Roadside stand + Weird Tropical Fruits= Irresistible to Mom. Here I am attempting to explain what the heck a Nispero and Zapote are (and hinting at why they haven't made it stateside yet (they taste kind of strange).

Nope, Russell Crowe hasn't come to El Salvador to shoot Gladiator 2: Pluto's Revenge. Its just same old me sporting a new look :)

After spending the night in Metapan, we headed up to the cloud forest that rings the peak shown here.

El Salvador contains less then 1% primary forest (uncut for several hundred years) and the difference is noticeable in the upper half of the park with big trees, moss, bromeliads and greenery everywhere. An important sanctuary for wildlife, majority of the park closes for half the year to encourage breeding (it would make things kind of difficult if the whole town was walking by your marital bed all the day).

At the top of the mountain, the countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras come together (If this were the US we would of course have to put up a gigantic fence rather then just a miny phallic tower)

Our park guide (who had been working there for over 30 yrs, since it became the first park in ES) led us through some rather steep terrain.

Both my parents and my sister purchased hammocks woven by hand over the course of several weeks by a woman in LC and at $20 a steal

This Panoramic encompasses the main plaza of Copan Ruins. This prominent Mayan city tucked in a fertile river valley deep in the Honduran Mountains probably supported around 20,000 people at its peak around 800 A.D. Despite being at the very southern edge of the Mayan Civilization, Copan was no provincial backwater.

Dad reached back through his connections to get us a tour from a Honduran Archaeologist who has worked in Copan his entire career.

No Meso-American site would be complete without its ball-court of course (maybe this is where the mania for soccer comes from?)

Copan is most famous for two things. The first are a series of magnificent"stellas", huge relief figures of the ruler as a demigod. The sides and back are filled with Hyroglyphics that extol the ruler and his ancestors.

With no Rosetta Stone, Mayan Hyrogliphics (invented completely independently in the New World) have only been deciphered in the last 25 years, hugely enriching our knowledge of their histories. One can only imagine the insights that would have been opened up to us if the Catholic priests had gathered and burned all the Mayan books in the 16th century.

The second is known as a "The Hyroglyphic Stairway". The entire stairway is made up of hyroglyphics which recount the history of Copan's rulers from the "founder" to the one who initiated this massive project.

To show off their wealth and status, Mayan drilled holes in their teeth and filled them with Jade...hmm I wonder if they rapped too?

The museum was filled with all sorts of spectacular and fantastic carvings (and remember everything was done without metal tools!)

What we see at sites to day is but a pale imitation of how these cities appeared 1,200 years ago. Instead of the gray stone we see today, Temples, pyramids and other important structures were all covered with stucco and painted brilliant colors (which have only survived the centuries in very special cases). The temple pictured above was carefully preserved and buried completely intact by the Mayan as they constructed a larger pyramid on top. From digging tunnels under the later structure archaeologists have been able to re-construct the earlier temple in all its original glory.

"Me, Tarzan"

Mayan sites are favorites of the New Age crowd (must have something to do with all the pyramids)

To split up the rather long drive back (around 7 hrs) we stopped at a little lodge up near the top of El Salvador's highest point (for you historians the same place I was ignomiously thrown off last January)

Peaking at over 9,000 ft, the weather is significantly cooler on el Pital (it even snows every couple years) which allows for the cultivation of cabbage on its slopes

We got a little bit of touring in SS stopping by the church where Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated on March 34, 1980, kicking off a 12 year conflict that ravaged El Salvador. (also visited in January of last year)

Of course being her first visit to El Salvador, my sister had to be introduced to Pupusas, and even got the chance to try her hand at it (their hands are a slight bit better at it then ours)

Uno was a smashing success with the kids though I was thinking maybe we should rename it "ONE!"

The Last Supper