Birthday Parties and Pyramids

Since the last entry, we spent a month in Roatan, Honduras, and did some travel from there to the Mayan ruins of Copan.

In Roatan, we stayed at Fantasy Island Resort and Marina, a resort primarily focused on scuba divers. 

We had a great time there, as the surroundings are beautiful, our "marina" was cozy and secluded, and we had friends there.  Life was somehow much more relaxed there. 

Part of it is that we were tied up to the same dock for a month, so we had time to enjoy life, not just jump from errand to errand and chore to chore before quickly leaving again.  Another big part of it is that we had good friends to share it all with.

Friends and Celebrations

Social interaction is the main thing I miss about being home.  Recently we have made friends with another boat, Sea U Manana (mentioned earlier), with whom we have a lot in common.  Peter and Debbie are friendly, helpful, fun people, and their two sons--  Mateus age 9 and Josh age 11-- are polite, fun playmates for Robert.  Having them around alleviates some of my homesickness.

We celebrated Robert's fourth birthday on Roatan, along with our friends from Sea U Manana and Mima, who also have two kids on board. We had a big party with a pinata, and pin the tail on the donkey, and pizza, and cake.  Everyone, adults and children, had a good time. Click here for a short video.

The Mayan Ruins of Copan

From the island of Roatan, we took a ferry over to the mainland of Honduras to see the Mayan city ruins of Copan.  Since leaving Panama, this was the first time we'd been on the mainland in almost two months!  It was a long day of travel to get from Roatan to La Ceiba to Copan, but it was worth it.

In the town of Copan Ruinas, we stayed in a very nice hotel, Hotel Plaza Copan.  Copan Ruinas is a quaint, nice place to visit.  The architecture and town layout are Spanish Colonial, and the surroundings are beautiful, lush hills.

The Mayan ruins of Copan are breath-taking.  As I walked through the grounds of the ruins, I could imagine living in this ancient city over one thousand years ago.  

The grounds are well taken care of, and you can look around and visualize the ancient city with its market, the famous ball courts where the winning team was sacrificed, royal residences and common residences, and religious centers.  Some of the structures have been unearthed, but much of it has not been. 

Mark was most intrigued by the concept that all around were ancient sites that had yet to be discovered.  You were literally walking on top of artifacts that the government had not the time nor money to research yet.

Copan's claim is that their carvings and statues are exquisite, and it is true.  Their artwork, much of it still covered in the original red dye, has somehow survived through the centuries.  The quantity and quality of it is amazing.

The Mayans have captured Robert's imagination, as well. He loved seeing the ball court and learning about the glyphs and how they "told a story."  I think he thought the glyphs somehow talked.  He was also looking forward to  climbing the pyramids.  We did climb some of the structures, but Copan is not known for large pyramids.

In fact, in the Mayan world, Copan is somewhat small, 24 square kilometers, but it is popular today for its artwork.

While we were in Copan, we experienced something very Central American: a 24-hour power outage. 

In Copan they have the added twist that their water supply is pumped by electrical pumps.  So, no power, no water!  Luckily, I guess, it was rainy season (though this might have been the reason for the power outage in the first place), and so everyone in town had buckets, pails, and barrels of all sizes out in the rain (preferably underneath the corner of a roof) collecting water.  Clearly this was not the first time this had happened.

One does not realize how dependent one is on basic utilities until they are not there.  Our hotel had a generator, so we were not as strongly affected as we might have been otherwise.  We went out to breakfast, and there was no coffee since there was no power. 

And, even though our hotel had a generator (though it ran out of gas), they turned the water off at night.  When I went down to the reception desk to inquire about it, they agreed to turn on their extra cistern for 30 minutes so that we could take showers.

Butterfly Garden

We got one unexpected day of fun in Copan.  We had intended to take the 10:30 am bus out of Copan on Friday.   We didn't account for the weekend crowd, so we got pushed back to the 2:30 pm bus.  With our extra time we visited the Butterfly Garden just outside of town. 

Robert and I had a great time (Mark took pictures).  The Garden has butterflies in all stages of life, from eggs to larvae to pupa to adult.  While we were there we got to see several species in all stages; we even got to see one coming out of its cocoon!  The larva to the left are over 6 inches long, notice Mark's watch for reference.

The TWO butter flies to the left, mimic the look of an owl.  The birds are scared of the owl and thus leave the butterflies alone.

I think the US has a lot to learn from Central America, but that is another blog altogether.  My hope is that we are raising a son who does  not take luxuries for granted.  Time will tell how long he will remember the lessons he has learned here.