Crusin' Copan

About two weekends ago (sorry for the delaying in posting!), Anah and I were joined in Honduras by her parents, PJ and Nancy. This is obviously a great thing to have a set of parents come down and experience just a little bit of what is going on down here (mine will be coming for spring break!). Having arrived on Thursday, with a departure on Monday, it was imperative that we get the 'rents out of SPS ASAP.

Anah left PJ and Nancy very specific and phonetic Spanish directions from the airport and to our school and so their arrival went without fanfare. Having arrived before school was out they happened, by chance, to stop in the school's cafetorium where the middle was having their Halloween Talent Show. Luckily they left before seeing myself and the shop teacher sing (another story at another time).

On Friday, PJ and Nancy joined Anah at school and were classroom helpers. I'm told that their assistance in the class was very nice and the kids seem to get a real kick out of having them around. Nancy read to the kids and PJ showed the kids how to carve a pumpkin.

After school we were off to Copan Ruinas, a small town about three hours from the city. Copan is set in the Honduran highlands about 8 miles from the Guatemala border. Even though SPS is cooler right now it can still be hot and Copan is even more so, providing consistent cooler temps.

We stayed at a place called "La Casa de Cafe" (The House of Coffee) which was run by a former teacher at our school (of many years ago). The hotel was very beautiful and not too expensive.

On Saturday morning it was early rising for us all (as usual for any occasion with Sikorskys). We even beat the morning coffee from the hotel. It was well worth the wait... very delicious. We drank so much I think the owner of the hotel, Howard, was annoyed when we requested the stuff at all hours of the day.

Getting up early also had its upside because it meant that we could hit up the nearby Mayan ruins and beat the crowds that fill up the place later in the day. Just outside of Copan Ruinas is the site of one of the greatest Mayan cities in all of Central America. I won't give you all the details (you can read a bit about it here), but it was an amazing sight.

I've never been super interested in ancient history. Most of the books I've read from these periods have been super dry, are usually ambiguous in their facts ("some believe" or "scholars dispute...") and thus make for poor reading. However, going to Copan hit all of my history-nerd buttons. We paid a guide to take us around the ruins for a couple of hours and he basically just told is the story of them. It was so fascinating and since (apparently) the scholarship on the Mayans is getting more solid and historians have learned to write, the books on them is supposed to be halfway decent.

Beyond the ruins, Copan Ruinas (the town) is a quaint little place. They are obviously trying to follow the model of a place like Antigua, Guatemala (our adventures there) and beef up the tourist industry with their small-town-nature-closeness-colonial-beauty-lifestyle-approach.

It goes without saying, but the best part of it all wasn't being able to see ancient history or cruise a nice little Honduran town, but to see family. It was comforting to have family nearby when, until this weekend, they were all so far away.

It only gets me more excited to start planning spring break when I get to introduce my family to Honduras.