(After this, I will be taking a few weeks off as I am now back in the United States. I am here for a few weddings and to see family and friends. I certainly could write about this, but would assume that most of you are not particularly interested.)
It took just short of two and a half days to get home from La Union. Kelley and I both headed back to the States for weddings, she is in one and I have two to attend. Our flight out of San Pedro left at 7 in the morning which meant that, since it is a four hour drive, we had to stay overnight. So we left Tuesday at 6 am so that we could get to the airport by 10 am, when Derek’s brother arrived from San Diego. We got Wendy’s for the first time in over a month and listened to Matt (Derek’s brother) recount his travels.
After some shopping in one of the supermarkets in town, we drove through San Pedro for a while because Kelley and I were going to go to the mall for something to do. Somehow I missed the conversation between Kelley and Albin where Albin suggested that we get out in the middle of town and walk around the Catholic cathedral, central park, and an archaeological museum. Needless to say, I was a little surprised when we stopped in the middle of the road, Albin and Derek said adios (following by an encouraging “vaya con dio” by Derek) and we were out in the middle of San Pedro Sula.
The cathedral was absolutely gorgeous, with large paintings, vaulted ceilings, and stained glass windows. We walked around inside of it for about 20 minutes and then headed out to the museum. The museum was interesting, and gave a complete history of the area in which San Pedro is located. Unfortunately, I don’t read Spanish too well, and so I am pretty sure there is quite a bit that I missed.
When we got done at the museum, we hopped a cab to the mall, which was surprisingly similar to American malls, complete with a Nike store, four screen movie theater, Tommy Hilfiger store, and just about everything else that you would expect to find in an American mall. Neither of us are big shoppers, so we didn’t stick around for too long before catching a cab back to the hotel. We just hung around for the rest of the night and grabbed some food in the hotel which, surprisingly, offered a wide selection of Italian food but almost nothing in the way of Honduran food.
We caught a shuttle to the airport at 4:45 the next morning and were at the airport two hours before our flight. Check-in went smoothly at first, although I had to give all of my coffee to Kelley to stay under the 50 lb weight limit, until we got in line for the departure tax.
Now, the idea of a departure tax is new to me, so I am guessing it may be new to some of you, too. The United States doesn’t do it (or it very well may be the tax that they add onto tickets when you buy them, actually), but in Honduras you have to pay a tax to fly. This tax cannot be paid until you have checked in at the airport, and is about $35 for an American, international flyer.
I was annoyed when I found out how much extra it was going to be to leave, but fortunately had cash with me. My annoyance turned into slight panic when I turned and saw the line extending almost the length of the entire airport.
Hillary Clinton and representatives from all over the Americas had been in San Pedro Sula for the past several days, discussing issues facing these countries, and apparently many of them were flying out around the same time as me. On top of that, I think that a large portion of the Honduran Olympic team was flying out at the same time as me. After an hour in line, around 6:45 when our flight boarded at 6:50, Kelley and I were still standing in line, which had digressed into a massive blob moving towards the windows. Fortunately, we talked to several people around us who were on the same flight, so we figured it wouldn’t leave without us.
I don’t think that we got through the tax line until 7, then had several other lines to go through for security and customs, and didn’t get to the gate until after the plane was supposed to have left. Just when we thought the adventure was over, none of the workers really knew where we were supposed to go. We got sent to several different gates and then, after checking in, got sent away from the loading zone which we eventually returned to as the correct plane. We checked with the flight attendants who confirmed we were on the flight to Miami (the location of our layover).
We were almost there, but a flight attendant came up to me and angrily demanded to see my boarding pass as we sat waiting for the plane to leave. My first thought was that my seat had been double booked (which happened to somebody later in the day, actually) and that there was going to be an epic freak out on my part if they kicked me off of the plane. Fortunately, the attendant talked to somebody on his radio for a few minutes and then gave my ticket and walked away without saying anything to me. We finally got rolling, and I slept pretty much the whole way to sunny Miami.
It took us an hour to get through customs in Miami, which was almost a little fortunate because of the nine hour layover we were looking at before flying into Detroit. We tried to standby on an earlier flight, but were told that it was sold out and there was no way we would be able to get on. So we found an information desk and asked what we could do to entertain ourselves for 6 hours for less than $20. We had been told that a taxi to the beach would be over than much each way, so we weren’t too hopeful, but he said that we could catch a bus for $2 each way. The bus to the beach would have taken to long, so we were sold on going downtown.
It took about an hour to get to Bayside, an area which reminded me a lot of Navy Pier in Chicago. We walked around the shops for a while, checked email and such, and then got some shrimp at one of the outdoor restaurants. We jumped onto a bus back to the airport.
I almost forgot to mention, when we got off of the plane in Miami, I bee-lined for the nearest Burger King and put down a whopper, fries, and a few Dr. Pepper’s. A word of advice to anybody coming back from Honduras: Don’t do that. My body apparently had adjusted to all of the fresh, preservative and grease free food in Honduras, and pretty much revolted against the Burger King. I find it ironic that, despite all of the warnings and expectations I had before going down to Honduras, American food gave me far more problems than anything (including using the tap water on several occasions when I needed to brush my teeth or take pills and didn’t feel like finding bottled water) that I had in Honduras.
That aside, we got on the plane and arrived in Detroit following an uneventful ride in which I did some reading and watched Yes Man, the new Jim Carrey movie. We got a ride back to Ann Arbor, where I met up with my mom around 12:30. We headed back to her friend’s house and talked until about 2 am, which was great. Also kind of amazing, since she is totally the person who normally is in bed by 9 pm.
We got up this morning, made some of the coffee that I brought back from Honduras, went to Sava’s for breakfast and Comet Coffee for another cup of coffee (two of my favorite Ann Arbor places) and then headed for home. We got home in time to pick my little brother up from school, which was nice, and then ran errands until dinner. Lindsey came over and ate with the family, and then we headed out so that I could say hi to her family.
I got a haircut this morning in preparation for the wedding tomorrow and now I am just sitting in my favorite coffee shop in Muskegon, who already said they might be interested in buying some of the coffee from the La Union coffee cooperative, doing some reading and writing. At this point, any writing that I do is going to be pretty irrelevant to the project, Honduras, or most people down there, so I am assuming that I would lose your interest if I kept going. With that in mind, until next time, adios.
Patrick
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