HONDURAS 12/29/2010: Americans in Honduras – Dia 10

Hola from Copan Ruinas
29 Diciembre a las siete de la noche

It’s about 7 pm. We arrived in Copan Ruinas about 90 minutes ago. It was a much longer day than we had anticipated, but perhaps among the most interesting. Is that possible that something could be more interesting than the death-defying boat trip from Tela to Miami or the basket ride to the sewing co-op?

We left Gracias after breakfast (weather turned gorgeous) and decided to take a bit of a side trip to Campa which is about 16 km away.. but took about an hour to get there… Muchas “bechas” muchas pozos… potholes the size of craters with no warning .. about every 50 meters.. some as deep as 6″ with sharp, abrupt side walls. .. kind of like sink holes… several washes across the road.. a few questionable single lane bridges. But, countryside was beautiful.. rolling hills, very agricultural. We arrived in Campa and visited the little church and the Lenca ceramic collective and strolled the town. Most of the Lenca pottery is made in Campa, by just a few families.. They have a small museum in an old school house that explains the history of the craft. Again, Campa (tiny as it is — maybe a few hundred people, but a town complete with a Catholic church and a Jehovahs Witness meeting hall) seems to think it will start getting tourists so we noticed a lot of road repair in the town and signs about little hotels coming soon.

We made a few purchases which we now wonder how we will pack since they’re all breakable. We hoped to continue on to two smaller (??) towns called Alta Cruz and Tonolio (??) where they make handmade paper, but as we assessed timing and the distance we had to go to reach Copan Ruinas and our guess about road conditions, and we decided we needed to turn around and head to the “highway.” Good decision.. The return drive was about as long as the first. We stopped in Gracias (now that we know the town so well) for lunch … and then headed out to Copan. It was already 2:30 and the drive was to be about 2 hours +. Between many, many more “beches” (or “pozos”) and derombles and signs warning of falling rocks (they actually need a few more of those signs) and many, many, many tumulos (speed bumps).. the drive was a bit like sitting in a roller coaster..

Oh, we also got stopped by the police and military today several times. All along the way, there are little orange cones that appear at unexpected locations on the road and you slow down.. There are usually about 6 police and some soldiers standing around these cones.. In the past they have just waved us on.. or barely looked up from their cell phones. Today, for some reason, we were stopped about three times. Though we continued to say “No hablamos espanol…; hablamos espanol muy poquito” (which I think was a good thing), they pressed with questions.. mostly asking where we were from, where we were going.. One of the cops talked a lot. I’m pretty certain he wanted cash. But we continued to act totally naive.. Eventually he asked for our passports and then the car ownership info.. and then waved us on.. He shook our hands three times.. I think we were supposed to grease the palm. (Dumb Americans)

Most locals are moving around in open trucks packed with people in the back (we counted 15 in one little pickup truck) or buses that are totally packed and with some people riding on the roof, along with mattresses. Seems as if the buses double as delivery trucks, especially for mattresses, as we see this all the time.

We arrived around 5:30pm at Hacienda San Lucas.

Hacienda San Lucas has been described as the best place to stay in Copan, so I think we envisioned something like Las Cascadas in Ceiba. The NY Times wrote an article about it; the guidebooks rave. Well.. so far we’ve only really seen our room since I decided I wanted to completely unpack, and it was already nearly dark. This is our last stop and on Friday we need to be completely organized and packed to leave early Saturday morning for the airport to fly out late afternoon on Friday.

OK.. so here’s the scene… and I think it will all be much better in the morning when daylight comes.

The drive from the “main” road to here is completely dirt and rock. (We’ve been pleasantly surprised that our rather junky rental car — had we known the driving conditions, we would have gotten 4-wheel drive — has survived.. although seeing it is laughable.. completely covered in dirt.) The Hacienda is located about 8 km outside of town perched on a hillside. It has 8 rooms and is more than a century old, and has been in the same family the whole time. The setting seems delightful although it was already getting dark when we arrived, so we couldn’t see much.

Now.. here’s the interesting part.

Our room.. about 400 sq ft has wood shutters on all the windows (no glass.. only screens, so maybe not really windows).. a little back patio.. wood trusses. The walls are stone and adobe.

But.. here’s the kicker.. no real lighting.. so we have candles everywhere. No electricity in the bedroom area. One outlet in the bathroom (definitely no hair dryer here)…

Naturally, with all our gear to charge (iPhone, 2 Blackberries, 2 Lumix cameras, 2 Nikons, 2 computers, 2 iPods, and 1 Kindle).. we were a bit shocked. I had visions of sitting in the shower writing this email connected to the single outlet. We have 14 candles glowing in the bedroom now.. and the one light bulb in bathroom..

But.. to Mike’s chagrin, I asked if they had an extension cord (actually I asked for two) thinking I could connect to the bathroom outlet and then use the computer in the bedroom… We also asked for more candles.. that’s why we have 15.,. other rooms have only 8. Well, lo and behold, they came back with a wooden spool with about 100′ of electrical line and two outlets. It’s the kind of thing you see at construction sites.

So here we both sit… with two computers connected to this giant roll of wire (which is then connected to the bathroom outlet). It’s quite a scene.

But then the biggest pleasant surprise.. No problem connecting to AT&T!!! Actually there’s also a wireless here with a strong signal but not secure.. so we’ve opted for AT&T. Maybe I’ll be daring in a while and switch to the wireless (called Iguana).

We’re headed to dinner here at the Hacienda in a little while. Food is supposed to be excellent. Tomorrow we will explore the ruins and the town. Friday, our last real day, we may make some more little side trips, and on New Years Eve we go to a restaurant in town. I think Copan will be interesting, but I fear there will be a lot of tourists, which will be new for us. We really haven’t run into any Americans yet, and only a couple of tourists (Canadians, Germans, Swiss).. in 10 days.

More tomorrow (or if the meal is spectacular, perhaps a little food update tonight).

By the way, when I said I needed some light (I said I was a writer and needed to work — in Spanish) since so far no one here has spoken any English, although the manager has sent emails in totally perfect English.. Carlos, who carried our bags to the room, said it was very romantic this way with just the 8 candles.

Viva luz! y Gracias cuando hay carreteras buenas.

Hasta Luego.
Fern