Copán Ruinas, Honduras

Coming off of a seven-week music gig in America I was yearning to get out on my own and take a solo trip. I wanted somewhere beautiful and comfortable to settle in for a few days, and in a country I hadn’t yet been. Honduras is definitely not the first country that would come to mind, but I ultimately found the perfect spot in the Honduran town of Copán Ruinas.

This winter I plan to visit the five countries in Central America that I have yet to go, spread across a couple trips between gigs back home. As for why I chose to start with Honduras, the country as a whole has less budget tourism infrastructure than the rest of Central America and there was less I was interested in doing.

To start my trip I flew on standby to San Pedro Sula, which is the primary transportation hub of Honduras and the second largest city. My flight arrived in the mid afternoon and I stayed one night in San Pedro before catching the bus to Copán Ruinas the next morning. There’s an unfortunate notion that Honduras, and specifically San Pedro Sula are (as a whole) violent and unsafe – but during my stay I never felt as such. Overall I was pleased with the friendliness of the people everywhere I went.

My first full day in the country was a travel day. The bus trip to Copán was over six hours on moderately bumpy roads with stretches of heavy construction. The local bus I took was packed full, but the open windows provided a comfortable breeze, and I spent the ride admiring the lush Honduran countryside. I was amused in one small town by a shop called “My Little Shop” – it wasn’t clear in the slightest what they sold, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it the whole rest of the trip!

Copán Ruinas sits very close to the border with Guatemala, and is a popular stop on the backpacker trail. The primary activity is the UNESCO world heritage site of the Copán Ruins, an ancient Mayan archeological site that is tucked in a forested valley just outside of town.

My bus arrived just after sunset. In route to my hostel I passed through the adorable town square, where there was a festive wedding party going on. It wasn’t evident then, but the wedding would take place in the central church the next day. (This made for quite a spectacle in such a small town, with locals lingering around to people watch).

My hostel, La Iguana Azul, was a picturesque and affordable accommodation. It is connected to a boutique hotel with an outdoor restaurant patio. There I enjoyed a massive breakfast each morning, costing a mere $7. My job these past two months has been a social overload, so I really loved how quiet it was on this patio. It felt like a luxury to spend the early mornings alone facing the misty hills, with delicious food on the table, and a book in hand (I’m currently reading Bill Bryson’s In A Sunburned Country).

Each day at dawn and dusk the trees and bushes surrounding the hostel came alive with the screeching sounds of hundreds of birds. I compared it to the sound of the golden egg in the fourth Harry Pottery movie when it is opened above water – it was terrible! Somehow though, as the days went on I became accustomed to the sounds, which additionally included what sounded like the “hoot hoot” of an individual owl, plus dogs barking, and cars driving. I embraced the sounds, I would never here such things back home in Wisconsin.

My first full day was reserved for the ruins. I thought that after exploring Cambodia’s Angkor Wat last year that I would never need to view ruins again, but I still found the ones here in Copán to be interesting. For instance, Scarlet Macaw’s could be found all over – leaning on the entry gate, flying and screeching overhead of the ruins, or crawling around on the ground. I thought to myself, I’m definitely in Central America. Most of the ruins were climbable, and there were plenty of narrow trails through the rainforest to explore. (I had to use a stick to help clear these trails from the occasional spider web).

The town of Copán Ruinas is one of the most charming that I’ve seen in my travels. Small red tuk-tuks seemed to outnumber the actual number of tourists, and they could always be found speeding through the exceptionally hilly cobblestoned streets. Unlike the ones in South East Asia, these Tuk-Tuk drivers never pushed me to use their services. Copán’s architecture includes plenty of colonial era hotels and restaurants, along with colorful street art. My favorite place in town was in the square – here children kicked around soccer balls (fútbols?), and locals otherwise congregated. My intention for this trip was primarily to relax, and so I spent plenty of time here each afternoon reading my book and people watching.

On my second day I filled up on the hostel breakfast and headed straight for the hills, where I hiked through a variety of small villages. There are many hikes in the area, but I opted to do one my hostel recommended – which goes up past a hotel/restaurant called La Hacienda San Lucas (complete with a hillside bar looking over the valley below). From La Hacienda I continued upwards along a lengthy path through the rainforest, admiring sweeping views of the hills below.

With a couple hours of hiking under my belt I stopped at the restaurant on the way back down. Considering that my stay in Honduras was to be only six nights, I allowed myself to “splurge” more than I would if it were, for instance, a month long trip. In this case, it meant a guilty-free $14 lunch at the Hacienda instead of eating on a broke backpacker budget with $2-3 baleadas or papusas back in town (the papusas are filling and delicious, though!) The bar at the Hacienda wasn’t open yet, but I stopped over to check out the view of the Copán valley. (Zoom into the far right side of the forest in the photo below, just above the fence to see a bit of the ruins visible through the trees!)

My third and final full day in town was more or less the same, with another hike through the rural Honduran countryside. This time as I made my way past a village and into the rainforest I encountered locals carrying large sand bags over their backs full of some mystery agricultural product. “Am I supposed to be here?” I kept asking myself. It could have been private land for all I knew. The locals just kept coming down (or up) the trail, all carrying machetes (including the children!)

Whether I was to be there or not, I was always greeted with a smile and a hello. The work they were doing hauling these large bags looked so tedious and difficult – but it appeared to be the way of life for these people, their way of supporting themselves. As I progressed higher into the hills, and into a more open trail, I passed even more of these people but couldn’t really tell what it was that they were harvesting. Some of them seemed surprised to see me, but not in an unwelcoming way at all. It was beautiful and remote up there, I even passed what appeared to be random coffee plants growing in the highest bits!

There weren’t many other English speaking tourists during my stay in Honduras, and I felt like I was on a Spanish immersion trip. It had been two years since I last stepped foot in a Spanish speaking country, but I was surprised how quickly certain phrases came back to me. Towards the very end of my time in Copán the hostel grew somewhat busier with European backpackers, etc, which made for a nice and social close to my stay.

Leaving Copán it was another six hour bus back to San Pedro Sula, where I stayed a night before attempting an afternoon flight on standby back to the states the next day. I wound up not getting a seat on that flight, and so I had yet another night in San Pedro. SPS is at best an entry/exit point for travelers, and I didn’t find it to be a very aesthetically nice place to wander or sightsee. However there was one restaurant that I went to three times, this was probably the most exciting thing I did there. Thankfully I got on the next day’s flight.

Up Next: “2023 Life & Travels Review“