Day 14 - Copan

The city surrounding Copan Ruins is ecclectic. There's an interesting mix of Latina, Gringo, and other folks here. The streets are all cobblestone and the only taxis available are glorified scooters called Tuk-Tuks. There are a ton of interesting restaurants, bars, hotels and hostels here. You can live on the cheap ($5 for a room in pretty much any hostel) or extravagantly ($100+ for a big room in one of the ultra nice hotels). We chose the middle ground. For $50, we got a nice room in a hotel that was a block from Parque Central. Unfortunately, the hotel had beds that were as hard as the floor and, unknown to us at the time, water was out throughout the city. That left us with aching backs and cold showers. To remedy the situation, we decided to change hotels. The one we chose wasn't as lush, but had two twin beds and a queen which worked well for the four of us.

Breakfast was a wonderful french toast at a place called ViaVia. We had a great cup of Honduran coffee with our breakfast and a few of our group had a kind of shake with fresh papaya or banana juice. We'll definitely be back tomorrow for an early shake.

The hotel owner also runs a tour company next door to the hotel. He hooked us up with deals on the zipline/canopy tour and after grabbing a few waters, we were off. The canopy tour is something that I've been looking forward to for the entire trip. Well, it certainly didn't disappoint. The ziplines covered about 10 kilometers in distance and some were 100+ meters above the ground. I can't explain how exhilerating it is to 'fly' above the canopy. It is also a bit unnerving to know that a 1/2" cable that is more than 1km long is the only thing keeping you from falling 300 feet down to the forrest floor! Thankfully the guides were fun and were looking out for everyone's safety. Above is a video (very large) of one me zipping through the canopy.

Lunch was a very Honduran meal at a place called "Jim's Pizza". The pizza there was hot, quick, and tasted great and the beer was ice cold. It made for a great lunch and recharged us for the rest of our day. After lunch we went to the Parque de Aves (a Bird Park) and saw a ton of Macaws, Parrots, Parakeets, and Tucans. They also had several baby Macaws. Did you know that Macaws reach their full adult size in 3 months and can live to be 100? Me neither...

After a long day, we had dinner and then drinks afterwards back at ViaVia. They were supposed to have Sala dancing, but the instructor backed out so it sortof fizzled. Exhuasted, we decided to head back to get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a full day of touring the ruins and then travelling to Guatemala City. Hopefully I can get some good pictures of the ruins to post.