banana split! (and Copan)

After 3 weeks of pining after banana splits at DD (which also has a Baskin Robbins in it) K, S, and I decided to take the plunge and get one. Sadly they only had tiny bananas and ran out of whipped cream 1/3 the way through. Boo! Above is a picture of our extreme disappointment (maybe an exaggeration) at our "banana split." Also, I'm totally aware that I'm talking about splurging on a banana split directly after I posted about being a fatty. Heehee.

Oh wait! I went to Copan this weekend! For those of you who don't know, Copan was an ancient Mayan city. It took us about 7 hours on a mini bus filled with Honduran teenagers to get to Copan from La Ceiba. Copan is only 11K from Guatemala so we got to see a lot of the Honduran countryside. Honduras is beautiful! It is very green with rolling hills. We passed various farms (bananas, corn, etc) with lots of cows... This was particularly exciting because a girl in our group is afraid of cows and kind of freaks out when she sees them (she thinks they're going to run after her and bite her arm). The roads are pretty bad (many rockslides and annoying speedbumps). There is also a fairly liberal passing policy on the roads here. Basically, it's perfectly acceptable for a minibus to pass a car on 1 lane curvy road with oncoming traffic.

The town of Copan is super cute. It's a little bit touristy and has a slight hippy feel to it. It seemed a lot cleaner than La Ceiba though there were more stray dogs roaming around. There also a bunch of tiny red minicabs (think covered tricycle motorbikes... I think they're little deathmobiles) racing around the cobblestone streets. There were a bunch of cute street vendors and cafes.

On Friday, after we arrived from La Ceiba, we grabbed lunch and explored the town. The next morning, we woke up early to go see the ruins. As some of you may remember, I was an anthropology major and took a Mesoamerican Civilizations class my sophomore year (thanks, Shawdog...). So what I'm saying is: like 8 years ago I knew something about the Mayans. And so walking around the Copan ruins was pretty exciting! The size and complexity of the structures were very impressive and we were even able to go in archaeological tunnels to see older ruins (each king would build a new city on top of the old one to signify his power).

After a full morning of ruins exploration, our group went horseback riding (don't worry I loaded up on allergy meds before the ride). Of course, my horse was the smallest and didn't want to move. I brought up the rear in true LRC fashion. Oh and not one but two horses decided to bite my legs (so random, I know). Halfway through the ride it started pouring down rain and we took shelter near an indigenous Mayan school where there were a bunch of cute kids trying to sell us handmade cornhusk dolls (I declined... sorry mom).

Our ride back to La Ceiba was treacherous and I wanted to kill myself because the highschool kids thought it would be fun to sing along to the bus driver's weird techno music and play clapping games. So so special. Anyway I'm exhausted now and it's almost time for bed (or last week of classes starts tomorrow!).

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