July 1-2 Transition from Costa Rica to Honduras
As usual, I didn’t pack the original time I intended so I woke up and packed my clothes. Our last day in San Pedro started off with gallo y pinto, fresh cheese and platanos. Delicious. Zeidy planned on going to work so the girls gave her gifts from home (Anjuli and I gave ours on the 1st night). There were smiles and lots of pictures as we headed to the bus a little late and plus a few extra bags but feeling it was worth it. It turned out that it only took us 30mins to get to school so we actually ended up being early. Arielle and I finished packing up our tools before we met as a group. Having to come back Friday morning to pack and get our prebriefings definitely had its perks. We got dibs on all the extra tools so now each of us has a soldering iron, DMM and cell phone (HUGE plus). All of us bound for Honduras hung out and made plans for the day as others finished their prebriefs. Liz, Caitlin and I met Daisha and Anjuli at the market for some last minute souvenirs. We were successful (you didn’t think I was going to say what I got did you?) With the days rain clouds moving in, we made it to the restaurant Caitlin, Gavin, Clif and I ate at our first day. A delicious pork chop casado with a pineapple sauce was a great last meal in San Jose. The rain let up just in time for us to continue our walk to the internet café and Giacomin for one final time. Sadly, Giacomin was closed for lunch (12-2) so we passed the last half hour at the mall we’d learned navigate quite well. My last trip to Giacomin was as good as the first. I got a carchofo, coconada and Caitlins favorite truffle. All were as good as I remember. I shall miss you carchofo. Soon the world will be introduced to your nephew, a version of my own. Our luck with just missing the rain ran out as we walked to the bus stop. In the 15secs it took to run across the street to the overhang we got soaked. We hung out at home for a few hours and walked to WalMart for some travel snacks and last minute necessities before dinner. Zeidy’s presence for dinner was a pleasant surprise. After eating heaping plates, we presented Zeidy with our homemade card (beautiful job Anjuli). Poor Zeidy started crying but luckily Julie was able to read the card for her. Final goodbyes and our last bus ride later, we were the first to arrive at school for the marathon night. We looked at pictures poorly written signs and other comical sights from San Jose as others started to trickle in. Food, drinks and more was shared as groups formed for Taboo and Yuker (idk how they spell it). Yuker lasted literally all night, while Taboo held its own for at least 4hours and quite a few lineup changes. People started to drop, while others watched movies, played live music and just talked. The numbers doing each changed as the night continued.
…At some point we reach July 2…
At 3, we got our wakeup call and the cleanup began before we loaded the buses at 3:30. At the airport, I had a little trouble at check-in. When finally someone came to speak to me, I learned that I had to be downgraded from business class(had no idea I was there) for the second part of my flight. Due to this major inconvenience, I received a voucher. Nice. We made it through security with about 10mins until boarding when they announced our flight was 30 and the 50minutes delayed. This left plenty of time for Cinnabon and exploring the Britt stores to sample every kind of chocolate cover treat they offered. Once the plane arrived, I boarded my first plane as a business class passenger along with 7 other students. We were all extrememly happy with our fortune and the food. Who knew they actually served decent food on airplanes? We got gallo y pinto, scrambled eggs, sausage, tortillas con queso, AND a fruit plate. With real fresh fruit. That was probably living less than 24hours before. Craziness. Many of us didn’t finish since we didn’t realize that we would be in first class and ate before. Even those of us who did, barely did so before our 1hour flight ended. With the delay, we moved very quickly to our gate in San Salvador and thus missed the chance to say bye to the Duke kids + Siqi bound for Nicaragua. On this plane, we didn’t even take off before I was asleep. Unfortunately, a 33 minute flight doesn’t make for a long nap. We all woke up afterwards more tired than we were before. At the airport, most people’s rides were already waiting or arrived within about 20mins. This left Kathryn and Kara- bound for La Ceiba- Mindy and Anjuli- bound for Trujillo, and Arielle and I. After a lot of walking, talking, and organizing, Julien found out that the direct bus to a city nearby Trujillo wasn’t running so we got one more night with Mindy and Anjuli. The bus to the bus to La Ceiba didn’t come until 2:30 so we had about 2.5 hours to hang around and nap in the airport while waiting for the bus. Luckily there was wi-fi and nothing sounded as inviting as a nap. At the bus station after bus 1, we waited for another hour. Once we finally got to La Ceiba, we went to our hotel where Kara and Kathryn got picked up before the rest of us got dinner. For some reason, we made plans to watch a movie. As can be expected, all any of us watched was our own eyelids.
July 3
I slept straight through until 6! This was a breakthrough. We got breakfast at 7 at Dunkin Donuts because nothing else was open and planned our morning. I realized that I left our snack bag, with Arielle’s filtering water bottle, on the bus so calling and trying to retrieve it made the list. Flickering power in the hospital made this not happen. At about 8:25 Julien told us to just go to the station as quickly as possible before heading to the dock to catch the 9:30 ferry. Someone was clearly looking out for us because as I described our bag- I only got to “Tiene 2 botellas y” when he handed me our bag! Definitely a good start to the day. We had a relaxing and gorgeous ferry ride and met the son of one of the hospital workers in Roatan. Once we got to our hotel, we learned some of the logistics of the area before knocking out on our beds. We were awoken to lunch, fried chicken, rice and breadfruit. More napping before we caught a ride to West End to use internet and explore. I’m pretty sure that any attempt to describe the surreal feeling of walking around would be futile so I won’t. Just know that I’m staying a 12min walk- including a stop for water jugs- from the coast. After wandering and notifying everyone of our safe arrival, we walked home and had chicken tamales for dinner. Blogging was followed by a return trip to west end to enjoy some live music before bed time. Tomorrow- the hospital!
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