The most uneventful day of the trip so far, beginning at 3:10am (shower and final pack) before leaving Antigua on a 4am bus. By bus, I mean a very cramped mini van with ten or twelve people squeezed in. The woman Natasha and I sat next to didn't seem to want to move up, so at first I was only partially sat on the seat. Lovely. Jeremy started feeling ill pretty quickly at the back, so I offered to swap with him, and ended up at the back in the corner. There was less leg room, which I didn't mind so much, but I was next to Ernesto. I managed to sleep for a while, but as soon as I woke up he proceeded to annoy me, wind me up and poke me for HOURS. There was nothing to do to make him stop! He really is worse than a child, and the bus journey was more than seven hours. I was so glad when it was over, and happy that we were to say goodbye to Ernesto once we crossed the border!
The border crossing was uneventful - got another passport stamp :-) - and there was a 15 minute drive to our hotel in Copan Ruinas, Honduras. We're staying at a place called Hotel Patty, which makes me think of Spongebob Squarepants. We said goodbye to Ernesto and met our new guide, Augusto. He's mid-forties, from Costa Rica, and a lot more professional - I like him already. He's going to be with us until the end of my trip. 
We were given a few hours to rest, shower (no hot water unfortunately) and then we met for a walking tour of the city. Copan Ruinas is quite small, with lots of steep cobbled streets and views of green hills. We walked through the Parque Central, and saw a photography exhibition of the first archelogical expeditions to Copan at the turn of the twentieth century in the municipalidad. We're going to Copan tomorrow morning - the Maya site that dates back to 426AD. After parting ways from Augusto, the four of us wandered through Copan Ruinas in search of cold drinks. It feels considerably hotter here in comparison to anywhere we've been so far. We found a cool place with lots of pictures, license plates and records on the walls and things hanging from the ceiling. The waitress carried things - like Rose's pina colada - on her head up the stairs to us, which was quite impressive. We ended up sharing two plates of chips between us, and then the rain set in. It was torrential, to the point where we leave the mezzanine to take shelter downstairs, and the power cut off for quite a while. We didn't leave for at least two and a half hours, and by the time we got back to our hotel we were five or so minutes late to meet Augusto for tea.
Augusto took us to a nice-looking restaurant for tea. I wasn't feeling very hungry so just ordered something small - empanadas with queso (cheese) and a limonada con agua (lemonade with water - see, I'm picking up the language already, haha). Unfortunately, the empanadas weren't that nice, but there was lots of tomato ketchup available so I powered through. Jeremy insisted on paying for my meal because of how I swapped with him on the bus this morning (compensation for Ernesto!) which was really nice of him. Feeling pretty tired, we all went straight back to the hotel afterwards and I had a relatively early night.
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