So long Guatemala, hello Honduras!
We caught a shuttle at 4 am this morning and promptly left Guatemala for Honduras. On board were 11 passengers, every seat the van had room for. Nico and I met a very nice girl from Manchester and a couple from San Francisco on the van.
When we arrived in Copan, we discovered that we all had our eyes on the same hotel: ViaVia.
ViaVia is pretty much what you would call paradise. Owned by a couple of Belgian adventurers, this hotel boasts a restaurant, a full service bar, and absolutely gorgeous thatch-roof architecture and ambiance. I could go on and on about how awesome ViaVia is, but I'll post pictures when I get back instead.
After hot showers, Nico and I got dinner at a fabulous restaurant across town, then read through our options again. The plan: we're going to party with our new friends tonight, then a horseback tour through the ruins will be our day tomorrow. We also decided that this place is WAY too awesome to leave tomorrow, so we're staying for 2 or 3 days instead to take advantage or all Copan has to offer.
List of interesting things I've seen or noticed since yesterday...
- Every store with something valuable inside has a man with a loaded shotgun in front of it. They run a metal detector over you before you're allowed into the bank.
- Dispite the overall low budget, everything here is clean.
- Many, many stray dogs. They're everywhere.
- I've seen so many loaded guns today it's rediculous.
- A police officer on a motorcycle with another officer on the back holding an m16 cowboy style. This is something I wish I could have had a picture of, but I've refrained from taking pictures of anyone in uniform for now. I don't know how they feel about it and the last thing I want to do is piss off local militia/police.
- Sidewalks are an afterthought. They exist, but are very narrow and often just disappear.
- It's hard to tell who's a security officer and who's not. Whether or not you have a gun seems to decide your status, uniforms be damned.
- Then sun is very intense here. If it's cool outside, or even overcast, the sunlight is hot to the touch. I fell asleep on one of the hammocks in the thatched roof lounge an hour ago and when I woke up, my leg was in the sun and it's now horribly sunburned.
- Most people ride motorcycles, but helmets are optional. This is very interesting to notice on the freeway.
Anyway, that's it for now and I'm out of time at the PC cafe!
Fritz
No comments:
Post a Comment