, which is amazing. The principle figure in the is someone named 18 Rabbits - very popular dude.

They have feeders for them near the entrance for macaws. We saw five flying in a group over the old plaza.

Darren blocked the footpath while photographing some birds, totally oblivious to the five people waiting to get past him.

This afternoon we were going to visit a butterfly park, but there were no directions in the guidebook and the tuk tuk driver said it no longer existed. While Darren tracked town the tourist office, which wasn't where the map said it was, I wrestled with the my keyboard that suddenly started typing in Japanese.

Will see the butterflies tomorrow and then visit Macaw Mountain. We’re spending a quiet evening tonight in the hostel’s courtyard. Just saw a large tour group out with a security guard at 7 pm. Lots of rifles around town with body armor. We are tucked snugly in our hotel for the night.

Our neighbors are chaves Darren says. I hunted all over England for a chav last winter. The little old lady will be out soon to pipe them down. I think they’re high.

Speaking of pot, I've been looking for a suitably dodgy character to photograph for my coworker. The closest I've come was this non-descript young man that walked quickly past us as we waited for the shuttle for the night bus earlier in the week. He zoomed by, muttering, "Want to buy some weed?" We sort of watched him walking quickly away, puzzled. Not that we wanted any, but wondered at his sales technique. Were we supposed to race after him if we wanted some? So many social situations that growing up in WV doesn't prepare you for - didn't even get his photo.

The muesli made an excellent breakfast before we headed out to the burbs of this tiny town. It was an interesting walk that included scenic views, a cemetery, and a few dirt roads. Before we set out we divested ourselves of anything of value other than the cameras. As I said previously, the little lady that runs the hostel runs a tight ship and thankfully no one had been in our room to clean as we'd trashed it again -- we left everything in the room.

Our first stop was a butterfly house. There were four different varieties. It's been cool here and overcast, which I believe affected what types there were to see. Got a photo of one sitting on Darren's head.

Back to Antigua and on to Copan Ruinas

Considerably groggy, we waded through the taxi drivers to the bus station waiting room. We hadn't prebooked a shuttle to Antigua. We thought to either hitch with the shuttle coming to pick up the other foreigners or Darren walking around the corner to the other bus company and inquire about their shuttle service.

Darren came back from the other station with the news an official taxi would take us to Antigua for 30 dollars. We picked up two other travelers going that way and split the cost. One was an Englishman in Guatemala for the diving and the other was a Romanian who had flown through 13 countries in four wks on his current trip.

The taxi dropped us all at the square and we crashed again when our retirement hotel opened.

We caught up on laundry, had lunch, and browsed through the market. It’s hard to browse there with the hard sell. Darren is off taking photos somewhere or catching up on his soccer news.

Shouldn't be any more climbing this next week.

The alarm went at 3:05. We bumbled around, making coffee with the water heater (we finally worked out how to use it effectively), and brushing teeth. We always seem to have difficulty with the complex dead bolts on the outer door of the Dona Angelina Hotel.

As we stood waiting for our shuttle in the cold pre-dawn, a snazzy car pulled up and the most slicked down young man I believe I've ever beheld jumped out. Not a hair was out of place, not a wrinkle or a dog hair on his black slacks and shirt. There was a 24 hour pharmacy next door (must ring the bell) and we thought maybe someone was ill or perhaps emergency condoms were needed. As it turned out, he beat on the door to the Dona Angelina until the attendant opened the small window in the door. Our spotless visitor was looking for a room by the hour. Despite his slick appearance, he obviously didn't know how to impress a woman if he was taking her to our hostel for retired hippies. The attendant said the place was full.

We found our seats in the crowded shuttle bus for the 6 hour ride to Copan in Honduras. We picked up a couple more people on the way out of town. The last was a young woman with a bag just slightly larger than mine. I was impressed until she turned and I could see the behemoth bag on her back; a Brit from Manchester traveling in Central America for gap year and teaching English. I know all this because she immediately struck a conversation with the one single guy on the bus and told us all her life story.

Who knew public transportation could be such a hot bed for romance, although after our experience on the China Bus to NYC, I shouldn't be surprised, but at 4 am Prince William in drag would not grab my attention.

He was an Aussie law student from Melbourne. Darren said it wasn't a flirtation in the strictest sense, but if she chattered away like that with most men I've encountered, it would be considered flirtatious. Anyway, the rest of the sleepy bus occupants were entertained by their life story at the ungodly hour of 4 am. The Aussie even mentioned that he'd only had an hour of sleep and needed a nap and she chattered on.

She finally wound down and I tried to nap, which was not really possible. I gave up as the sun rose and turned on a book on tape to pass the time.

We passed through some impressive mountains - sort of Appalachian height (not Rockies). We stopped for a break/breakfast (we'd had a cheese roll and tea while waiting for the bus). The Aussie student talked about his girlfriend at home at the next table. The romance petered out after that.