"For making chocolate and tortillas in the sky"

Finally went to the ruins. I hired a guide and spent two hours wandering around the site and museum, learning all about the Maya in Copan. My guide was of Mayan descent and spoke Chorti, which is the dying Mayan language (although the tour was in English). Like a lot of the other guides, he helped work on the excavation and donated his knowledge of Chorti to interpret what the carved glyphs mean. He had a lot of interesting stuff to say. My favorite: the Maya didn't have cemeteries. They buried their dead underneath their houses with corn and cocoa beans, "for making chocolate and tortillas in the sky." 

The ruins themselves were really impressive. Most of the carved glyphs on the temples and statues are well preserved. And the site is a lot bigger than I realized, bigger than is these pictures.