Photo Link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/j59mYdzi8LGFoVPa9
After over 1.5 years of retirement, I finally did my first land border crossing by taking a 3:30am bus from Antigua over to the town of Copan Ruinas in Honduras. It wasn’t too bad, and was a total of like 9 hours including the 1 hour it took for everyone in the bus to go through immigration at the border. Copan was definitely a 180 from Mexico and Guatemala (even as empty as Flores was at least the hostel was still reasonably crowded) in terms of it being completely devoid of tourists. The town itself was another colonial cobblestone’d town – not quite as nice as San Cristobal in Mexico, let alone Antigua which was really really nice. But the one good thing was a return to cheaper prices after the spike of Guatemala (relatively speaking, compared to Mexico).
On my first day, I spent like 5 hours in the Copan ruins. To be fair, 2+ of those hours were spent bird watching. The bird sanctuary here that I was iffy about visiting (I just feel like wildlife encounters are much more meaningful in the wild, not in caged environments) have released numerous scarlet macaws (these are the stereotypical tropical red parrots that talk) into the Copan ruins site over the past few years and they are quite easy to spot – and incredibly loud. While they didn’t say any human words, they were just such cool birds to observe, and definitely one of my more memorable wildlife encounters. Really glad to have been able to see them here in Copan, and I managed to snag a couple of great pictures as well. But since I saw these rehabbed parrots out in the wild, I was also able to skip going to the bird sanctuary. They look more gorgeous than usual when flying, especially from the side and back where the full colors are on display, but those were super hard pics to even attempt let alone get, so I gave up after a few below subpar tries of those since I’m not quite a good enough photographer/my camera isn’t fancy enough for that jazz. Really the only things left for me to see in the wild on my Latin American wildlife checklist are jaguars and black panthers, and those are both really really hard from what I’ve heard. And also blue/yellow parrots which apparently are a thing as well, but they are apparently only in South America and not Central America. But regardless, the parrot watching today got me in the spirits for my upcoming Tanzania safari with my sister after we climb Kili – we’re going to be going through the same company that we used in Kenya so if it’s even half as good it’ll be an awesome experience.
The Copan ruins themselves were really nice. Probably just behind Tikal for me in terms of enjoyment, but it was awesome to finally (!!!) see tons of Mayan sculptures and carvings up close. The reason why Cambodia will never be topped for me is that it basically combines the best of El Mirador (jungle and overgrown setting), TIkal (grandiosity), and Copan (intricate carvings and sculptures). But the ruins I’ve seen in Guatemala and now Copan definitely were totally awesome experiences, and honestly much better than the ones in Mexico. Glad I’ve spent the past few weeks in Central America seeing these because in all likelihood it’s the closest I’ll get to Cambodia short of visiting that country again (which I honestly might do during retirement!). Was really cool to see the Mayan writing script carved on pyramid stairs and on the backs of the massive stellae, and to also see these somewhat frightening figures carved in massive rock pieces. Reminded me a bit of some Hindu temple carvings in India to be honest. But overall, really glad I did the reverse migrant caravan route to cross from Guatemala to Honduras to see these.
The next day, I went on a horseback tour of the area. This was supposed to be a 6 hour tour that I completed in 4, apparently because I was faster than the typical gringo who rides horses. It was surprisingly tiring – my thighs were sore for the next couple of days, and it definitely took a solid 30 minutes or so of riding to get my balls in a comfortable position. No issues with butt pain since I was lifting up with my thighs at every strut/gallop which is apparently what you are supposed to do. Was definitely super fun, and made me realize how difficult the ~10 day Mongolian steppe horseback trek I want to do will be. Also, for the few hours after we finished, I just felt so short and disoriented while walking around because I was used to the horse’s height and movement patterns.
I decided to skip going to the jungle near the ferry point to get to my scuba diving island (to be honest, while El Mirador was beyond amazing I am a bit jungle’d out), but went straight from Copan to the town of La Ceiba for an overnight before taking the ferry the next morning from there to Utila to go scuba diving. La Ceiba is certainly one of the more sketch towns I’ve been in, but it was fine as an overnight layover. The next morning, I took the ferry over to Utila island.
I did 10 total dives in Utila, bringing my total to 40 dives. The diving here was good but not amazing…probably like a worse version of the Red Sea. The reefs here were really cool – the Mesoamerican Reef is the 2nd largest in the world after the Great Barrier Reef. But visibility was obviously not quite to Red Sea levels which is why I think the Red Sea corals (especially Hurghada moreso than Aqaba) trump the diving here. And wildlife was also similar to the Red Sea where we had sporadic megafauna sightings (eagle ray, barracuda, couple of other giant fish) but not close to the level I saw in Nusa Penida in Bali where I got my advanced certification. I still think my favorite thing I’ve seen while diving were the ragged-tooth sharks in Aliwal Shoal in South Africa. The highlight here was definitely the wreck dive – it was a large ship that was sunk for diving 10+ years ago. I think this was probably my favorite wreck I’ve seen because of all the wrecks, this one had the most coral reef growth on it since the Red Sea wrecks I saw were all fairly recent. Still have the goal of doing a liveaboard in Palau to see Red Sea level coral reefs and visibility with tons and tons of sharks and natural WW2 wrecks.
Staying on the island for 9 to 10 nights was in itself actually surprisingly fun. There’s actually a lot to do here socially which makes sense given the huge number of gringos who are staying here long term. It’s crazy cheap diving (I was paying 30 USD a dive with full rentals included which is easily the cheapest I have done so far),and there are things like 3x a week free kickboxing classes (did this once and it was really fun but exhausting), weekly beer pong tournaments (got to the quarterfinals so did OK, and this same bar has a Nintendo 64), weekly trivia (we came in 3rd), and weekly karaoke (by far the most crowded setting I’ve been in since Tulum…but hey I got the vaccine so I don’t care). And the fresh fruit smoothies on this island were out of this world – passion fruit, mango, strawberry, and pineapple were the best ones. The dive shop I was at was mostly longer term gringos who were getting their dive master certifications as well. While here, 2 of my friends from my El Mirador trek also independently came to dive so we hung out a few times. On the trek, one of the guys found the skull of a spider monkey, so naturally he cleaned it out and we took shots out of it. There was a definite earthy aftertaste but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. He’s planning on staying here for a month so he rented a really nice apartment with a pool that we went over to hang out in a few times. Also played volleyball in my hostel/dive shop for the first time since Burning Man which was awesome. And weirdly, one of the social highlights here was definitely a very intensive 12 man game of Codenames that we played one night. But overall definitely met a bunch of cool people out here and had a good time. If it’s any indicator, this is probably the most instagram followers I have ever gotten from one location, though I was also staying here for quite some time.
Overall, Utila was a great last stop for this part of the trip. I’ll be going home for a couple of weeks before flying to Tanzania for 3 weeks with my sister to climb Kili/do a safari/dive and hang out in Zanzibar. Honduras definitely wasn’t a highlight like Guatemala was, but it’s a good place to see if in the area…Copan is a nice complement to Tikal and El Mirador and Utila is a super fun island with good and cheap diving. Would definitely love to come back to Central America for El Salvador and Nicaragua though those probably aren’t *as* high on my list (though Nicaragua apparently does have a lava lake you can hike up to and see which would be amazing). After Tanzania, I’ll be home for a month+ for a bachelor party and two weddings, and then I have a good stretch of free time until my next wedding in Puerto Rico in early March 2022. Would like to go to Central Asia and/or to Europe (Switzerland for hikes and UK/France especially) but obviously that’s all COVID dependent, so we’ll see where the world is end of July.