Maya Temples and Capybara

Every morning when I wake up here in Copan, there is fog settled over the mountains and it is cold enough that I am actually wearing my sweatshirt! It almost feels like Fall, though (as you can see in the picture below) everything is much too green. The fog burns off before eight o’clock most mornings though; Autumn in Honduras is a short lived idea.


The Maya Ruins are about 1 km out of the town of Copan. I a marvelous day wandering about the main ruins (those around the Acropolis) and then the next morning I went down to “Las Sepulturas,” the secondary ruins, which are 2 km outside of town. Both sites were utterly fascinating. For the Acropolis, I decided against getting a guide, which allowed me to wander wherever I pleased and as much time as I wanted. However, for the Sepulturas I ended up with a guide almost accidentally, but I’m glad I did. My guide was an older gentleman by the name of Daniel. He only spoke Spanish, but my brain is finally starting to remember all that I studied in high school, so overall the tour was a complete success.It has been pretty exciting to realize just how much I understand and can communicate in Spanish. I’m a long way from fluent, but it has been a confidence booster to find that I can get around just fine in a Spanish-speaking country. Plus everyone gives you the best smiles as you stumble around in their language!
It is hard to nail down my favorite part of the ruins—there was a lot to see and though I tried to “limit” the photos I was taking to only the most interesting or well preserved carvings and such, I still ended up with about 500 pictures of the two sites. I’m still working my way through all of them, but I’ll give you a highlights tour of what I have so far.

Wild Macaws at the entrance to the Ruins

The "Leaf-nosed Bat" symbol (upper left hand corner) means "Copan" in the Maya's written language. 

Altar G1

A Maya "false arch"

Me at the top of the temples. The famous Maya ball court is over my shoulder.

East Courtyard with the entrance to the tunnels.

Entrance to the Jaguar Tunnels.

The capybara! Isn't he cute?

Reproduction of the Rosalila Temple. This temple was found buried, in tact, under one of the others. Even the paint was still on it!

Sculpture of a waterbird--one of the most detailed and well preserved  carvings on site.

After touring all of the Acropolis, I was headed back to the museum and decided to take a last look at the flock of wild macaws that were perched around the main gate when I had come in. Most of them were gone, but a couple were left around and I wanted a few more pictures. As I walked over to the feeding station, I saw something run away and into the forest. It was a capybara! To say I was excited is a bit of an understatement--it was difficult for me to sit quiet enough that the large rodent would come back so I could get a picture. Capybaras are the largest living rodents and can grow to over a meter long. This one wasn't very big, maybe twice the size of a guinea pig, but it was still cool to see such an animal in the wild! The icing on the cake, however, was just a few minutes later as I was walking through the forest between the parking lot and the main entrance. Up in a tree not too far off the trail was a Turquoise-browed Motmot. These gorgeous birds have very unique tails and beautiful plumage. He (I'm relatively certain this one was a male because of the length of his tail) wasn't sure he liked me getting very close, so all the pictures I have are bird shaped blobs in the far distance.

The museum was wonderfully put together. Many of the statues in the park are reproductions, with the real ones being placed here to keep them from being destroyed by the elements and/or people. The best part of the museum is the full scale reproduction of the Rosalila. This temple was so sacred that when another temple was built, they carefully filled it in and preserved it in tact. How amazing a find that must have been--an entire temple, in tact, from about 1,500 years ago!

Unfortunately, I don't have time to finish blogging about Copan. I am leaving right now for Tegus and then I go on to Punta Raton on the south coast for Internship: Stage 3. More baby turtle pictures and stories to come!