Honduras 2: Copán Ruinas

Did some math on this one and decided Axel and Enzo had officially maxed out their ruins tolerance for the trip. So Xander and I went to Copán Ruinas; the other two stayed back and got some long-negotiated YouTube time, and everybody won.

Turned out to be the right call for another reason: this place was not cheap. $20 entrance, $15 for the tunnels, $5 more for the sculpture museum, $110 out the door for the three of us. Central America has mostly been a lot more expensive than expected, so I was expecting this, but also kind of the point — Copán clearly has money going into preservation, and it shows.

The grounds double as a rehab center for scarlet macaws, most of them former illegal pets that got confiscated and released back onto the property. They’re fed but otherwise free-roaming, so you’re just walking around the ruins with these enormous red macaws wandering the paths like oversized chickens. One nearly photobombed every picture I tried to take of Xander.

Of every ruin site we’ve hit in Central America, Copán had by far the most detailed carving work — full figures, headdresses, glyphs, all still readable after over a thousand years. It’s the same era as Angkor Wat, which blew my mind for the same reason: the sheer amount of carving and how much of it survived. Copán’s trick was that they kept building new temples directly on top of the old ones. Some spots are five temples deep, stacked like layers of a cake, and because the older ones got buried instead of destroyed, they’re in incredible shape. Archaeologists have tunneled straight into the middle of the Acropolis to find them.

We went in order: the main plaza and stelae first, then the Hieroglyphic Stairway, then the tunnels, then the sculpture museum last. The tunnels were narrow and low and lit with little floor lights, walking distance right through the guts of the pyramid to see the earlier temple faces still buried in there. The museum was worth the extra $5 just for the full-scale replica of the Rosalila temple, painted red and green and yellow like it would’ve actually looked, plus an entrance built to look like you’re walking into the mouth of the underworld, skulls stacked all over it.

Xander was into all of it, climbing on top of a wall as he’d personally excavated the place.

#unpavedparenting