Like I've already said, I had an AMAZING time in Copán!! It was soooo beautiful.
The city is pretty small and all close together. It was very different from San Pedro. San Pedro isn't a very pretty city. The mountains make a BEAUTIFUL backdrop, but the rest of the city- aside from the abundant palm trees and flowers, is pretty shabby or tacky.
Copán however, has pretty cobbled (although bumpy!) streets and close together buildings, and a beautiful square with a fountain and plants. It does have its shabby areas, but altogether, with the view, it was breathtaking. (I have lots of pics to prove it! Although they don't even come close to doing it justice.)
Cesia and I arrived on Wednesday on a bus from San Pedro. Random facts- it cost a lot more for an American to travel than a Honduran- same for entrance to the ruins - Cesia was about $1, I was $10!! We took a moto-taxi to Karla's grandparents hotel- Hotel Marina Copán. That was fun! I can't believe those little things can make it up the hills! Karla met us there after we had lunch, and took us to the ruins. Since Karla grew up in Copán (She now lives in San Pedro and works at the school/church and has been a friend of mine for awhile!), she made a great tour guide! Some of my pics of Copán, I am going to wait for her to post, so I can put up better descriptions of them.
The ruins were amazing. If you don't know a thing about the Maya, they lived in different areas of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and a little bit in Nicaragua, Belize, El Salvador, and Costa Rica for a long time before the birth of Christ and then became a highly developed society constructing large pyramids and hieroglyphics- mostly after Christ-lots of which can still be seen today! Something happened to make them suddenly abandon their large empires. No one really knows exactly what- but they began living in smaller groups and never returned to their once majestic cities.
Now this is just my own assumption on what happened. The Maya worshipped many gods, and made lots of human sacrifices and believed in witchcraft and many other such things (that’s all true, not my assumption!). And although they were very intelligent people, they obviously were missing the most important knowledge of all- knowledge of the true God. Maybe what happened to them, was that God no longer allowed them to continue in their elaborate sacrifices to other gods, by allowing something to happen that made them abandon their idols and places of worship altogether so that they could no longer carry out the things that were against the true God. Like I said, that's just my own thoughts! I am by nooooo means an expert on this subject, although I am constantly learning more!
It was a thrilling experience to see a part of history, older than anything I've seen before, other than my trip to Ecuador. In Ecuador, I saw Incan pyramids, but disappointingly- they were all underground and covered by grass, so although it was pretty cool, basically all we were looking at was small hills! (Not to mention having to run in the rain through the herd of llamas! Now, that was memorable!!) The only other pieces of history I've seen have been American, and we all know that, although those are pretty cool, none of them are more than a few hundred years old. But the fact that I was viewing something so old, was pretty breathtaking.
And the construction was pretty cool. All of the stela, the pyramids, the ball court, the temples, the underground tunnels. None of the people lived in Copán, except for the emperor at the time and his family. It was where the people came to make sacrifices and perform special ceremonies. It was also were they played a special game where they hit a ball (a really hard cannonball looking one- saw a replica of it!) with their hips and tried to get it in a small arch. The winning team was sacrificed which was an honor for them. You would think that the losing team would be sacrificed as a penalty, but it was the winning team who received the reward of being put to death. Sounds crazy, right?!
The backdrop of all of these interesting things was the most stunning of all. They built all of these amazing structures in honor to their gods, when the one true God had created majestic scenery all around them. I have always felt a special draw to mountains, their unique beauty constantly amazes me. I love looking at the mountains here, especially when they are a backdrop to something that is completely anti-God. It is a wonderful reminder of how amazing God is, and it also makes me sad at times to think that so many people have seen the splendor of God’s creation and yet refuse to acknowledge Him. Everything that God has made is beautiful, and although man has been able to make many wonderful things, we are also the ones that destroy and neglect His beauty. I am not by any means an activist or a tree-hugger, but I do greatly enjoy the things that my God has fashioned since the beginning. Seeing the beauty in what He has made is a constant reminder that whatever is happening in the world, He created it, and He is in complete control.
Ok, hopping off my soapbox now! There was lots of other beautiful scenery around the ruins, with the beautiful, trees, river, and animal life. We saw an aunt-eater (cool!!!) and birds, and supposedly there were lots of monkeys which must’ve been hiding because they knew I really wanted to see them! Also there were LOTS of pyramids and steps to climb! Ugh! That quickly wore us out, since it was pretty hot out too!
This experience was truly amazing for me. I can’t wait until I can share more about this with all of my students! I took WAY too many pictures, but they are all so wonderful! I probably won’t post them all on here, but I will be putting up a lot! This is part of the reason why I think more people should travel. Stepping out of your comfort zone and seeing new things in the world, especially things like this, is such a life-touching experience. Especially when you can walk away with a reminder of how great God is and how much He has blessed us, if we only allow ourselves to notice and receive our blessings.
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