The trip started at 2:45 in the morning, with five of us meeting at Derek’s house. It was myself, Kelley, Alex, Jose, and Derek. Dan, Derek’s mother, and Mike Marcantonio were nice enough to offer to drive us to the airport, and Boyd came along for moral support as well.
We met Alex McBriar, who is joining us for the first segment of this trip, at the airport when we got there. After waiting for half an hour for security to open up, taking all of Derek’s mouthwash, shampoo, and soap out of the action packers in order to get them down to the 70 lb. limit, and unpacking then repacking a dozen computers, we were off to Houston, Texas. I’m not sure what the flight was like, I was asleep before we took off and only woke up because my ears were popping on the descent.
We met Derek’s father, Ed Stafford as we exited the plane in Houston. The flight into Honduras was, again, uneventful and we landed in San Pedro Sula sometime around noon, where we were slammed by the 90 degree heat and 90% humidity. Customs was crazy. There was a room with probably 300 people, all pushing forward and trying to get to the front of the line. Fortunately for us, Jose and Derek spoke to a worker, got us in the fast track, and we were moving on within 10 minutes. After getting the first stamp ever in my passport, we grabbed our bags and met up with Alvin and Wilson, our two drivers for the day.
I didn’t find this out until later, but Alvin’s truck had air conditioning which kept it cool as we drove around San Pedro Sula, picking up cell phones and exchanging money. Wilson’s truck didn’t. I was in Wilson’s truck. But as we moved out of San Pedro Sula, the weather improved dramatically, and here on the compound it’s actually quite temperate.
Driving around Honduras was amazing. It is full of small mountains, which all seem to jut up out of the ground at unnaturally steep angles, and Ed told me that these are likely left over from a time period in which there was volcanic activity in the area. Also striking was the landscape, which consisted of many trees, including some palm trees and large grassy areas, which were mixed in with areas which reminded me more of an extremely humid Texas desert.
We drove for several hours, and then stopped in Santa Barbara at the market, in order to buy rations to hold us over until the cook is arranged. Apparently a supermarket in this area is different than a supermarket here, but we came away with stuff to make PBJs, hot dogs, and spaghetti. We also stopped at El Pollo Rico, a small restaurant on the outskirts of Santa Barbara. We were all invited to eat, but chose to have a Coke instead. I am determined to eat at Honduran restaurants, but I don’t think that Pollo Rico was the right one.
Not too long after departing Pollo Rico, the rain came in. In a poetically ironic manner, the first drop of rain hit our windshield about 30 seconds before we turned onto the dirt road which was to take us into La Union. Now, when I think of dirt road, I think of small potholes and a few ups and downs. Once again, this obviously is different in Honduras. There were only a few potholes which were large enough to hold circus animals, though they were definitely there. Of greater concern to me was the sheer grade of the road which we were driving upon. I have since learned that we were on a road made by the local coffee growers in order to bypass the poorly kept government road, and I guess these people didn’t feel like taking the time to put switchbacks in. When driving in Colorado, there are usually a series of five to six switchbacks to get up an elevation change of a few hundred feet. In Honduras, there is just one really steep, straight road to the top. Don’t get me wrong, Wilson was a great driver and I trusted the truck to get us to the top, but it made for an interesting trip in the rain.
In conversing with Wilson, a difficult task when considering that he doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak much Spanish, I found out that the main crop in La Union is coffee. He said that everybody in La Union drinks lots and lots of coffee. I told him that I think I will like it here.
We arrived at the compound around 5 pm local time, approximately 14 hours after departing from Ann Arbor, and brought all of our stuff into the dorms. At this point Alvin, the driver of the other truck, was kind enough to invite us all over to his house for dinner with his family. This sounded much more enticing than queso hot dogs, so we headed over there for dinner.
When I was told that it was going to be mostly beans and rice for dinner while in Honduras, I was a little skeptical. After that dinner, I don’t think that there would be any problem with beans and rice for the summer. We ate homemade tortillas with freshly made refried beans, cheese, avocados, scrambled eggs, and jalapeno peppers for dinner, collectively called baleadas, and chased it all down with coffee. They knew that they had sill Americans coming, so Alvin’s family also put out a bottle of catsup for us to put on our baleadas. It appeared to be left over from the last time they had American guests, so we all opted not to have any. Despite the fact that I was sweating from the heat, I couldn’t stop drinking the coffee and loading more jalapenos onto my dinner. The big difference in these is that everything was made fresh, using ingredients found in La Union.
Following dinner, we headed back to the compound and got ready for bed. It was only 7 pm, but it was pitch black and most of us hadn’t slept in nearly 48 hours. A few of us stayed up and chatted outside, listening to the gentle rain as it came down, soaking in our new surroundings. Then it was time for bed.
It’s been a pretty long first day but, if everybody here is as pleasant as Alvin and Wilson, and the landscape is as beautiful in the day as it is during the night, I am pretty sure that it is going to be a great summer.
Until next time, adios.
Patrick
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