Saturday, 9 November 2024: Copán, Honduras – The Pinnacle of Mayan Artistry

The Drive (ugh!)

I wondered if I was a bit nuts to commit to a 12+ hour round-trip over only two days to the Copan Ruins in Honduras.  In order to make the trip and have time to see the ruins during the first afternoon, I had to have my ass ready and waiting in front of my lodgings in Antigua at 3:30 AM on Saturday.   

The tour van arrived only 5 minutes late and I was the first passenger.  I started to climb into the passenger’s seat at the front, but the driver, a quiet and sullen 60ish grayhead, insisted that it was against “las reglas” (the rules).  “¿Qué reglas?” I replied, insisting just as strongly that I always rode in the front seat in tour vans.  He had other passengers to pick up and probably didn’t want to waste time arguing with an assertive gringo who spoke Spanish, so he relented, and I climbed into my coveted front seat.

Heading east out of Antigua on a serpentine four-lane highway, we climbed about   1200 feet in 5 miles.  The van had a five-speed manual transmission.  My first clue that the driver didn’t know what he was doing was his failure to downshift as we headed up the steep climb.  The engine lugged and the van slowed down to about 15 mph as we inched our way up to the pass separating Antigua and Guatemala City.  Trucks and even old smoke-belching chicken buses passed us.  Finally, the driver downshifted before he stalled out.  There were additional problems with his driving that drove me batty – the dumbass stayed in the left (passing) lane no matter how slow we were going so everyone (including big trucks) was passing us on the right.  Then once we topped the high point, he drove too fast on the downhills into the city and tailgated.  No wonder he hadn’t wanted me in the front seat – he didn’t want anyone to see what a shit driver he was! Figured if I got though this trip alive, it would be a “milagro”.

We drove in light, very early morning traffic through “Guate” (Guatemala City) on the 4 to 8 lane Highway CA-9.  In relatively short time we were east of the city where the driver stopped at a Shell station not for fuel, mind you, but just so he could fart around for 20 minutes eating a doughnut and looking at his phone.   

After a few more miles and around Agua Caliente, the highway narrowed to two lanes where it crossed a bridge and traffic slowed to a crawl.  When it widened again to four lanes, there was a stretch where dozens of trucks were parked in the right lane (there was almost no shoulder) and their drivers were presumably taking a snooze.  Lots of up and downhill sections through forested mountains.   The early morning air quality was poor like in Antigua from buses, trucks, poor pollution controls on all vehicles, and an atmospheric inversion where warm air overlies cooler valley air trapping smoke, exhaust fumes, and other unhealthy contaminants. 

By 6:00 AM it was getting light and 15 minutes later, we were in San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán, 2 hours east-northeast of Guate.  Traffic was starting to build up and there were some potholes to be dodged along the highway.  There were low forested mountains to our left and an agricultural valley to the right.  Our driver got his act together enough to pass some slow-moving trucks although the visibility of the road ahead wasn’t great. 

Google Maps on my phone showed that we should turn right off CA-9 (which wound up in the Caribbean port city of Puerto Barrios) and on to CA-11 at the town of Rio Hondo.  However, the driver turned off sooner and we were on a narrow country road through a 10-mile wide valley before eventually getting to CA-11.  Maybe the driver knew of some traffic problem ahead but it seemed like the dumb shit had taken us several miles out of the way.  He had a cell phone with a route map but maybe he missed a turn.    

At 7:20 AM we were heading south on CA-11 into the mountains toward Honduras on another winding highway.  I made a note that “this fucker [the driver, that is] is going to burn out his brakes” as he would lean hard on them without using his manual trannie to help him slow down.  An ambulance with siren blaring passed us followed by a pickup truck full of “policías”.  I anticipated a big wreck and long delay ahead but five minutes later we stopped at a restaurant outside of Chiquimula for breakfast.  I had already gobbled down a cheese and lettuce sandwich on a nice chewy bun which Violeta prepared for me the night before, but it was good to get a bit of a leg stretch.  After a short walk, I headed into the restaurant and discovered a somewhat dilapidated pool table with uneven surface, a crooked cue, and no chalk.  So, for a couple bucks, I amused myself by trying to shoot balls into pockets while the others breakfasted.

Another van arrived with passengers, and we were told to switch all our gear to this second van.  The van that brought us from Antigua would now head back there while this second van took passengers back and forth between Chiquimula and Copán crossing the border along the way.  The breakfast stop was supposed to be 45 minutes but it was 1½ hours before we were back on the road again.  The new driver had his gym bag and shoes on the front seat so I didn’t bother asking about riding up front.  It was only 30 miles to the border and less than another 10 miles to Copán, so why bother?  Once underway, I soon realized that this guy was a much better driver – too bad he wasn’t behind the wheel from Antigua. 

After a few miles, CA-11 turned north following a pretty agricultural valley between forested mountainsides.  It took us 45 minutes to get through the border.  I got through Honduran immigration (cost US$3.00) quickly, but it appeared to take longer for others in the van. 

Soon we were in the town of Copán, only about a mile from the ruins.  I was pleasantly surprised when we pulled up to a modest but well-maintained hotel in the town (I had been prepared for a dump given the inexpensive price for the weekend) and was even more pleased when I took my bag up to a clean and tidy second-floor room.  I had about 20 minutes to freshen up before being driven to the ruins in a three-wheeled tuk-tuk taxi.

The Ruins (WOW!)

The other passengers in the van had made different arrangements for the Copán ruins, and when I arrived there, I was directed to a guide. I had not been looking forward to following a guide with 20 some other tourists but suddenly I realized that I was getting a private tour.  My Hondureño guide, named César, appeared to be in his 40s and immediately struck me as very knowledgeable.  I asked if he was an archeologist.  No, he was an artist and had done the drawings on a number of excavations at Copán.  And, as César pointed out, the outstanding feature of Copán is the art. Tikal in northern Guatemala is renowned for the largest Mayan ruins and the tallest structures.  However, he claimed that Copán has the best art.  I have not been to Tikal and have only been to a couple of other Mayan ruins in Belize 27 years ago.  But, the art and architecture at Copán is certainly impressive.  Colors were used to decorate the sculptures and some of the colors, particularly red, are still partially visible after 1200 years of abandonment and exposure to the elements.  The Mayan artists had no iron tools and used obsidian (volcanic glass) in their sculpting.

The Mayans were also skillful engineers.  An example is their central plaza, a grassy area of several hundred acres which was constructed with a very slight incline so that stormwater would drain very slowly to one small drain which César showed me.  It is an opening in a rock wall which is only about two by two feet.  The drain still works quite well, and the plaza never has standing water after big storms.

The results of the Mayans’ efforts are a beautiful complex of stone monuments, buildings, amphitheaters, and plazas which cover several hundred acres surrounded by lush tropical forests about 2000 feet above sea level.  Walking on the forest path from the park entrance to the ruins, a visitor is greeted by the songs of parrots, toucans, and other lovely tropical avian life.  This was obviously a fertile valley where an early civilization could have flourished indefinitely had the inhabitants learned how to live in harmony with nature and with each other (actually, the city lasted for four centuries).

Unlike their destruction of Aztec civilization in central Mexico, the Spanish were not responsible for the end of the Mayans.  When the Spanish arrived in Central America and the Yucatan Peninsula in the 1500s, Mayan civilization was long gone and the descendants were living in small Neolithic communities throughout the region.  The Mayans were brought down by a combination of deforestation, overpopulation, soil depletion, famine, drought, local wars, and bad decision making by leaders based on religious superstition and a lack of ecological awareness.  Consider the following:

•     I pointed out to César that the Mayans apparently never discovered the wheel.  Wrong, he replied.  They understood it but were not allowed to use it in transport because the circle was a sacred symbol which could only be used in art for the royalty.  Therefore, they cut down trees by the thousands and aligned the trunks next to each other along routes from the surrounding mountains to transport the large boulders and stones used in construction and art by rolling them over the logs.  This waste of timber contributed to the deforestation of the area resulting in soil erosion, water pollution, and a loss of wood for cooking and construction.

• Another strange practice has been very interesting to archaeologists but a silly waste of energy and resources in my opinion.  When a dynasty ended, the new ruler would order all the temples and buildings constructed by the previous ruler to be covered by soil and rock, and all new structures erected above them. Archaeological digs have uncovered no less than twelve layers of structures several hundred feet high.

Not only is Copán very interesting aesthetically and historically, but it provides important clues as to why such an advanced civilization for its time collapsed – not from outside invaders but from human folly including war perpetrated by Mayan rulers of different regions.  Copán has important lessons for leaders and citizens of the 21^st Century but it doesn’t appear that many are paying attention. 

“Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.”  - George Santayana

After spending a couple hours touring the grounds at Copán with César, he directed me to a large museum.  I bid him “Adios” and “Muchísimas gracias” and gave him a nice tip for sharing his knowledge and for his patience with my Spanish.   For 10 bucks, I wandered around the museum taking photos.  It consisted of a large hall featuring mostly reproductions of the stone sculptures and monuments not only from the ruins I had just visited but from the surrounding area as well.