May 23–June 5, 2007, Number 148
I'm standing in front of the Mayan ruins in Copan.
Exploring Honduras: The Bay Islands and Copan Ruins
After having a great time traveling through Nicaragua, it was time to move on to Honduras. One stop led us to the Bay Islands off the northern coast of Honduras. Then, we took some time to explore the ancient Mayan ruins of Copan.
Jonny and I spent 4 days hanging out on the Bay Island of Utila snorkeling and diving on the world’s second largest barrier reef. Three islands make up the Bay Islands including Utila, Roatan, and Guanaja. Utila is a popular island for backpackers, like us, who are interested in getting dive certified or are already certified and just want to dive inexpensively. We met a lot of travelers from all over the world and were able to share travel stories and advice.
I had the intentions of getting dive certified on Utila but quickly changed my mind, after all, I just recently overcame my fear of snorkeling and I wasn’t ready to overcome diving so soon. Jonny, on the other hand who is already dive certified, had an amazing time diving and saw many really neat fish and beautiful coral. Utila is known for the huge, but harmless, whale sharks that gather there from March to April. The whale shark is the largest living fish, and they can grow to be about 30 feet and reportedly some have grown to 60 feet! Amazingly, even though it was near the end of May, there had been a Whale Shark sighting the day we arrived in Utila. Jonny, who had already swam with a whale shark in Hawaii, was really hoping that we would get to see another one, but a 60 foot shark would terrify me. Sadly for Jonny, he didn’t get to see one.
What a beautiful display of color in the blue Caribbean waters off Water Cay and the sunset of jewel colors seen appropriately on Jewel Cay.
One night we stayed on Jewel Cay, which is one of the many cays located off the island of Utila. The island is small and hosts a charming village with only 600 residents. On Jewel Cay, there are no vehicles, one hotel, and three local restaurants serving great fish burgers. It was nice to get away from all the tourists on Utila and spend a couple days hanging out with locals.
One of our days on Jewel Cay we kayaked to another island called Water Cay. Water Cay is uninhabited, so we were able to spend the whole day lounging on the white sand beach with the whole island to ourselves, not another person in sight. With great snorkeling right off the cay, it made for an incredibly relaxing and beautiful day. Even though I wanted to stay there forever, we had to leave the island of Utila and move on with our trip. Our next stop was Copan Runias, Honduras.
Notice all the detailed in this statue of a Mayan ruler.
The town of Copan Ruinas, or Copan Ruins, is located about 1 km away from the Copan archaeological site. The town is really spectacular, the streets are cobblestone, the buildings are beautiful, and the people are friendly. The huge structures and incredibly detailed sculptures are even more amazing than I imagined. At Copan, 4,509 structures have been discovered!
One of my favorite parts of the archaeological site was the Hieroglyphic Stairway. The huge stairway consists of 63 steps that tell the history of 15 of the rulers of Copan. The Hieroglyphic Stairway makes up the longest single glyphic text that has been discovered at any Mayan site. When we were there, the stairs were gated off and a couple of archaeologists where working on repairing the steps. When the stairway was found, many of the steps had fallen out of place and even though archaeologists have put the stairway back together, the exact meaning of all the hieroglyphics is not known.
Next, our trip takes us out of Honduras and into Guatemala where we will be spending a week on Lago de Atitlan, Lake Atitlan, exploring the highlands of Guatemala. Jonny and I are having an amazing time traveling and every day presents new adventures.
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Take care!
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