I got up shortly before 7:00am, we went for breakfast, then walked the short 15 minute walk to the Copan Archaeological site. 300 lempira each to get in and we decided to hire a guide for 500 lempira as well. We first went to a residential area, a new part opened up to tourists only about a year ago. Guides usually don't take tourists there, as evidenced by the complete fact that we were the only ones there. It's still being excavated, and you can still find pieces of pottery and obsidian lying in the dirt that were used by the Mayan's all those centuries ago. The guide kept pulling pottery bits or sharp bits of obsidian from the ground to show us. He pulled one out and was quite taken aback with it. He remarked that it was a good one, cleaned it off and then showed us. It still had paint designs on it.
He then took us to the main site, which was very spectacular. It's considered the Paris of the Maya because the art and sculptures are the best of all the Maya sites, even though the buildings are not as grand as Chichen Itza or Tikal (but still impressive).
Our guide was awesome and really knew his stuff it appeared. As we were touring the main area, a woman we had seen at breakfast asked if she could join our tour and share the cost of the guide, which was fine with us. Her name is Theresa and she's from Portland, Oregon.
A bit later, the guide was sitting on a wall ledge, perhaps 4 feet off the ground, telling us about the area we were in. We got up to take some pictures, and as we walked away I heard some grunts and groans and then a thud. I turned around to see our guide laying on the ground on his side not moving. I initially thought he had fallen and broken a leg or arm, but we all went running to him and he was not moving, maybe slightly twitching. My dad thought he was having a heart attack, and that crossed my mind as well. We didn't know what to do, as we thought he was dying. Me and Theresa started yelling for help and another guide with a group of tourists walked over, not showing any alarm or rush and almost seemed annoyed that we'd disturbed his tour. He said he's fine and walked away! WTF? By this time, our guide was starting to move around on the ground again, albeit very confused and for some reason, seemed really keen on getting his right shoe off (which we did for him). He kept trying to get up, but we didn't think he was ready yet. He took his time and was back on his feet a few minutes later like nothing happened. I guess he can be prone to seizures and the other guides must know this, but for us it was a very scary experience.
What would have happened if he'd had an attack at the edge of one of the high walls or at the top of a stone staircase? He could've easily fallen and killed or severly hurt himself. Crazy.
After the tour, the three of us went for lunch at the cafeteria. We invited Theresa to join us tomorrow to the butterfly house and Macau Mountain bird sanctuary.
After lunch, she headed back to town and dad and I did the museum, a must see if you're ever here.
In Copan, newer generations of Maya have built over top of older Maya sites. Usually older Maya sites would be destroyed and newer buildings built on top. However at Copan archaeologists were shocked to find a completey intact shrine (called Rosalila) underneath one of the pyramids, when they were tunneling. Unfortunately, these tunnels are not for tourists, only for archaeologists, but they have built a full size replica of the Rosalila in the museum. In fact, archaeologists are finding even other building and burial shrines underneath Rosalila now! It's all very amazing!
Dad and I headed back to town and did journal updates. As I was writing, I started laughing to myself, imagining what my mom would have done if she was here and her guide collapsed.
We wandered around town and went to the a place for supper. We also decided to do a 3 day, 2 night ranch experience at Finca El Cisne before heading to Nicaragua. Rated very highly on TripAdvisor (http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g292022-d805128-Reviews-Finca_el_Cisne-Copan_Copan_Department.html)
No doubt I would have collapsed too (from fright).
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