Monday, December 17, 2007

Copan Ruins and my Guide Bill

Setting ones alarm for 3:30am is simply a depressing thing...even if it is to start a trip to Copan. But set it I did, after meticulously packing my backpack for the rushed trip to Honduras. The driver was late and I parked my ass in the back of the "bus" at about 4:30am. The bus was actually a tin-can of a van that has been battered by the bumpy roads of Guatemala for quite some time. I sat in the back on a thinly padded, stiff seat that bounced me about like a convulsing see-saw as the driver drove like a fucking maniac. Sleeping was not an option. For many I know, vomiting most likely would have commenced. (A quick note on transportation. There seems to be a 3 tier hierarchy when it comes to ground transportation. The cheapest and by far most uncomfortable is the chicken bus which costs very little...less than a dollar to get to Guate City, 45 minutes away. They are ubiquitous and are used by most of the people traveling in GT. Second is the torismo van, a comparatively more comfortable ride, but by US standards....well, it aint so fun to ride in for 5 hours...but to Copan, it is only $10...and more affluent Guatemalans use this option too. Lastly, is the Pullman bus...a large charter bus that is rumored to be more comfortable and to Copan would cost one about $30.) After a frightful speeding trip up the mountains and through the small towns and into the lower lands of eastern GT, we reached the border of Honduras. The landscape changed from the highland forests to lower-land jungle with the concomitant heat and humidity. We passed through the border with relative ease, paying a couple bucks to leave GT and a couple more to enter Honduras. Then into Copan, a quaint little town with the requisite cobblestone streets, modest tiendas, and friendly folks. The population is 5000, 80% Mayan and 20% Latino and is mostly an agriculture town. Although the ruins attract tourists and that has become chunk of the economy. After being dropped in the central park, I took a tuk-tuk to my B&B, Casa de Cafe where I quickly dumped my stuff into my modest but gorgeous room with a comfortable bed and clean sheets....a spotless tiled bathroom...fucking heaven!! I headed to the Mayan ruins and met my guide...he said his name in Mayan and then insisted I call him "Bill." Bill worked on the excavation of the ruins for 10 years and has been a guide for the last 11 years. He gave me a great tour of the ruins explaining the caste systems, the royalty lineage, the fact that each king would build basically a whole new temple on top of the old. We ventured into stuffy narrow tunnels to see excavations of previous temples long since buried. The park is very nice and has a spectacular museum. The archaeologists are slowly making replicas and putting the original statues indoors to protect them from the elements. There is also a full scale replica built of one of the temples so one can get a sense of the size and finish....the Mayans always painted their buildings, usually with bright colors found on the macaw parrot which was one of the most significant symbols in Mayan art. I bought Bill lunch at the surprisingly good cafe at the park and I drank a banana soda made in Honduras. We chatted about family and our lives. Bill is 38, single, and lives with his mother. He works almost everyday and spends his evenings reading about Mayan history. He boasted proudly that he has 18 books at home on the subject of indigenous peoples in the Americas. He is Mayan and his grandmother taught him the language (there are some 30+ distinct cultural Mayan groups and dialects) so Bill speaks three languages. Yearly he visits Tikal to see the progress of that excavation and to learn more. In one of the temples, there was a series of statues of the last several kings. One was missing, the most important, Smoke Jaguar I believe, and he explained that the statue sits in a museum in Boston, Ma, USA. Because the Hondurans are quite poor and historically the ruins in Central America have been excavated by (and exploited by) archaeologists from Europe and the US, the Hondurans were forced to "pay" the American archaeologist for their work with the statue. I am not sure, but I think this was some time ago...and Honduras now has some local archaeologists...and Bill was proud to say one of them is from Copan, George. George was educated in the states and returned to make many new discoveries at the site. After the ruins I visited a parrot park where injured, abandon, and abused birds are taken for rehabilitation, conservation and public education. The place was gorgeous, set next to a creek in the jungle that boasted some pretty ginormous spiders...they just hung on their webs and I swear I saw one flip me off. Our guide was Frito and he was so sweet and knowledgeable. He is a young guy and hails from Copan which he loves....he also loves his job because it is beautiful and quiet and he can read which is his favorite thing to do (science fiction). At one point there were birds we could hold....giant macaws and little ones that nibbled on our ears (I have pics). We also saw plenty banana trees and coffee plants. A tuk-tuk ride home to the B&B....

1 comment:

Juls said...

Which leg does a spider use to flip you off? If it's the front leg you saw, she is probably doing something more like shaking a fist at you saying "I oughtta..."