Copan Ruinas

Yestrday, we finally made it to the Mayan ruins. The main part of the ruins is just a kilometer from town. Yes, a true kilometer. We walked out there and bought our tickets. We allowed the whole day. Our guide took us through in about an hour and then we walked through some of it again. The main part of the ruins is where the temples, the altars, and the common areas are. It all was very interesting. The games they played were violent, but other than that, the Mayans were a peaceful society that got along with most other societies of the world at that time. All the buildings had been painted red and the plazas, white. Some of the original paint was still visible. I was pleasantly surprised how many of the ruins they let you walk on or climb on. The temples are built in layers. Each king built a new layer. The hieroglyphics are in amazingly good shape. Near the end of the guided tour, there were many altars in one of the plazas. One of the altars was round and had been a sacrificial altar, complete with the indentation at the top on which to place the sacfrice and blood troughs down each side. Perhaps, too visual.

The ruins are in a jungle. When the Mayans lived there, there was no jungle, no trees, just perfectly flat land. It was hard to picture the place without the trees and the dense flora and fawna. Our guide mentioned there were more ruins down the street, the same ticket would get us in and there wasn't too much worth seeing down there. We walked back to town and enjoyed a great cup of Honduran coffee. Later in the afternoon, we decided to drive down to the other part of the ruins. It is not clearly marked from the highway and the only way we knew where to turn was where the sidewalk ended. The ruins close at 4:00 and we got there at 3:30. Based on how long we had spent at the main part and if there wasn't much to see, that should be sufficient, right? Wrong. There was a man who worked there and went with us, more or less to rush us along since he got off work at 4:00. He spoke a word or two of English. I understand most of what he said, so I guess Spanish school is taking. To Marc and I, this was, by far, the most interesting part of the ruins. This is where the people lived and worked. The royalty and the workers both lived there. The royalty had 12 houses for 1 family. Needless to say, the workers did not have that much living space. They buried their dead beside the house they lived in. Again, the tombs of the royalty were more grand than those of the workers. Down in the living areas, the buildings had been painted not only red, but yellow, green, and other colors as well. They didn't run down to Sherwin Williams to buy paint. This guide showed us a plant. He touched the underside of a green leaf and a small amount of red stained his finger. He touched the underside of a darkened leaf and a deep dark red stained his finger. There must have been a huge amount of that plant growing to have been able to paint that many buildings. He also showed us a plant with tiny green berries. When we squeezed the berry, the liquid that came out was sticky. Sticky enough that it was used to make mortar. Mortar that is still intact today, some 1500 plus years later. We also saw a bank, a hospital, where there was a maternity ward and a ward for other ailing patients. They were able to mix their own medicines.

In Honduras, it is really hard to tell how old a person is. Most are malnourished and, therefore small. Many have led hard lives and look older than they really are. I could not even guess how old this guide was. He has worked in the area for 25 years and at the ruins for 7. He works at the part of the ruins that does not get a lot of visitors. He told us he went to Boston for one year to learn more about the ruins and the Mayans. He said he did not know any english and it was muy dificil. I think learning spanish is muy dificil. I cannot even comprehend how difficult it must have been for this man to travel to the U.S. Probably his family has been in this small area of western Honduras for generations. I am sure he saw and did things he could not even dream existed. He went to Boston, overcame some fears, I am sure, and learned what he was sent to learn. He was a very good guide and while we knew he was trying to rush us through, he explained in great detail, showed us the red paint plant and the mortar plant. In a hurry, he could have left some of that out and we would have never known the difference. He answered our questions and we got back to the car at 4:20. Then we let him ride back to town with us.

To me it is incomprehensible that I live in a basically uneducated, poverty-ridden, backward, third-world country that at one time had such an advanced, intelligent society. In addition to a bank, and a hospital, this society built a drainage system that is still operating today. I guess it is totally amazing that a society like the Mayans existed in any country during that time period.

Terri