Free Day in Copan

Finally a free day with nothing on the agenda. No excursions, no plans, nothing beyond what I'm in the mood to do. As usual I arose early, had my coffee, and was out wandering about Copan not long after the sun rose. I so cherish such quality "self time" and am certainly going to relish today.

This has been a very busy vacation, obviously and time to post as been scarce. As such, I'm going to hammer out an abbreviated list of some of the most recent highlights of the trip since I last posted. Most likely, I'll expound on some of the more interesting points once I get home next week.

1. Expedition to Guatemala. Yesterday seven of us piled into the back of the pickup truck to make a trip over into Guatemala. Our destination was Esquipulas, the location of a large church famed in this area for its statue of a black Jesus. Such a trip was more sacred for my friends down here than to me. I more or less viewed the whole thing as a novel curiosity and I was and am still trying to decide which was more of the curiosity: the statue itself or the behavior of the devout. They certainly take such things very seriously. Probably more on this later.

2. Maya Ruins and Coffee Plantation. On Wednesday I toured the principal Maya ruins here in Copan and got many good pictures. That afternoon we ventured up to the top of a nearly mountain to visit a working coffee plantation. This was my own pilgrimage of sorts and it was interesting to see the process from picking the coffee cherries to the sorting, washing, and sun drying. It's a small operation but their coffee is very, very good.

3. Cutting coconuts. My host as a tall coconut tree in his front yard and a few days ago we got one of the local guys familiar with such things to climb the tree and cut several bunches of coconuts that were ready for picking. It's a rather tedious affair in the sense that the picker is way up in the top of the tree and climbing here and there as though he possessed a natural aboreal ability. As is the supposed tradition, I was the first to drink the water from a coconut once it has been cut open. Rather interesting save for the bits of coconut husk and probably a few ants or whatever else was cavorting about on the coconut at the time.

Will close for now. Happy New Year, everyone.