Copan | Freely Wander

The ruins of Copan have the most exquisite detail of any Mayan site I’ve visited! While it’s not as large as Chichen Itza or Tikal, the site is packed full of beautiful, and sometimes frightening, sculptures and stelae. Many of these represent various Mayan gods and former rulers. Copan was one of the most southern Mayan cities, and makes for a fascinating day of sightseeing!

A center point of the ruins is the massive staircase, full of hieroglyphs, statues, and carvings. While the site is clearly Mayan, the detail and style is very distinct from other Mayan sites. I definitely recommend a visit, especially as it’s on the main travellers’ route from Guatemala to Honduras!

You can wander around several paths in the archeological site, and walk along the tops of several temples. As you’re walking from the ticket booth to the site entrance, there is a wilderness walking trail that takes you through the surrounding jungle where you can see various wildlife, birds, and flora. It takes about 30 minutes, and is worth the time.

I really enjoyed my time in Copan, and am ready to head on to my next destination – the little mountain town of Gracias!

Cheers, Shawn

I spent Christmas in the chill beach town of Monterrico, my last stop in Guatemala. This was my second beach Christmas, as last year I was in the beach town of Mui Ne, Vietnam! How time flies!

Near Monterrico is a wildlife reserve, where you can see all kinds of birds, fish, and funny 4-eyed amphibians that hop along the water. I hired a boat to tour me around the reserve for sunrise. It made for some beautiful scenery! Aside from this, I really didn’t do too much in Monterrico other than chill, relax, and drink some beer!

From Monterrico I headed into Honduras, and stopped in the town of Copan. This is another relaxed town, with quite a few cool things to check out. First are the famous Mayan ruins right close to the town. I’ll be writing a separate post for these ruins. Second there’s a Bird Sanctuary that takes in abused or unwanted birds with the hopes of rehabilitating them for release into the wild. It has a great jungle location, and has a vast array of birds, including: toucans, parrots, macaws, pheasant like birds, etc.

The third site is a butterfly hatchery, where many species of butterflies are bred for release into the wild. There’s a good variety of butterflies, but one especially caught my attention. On its wing there’s what looks like a giant owl eye. Check out the photo of these butterflies mowing down on some fruit! Pretty weird-looking!

Stay tuned for the next posting about the beautiful Mayan ruins near Copan, including photos of the many statues an stellae!

Cheers, Shawn