Artisan's street, Copan Ruinas

Artisan's street, Copan Ruinas, a photo by Adalberto.H.Vega on Flickr.

Via Flickr:

The artisans' street in Copan Ruinas. Every weekend, this street is blocked to vehicles, and turned into a pedestrians' way, where everybody can admire and buy at bargain prices some excellent artwork and crafts exhibited by local and regional artisans. One of the little details that make this acquainted charming little town a true gem for tourists, besides the majestic Copan Maya Ruins.

La calle de los artesanos en Copan Ruinas. Cada fin de semana, esta vía se cierra al tránsito vehicular convirtiéndose en una peatonal donde los artesanos locales e internacionales exponen sus magníficas obras, las cuales estána la venta a precios muy razonables. Es una de las cosas de las que pueden disfrutar los visitantes en este pacífico y encantador pueblecito del Oeste de Honduras, además de las magníficas Ruinas de Copán.

Carpets of Copan, Honduras

Photo of the day - Carpets of Copan, Honduras | Gadling.com

via gadling.com

Thanks Meg Nesterov for choosing our photo of Copan "Semana Santa" Carpets as Photo of the Day.

If the street above looks a little more colorful than the average road, it's because the carpet has been rolled out for Semana Santa, or holy week leading up to Easter. The "carpets" are made from colored sawdust and flowers and illustrate the Stations of the Cross. There are many reasons to visit Copan in the western region of Honduras, but the procession that will march down this street on Good Friday morning (April 6 in 2012, if you want to start planning) is a big draw; arrive early to admire the "carpets". Thanks to Flickr user Adalberto H Vega for capturing them before they got trampled!

The Church and Central Plaza, Copan Ruinas

Parque Central e Iglesia, Copán Ruinas, originally uploaded by Adalberto.H.Vega.

The Central Plaza in Copan Ruinas, Honduras is going through some radical transformations. Apparently the municipal authorities had finally come to their senses and realized that the Central Plaza in a small town like Copan Ruinas should not have that many ornaments and walls inside.

It is the same situation as any other town in Honduras (or Latin America) that has the typical layout of the Spanish cities, with the church opposite to the government building. The Central Plaza doesn't have any walls or tall edifications inside, because buildings around have even more historical value to be appreciated from the plaza itself.

Although a properly maintained—beautifully adorned Central Plaza contributes to the embellishment of the city, Central Plazas should not be crowded with vision-obstructive elements that impede the view of those historically valuable buildings.

The actual Plaza with all those decorations inside (and an unnecessary wall in the south side) was created by the same architect who designed the Central Plaza in Puerto Cortes, but the difference in that city as compared to Copan —no offense to the Porteños— is that the only pretty element in the city is the Plaza itself. There are no historical buildings around worthy of singular appreciation.

Let's hope the remodeling process won't suffer the same interference as the so—called garden refurbishing.

Welchez Coffee and Copan Coffee Tour ~via Lexus Magazine

Learning the art of the bean at Honduras’ finest coffee plantation

Originally published in Lexus Magazine - by Mark Anders | Photography by Chris M. Rogers

A perfect cup of cappuccino served up by Guillermo Calderón, the Barista Cowboy.

The finca’s Guamos, or shade trees, help to produce some of the most savory Arabica coffee on the planet.

I’m kneeling in the dirt, straddling a long line of tiny leafy coffee plants. There are 25,000 of them here, rows upon rows, planted inside small black plastic bags each the size of my fist. A low, black tent-like structure protects the seedlings from the strong Honduran sun, which is already blazing and it’s only eight in the morning.

The author rides off to survey coffee plants at Finca Santa Isabel. Removing weeds from young coffee plants.

This is the plant nursery. Soon these “small soldiers,” as the workers call them, will be planted in some lush tropical plot on Finca Santa Isabel, the 375-acre Café Welchez coffee plantation in the northwest corner of the country, close to the Guatemalan border.

This is where I’ll be working for the next few days. For now, it’s my job to remove the weeds hat are infiltrating these bags. They call it “cleaning.” Working alongside me is Gregorio Lopez, a 12-year veteran of the finca. He’s teaching me proper weeding technique. Meanwhile I chat him up in my marginal Spanish. I probably should have concentrated more on the task at hand because suddenly my translator, Edgar Carranza, approaches, looking concerned.

Edgar, who is 19 years old, leads coffee tours on the plantation. “You see,” he says solemnly, “there is quite a situation here.” He nods towards Gregorio. “He’s saying that you might have taken out some other good plants.”

“I pulled the wrong ones?”

“Yes, apparently you took out one that’s actually a small oak tree. They use it to build things on the farm.”

“Crap. I’m sorry. I’m already messing up.”

“That’s right,” says my friend Chris, camera in hand. “All of a sudden the coffee is going to be a hell of a lot more expensive.” Still chuckling, I get back to my weeding, but now with more resolve. I want to prove to Memo that I’m ready to move on to the next job.

Memo is short for Guillermo Calderon, but I call him Jefe Grande—Spanish for “Big Boss.” He’s 35, manager of the plantation, and though he seems like a serious, down-to-business kind of guy, the first time I called him Jefe Grande, he cracked a big smile. Memo is all cowboy. He’s six feet tall, 230 pounds, and carries himself with a confidence you’d expect from a man who operates a huge farm like this. But he’s also a gentleman farmer, an accountant turned classically trained barista. He can pour all sorts of elaborate designs in cappuccinos, and is highly knowledgeable about the coffee growing process. He’s a man of many names, so I add one more—I think of him as the Barista Cowboy.

Memo deftly leads me through it all, spouting off stats about soil samples and nitrogen and potassium content of the dirt. He talks of optimum humidity levels and elevation and organic fertilizer. The salient points are that Finca Santa Isabel, a 50-year-old farm, is predominantly a shade-grown, organic plantation. Unlike clear-cut coffee farms that are harvested by machine, this finca has guamos, or shade trees, that shield the coffee trees from heavy sunlight and provide a flourishing insect and bird habitat (with 80 species of birds) that eliminates the need for chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The result: an Earth-friendly process that produces some of the most savory Arabica coffee on the planet.

“Mark, come!” booms Memo, gesturing for me to follow. I have to jog a little to catch up, while our small entourage—Edgar, Gregorio, and two other caporales (supervisors) from the farm—trails behind.

Honduran wildlife, coffee tour bus, hand-crafted boots, traditional dress, Copan Ruins, and “Big Boss” Guillermo Calderon.

To the rest of the workers, I’m Gringo Loco— literally, “Crazy White Guy.” They think I’m crazy because I actually want to work on the plantation. This is tough, getting-your-hands-dirty kind of work, and most gringo tourists would rather cruise the finca on the tour bus and stroll around the plantation with Edgar. Meanwhile, I spray coffee plants with organic fertilizer, dig for worms in piles of rich, pungent compost made of coffee bean pulp, and clear brush and weeds from around mature coffee trees with a machete. This is serious labor and my triceps are burning. I also dig holes with a posthole digger. A skilled worker can do 300 in a day—but I do six and I’m ruined. Then I transplant the young coffee plants. Next, one of the caporales shows me how to use a machete to trim the tops off the coffee trees to keep them low enough for the pickers. They call this method “rock and roll” since experienced workers can quickly top a row of trees, one after another.

By lunchtime each day, I’m starving. We gather at Las Cascades, the finca’s treehouse-like café secreted within a thick rainforest. One afternoon as I burst into the café with Memo, muddy and sweaty with my rubber boots and cowboy hat, I get quizzical looks from the tourists on the official coffee tour. I may look out of place, like I’m playing cowboy, but I feel proud—cool even—because I’m rolling with the Jefe.

The Honduran coffee bean journey, from picking to roasting: Harvesting coffee, red beans, sun-drying process, and roasted beans.

“Este es Café de Mark,” the boss tells me as i scatter the beans.

Together we eat a brilliant plato típico, or typical Honduran food. There’s tender locally raised beef and Chicharones, homemade corn tortillas, green chiles, lightly fried plantains, and, of course, the coffee. Memo brings me a delicately poured cappuccino with an intricate spider web he’s drawn into the foam with chocolate syrup. And then he delivers me a rich, piping hot espresso. All perfect.

“Some testers say his coffee has a lot of spices other than chocolate, like a peach taste,” Edgar says, translating for Memo. “He’s saying it’s due to the work of the bees. They go around from flower to flower, like to citrus trees, lemons, other types of plants, and then back to the coffee plants, and that’s pretty much how these spices travel around in the coffee.”

Later we tour the farm by horse, galloping up and down steep pitches of rainforest, through narrow streams, and alongside rows of mature trees being harvested by teams of workers. Ever the cowboy, Memo packs his black steel pistol in a holster on his hip—“for security” he says.

In the late afternoon, as most of the workers pile into the beds of pickup trucks for their commute home, I join Memo and about a dozen other workers for a game of pelota, a fast-paced form of soccer played on the slick concrete pad where the farm’s coffee beans are sun dried.

These are the first few days of the harvest season and I can tell Memo is excited. For the next three months he’ll work from dawn to dusk supervising more than 300 workers as they pluck the valuable berries from the trees. An experienced picker can harvest 200 pounds a day, and every season Santa Isabel produces up to 5,000 sacks—a total of between 400,000 and 500,000 pounds—of coffee beans. Honduras is only the 10th-largest producer of coffee in the world, but thanks to fincas like this one, the country has quickly become known for its rich, pure beans, which are snapped up mostly by Europe and Japan. They may not have the Juan Valdez–size advertising budget of the Colombian coffees, but in-the-know baristas and connoisseurs revere Honduran coffee.

Not all of the berries at Santa Isabel have ripened into their characteristic red and yellow colors, but there’s still plenty of activity on the farm. Workers emerge from the thick green foliage, each with his own waist-mounted plastic bucket for carrying the berries he’s picking at the moment, plus a big yellow burlap-like sack for his entire day’s harvest. Using both hands simultaneously, each picker deftly twists the ripe berries and pops them into the bucket. In the afternoon, they all meet in an open-air pavilion where the daily weigh-in happens. Memo presides over it all, flanked by Alexa, a cocoa-eyed, 22-year-old woman who tallies each worker’s harvest, both by number of gallons and quality of the berries picked.

One by one the workers proudly pour their sacks into the hopper. The beans look like marbles and I enjoy running my fingers through them. Memo asks me to hold my foot on the trapdoor as he judges each harvest. The workers hold their breath slightly and wait for his verdict. I can sympathize with them because I too have taken my turn harvesting and then presenting my meager haul to Memo, garnering a mixed review. Too many greens, he often scowls, but occasionally he offers praise. Then with a curt adios he tells me to lift my foot and send the berries tumbling down a chute to the holding tank below. Next, a machine groans to life and begins separating the good berries from the bad.

Rancho Las Cascadas Cafe at the Finca Santa Isabel plantation.

Each berry contains two coffee beans, and it takes extensive washing to remove the thick, fibrous husk. After the beans are washed, they are sent through a neatly tiled water canal system with a series of locks and dams that separate the husks and pulp from the beans. After that the beans are sent to another vat where they are left to ferment for 12 to 40 hours. Some plantations skip this process but Memo insists that it is the key to superior aroma and taste. Like a kid, I slop around in the vat with beans up to my knees before sending them down another chute where they’re staged for drying.

It takes five days to dry beans on the soccer field, three days on drying tables inside a greenhouse, or just 40 hours in the drying machine. Most are dried using a combination of all three methods before their 17 minutes of roasting, which brings the inner temperature of the beans to around 390 Fahrenheit, thereby producing their medium–dark brown color.

Out on the concrete soccer pitch in the bright afternoon sun, I get a huge batch of beans ready for roasting. I’m pushing them gently back and forth with a handmade wooden rake, turning them over for more sun. The rhythmic flow to it becomes hypnotic—part meditation exercise, part hockey rink Zamboni duty. All the while I recall the people I’ve met on the farm, and the work I’ve done over the past couple days, and that’s when I start to truly appreciate the magnitude of work and sweat that goes into producing each cup of coffee. “Este es café de Mark,” Memo says as I scatter the beans.

Even with my lackluster Spanish, little is lost in translation: This is Mark’s coffee. Funny, but true. I can’t help but smile as I realize that soon, somewhere, maybe at a tiny sidewalk café in Paris or in a Starbucks in the States, someone will indeed be enjoying the fruits of my labor.

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE
The quaint cobblestone village of Copan Ruinas is about 2.5 hours from the airport in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. MC Tours - Honduras (mctours-honduras.com) can arrange for an escorted tour, accommodations and/or private transportation within the country.

STAY
Hotel Marina Copan is a warm, 51-room boutique hotel ideally situated beside the town’s main plaza, with plenty of good shopping and restaurants nearby. (hotelmarinacopan.com)

EXPERIENCE
Take the Copan Coffee Tour at Finca Santa Isabel, which includes a bilingual guide; breakfast, lunch, or brunch at Rancho Las Cascadas; and a shuttle to and from the Copan Ruinas. (cafehonduras.com) Explore the Parque Arquelogico Ruinas de Copan, site of one of the most elaborate cities of the Mayan Empire.

TASTE
Try Welchez Copan Gourmet Coffee for yourself. The online store offers light and dark roast, whole bean or already ground. (cafehonduras.com)

A good opportunity to visit Honduras

As in many other cases regarding destinations, Honduras situation is mainly one of wrong-perception in sense of issues that may affect travelers.

Central Park, Copan Ruinas

We have a calm environment since even before the elections back in November 2009, and there has been no signs of safety and security threats along the country.

The US Embassy had canceled the travel alert to Honduras: “…Since the peaceful and transparent elections on November 29, 2009, political violence in the country has decreased considerably. The State Department canceled the travel alert for Honduras on December 8, 2009…” ~http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1135.html

And Canada Foreign Affair's website regarding Honduras shows that “…There is no Official Warning for this country. …” ~http://www.voyage.gc.ca/countries_pays/report_rapport-eng.asp?id=121000

If anything, this low demand situation, has caused hotels in main touristic sites like Roatan and Copan to drop their prices down to 50% discounts, which could be a good opportunity for Adventure Travelers to come and visit our country.

West Bay Beach, Roatan

A few samples of current promotional packages here: http://bit.ly/anqeu1 and here: http://bit.ly/bs5aEi

Original Rosalila Temple, Tunnels - Copan Ruinas Maya Site

Come and take advantage of these specials to visit this 'off-the-beaten-path' destination, You will truly enjoy it!

Keel-billed Toucan - Macaw Mountain Bird Park - Copan Ruinas, Honduras

Keel-billed Toucan - Macaw Mountain Bird Park - Copan Ruinas, Honduras, originally uploaded by Adalberto Hernandez Vega.

The Keel-billed Toucan (Ramphastos sulfuratus), also known as Sulfur-breasted Toucan, Rainbow-billed Toucan, is a colorful Central-South American bird with a large bill. It is the national bird of Belize.

This one is at the Macaw Mountain Bird Park in Copan Ruinas, Honduras, a nice private bird reserve where they take have macaws, parrots, toucans, owls, hawks and more.

Meals - Hotel Marina Copan, Honduras

Meals - Hotel Marina Copan, Honduras, originally uploaded by Adal-Honduras.

Aren't these dishes delightfully inviting? Part of the regional cuisine of Western Honduras, some samples of what you can enjoy in Copan Ruinas.

Upper left (and clockwise): 1: Breakfast at the Junior Suite's balcony, Hotel Marina Copan. 2: Coffee Flan dessert. 3: Brochetas del Sol (Sun Sheesh Kabob), Fresh marinated cubes of beef and chicken tenders, corn, and vegetables, covered in champignon sauce, plus guacamole, rice and 'tostones' (fried green plantain). 4: Tropical chicken salad: Chicken, champignons, yogurt, celery, spices, served on a pineapple half, plus watermelon.

• Hotel Marina Copan

Some more exquisite delights:

Cozy kitchen - Copan Ruinas, Honduras

Our thanks to Karen Walrond writer from AOL travel blog Gadling.com who has chosen another of our flickr photos as yesterday's Photo of the Day 6.29.09.

Copan Canopy Tour - at Lonely Planet forum

Zipline in Copan 

One of the most fun parts of Copan was doing the zipline. Its called the Canopy Tour de Los Sapos. Its about a mile walk from the south of town, or you can arrange a pickup from some of the tour operators in town. Its fairly pricey, I think it was $35 US per person, but it was definitely worth it. Its several kilometers of zipline over the canopy, and you can see the ruins from the zip line. The longest zipline was about a kilometer. - travelinggnome08

Museum of Maya Sculpture: Rosalila Temple replica

via flickr.com

Inside the Sculpture Museum at Copan Ruinas, Honduras. This magnificent full-scale replica of the Rosalila Temple, restored to its original colors and high relief 'stucco' façades, lies showing all its splendor.
Undoubtedly a unique sample of the beautiful Maya World art.

Posted via web from adal's posterous

Birds of Honduras

Copan Ruinas based naturalist Robert Gallardo  has compiled an extensive and most interesting repository of valuable information about the birds' species found in Honduras in his website “Birds of Honduras ”.





The interactive way of presenting this info becomes a valuable treasure for every birdwatcher interested in this region. Here you can read information on the species, enjoy nice photographs, and listen to some of the birds calls recorded by Robert himself. There are more than 380 species listed in the Website and include: Lovely Cotinga (Cotinga amabilis), Honduran Emerald (Amazilia luciae) endemic to the country, Harpy Eagle (Harpia harpyja), several species of Motmot and the elusive Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno).

His experience and knowledge of Honduras flora and fauna, including orchids, butterflies and specializing in birds, is a result of his numerous travels throughout the country both as a scientist doing field work and as a Tour Guide including Olancho, the World Heritage Site of Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve , Pico Bonito National Park, and Copan Ruinas.

Born in Southern California, Robert's interest in nature developed during his numerous family camping trips. He has a degree in Natural Resource Planning and Interpretation. Thanks to joining the Peace Corps and being sent to Honduras in 1993, his passion for tropical natural history took off.

Robert has identified and added more than 20 new species of butterflies to the country's list and 17 new bird records. Two orchids he has collected are currently under investigation as being new for science. Robert and his wife Irma had completed the country's first work on native orchids in compact disk. It features over 170 species with around 350 wonderful photographs and bilingual English/Spanish text.

The natural history tours have continued to grow with each year seeing new companies coming to Honduras. They have been a good source of field data and personal satisfaction. — Robert Gallardo, Birds of Honduras

Their property in Copan Ruins in western Honduras: Enchanted Wings Butterfly Farm  is a fine Nature Center, unique in Honduras. It has a butterfly house, collection on display, native orchid exhibit and botanical gardens. Soon they will add an insect museum, reptile exhibit and an eco-lodge.

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