After an uneventful border crossing we have found ourselves in Honduras, although just barely. We are in Copan which is just a few kilometers into Honduras.
Copan is known for its ruins, but we have found a lot more to do here as well. Our first full day here we spent at Macaw Mountain which is a bird sanctuary located just outside the town. They have 150ish birds that have been rescued or donated from people that started off keeping the birds as pets and then no longer could or wanted to care for them. The cages are huge and filled with foliage and everything a bird could want. Our entrance fee included an English speaking guide which was fantastic as he works with the animals everyday and has been for the past 4 years. The first "cage" we went into was the size of our house and full of scarlet macaws. They were flying around us, but seemed worried we were going to hurt the baby macaw, so we moved on before they ate my baby... I am surprised at how big the macaws are and I can't believe the colors!
The whole sanctuary is in a jungle, so just walking around is amazing. I have to say that the favorite birds for the girls were the toucans. Jason and I had seen green toucans in Costa Rica, but these toucans were so beautiful. We got to go right up to them which was fantastic because their beaks are very cool to look at.
There was also a cage housing birds that were stressed out from living in small boxes or cages prior to their arrival at the sanctuary. These guys had plucked out a lot of their feathers due to stress and were recovering. It was an excellent way to teach people about the effects of keeping wiild animals.
There was also a very cool swimming hole on the river that was in the sanctuary. It was a gate built over a small dam in the river and when they want to fill the pool up, they just close the gate. It takes about 10 minutes for the pool to fill and then they can just open the gate to let the water out. It wasn't full when we were there, but I took some pictures of it empty. Cool idea.
That is it for our day at Macaw Mountain. Tomorrow it is the Copan Ruins.
