So we saw our first Mayan ruins yesterday, hurrah! We ended up arriving in Copan at about 9:30, thus rendering the 4am bus ride highly unnecessary. We checked straight into our hostel, which instantly earned it´s $6 as it had hot showers! Oh the luxury. We hit the hay for a power nap after that, and once napped up, we hit the town! It´s really really pretty, and we had a cup of coffee looking over the main square, which ended up being pretty sweaty - it being baking outside. There was this armoured van right in front of us - and by armoured I mean Arnie himself couldn´t have got in, with about 6 armed guards around. But they (obviously) weren´t using the proven safe practice of holding your gun pointed at the floor... These guys point them in your face... And you just know the safety catches won´t be fully functional! We noticed that the police vans here are tuc-tucs whose maximum speed can´t be over 10mph which is just ridiculous - how they assert authority rumbling over the cobbled roads slower than most walkers I don´t know, but it was highly entertaining! So Thursday we spent just exploring the town, drinking licuado´s and generally eating far too much - a good day by all accounts!

Friday was supposed to dawn early so that we could hit the ruins before the crowds. Sadly that plan went astray when we slept through the alarm, but seeing as we were both practically the walking dead from exhaustion it was definately a good thing. After a nutritous breakfast of pancakes and coffee, we wandered upto the ruins themselves which only took about 10 minutes, rather than the forecasted 30 - your walking time is somewhat reduced if you´re neither a vertically challenged native, nor an overweight holidaymaker... Once there we managed to haggle a guide for $4 each (it should have been $20) which was an excellent price for an, albeit slightly informal, tour. The buildings were really cool though, and the benefit of having a guide, despite him smelling a tad of alcohol, was that we got to hear all the stories... Like they played a game fairly similiar to football which everyone would watch, and after the match the best player would be sacrificed - an honour everyone wanted apparently! We discovered they were exceedingly bloodthirsty - there were a number of stones whose soul purpose was to hold the recently decapitated head and let the blood trickle down the sides... Very nice. The only thing we felt was that they were a little bit unauthentic, as the actual city had been destroyed by earthquakes about 1000+ years ago and had been rebuilt by archaeologists in an interpretation of what it would have looked like. But it was amazing nevertheless. Looads of squabbling macaws with the most amazing colours in the trees.

So after 2 nights in Copan we hopped onto another early bus bound for Utila (yay!) which was to become our favourite destination.