Copán and an unexpected reunion

I could have drawn the curtains. The truth is, the sun was hot, the air was dry, and the flashes of countryside I caught at the edges of the curtains were not enough to draw my eye away from A Storm of Swords as the bus entered Honduras. So I kept right on reading until it stopped in Copán. 

Stepping off the bus was...well, it was really hot, and the map in the free guidebook I'd picked up at the bus station in Guatemala City did not seem to correspond well with the two dirt roads climbing away from me. I staved off the first tuk tuk, only to climb aboard the next one that happened along 3 minutes later. Like I said. It was hot. And tuk tuks are cheap. 

Once in town, navigation was easy - the town is laid out in a grid. My first stop was Via Via, the hostel Norwegian Eric had recommended back in Flores. I decided his recommendation had been a good one; the hostel was clean, well kept, spacious, and completely full. I was prepared for this possibility, and just asked them to recommend another hostel. 

The second hostel was also full, but the third turned out to have a room for 200 lempira with a private room, private shower, and good wifi. I dropped my bag off and headed back to Via Via to address the lunch situation and explore. 

No sooner had I downed two cold Imperials, a burrito, and signed up for a room the following night, then my friend Elaine walked up to my table followed by her boyfriend Mike. It was a welcome surprise seeing them after leaving the Iguana. We ended up hanging out for the rest of the day and night. 

The following day I checked out of my hostel, moved to via via, and walked 20 minutes out of town to get to the ruins. It wasn't a very clear day, but the ruins were deserted, and it was peaceful. Luckily I'd scored a map of the ruins with a self guided informational tour from a smiley girl working at via via, and could skip out on paying $15 for a guide. 

Here are a select few pictures from the ruins. Seeing wild macaws was great - I can understand why they appear everywhere in Mayan art. 

The ball court. 

2000 glyphs on these 63 stairs, the longest known text of Mayan civilization. Tells the history of the royal family here, and also is near the equivalent of the Mayan Rosetta Stone. 

Near residential area of royal families with courtyards and tables. 

Hanging out checking out the visitors. 

The entire tour only took a couple hours, and afterward it was back to the hostel for my complimentary Cuba libre and plan with Mike and Elaine. We were all heading to the bay islands the following morning at 6am, though Elaine was going Utila like me, and Mike was going to Roatan first.

5:15am came around quickly, and half an hour later we were all hustling along in silence toward the bus station. The bus was cheap and would bring us to the bus terminal of San Pedro Sula with enough time to catch a bus to La Ceiba, then a taxi before the last ferry at 4pm. 

It all went to plan, and before long Elaine and I were on the ferry heading for Utila. It was time for me to get my first taste of diving in the ocean. 

Antigua and Villa Canales

Arriving in Antigua was a bit exciting. Even though I'd technically already been there twice, I hadn't spent more than a combined 3 hours in the city- not much time to explore. 

I wasn't meeting up with my friend until 7pm, so I had the entire day to do as I please. My appetite was a demanding attention, so I ended up at a cafe a stone's throw from my hostel, where my world was opened up to a new concept: Café miel. 

Coffee with cinnamon and honey, topped with foam. I swiftly downed two cups and a delicious Guatemalan breakfast that became more of an accompaniment for the coffee than vice versa. 

The rest of the day was spent taking care of errands I needed to run- nothing to share, though it was needed. 

Around 7 I headed to Rainbow Cafe to meet up with Andrew, a friend from childhood who has worked at an NGO in Antigua for the past two years. It was pretty fun to see him and hear about the work he is doing, and the food did the trick. He gave me some Latino music to check out, and we split. 

It was on to Guatemala City the next day to meet my Guatemalan aunt. 

Around 5pm she walked up to me sitting on a bench outside Mcdonalds and said "Jeremy...?" Backpacker packs are a convenient giveaway in situations like this, but also a pretty good target, so I stayed in a fancy hotel lobby until just before meeting her. 

Mara is awesome. We hung out at mcdonalds for quite a bit, getting to know each other. We waited until after rush hour was over, then took a 45 minute cab ride to Villa Canales where she lives, and the next few days felt like what they were- staying with family. It was pretty easy to slip into feeling "at home," and even easier to let myself be convinced to stay a couple extra days and push back my reservation in Utila. It was also the first time in Central America that my brain started hurting from trying to use Spanish consistently for the first time in two years. I really enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity to meet Mara, and by the end of my time with her I had standing invitations to come back and stay with a bunch of her other friends and relatives as well. :) guess I'll have to be back at some point. 

Here are a couple pictures from our time together, which include a tour of the palace in Guatemala City, a rather bad camera angle of all of us, and some other choice shots. 

Cathedral

Palace, front

Central square from palace

Cathedral again

Press room in palace

Another

Mara is on the right 

Courtyard in palace. Note the kid's level of interest. 

Honestly though this kid's too cute. 

Big flag

House in Antigua. We went back for an afternoon

This church was destroyed, but for the facade, in an earthquake. 

Horse tour of Antigua. 

Anyway I had a great time with Mara and company and I was sad to go, but I had to stop postponing my reservation in Utila. It was time to go to Copán for a couple nights and then trek to the bay islands. 

Kindly, Mara took a taxi with me to the bus station at 5 in the morning, and by 7 I was headed off to cross the border with Honduras and check out Copán. I changed the rest of my Guatemalan quetzales to Honduran lempiras with the money changers there, and prepared to find a hostel and lunch after my midday arrival. 

Leaving Flores

Behind on posts again. Need to reach back a few weeks. 

By the time Jeff split for Belize, I was getting comfortable in Flores and also in need of a new plan. I had my go-to spot around the corner for a hearty plate of chili rellenos, Sky Bar for cigars, my miniature hostel pet turtles,

and a couple new partners in crime for the rest of the time, Eric and Josh. 

Eric was frequently called Jesus or Tarzan while we roamed the streets barefoot, for obvious reasons. 

We learned the small island pretty quickly and ended up lingering a couple days. Eric was trying to sort out a bicycle purchase in Belize so he could embark on his ambitious bike trip between Belize and there, Josh had worked a week across the lake in the jungle at a nature conservation site and was lining up his next moves, and I was trying to sort out the best route to do all the things I wanted to try to do next-- go to the bay islands in Honduras to check out the diving (while avoiding San Pedro Sula, murder capital of the world), visit a friend in Antigua, and contact and visit a relative in Guatemala City I'd never met before for an undetermined length of stay. 

Meanwhile, we roamed the streets and always seemed to find something new to check out. 

We were hanging out by the water thinking about hiring a boat when none other than Eric, a rich Norwegian fellow I met at Lake Atitlan, came striding up to say hello. In our conversation, he added one piece that essentially solved the puzzle of how I was going to string all my destinations together: Copán, Honduras. The addition of that stop enabled me to swing down to Antigua to visit my friend, buy time to establish contact with my second cousin's husband's aunt, visit her, and then stop in Copán, which would split up the trip between Guatemala City and Utila so that I wouldn't have to spend the night in sketchier places like San Pedro Sula or La Ceiba, and also give me a chance to see more Mayan ruins that I hadn't known about. He even suggested a preferred cheap hostel to stay at, and a bus line to use. Norwegian Eric also had some helpful suggestions for Josh and Eric's plans. It was a constructive and definitely fortunate chance meeting. 

Our already good spirits were a bit lighter for having a better idea of the immediate future, and we decided to go ahead and hire a boat to tour us around as sunset approached. We bought the captain a beer, drank a few ourselves, and I was able to snap this shot before all of our cameras/phones died. 

It was a really enjoyable sunset, and the island was exceptionally beautiful from the water - sadly, no pictures. Great decision though. We tipped the guy and headed off to finish sorting out our plans.

As it turns out, Eric ended up acquiring a mountain bike locally for his trip, Josh and I figured out we might head to Ecuador around the same time in a couple weeks, and I booked and boarded a middle-of-the-night bus back to Antigua. 

But before I left, I was able to use Eric's phone to contact who I will now refer to as my Guatemalan aunt, Mara Rosal. All in all, things were working out perfectly. 

The extra few days in Flores had been a bit of a gift, and I left it renewed with a much better plan for the next couple weeks.