Copan, once called “the Athens of the New World” for its 400-year reign as the Maya world’s undisrupted cultural, artistic and architectural center, was the starting point to explore more of the new city and the nearby ruins.
After a walk through the village and a stop by the post office to mail the key of my hotel in Gracias, which I accidentally carried through the last stage I walked the few kilometers to the ruins.
As a Tour d’Afrique cyclist you can be sure you always feel in heaven when you are at a rest day location.
However you need to qualify for the best treat and the rules are unknown 
Here is how Jessica sleeps the 2 nights in Copan Ruinas (incl. a complementary bottle of red wine)!
117,0km – 2628m up – 2748 down – 5947 kcal – 9h
4 days into this section, the wind stopper looks already kind of stained from the battles of the past stages. However the mood is still ok and I leave Gracias with a smile in our faces, indicating, that Cristiano cannot scare us with his route changes.
Today we received riding instruction that only lead us to lunch. Thereafter was the ‘unknown’, as a new track needed to be found.
One of the earliest starts into the day: 6:20h left camp with a quick and easy rolling downhill for the first 30km. Thereafter the climbs started and continued for the next 50km – 35km thereof on dirt and gravel. The 15km on tar were easier as expected and at 9:30, after a first coke and cookie stop at a gas station we turned into the torture section. The scenery was stunning and the weather fairly hot on the first part into the climb. But this changed after every corner.
We had already climbed 1500m until lunch at km 69. However to get there was a pain on never ending short climbs. A group with David, Jos, David, Michiel and I – Jessica ignored us at the gas station, thinking ‘local’ guys are shouting after her – made it there by noon.
The continuation directions read like this: ‘brutal ups & downs – push bike’ from km 75 to 80. Fortunately the total distance was corrected to only 117km as opposed to the predicted 130km. Pavement to be hit at km 87. The 18km to get there were the described brutal. After every corner and short downhill you expected another punishment, which did not wait for long. You could always see what is next and others, who were a bit ahead waking their bikes uphill. With grades of 18% – 21% the climbs were breath taking and some too steep to stay on the bike, without fear to fall of the bike with exhaustion.
The final 37km to town were a gift with a 1000m elevation drop and lots of stops to finally take some photos.
Unfortunately, the day ended with 2 accidents at a speed bump in a village, just 24km prior to camp. 1 involved Astrid, our tour communicator and writer. She fell badly over the speed bump, just 200m ahead of me. I only recognized it was her, after I came closer to help with first aid. Luckily she regained conscience after a while and did not have major injuries.
This python was on a branch just outside of Copan Ruinas …
114,5km – 2173m up – 2596m down – 4942kcal – 9:20h
Another early start into the day to make sure there is sufficient time to make it to camp.
The stage started with a hard but scenic climb on rough gravel in the morning, with rolling downhill in the second part of the day. I felt 
like being back home into Black Forest – the water was running down the rivers, birds were singing in the pine woods. Nice farms and plantations were found all along. 
Some riders enjoyed the rough terrain more than the others. But it was a sheer pleasure to ride through this fantastic part of the country.
I was going a controlled pace to save energy for the afternoon, which was supposed to be not that easy. After lunch at 67km there was another climb into head wind, which made the situation not even better. Until camp the hills were rolling up and down making progress slow, but steady.
The hotel is a very nice hotel, run by a Dutch lady, with beautiful garden arrangements. Food was excellent and plenty. Too bad, that this is only for a short stop-over.
113,5km – 2072m up – 2179m down – 4440 kcal – 8:11h
The day started well with a nice downhill on the Pan Americana giving our tired legs more time to recover. The view into the valley was stunning, but also gave a glance of the mountain range, that we have to master in the afternoon. No wonder, our next hotel is named ‘Hotel de Montana’
Not everyone stated the day with pleasure. Michiel had his first flat 2km from hotel. After the long downhill on tarmac we turned into a gravel road through a wide valley with a refreshing river crossing. The ride to lunch was ‘slow’. At 50% of the distance we had only 30% of the daily climbs mastered. The sun was burning hot during the climb to lunch, but dropped from 30°C to 12°C in the afternoon. The weather conditions 
are ever changing. Hot in the sun, chilling, when behind clouds. Our sweaty and wet cloths add a lot to the temperature recognition.
Apropos wet cloths: With only 2 sets of cycling outfits, always late camp arrivals, often rain or drizzle it is hard to get a dry set of 4 to 5 cycling days. This is when you start taking the semi-wet two day old set into bed, to dry it further with your body heat during the night …
The hotel was nice, with half a dozen pools in the garden area. The rooms spacious with queen sized beds. The shower was fantastic. It had hot water and 2 showerheads. A seat at one end allowed for simultaneous back massage, with the wall mounted shower, while using the 2nd showerhead on a hose. Unfortunately the supposed to be ‘in-room internet’ did not work in our room, because the power supply for router missing.
The restaurant service was slow 
I had to wait for 50mins to get my sandwich and fries. Time that I had wanted to use to prepare my bike for the next hard day. The dinner rich, but almost cold
112,6km – 2171m up – 2143m down – 4961 kcal – 9:20h
This was just the ‘right’ start into the new section, after my stomach problem. I partially recovered over the rest day and could finish this first of 4 consecutive brutally long and challenging cycling days.
We left camp in the rain, climbed out of town and had a fast downhill. The rest of 
the day was climbs to regain the elevation loss. The weather conditions constantly changes from valley to valley. This is an area were sugar cane is grown and the whole family celebrates harvesting and bring home heavy loads of with their oxen carriages.
Today the kids were playing us nuts with our ‘red’ tour marker tape, that we use to indicate which direction to take at critical way points. They must have removed it from the trees and bushes were Cristiano fixed it and were running with it through the town. Eventually all of us got lost as we couldn’t match the written directions to the flagging. Thanks to GPS – most of us are using a Garmin nowadays – we all found an alternate route and made it to the lunch stop from were we could continue on the planned track. A long climb in the Pan Americana Highway brought us into Zambrano.
The hotel for the night is nicely situated outside the city. The owner was living in Austria for a while. The house is over and over decorated and filled with religious icons and collector’s art. It must have taken ages to gather all these things and bring them into Nicaragua. A beautiful and rich decorated Christmas tree reminded us of the forthcoming holiday season.
For the first time on this trip, there was a desert announcement this evening. Especially the ‘sweetie’ in me couldn’t await what it would be. Disappointment was great when it was only ‘rice pudding’, so I skipped it 
We will have some long, tough cycling days. Not only from distance, but more from the amount of climbs and off-road. With an increase of difficulties with every day running more into exhaustion and failing to recover calories.
There might be not enough time left to write and publish my articles every day … I’ll try my very best. The final ‘polishing’ will be done at the rest day, at latest.
Remark: by the time I am able to publish this, we have already completed stage 14
