UNESO World Heritage. Discovered in 1570 by Diego García de Palacio, the ruins of Copán, one of the most important sites of the Mayan civilization, were not excavated until the 19th century. The ruined citadel and imposing public squares reveal the three main stages of development before the city was abandoned in the early 10th century.
Discovered in 1570 by Diego García de Palacio, the Maya site of Copan is one of the most important sites of the Mayan civilization. The site is functioned as the political, civil and religious centre of the Copan Valley. It was also the political centre and cultural focus of a larger territory that covered the southeast portion of the Maya area and its periphery.
The first evidence of population in the Copan Valley dates back to 1500 B.C., but the first Maya-Cholan immigration from the Guatemalan Highlands is dated around 100 A.D. The Maya leader Yax Kuk Mo, coming from the area of Tikal (Petén), arrived in the Copan Valley in 427 A.D., and started a dynasty of 16 rulers that transformed Copan into one of the greatest Maya cities during the Classic Maya Period. The great period of Copán, paralleling that of other major Mayan cities, occurred during the Classical period, AD 300-900. Major cultural developments took place with significant achievements in mathematics, astronomy and hieroglyphic writing. The archaeological remains and imposing public squares reveal the three main stages of development, during which evolved the temples, plazas, altar complexes and ball courts that can be seen today, before the city was abandoned in the early 10th century.
The Mayan city of Copán as it exists today is composed of a main complex of ruins with several secondary complexes encircling it. The main complex consists of the Acropolis and important plazas. Among the five plazas are the Ceremonial Plaza, with an impressive stadium opening onto a mound with numerous richly sculptured monoliths and altars; the Hieroglyphic Stairway Plaza, with a monumental stairway at its eastern end that is one of the outstanding structures of Mayan culture. On the risers of this 100 m wide stairway are more than 1,800 individual glyphs which constitute the longest known Mayan inscription. The Eastern Plaza rises a considerable height above the valley floor. On its western side is a stairway sculptured with figures of jaguars originally inlaid with black obsidian.
From what is known today, the sculpture of Copán appears to have attained a high degree of perfection. The Acropolis, a magnificent architectural complex, appears today as a large mass of rubble which came about through successive additions of pyramids, terraces and temples. The world's largest archaeological cut runs through the Acropolis. In the walls of the cut, it is possible to distinguish floor levels of previous plazas and covered water outlets. The construction of the Great Plaza and the Acropolis reflects a prodigious amount of effort because of the size of its levelled and originally paved expanse of three hectares and the latter because of the enormous volume of its elevated mass, which rises some 30 meters from the ground
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Copan itself is an unassuming small town that relies entirely on the tourist trade. It has half a dozen tourist restaurants and even fewer souvenir shops
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Tea and Chocolate Place
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They are only open from 16.00 to 18.00. They are a bit of a trek from town, so make sure of your directions if you are walking.
It is a charming family house, with a terrace to take your tea or coffee.
The family serving are very pleasant and enthusiastic.
The shop has everything to do with chocolate, from insect repellent, via shampoos to plain eating chocolate.
We enjoyed an hour or so here, and it is worth seeing
Carnitas Nia Lola Restaurant
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Owned by Canadians it has eclectic decor that I think comes off well - see the photos. You eat upstairs, and we had a table overlooking a small side street which added interest.
The gizmo here is that the waitresses carry bottles of beer on their heads, a bit naff, but they do it with good humour and I thought that it came off well.
You get a free dip to start, and a free small dessert at the end. Our main course was charcoal grilled on an open plan grill downstairs and any of the kebabs are worth trying.
We ate here two evenings and enjoyed both
Hotels La Casa Rosada
9.6 on Booking.com and on TripAdvisor . 5 rooms La Casa Rosada is a home away from home in the centre of Copan. The house is decorated as a Spanish colonial style inn, filled with antiques and local fine art. Every room has a private bath with steam shower, television, CD/DVD player, telephone, and air conditioning and there is a pleasant garden and patio area where breakfast is served. La Casa Rosada is located 150 m from Copán Central Park and 2 km from Copán Mayan Ruins.
I would guess that this gets good gradings because the competition is worse !. It is in a quiet street, on the edge of town, and only a couple of blocks from the restaurants and town square.
Our welcome was not good, initially they could not find our booking and were not expecting us,: eventually with bad grace they agreed that we did have a reservation.Our room was quite small and overlooked the street. Our booking was for a de-luxe room, so anything less would have been a bit basic.
The small bathroom had an incredible Heath-Robinson bidet arrangement attached to the toilet itself - did not have the courage to try it. The shower was meant to double up as a Steam room, but we had no instructions , and gave that a miss too.
The pleasant small garden was very overgrown and uncared for. I felt the whole hotel was gradually slipping away in quality, and lacked both investment and hands on management
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From here to the Ruta de Flores in El Salvador entailed crossing from Honduras, back into Guatemala and then into El Salvador. Roads in this part of the world are few and far between, so one has to follow the tarmac where possible.