"Copan, The ancient Mayan Empire" Copán by Mailo

Copán Travel Guide: 215 reviews and 967 photos

Misterius Place

The rain forest is covering like a celing my way by car to this magnificent place, and as I get closer to the small town of Copan Ruins I can see and feel the beauty of the tropical weather and the amazing tropical forrest or rain-forest. I Travel from my home city Tegucigalpa by car, it is a seven hours trip, but this time I will do it in 12 hours, that's becouse I wan to to enjoy the view througth the different types of sigthseeing that I have to go througth.
Tegucigalpa is located at a thuosand meters above the sea level, sorrounden by mountains, El Picacho is one of the higgest with 1600 meter above the ocean. Pine trees is my view here, and I need to travel thougth a paved road, it's seven o'ckock in the morning. It's a sunny day, tempeture is 17 degrees (Celsius), nice weather. I hit the road with my good friend Miguel, and there we go up to the mountains, heading north, we push the gas of our 4X4 Nissan and there we go, 45 minutes later we are in Zambrano, more pine trees and some clouds, yes, we are getting inside the clouds, this is nice. Continuing on this road we still have to go up the hills a little more and then we start to go to lower lands heading to Comayagua, from up there on the mountains the view is fantastic, only mountains as far as the eye can see, a fertile valley is about 50 km away down the hill, it demands at least 45 more minutes to get there. Once you get there you feel the tempeture changing, it is a hot place, at both sides of the road you can see plantations of diferent king of vegetables, fruits, and people at the side of the road selling their products. Then you face 10 km of a straigth road, no curves at all, crossing part of the valley. The city of Comayagua is in the middle of the valley, (see my Departamento de Comauagua tips). We pass this place and continue to the next city Siguatepeque, we want to get there and have breakfast, it is almost nine o'clock in the morning and we need a cup of Honduran Coffe (probably the best coffe on earth). We can have breakfast in Granja D'elia (a restourant that belongs to and italian inmigrant) or we can stop at Bongos, this time we went to Granja D'Elia. Great food and not to expensive (Miguel paid for the breakfast and it was only about seven dollar for both of our brekfast.

Taking the road again, 45 minutes later We get to the biggest lake of Honduras, Lago de Yojoa, and turn left leaving the main road and we go througth more beautifull tropical forrest, this other road has almost no cars, is a paved road too, you can see small cities like Santa Barbara, San José de Colinas, San Nicolás, and some other, we decided to stop an see this places, we spend some time there taking a good look of the cities. Women in Colinas are extremely beautifull.. not common people.
We still have four more hours of driving, but you feel free to drive when there are so few vehicles on the road.
We entered the Copan Ruins at 6:00 pm.. and was a wonderfull trip, now we need to take a good dinner and maybe .. just maybe.. have a good beer.

Escalinata de los Jeroglíficos

A copy of a real temple

Reproducción del Templo Rosa Lila

This replica is located at the museum in Copan Ruins at the park inside the ruins area, It is a replica of a temple that is underground and it was discovered recently by an archaeologys from Honduras, his name is Agurcia. This is how a temple looked in ancient times.

Pros and Cons

Pros:Spectacular, misterius, beautifull, different.
Cons:No really.. but... a little hot.
In a nutshell:Ruins, history, a quiet place and goof nigth life fo a small town.

Last visit to Copán: Feb 2004
Intro Updated Apr 8, 2007
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Reviews (6)

Mailo posando frente a una "Baronesa" - Copán

La Ruta del Café Off The Beaten Path (1)

830 steps, and almos a mile long, a real experience into de rain forest, you walk with a tour guide that will explain... more travel advice

Hotel Plaza Copán Hotels (2)

Muy bueno, y exelente servicio As many Hotels in dowtown area of the small village of Copan Ruins it is located at the... more travel advice

Ambiente Colonial y tropical Hotels (2)

Muy bueno, el mejor en el centro del pueblo de Copán Ruinas, con todas las comodidades de un hotel moderno, fué el... more travel advice

Breakfast, lunch or just cafe! Restaurants (1)

We stop here in Siguatepque al Granja D'Elia for breakfast, a very good place with reaonable (if not cheap) prices. more travel advice

Things to Do (1)
Mayan Ruins

Transportation (1)
Many Buses to Copan

Comments (15)

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KimberlyAnn Jun 21, 2011 at 7:24 AM

I have not heard of the Copan ruins before, but have always thought tht a visit to Myan ruins would be interesting. It looks like you had a wonderful trip.
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MalenaN Apr 27, 2009 at 10:04 AM

The ruins in Copán looks impressive! I'm looking forward to visit them later this year!
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sylina Dec 25, 2008 at 10:18 PM

thanks! still there are too many places i would like to go but haven't yet.. you got beautiful pix here.. wish i could go admire this mystery someday... greetings from SH :)
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Jim_Eliason Feb 19, 2008 at 6:28 PM

great page!
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Nemorino Jun 22, 2007 at 2:18 PM

An interesting archeological site. Good idea to illuminate the pyramid at night.
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songlines Apr 8, 2007 at 2:42 AM

Have enjoyed your lovely photos and pages Mailo. My first time really visiting a site on Honduras, real nice! Thanks Greetings from West Cork.
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Luchonda Mar 19, 2007 at 2:50 PM

Nice pics and info on yr country. greetz from Belgium
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starship Mar 7, 2007 at 9:58 AM

Another interesting looking place to visit in Honduras. Copan is very famous for its ruins. Nice pictures and postcards too!
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Faiza-Ifrah Dec 1, 2006 at 8:04 PM

an small but an excellent page on this city. i thought that i read one tip in alien language :-)
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tiabunna Nov 19, 2006 at 4:20 AM

It must be fasacinating to be able to visit those Mayan ruins from pre-Spanish days! I will have to try getting there some day.