Copan Ruinas (Honduras) - Week 7

2nd November

After a boat ride and loads of bus changes, annoying immigration, and hassling money changers we arrived knackered in Copan for Copan Ruinas. Its another nice little colonial town just into Honduras, the main reason to go there is to visit the Mayan ruins. They´re a bit different to the Tikal ruins, not as big but much more detail. There are lot of Stelae (columns with carvings of rulers) and mask carvings compared to the massive but relatively place temples at Tikal.

It was a very peaceful, nice weather (low 20s and sunny) for a stroll around the ruins.

Most of the ruins were like this with jungle growing over the top until archaeologists unearth the temples. When the archaeologists excavated one of the temples they found that underneath was a burial tomb, shown in this drawing.

A full-size replica of the temple

A familar face to anyone who has seen katie with a hangover!!

Tigger the Tiger pre-Disney?

A little bit of info (as James is writing!) They used to play a ball based game with teams of five in a ball court. The court would have had goals at each end and the team had to get the ball into their oponents goal using just their shoulders and hips - must have looked weird. The really strange thing about the game was that the captain of the winning team had the honour of being sacrificed by the King at the end of the game. The Mayans believed that to get to heaven normally took many stages and incarnations, but by winning this game and being sacrificed they could shortcut the rules and get there in one go!! - I think i´d be a good loser.
The photo below shows were the king (the stelae is of King 18 Rabbits in his sports gear!!) would be-head the winner on the hamburger shaped thing. There is a grooved channel to catch the blood to be burnt later...

Books we read: The Kalahari Typing School for Men, Alexander McCall-Smith - nice book