Copan

From El Salvador we headed into Honduras to see Copan, our first Mayan ruins of the trip.    After walking around the charming modern town of Copan (modern in the sense of not thousands of years old) we made a trip across to Macaw Mountain, a rescue center for macaws, toucans, and other birdlife.  We enjoyed walking through some of the aviaries, one of which housed a pair of toucans that I am certain were trying to see how much they could startle us.  As soon as we turned our backs one would swoop down almost brushing our heads or shoulders, often carrying a piece of fruit to feed it’s mate.  Another couple had one of the toucans land on their backpack and try to take the red top off their water bottle!  The real highlight though was towards the end where a large open area was dotted with trees, and branches upon which macaws and other parrots were spending their time.  We each took it in turns to be laden down by multiple macaws, the loss of one of Jason’s shirt buttons was worth the experience!

The following day we went to the ruins themselves, where we once again got to meet a number of macaws.   The rescue center we visited the day before releases its rehabilitated birds in the archeological park, and so it has a number of resident macaws.  It was much nicer seeing the birds in the wild even as we had to dodge the falling mangos the Macaws would eat in the trees above us.  Wandering around site we tried to decide how some of the buildings where determined to serve the functions listed in the guide book and looking at the “un-excavated” ruins or to my mind “mounds of earth and stone held together with tree roots and grass” it challenges the imagination as to how the archeologists decide what a building looks like when they reassemble the stonework.  These doubts aside the site did have a number of structures, walls and altars that had quite a lot of detail still visible allowing us a glimpse of the intricate work that the Mayans incorporated into their important structures.