In 2007, I traveled back home to Honduras, and specifically to Copán, for the second time in 31 years. I was part of The Maya and More program that goes to Honduras, Guatemala and Belize. Holbrook Travel has been offering this program for more than a decade, and it is geared toward the history of the ancient and new Maya. My family and I moved to St. Lucia and Barbados in the Caribbean shortly after my first Copán visit and then moved to America seven years after that. By this visit, I had been working at Holbrook Travel for 11 years due to my great love of travel. It always rejuvenates me when I get the opportunity to see the different marvels the world has to offer and revisit places with great gravitational pulls such as Copán.

I was born in the coastal city of Trujillo, Honduras, so this program was taking me back to the country I once called home. Although the program did not go to Trujillo, I was delighted to know that I would revisit the mystical and whimsical Copán. Once there, it is hard to leave the charming colonial town lined with cobblestone streets, adjacent to the ancient Mayan empire, a place seemingly stopped by time.

At the age of five, I had marveled at the ruins and monuments and the many species of birds, including the Scarlet Macaws, herons, eagles and quetzals. The monkeys were gliding from branch to branch on the forest’s canopy and some would descend to the ground in hopes that you would give them a treat. I remember my mother saying, “This is where your grandmother’s grandparents’ parents come from; this place is in your blood.” Yawn, I thought. “Please give me some fruit for the monkeys,” I asked her. So are the priorities and curiosities of a child. As an adult, I read and did more research about the Maya and was ecstatic to see it through adult eyes, yet I still wouldn’t mind feeding the cute monkeys.

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For more information about The Maya and More program, visit: http://www.roadscholar.org/n/program/summary.aspx?id=1%2BJB%2B86