7/3 -- Joya de Ceren, Drive to Honduras

We left  San Salvador  at 8am, our luggage packed on a rack on top of our small bus.

The bus for our group of 14 with all our stuff packed on top.

On the way to our first stop, Luis shared more of El Salvador's history. As we passed the American Embassy, he told us it used to be the second biggest in the world, and is still the largest in Latin America. Since El Salvador is so small, this seems surprising, but it is based on the close relationship of our two countries. According to Luis, El Salvador at one time petitioned to become a US state and had a flag very similar to ours.

Our first stop of the day was Joya de Ceren (Jewel of Ceren -- the farmer on whose land this was discovered). This is an ancient site that was buried for centuries under many feet of volcanic ash and only discovered by accident. The area was being excavated to build grain storage silos and a bulldozer driver started plowing through what he recognized as a clay wall structure and immediately stopped. Originally, it was thought that the building only dated 200 years back, but proved to be from 600 AD, following the eruption of a local volcano.

The sort of diagonal cut at the front of this building is from the
bulldozer. It amazes me that the driver had the presence of
mind to realize this might be important.

We started in a small museum with a number of photos and a few artifacts from the excavation. Fortunately, many displays had English translations.  This was a farming village, which is unusual since most excavations are stone buildings for the elite. Clay buildings do not withstand the elements, so the ash is responsible for the state of the preservation. All the excavated areas now have metal roofs to limit further degradation.

Bowl in the museum

The archeologistshave been very clever: when regular holes were found in the clay, they were filled with plaster and revealed the location of internal 'rebar' in walls and things like fence posts.  A sweat lodge with a domed ceiling has a huge dent in it that also collapsed the ceiling, the result of a volcanic rock that landed on it. The sweat lodge has been recreated in a nearby area to better show what the buildings looked like.

Storage shed

Kitchen

Living area

Damaged sweat lodge

Recreated lodge with thatched roof missing from original

From there, we continued our trip to Honduras, by way of Guatemala (the most direct route). Before lunch, we took a quick side trip to a lake in a collapsed crater called  Lake Coatepeque, which was truly beautiful.

After  lunch, we crossed into Guatemala, passing dozens of trucks waiting to cross the border. Ships that are too big for the Panama canal or too cheap to pay the $300,000 crossing fee offload their cargo and have it shipped across a  narrow part of Central America, requiring a couple border crossings. The owners of the cargo, not the drivers, are responsible for submitting the proper paperwork, so sometimes there is a lot of waiting involved.

As a Guatemalan, Luis was more than happy to fill us with information about his country and the challenges it has faced and is still facing,

We arrived at our hotel near the Copan ruins earlier than expected, which gave us a chance to walk a lovely nature path before dinner. After a day of riding on a bus, this felt great. Many of the trees and shrubs were labeled with their names and uses too (unfortunately, not including the beauty below!).