So far, so good

Alright, so I coming at you live from the tiny little tourist town of Copán Ruinas, which is situated at the extreme western side of Honduras. The community is completely dependent on the tourists who come here to see the nearby ruins, only about 1 km away. It is quite well developed and ´cute´you could say relative to the rest of the country this is the first real destination on my journey so far.

I got here yesterday evening, after about nine hours in transit, and went to the Mayan ruins of Copán today. I will post some pictures as soon as I can, but they do not do the site justice. Nestled in a valley, the ruins appear out of the forest including, large pyramids, a ball stadium, intricately carved pillars and a hyroglyphic stairway for which the site is most well known. Copán was the southern most city state of the Maya empire and reached the height of its prominence between 400 - 700AD. I spent the whole morning just wandering around looking at all these magnificantly crafted monuments and wondering what the city was like 1400 years ago.

Brief Recap:

I took off from Coco Wednesday morning and travelled northward almost all the way through Nicaragua. I breezed through Managua, as quickly as possible because it is big, noisy and somewhat dangerous. I thought I was going to die several times on a taxi ride between bus stations but managed it alright. I got an odd sensation being in Nicaragua. It´s not hard to imagine given the poverty, political unrest and civil war but there is a strange sense of sadness in the country. The people are proud, but have lived a hard life.

Continuing on, I crossed into Honduras on Thursday morning and worked my way to Tegucigalpa, the capital, where I spent Friday as well. I stayed it a cheap hotel near one of the craziest markets I have ever seen. For blocks and blocks, stalls and vendors sell about everything you can imagine. People and buses clog the streets and you have weave your way through to cross into the downtown/historical part of the city. I walked around the city all day Friday which was highlighted by going up to a park on a hill that sticks out of the middle of the city. It had a great view of the city and it was relatively serene compared to the chaotic city below.

From here I´m planning on crossing the border into Guatemala tomorrow and going north to the Caribbean coast. From there it´s a ferry to Belize and then back into Guatemala to visit the Mayan ruins of Tikal.

That´s it for now, I´ll put some photots up as soon as I can. Adios.