Today was Pday! And we got up at 4am to go to Copan Ruinas
with our district! Whoo! Yeah, we were kinda tired. But we had to get up early
to get ready and everything, and walk down to Centro, and find the ATM to pull
out cash (because we were almost broke and didn't have enough to drop on the
bus rides, entrance fee, souvenirs and lunch), and walk over to where the
buses are by 6:00 am. Busy morning! So we hopped on the bus and started our
trip, but half an hour into it (when we got to the area of Florida) the driver decided he was hungry,
so he parked the bus and got himself a baleada. Just sat himself right down at
the table and ate it and drank his coffee. And we stayed on the bus, waiting a
half hour for him to finish. That's Honduras for ya.
We got back on the road, and it was about another hour
until we got to the Ruinas, saw some really cool fog and stuff between the
mountains, but my camera decided to not cooperate, so I didn't get very good
pictures. And you're going at like 40 miles an hour, and the reflections in the
window and the angle and everything didn't really help, either. So just try to
imagine this really awesome fog in the valleys of really green and tree-filled
mountains with the early morning sun streaming through. I'm sure whatever you
see in your head is fairly close to this morning.
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| Copan Ruinas (2nd visit) |
And we got to the Ruinas! We were sooooo happy to get off
that bus! We got in, dropped 330 lemps to get in as my residencia card
hasn't come yet so I'm still considered to be a foreigner (it's 80 lemps to get
in if you're Honduran) and went exploring around the Mayan ruins again,
although it was the first time for Hna Mora and E Poulson.
It seemed a little less stressful in a way than the time I went with Pres and Hna
Dester, and we went down a few paths that we didn't have time for before. And
of course, it's a different adventure with a bunch of hyperactive elderes. And
it was a lot cooler as we started at about 9:00 am or so, and there weren't
very many touristy people with it being that early (also very nice, pictures
look better without a bajillion people).
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And we saw a squirrel...haven't seen one of those
in all my
time on the mission. Reminded me of home.
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We found a hole in one of the temples, so of
course
we decided to climb down and take pictures! |
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And there was this altar/table thing also, but I
think my legs
look really big in these pictures...maybe from the angle? |
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| Hna Mora and me! |
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| Some carvings...very dramatic lighting with the
early morning sun |
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| The Staircase |
The elderes messed around and we
all hopped around on the rocks and found spiders and threw grass at each other
and climbed down some holes and stuff. Very fun.
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Found some neat spider webs
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| and one of the spiders caught a fly as we were
watching...pretty neat! |
Hna Mora enjoyed it and I
thought it was fun to visit it again. And towards the end they were feeding the
birds that live there, so there was this huge, beautiful scarlet macaw that was
at one of the feeders and we walked right up to it and I took a picture with
it! The tail feathers were about 3 feet long, and when it turned around on the
feeder you had to duck to not get hit. That was really cool.
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| A guacamaya (scarlet macaw) |
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And an interesting little animal I don't remember the name
of...
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| More guacamayas! |
Upon leaving the Ruinas we passed by some roadside stands
that sell a whole bunch of stuff, so we all gave in and bought things! I bought
a little hand-carved Mayan calendar stone and small 2 statues, all for $3.18.
Pretty proud of myself. Because in any other touristy place down here you'll
buy that same little statue for anywhere up to about $7 or $8, just the one. So
you've gotta know where it's good to buy stuff. We didn't find everything we
were looking for, though, so I advised Hna Mora and E Poulson to wait until
they went to Guamalito in SPS and buy what they wanted from the member lady
that we know that works there, as it's already less expensive in SPS (because
it's not as touristy as the Ruinas) and she gives us almost a half-off
discount. But it was nice to have some fun new presents for ourselves.
We then found a place for lunch, and I got an 8 oz steak!
And a baked potato! I was so happy! It was still kinda Honduran-style (you just
can't find Texas
barbecue anywhere else in the world) but it was really, really good and I was
just thrilled to have some good-tasting red meat again. And it was all decently
priced, so overall lunch was a huge success.
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| And our really good lunch! |
And we went and found a bus that would take us back to
El Dorado and I
slept for most of the way back (we'd been up since 4:00 am, remember?). Then we
went over to the internet place and wrote our people! We actually got there a
little later than normal, so we weren't able to write to everybody, because we
still had to do some shopping and get home and changed to go do visits, so
sorry about that, people I missed. But we had a really good day. Super exhausted,
but it was good.
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