A pretty little town with cobblestone streets lined with adobe buildings, a laid back lifestyle and the ruins of a once great Mayan city, Copán Ruinas is a delightful place to relax and get away from it all for a few days, weeks, months, or even years.

Copán Archeological Site

Located in Western Honduras, the area's primary draw is the Copan Archaeological Site, located about half a mile from the town. It is an easy twenty minute walk along a paved walkway running alongside the highway or a short $1 tuk-tuk ride. At the ticket office, you can buy a ticket (good for one day) to the ruins ($15), the archeological tunnels ($15 and overpriced) and the Museum of Sculpture ($7).

A small bookstore next to the ticket booth sells books about the site – pick up a copy of History Carved in Stone by Fash and Agurcia Fasquelle. English speaking guides are available ($25/group for a two hour tour), well worth it if you go in a group, but make sure you talk to the guide first to test out his English. The entrance plaza also contains a cafe (try their baleadas, a sort of Honduran taco) and a handicrafts shop, though you are better off saving your money for the better articles sold in town.

Between the 5th and the 9th centuries, Copán was the site of the great Mayan kingdom of Xukpi, known for its monumental buildings covered with hieroglyphics. By the late 9th Century, the Xukpi civilization had come to an end, possibly because of the depletion of natural resources caused by unsustainable growth, and Copán disappeared back into the jungle, where it was forgotten until the early 19th Century.

Though little of the monumental buildings remain, the many hieroglyphic details, stelae (gravestones of many Copán kings) and sculptures that survive make Copán one of the most rewarding Mesoamerican sites to visit. Go early and you’ll have the place to yourself except for the many colorful macaws that fly, fight and play amongst the ruins.

The ruins are divided into three parts: the plaza, the Acropolis, and the East and West courts. Start at the plaza with its stelae, many of 18 Rabbit, the thirteenth Copán king whose defeat signaled the end of the kingdom. Colorful macaws fly up and down the plaza as if guarding the many spirits buried there. At the southeast end of the plaza is a Mayan ball court and the remains of a grand staircase with its hieroglyphics intact. A path from the southwest leads up to the Acropolis, with great views of the plaza and the East and West courts.

The East court contains the Rosalila temple, a temple constructed in 571 AD by King Moon Jaguar. The temple is mostly buried but a tunnel (tickets available at the entrance plaza) provides access for a rather blurred look from behind plexiglass shields at the buried exterior of the building. The same ticket provides access to a longer tunnel in the East court that is kind of fun to walk through but provides little insight into the ruins. The West Court contains a copy of a fascinating altar with beautiful carvings of the first 16 kings of Xukpi, each handing what looks like a baton to the next ending at Yax Pac, the 16^th king. The original is found in the Museum of Sculpture.

The Museum of Sculpture ($7), a sort of Louvre of the Mayan world, is not to be missed. Enter through the mouth of a serpent, walk up its gullet in the dark and you enter a brightly skylight-lit atrium with a life-sized reproduction of the Rosalila temple, complete with adobe stucco and paint. For anyone who has seen any Mayan buildings anywhere, it is a shock to see what the structures must have looked like in their time. The museum houses many sculptures (sculpture was unique to Copán in the Mayan world) and stonework recovered from the site.