Copan, Honduras

So when my new Dutch and German friends told me they were going to Honduras to visit the Copan Ruins I was jealous of their little adventure so immediately informed them I would be joining them. Initially I'd decided to skip Honduras (although I did travel through it already) because the location of their main tourist attractions was somewhat inconvenient. But hey, I have no plan. Why not travel for an entire day through Guatemala to get there?! 

Anyway, I won't lie. It was pretty cool. Definitely my favourite Mayan Ruins. What made it super cool was that some kind of bird loving conservationists have started a program to repopulate the area with Scarlet Macaws which were a very important animal to the Mayans. So as soon as we arrived at the site we saw these guys....

After spending at least 20 minutes marvelling at the birds we decided we should probably check out what those Mayans did. The actual site of the ruins is gorgeous and although it doesn't look too jungly, it's very very lush and I can confirm that I came away from there with at least 20 mosquito bites. 

The cool thing about this ruins is the carvings, statues and large heads dotted around the place. I didn't get to see that at Tikal (Guatemala) or Tulum (Mexico). 

There were lots of images of skulls which I thought was pretty cool. 

By the way, please don't ask me anything about the Mayans. I do not know. We wandered round without a guide and information is seriously limited there. 

Later that afternoon we decided to head to the bird sanctuary responsible for breeding these birds to release back into the wild. It's called Macaw Mountain and I'd highly recommend it if you're in Honduras. They are also a sanctuary for injured birds, birds confiscated from animal traffickers or those that have previously been pets but couldn't be cared for adequately. 

Here's a few which were confiscated. Unfortunately some of them can't be released into the wild if they can't fly, but they are given a nice home here. Some aren't even native to Honduras. The scarlet macaws are and the ones that can't be released are used for breeding. And the toucans definitely have to be one of the weirdest looking creatures around. Check out the beaks!

These green parrots are not native but are often sought after for the illegal animal trade. They cut off their long tail feathers which is very sad to see since they are such enormous birds. The sanctuary had quite a large number of these slowly recovering and regrowing their feathers. 

And the coolest part was. We got to hold some! 

This little one was my favourite though. What a cutie.

The guide at the park told us that the Macaws lay three eggs but only hatch two so they collect the third egg and also hatch those. Once they have a group of 30-40 birds (a mix of adults and juveniles) they will release them into another area like a national park. I was really impressed with the whole thing and it's privately run too. What good humans. 

So after a great visit to the bird sanctuary we headed back to the hostel through the very quiet streets of Copan. Even got to see a cute little pony on our way back. 

That night we went to have a few beers and play some pool with some of the local Cowboys. The next morning we all parted ways and I was in for a fairly ordinary start in Guatemala. Stay tuned...