Copan Ruinas

We rocketed downhill from La Palma to the Honduran border.  The border crossing went smootly and we continued on to Nueva Ocotepeque where we caught a bus over the mountains to La Entrada.  We were completely ripped off on the bus because of our bikes, paid at least 4 times the regular fare, but that seems to happen to us often.  We stopped at La Entrada so that Craig could visit Copan Ruins.  La Entrada is a middle of nowhere town that most tourist would just ride through on the bus.  We are staying at the classy Hotel Central and have everything we need within walking distance, Sarita (ice cream), Dispensa Familiar (groceries), Comedor Karen (good food!) and even night street vendors.  We went outside last night around 9 for food, not knowing what we´d find.  There were a few food stalls set up along the road side.  We picked one selling baleadas, which are white flour tortillas with beans and cheese. The ladies had a whole bucket of tortilla dough, with perfectly portioned balls ready to be made up.  So we got to watch them hand flatten the tortillas and cook them, it was neat to see.  And the food was good!

I didn´t plan to visit the ruins since I´ve already been and it´s rather expensive.  I figured I´d die of bordem if I stayed in La Entrada the whole day, so I decided to take the bus with Criag out to the town also called Copan Ruinas.  It´s very touristy, lots of old white people on organized tour groups.  But the town is cute with cobbled streets.  I did some reading, souvineer shopping and snacking while I waited the 2 hours for Craig to be done.  When he was back we went to a restaurant to try a local food called, anafre, which is similar to fondue.  It comes in a clay pot and has beans, cheese, sausage and tortilla chips.  I was very excited to try it.  As soon as we ordered at the restaurant, a huge group of local students (who I assume were on a field trip visiting the ruins), came in to have lunch.  The resturant turned into chaos at this point, and I think we may have been forgotten about as we waited close to an hour for our order, which is only an appitizer.  We ended up walking out before they ever brought it out, which isn´t something I´d normally do.  We walked down the street to a market where I´d seen a bunch of Comedores (local food restaurants).  We were excited when we saw a sign for empanadas (meat/cheese/bean filled turnovers that are fried), since we haven´t had many so far on this trip.  What we got however was not empanadas, it was pupusas!  We were rather disappointed, but ate them anyways.

Tomorrow we continue biking, it will be a two day ride to the beach town of Tela.