Honduras.

From our very nice visit at the waterfall we headed back the way we had come towards the town of Gracias, the area around Gracias is very beautiful and mountainous, much is forest. BUT we lost the tarmac, we were left with a road that is just gruesome it has all the things we hate - pot holes, corrugations, deep, deep ruts which are made by running water in the rainy season, the only thing we did not have was mud, BUT, of course we have DUST!!! I have just spent days getting the stuff out of my cab, now it’s full again!! For a while I kept hearing a tinkling sound, each time I put my head out of the window I couldn't hear it from the inside, I just could not tell if the noise was inside or outside. We stopped for afternoon tea, thankfully in the shade, (the sun is still very very hot) the tinkle was the back strap that holds my spare diesel tank in place! one side had broken its fixings and was banging on the road. “Houston I have a problem” the tank is 90% full and holds 230Lts aprox, weight aprox 250kilos. Some how we have to find some kind of strap to add to the other straps, thank goodness Ian is a 'belt and braces man'. The tank is suspended from the chassis by two stainless steel straps, added to this Ian has put two nylon web straps with some kind of a ratchet fastener making 4 straps total. I have two of these ratchet fixing straps spare in the truck, but do not know how to fix them or even undo the ratchet. But guess what between the three of us we worked it out and managed to get both of them helping to hold the tank in place. Continued slowly down this ** awful road, with L’n M behind me keeping an eye on the tank stopping for our night stop, checking our handy work nothing had moved. Next day we headed again down the awful road with L’n M checking my rear end until thank goodness we came to our beloved tarmac. Our worry was that because it is Easter this whole country is on holiday and everything is closed. We got to Gracias on Good Friday. We watched the Good Friday Processions and then managed to find a restaurant open and a good night stop, but no one to fix my tank, still fingers crossed nothing as yet has moved. We are told the road is tarmac to Santa Rosa de Copan the next biggish town. It is, we move more slowly than normal, not that we ever go very fast. Some of the car repair spots are open however, after stopping at a couple of no go’s Margaret spots a radiator repair; yes he will fix the strap. L’n M go off to find a laundry I eat my breakfast and do a couple of small chores and I am fixed, looks like a good job to me and cost 20$US, at which point L ‘n M return having found a laundry which will be ready at 1pm, we are all happy bunnies, they have also found a nice cool spot to park the trucks. Santa Rosa de Copan is a small very Spanish mountain town, with cobble streets and some lovely colonial buildings and large colonial church beside the central park. The church has a program of events for Easter on display Mass on Easter Sunday was at 4am.

Next morning before the 4am Mass the church had a procession around the town - this was very loud passing very close to our trucks !!!! We had decided to leave early trying to get to Copan Archaeological site before it was too hot, the road was good but it was still very hot by the time we got there, however the site still has a lot of trees left from when the jungle took over the site, so we were able to keep in the shade for most of the time. These Mayan Ruins have some remarkable stone carvings, we were told the best to be seen in all the ruins of either Guatemala or Mexico, we shall see!

The small part of the whole site which has been uncovered is very impressive I must say. The most impressive of all is the Hieroglyphic staircase. This flight of 63 steps tells a history in several thousand glyphs – of the royal house of Copan – the steps are boarded with ramps inscribed with more glyphs and reliefs the story is incomplete because only the first 15 steps were still in place, when it was found, the reconstructed stones were put back jumbled I guess - maybe one day some clever person will sort the jigsaw puzzle out. Hope so.

Next to this there is a ball court the second largest found in Central America. Here a game with an 8lb rubber ball was played by two teams of men! Was this the original football game? If your team lost you lost your head, however our guide told us the winning team captain lost his head as it was such an honor!!! Don’t really get that myself, which means if everyone is correct someone ended up dead!

I enjoyed the visit to the ruins, the guide was good, it was cool, I find it so amazing that people lived and loved here over 2000 years ago, it is believed that over 20,000 people lived here and moved away because of a very modern cause - the whole area was ecologically devastated. By the year 1200AD or thereabouts the jungle reclaimed what must have been a very beautiful city.

We enjoyed a lovely 3$US lunch in the cafeteria then visited the museum in the village Copan Ruinas this is a beautiful little village cobble stoned with white adobe buildings with red tiled roofs and beautiful central park full of palms and other jungle plants/flowers unfortunately parking was horrific as was the heat making a walk around the village a no go. Returning to the site of the ruins Les and I did a very small jungle walk spotting a number of birds but no jaguars. We also saw a Mahogany Tree I have never seen one before as trees go it was very ordinary, but I was very pleased to have seen it.

We had to leave the site for a night stop but returned the next morning to visit the museum on the site. The highlight here is the true scale reconstruction of the Rosalila Temple found in near perfect condition in 1989. Under the central building of the Acropolis. What happened here was that every 54 years the temples were knocked down and a new one built on the top of the old, but Rosalila was so sacred it was not knocked down but the next temple was built on the top leaving Rosalila in tact. The original is still untouched and still in situ. Amazing.

Now we return to Santa Rosa de Copan for a visit we hope to the cigar factory, also Les is having trouble with his brand new tyres, one of them keeps going flat!!!

The cigar factory, interesting, smelly, employing over 1,000 people every thing done by hand. However the girls did not roll the cigars on their dusky thighs! Instead they used a very large cigarette roller, Jocelyn used to have one! We were not allowed to take photo’s which was a shame ‘cause it was so interesting to show the photo’s would have been great. Every cigar is put into a small machine to make sure air can get through and it will infact “work”; three different tobaccos go into each cigar, the tobacco was very different in colour from very pale brown to very dark brown almost black. Enjoyable visit.

Les and Margaret then went off to do tyres, water, spring noise and look for batteries. I returned to the cool shady parking spot we had on our last visit. I then had a very lazy afternoon listening to an audio tape and drinking tea. Great.

L “n M had good success two wheels had holes in, which was why the tyre kept going flat. The noise needed grease. Whilst they were filling up with water found some batteries. So they are going back in the morning to collect two repaired tyres and two new batteries. We all hope. (Sad to say they were unable to get 2 new battries our search continues).

Me! I am sat in the cool of the truck listening to the carpenters and writing this. I was up at 5am to reorganize the boot in the cool, now that I know how to use those ratchet strap things! Although the sun is so very hot I am parked under trees and have a very nice cool breeze coming in the window. I have also done some washing and a little cleaning!

With luck L ‘n M will come back here and we will go for lunch together.