For our first weekend together in over 7 months Mum and I took a little holiday (within the big holiday) to Copan Ruinas, a small (but well known) village in the Honduran mountains on the border with Guatemala.

After spending the morning at school, where Mum read a story about ducks to my children which prompted us to receive many pictures of ducks, we got the first Headman Alas bus out of Tela. Now I'm afraid I am going to have to go slightly off topic to tell you about the wonders of a Headman Alas bus, yes you can tell you have been out of the country a while when you were as amazed as I was that we got seat-belts, air conditioning, blankets, included drink and crisps and even the option of watching Iron Lady in English!! It was the most luxury I have experienced since arriving here! Anyway, back to the good bit…the bus journey started very well and we arrived in San Pedro at EXACTLY the time stated on the tickets (simply a feat of magic in Honduras). We then had to wait about an hour before our connecting bus up through the mountains. Unfortunately, although super mega comfy, the bus up through the mountain roads was a much less pleasant experience and by the time we finally reached Copan (7 hours after leaving Tela) I was feeling suitably ill! We had stodgy street food for dinner, to calm the stomach, and an early night.

Our weekend of interesting things started fairly early on Saturday (doing our standard up, organised, and ready for anything by half 7). We decided our first order of business would be to visit the Mayan ruins so we went down for our included continental breakfast (toast, delicious pineapple jam, fresh fruit and coffee) before setting off in the hope of beating the crowds and the crazy heat (which we managed successfully). After finding the ticket office and buying our tickets and a little guide book we walked into the ruins and were greeted by a crowd of Scarlet Macaws flying over our heads to land in the trees all around us. It was so amazing to see wild Macaws so close up, we later discovered that the area runs a programme to save and look after Macaws so that they don't die out in the area where they have lived since the Mayans ruled. The ruins were really interesting (it was the first time I had been as well) and we spent the morning wandering round looking at the amazingly preserved buildings and hieroglyphs and reading about the Mayans. At about 11:30 we decided it was getting too hot and we were getting peckish so we had a quick look around the gift shop before jumping in a tuk-tuk back to central park.

For lunch we went to Café Welchez, the best coffee shop potentially in all of Honduras, and had a meal replacement of coffee and cake. I had strawberry cream cake and Mum had the carrot and pineapple cake which is truly heavenly (I had it last time I went)!

In the afternoon we decided to visit Macaw Mountain, a bird sanctuary on the outskirts of Copan that takes in birds who are sick or have previously been in captivity and are no longer wanted. We were told that it took about 45 minutes to walk round the park, but we spent over an hour and a half talking to the parrots, feeding the toucans and having Macaws sitting all over us. We finished the afternoon with a cappuccino in the tree tops listening to the stream and squawking parrots.

We got a speedy tuk-tuk back to the hotel where we had a little relaxation time before heading out for dinner. After dinner we both fell fast asleep not quite believing how much we had managed to fit into a single day.

More of our weekend in Copan to follow soon…

Lots of Love

xoxox