The next morning, I got up early to walk to the ruins and spent time there. I had no idea how to get to the ruins, but I just looked for tourists and followed them. Pretty easy. Tip: head northeast out of town, and you’ll start seeing signs.
The ruins are insanely beautiful. I kept eavesdropping on guided tours in French, Spanish & English, whenever possible. Words can’t describe how beautiful I found the ruins, so just look at the pictures. There’s also a lesser-known portion of the ruins through the back left corner (as viewed from your arrival at the main area), so I went to check that out, after seeing it on the map.
Pro tip: there’s a solo monkey that lives in the trees back there and doesn’t like white guys. When I was taking pictures of him, he ran down to the ground and lunged at me. Not joking. I managed to hit him with my water bottle, but he came in for a 2nd jump. I caught him in the air and threw him back a few feet, trying to not hurt him while protecting myself. I was also making a ton of noise, and a guard came running with a stick to scare off the monkey. He informed me, in Spanish, that the monkey attacks white guys, and he’s really sorry for the monkey being crazy. Thanks for telling me after the fact, bro.
This kind of spoiled my time at the ruins, so I decided to head back into town to my hostel. I got some more water, used the internet, then sought out lunch. I found a place serving pupusas, ordered a lemonade, and watched the lady put at least 5 spoons of sugar into it before blending. Wow. The tables also come set with a jar of pickled cabbage and a jar of pickled vegetables with spices, including jalapenos, which have obviously made everything in the jar spicy. It was hot but really good. The restaurant is called Tipicos & Pupusas, and I would absolutely eat there again.
In the afternoon, I rested at the hostel and transferred pictures from my phone to my laptop, to make space on my phone, then gathered up info for my marathon bus day to Flores, Guatemala the next day. The lady at the hostel was rather surprised by how short my stay would be, but I had only come to Copan to see the ruins, which I felt was completed to my satisfaction, and I wanted to get on to other things.
I ate dinner at the restaurant under the hostel again, and the hostel lady sat with me during dinner, telling me about how her husband is dead, I look really nice for my age, she’s lonely sometimes… I’m not saying that I think she was really hitting on me, but I’m saying that it felt like it, and there’s no way I was going to attempt to hook up with the owner of where I was staying, because I’m not willing to risk drama that puts me out on the street at night. I told her she was beautiful and thanked her for her company during dinner, then I invented some errands that I needed to run. Sure, it boosted my ego, but no thanks.
Before going to bed semi-early, I reconfirmed the directions for this “no bus station but just stand here” plan I’d received for a bus to the border in the morning, then set my alarm.
Honduras was great, both times. Next up: marathon buses to Flores, Guatemala.
