Copan Ruinas is the name of the town and the name of the famous Mayan ruins. The small town of Copan Ruinas is set on a steep hill with cobble Stone streets and old colonial buildings (cobble Stone roads look cool but aren‘t the most fun thing to drive or walk on). There is not much to do in town but out of town there are several natural related activities. In the morning we went to the Copan Ruins. It only took us about 2 hours to walk and after Tikal we were not too impressed. These ruins were pretty small comparatively and not as many were dug up as the map indicated. Kinda disappointing. On the other hand, these ruins are famous for the finely preserved Mayan hieroglyphics and sculptures which were actually impressive.

So after walking around the ruins and taking pictures we went on a natural walk through the forest (still in the National Park) imaging what the area looked like to the Mayans (as the sign at The Entrance told us to do). We came across another ball court in the middle of the forest, that was not on the tourist map, and lots of cool spider webs. The trail ended at the park parking lot where van was parked.

Since the ruins only took a few hours we decided to go to another popular attraction: Macaw Mountain. Macaw Mountain is a bird sanctuary that collects abandoned and endangered birds. We saw, of course, lots of macaws, local parrots, toucans, owls, and hawks. My favorite was the toucans.

Ryan got a great picture of one.

The rest of the day we went back to town and hung out with some other backpackers.