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25/1/10 - day 47.
wasnt gonna leave til about 7am, but i woke up at 6am so thought i might as well get going. glad i did as well cos it turned out there was a direct bus leaving at half 6 for the place i was going which i didnt realise. pleasant surprise as it meant i didnt have to worry about changing etc and i got to Santa Rosa de Copan about half 9. got a taxi up to the top of the hill where the town centre was - as usual i didnt fancy the hike with my backpack.
asked at the little tourist info kiosk about cheap places to stay and found one just a couple blocks from the centre. it was the usual single room, tv, own bathroom malarky and i even had hot water. went from there to a comdor and had potato salad, chicken and vegetables(!) for breakfast. it doesnt feel at all odd anymore to eat this type of food so early. had a walk around the town which was very similar to copan (all narrow, cobbled streets, etc) except bigger. went back to the info place and asked about the Flor de Copan ciger factory which does tours. there was one at 2pm so i had a couple hours to kill which i did by using the net.
the tour was really good, it was just me and the girl showing me around. she only spoke spanish, even though id read in the lonely planet it was available in english. i understood enough to cobble together an understanding of the process involved and watching the women (there were about 4 blokes in the entire place) put the cigars together was cool. they did have old looking machinery for some things but a lot of it is done by hand and it looks so tedious difficult and painstaking, im pretty sure id last about 8 minutes of the 8 hour shifts they do. the tiniest blemish and they cant sell the cigar. the whole tour was about an hour as she showed me all the stages and answered what questions i was able to ask. no free sample at the end though. in fact, i asked, and the staff dont even get a discount on the products, let alone any freebies!!
went back and chilled in my room with a bit of tv, then went to the worst book exchange ever. a book exchange is a book for a book, this was a book plus a dollar for a book. thats NOT an exchange. its theft.
found a pupusa place for dinner which i love and was awesome as i hadnt had them since nicaragua. good news is apparently they are a salvadoran food so i should be seeing more of them when i get there. back at the hotel there was a power cut so i couldnt watch tv, and there wasnt enough daylight to read so i was at a bit of a loose end. reminded me of certain nights in a certain flat-batteried campervan in new zealand! fortunately the power wasnt out for too long and then i watched a heap of aussie open tennis til i fell asleep.
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