Cradle of Mayas Civilization – Copan Honduras

Copan is a beautiful city with mixture of legendary past and a modern ambiance. America’s most known and important culture, Maya, still is thriving in the western region of the Honduras. Still in many parts of Honduras, you can see the traditional costumes and customs preserved.

Copan is among the three largest and most unstinted cultural centers of the new world. The foundation of the Mayan was formed on the social-political base, in addition; they were expert in the fields of mathematics, astronomy and science. They even had developed hieroglyphs writing system, which helped to know about their historic evolution by translating it in epigraphs.

The Maya art is the also impressive and evident to careful planning and lay out of the base of the architecture constructions of Pyramids, houses, temples, king’s palaces, etc., thus the structures build during Maya period are still well maintained and allure many tourists and archaeologists.

Located in the Maya region, in the southwestern side, Copan is considered as city of Mayas civilization. The city thrived in the seventh century and now is the cradle of its civilization. Because of this and many other reasons, the Copan was announced as world heritage by the UNESCO in 1980.

In Copan, you will see many huge complexes comprising of numerous temples build on many levels and many plazas. Other than Copan, just a kilometer away is the Lenca, which is the smaller site of Mayas. Both the sites are located on luxuriant valley bisecting at the Rio Chamelecon. In this valley, there is a tobacco farm, which is surrounded by Forest Mountains. The environment around there is very much clean and thus, you can see shadows of clouds moving over the tobacco farms. Copan’s natural beauty is dramatically pure and calm. The jungle around the Copan is filled with lush vegetation and various animals’ sounds. You can see shorthaired, plump, round guinea pigs, monkeys, multicolored guacamayas, peccaries and tree sloths.

At every part of Copan, you will find Mayas artifacts like stelae and carvings with absolute volume and details. Around 4,509 constructions are been found and in only 24 sq km around the Principle Group, 3,450 structures were found.

The Principal Group comprises of five basic parts of attention:

The Acropolis
it is divided into two parts: the east court and the west court. The temple 11 is in west court whereas temple 16 rest between east and west court as a portal. The temple 16 was constructed on top of an old temple without destroying it.

The Tunnels
Under the Acropolis a tunnel is dig which gives insight of Copan’s previous levels in civilization. The tunnel is about 4 kilometers. There are two tunnels open for the public, which will cost extra money.

The Ball Court
In Central America, it is the second main ball court.

The Hieroglyphic Stairway
The 63 steps with more than thousand glyphs say the past of the imperial home of Copan. Also, the texts are the longest written text of Mayas civilization. Unluckily, the steps have fallen apart, making it more difficult to understand the meaning.

Except for exploring the ruins of the Mayas, there are other things to do also

Agua Caliente
In English, it means hot water. Just at 45 minutes distance from the Copan, along the scenic and pleasant views on a dusty road, is situated Agua Caliente. It is the much-loved site by the locals. Thermal waters germinate and surge into a cold-water river becoming showers and natural pools where bathers can relax after long day excursion.

By any chance, you go up, following the trail, on the other side to the thermal water spring, does not think of bathing in there. The water is extremely hot and if nay contact with skin, you might even suffer sever skin burn. Only bath in the mixed hot and cold water near the river.

There are facilities for changing cloths, latrines, basketball court and couple of pools. For the family its great place to hang out, even picnic stands are placed there with roof. There is no food or water stalls nearby so do carry water bottles with you.

El Ruby Waterfall
Santa Rita town is just 9 kilometers away from the Copan. It’s a beautiful colonial town and has cobblestones lanes, red covered roof and friendly locals. The town is situated beside the Copan River, where the Quebrada Cashpa and the Gila River meet. Thus, the town gets ample of water to do agriculture.

The source of the river is a beautiful and isolated waterfall. It is just situated 45 minutes up on the mount. Further, up the upriver, you come across some beautiful formation of rocks formed due to water erosion. At such a height, the views below are stunning; you can see the town and the valley, entirely breathtaking!

Bird watching
Inside the Copan Ruins, you will find variety of habitats, such as tropical rain forests, secondary growth forests, cloud forests and pine forests. There are 230 different types of birds. Most of the birds are the migratory birds, they come here in early September and leaves in late April. Thus, between September and April is the best time to come for bird watching in Copan. There are tours, which will take you to different areas with a guide who has good knowledge about the birds.

Shopping Tips:
There are no shortage of shops and souvenirs to shop. The new El Jaral Shopping Mall, situated only 10 miles away from the ruins, has many things to offer like eateries and cinema theaters with latest movies on screen. Then there is one more mall after the town of Santa Rita de Copan, opposite to the highway. If you do not have vehicle to travel, you will get rented or hired vehicle to reach to the mall. Hotel guest gets complimentary rides to the mall.

This is a small list that you should think to buy from here:

Leather
You will get fine leather goods from here. Danilo’s manufacturer is the best to have good local quality of leather. You will find their goods at Guacamaya souvenir shop in the Hotel Marina Copan and another is at the Posada Real de Copan hotel.

Tobacco
The Horduras cigars are very liked and famous. There are four shops in: Hotel La Posada, Yax Pac souvenir shop, situated crosswise the lane from the bank, then at Main Square and other is at souvenir Copan.

Wood handicrafts
Near Tegucigalpa is a town named Valle de Angeles. Here you will get good handmade items, which are art pieces. Then other these are the Weaved baskets and panama hats, jade and ceramics that are famous locally.

Getting there:

In Copan, main airport is the San Pedro Sula International Airport. The flights come from the following airlines: TACA, American, LACSA, COPA, Continental, Iberia, Isleña and Mayan World Airways. From the following North American gateways, you can easily reach here: San Francisco, Orlando, New Orleans, Miami, Los Angeles, New York, Houston, and Cancun. You can even get flights via Central America by San Salvador, El Salvador; Panama City, Panama; Guatemala City, Guatemala and San Jose, Costa Rica.