Exploring Copan, Honduras

Since our temple was closed in January for two weeks and we needed to be out of our apartment for the thorough cleaning of the annex, we decided to go traveling with Ken and Chrys Meadows.  Their kids, the Bradys had been there over Christmas, so we didn't have much time to plan our trip other than the main places we wanted to visit.  We decided that since we didn't know how long we wanted to stay at each of our planned destinations, we would just get our first night's reservations and trust that we could wing it for the rest.

We bought peanut butter, bread, and some snacks and started off on our way on Wednesday, Jan. 7 at 7:00 am.  We crossed the border of Honduras late in the afternoon and then it took us only about 10 minutes to get to Copan which was a quaint little town with narrow cobblestone streets going up and down the hills.

After traveling all day we were glad to get out of the car and walk those streets.  We found our hotel and were delighted that it was even lovelier than described on the internet.

We walked to El Bosque (the forest) which was recommended by our hotel.  This was the meal they brought us to share.  Wow!  What a lot of delicious food!  It was the best beef we had tasted since leaving the states.

This is the patio of our hotel where the next morning they served us breakfast on little tables set up here.  It was lovely with the sound of the birds in the trees and the water in the fountain.

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We walked to the ruins and right away a guide "Tony" attached himself to us.  He was 77 years old and had been a guide there for 40 years.  We were really glad we did as we learned so much more than we would have on our own just walking around.

We learned from Tony that these magnificent Mayan ruins cover a time period from 1000 BC to 8 or 900 AD so there very well could have been some Book of Mormon connections here.  He was actually familiar with the Book of Mormon and had read it.












The carving on the stelas here was magnificent!  They were carvings to honor their rulers and were very detailed all the way round on four sides.
Both of these stelas are of Governor 18 rabbit and there are 6 stela images of him here all intricately carved like these.

Between the four of us adventurers you can see the Mayan ball field like the one we saw in Zaculeu.  They are found in most Mayan ruin sites and are quite well preserved.  We were told that on special occasions they have a ceremonial ball game.  I hope they don't kill the losers as they did anciently!

This old man's head sculpture is one of the most famous and was featured in National Geographic.  This is the monumental head of a bacab, or elder holding the sky.  There were two enormous sculptures at the top of the Great Stairway of one of the temples.  Apparently the body was fractured so badly it could not be reconstructed.  I can't imagine how colossal it would have been!

This is the Hieroglyphic Stairway and is the largest text in the Maya world.  Governor 15 Humo Caracol had this stairway made in the year 753 AD which tells a history of this people.  It was discovered in 1886 and as they tried to reconstruct it they moved some of the steps not realizing they were a text.  The stairway consists of 1250 rock blocks with hieroglyphic inscriptions which have not all been translated yet.

This is what they think it would have looked like in its original form.  Mighty impressive!

This altar with its detailed carvings represents the images of the 16 governors of the Copan dynasty.

There were tunnels under the temples dug by the archaeologists to explore that we could have gone in but since we could see this complete replica in the museum, we opted not to knowing how much Brannick likes tight  confined spaces.

This is a replica in the museum of the Rosalila Temple dated 571 AD  which is found buried under another temple because it is so sacred.  According to archaeologists it represents a mountain and the God of the Sun. The original actually has these bright colors on it.  They have discovered two more large temples buried underneath the Rosalila Temple which are not accessible to the public yet.

Our guide Tony compared Copan to Paris and Tikal to New York City.  The beauty of Copan was in the detailed carving of stelas and small temples but they did not have much height to them as we found in Tikal.




We also enjoyed the beauty of the plants and birds as we spent the morning exploring these amazing ruins.

To the left you see a cacao tree from which our chocolate is made.
The beautiful parrot is one of the many flying around in the treetops among these ancient Maya ruins.

We were so glad that we were able to spend the day with friends and see the sights that we would probably never have been able to see had we not come to serve in Guatemala.