Monday 14 January 2013
Highlights: New country, Hot Springs, Piñata fun.
These 5 am departures really suck, even leaving it to the last minute I had to get up at 4.30 am 😦 Unfortunately for Anna her alarm didn’t go off and since she had no roommate to wake her up she had a real rush to get onto the van. We started today so early to get to Copán in time to do an activity and to also beat the traffic.
During the ride Gabo was fairly active and gave both Anna and myself a brief history lesson on the regions we are visiting during this tour. After a few hours in the van we stopped for breakfast giving one last chance to use up our Guatemalan money.
We gave Gabo all our entry and exit money for the upcoming 3 countries we are visiting over a fortnight. I think this is a good approach as it should speed up border crossing. We didn’t even have to leave the van to cross into Honduras, Gabo just took out passports and got them stamped.
Copán is a small town with one major square being the centre of activity. Before our departure for the hot springs I found an ATM take accepted MasterCard branded cards and let me withdraw some local currency. I also finally got to send some postcards back home, finding post offices has not been easily in Central America.
The ride to the local hot rings was awesome by itself. We loaded onto the back of a truck for the one hour ride there and enjoyed the countryside.
The first hot spring that I selected to occupy was very warm and i was sweating very quickly. So much so that I and a majority of the group went down to a lower level hot spring which was warm and relaxing.
The beers, the heat of the hot spring and the candles made for a relaxing time. Walking out after dark however was a major challenge, I’m surprised that there were no major injuries during that night time walk.
We also had a BBQ at the site. Very tasty meat, chicken and black beans with a few beers. Now since today was actually Laura’s birthday despite us celebrating 2 days ago we had another party this time involving her hitting a piñata. After Laura was span disoriented she almost took me out instead of the piñata! We decided to donate most of the candy in the piñata to a church group for local children.
On the ride back I got to go into a different vehicle with Robin and James joining me in the back ‘tray’ drinking beers, watching the stars and trying not to fall out. Not a bad first full day of the new tour although I was extremely tired.
Nathan's Insights 