Beautiful country, beautiful people

     After helping to plan three trips to Honduras I am finally getting to go. Fourth time is the charm, as they say. We got an early start this morning arriving at the Augusta airport at 6:00 AM. We got all checked in very smoothly this morning. We each checked a team bag and had our carry on bags as well.  All in all not bad. 18 people and 21 checked bags. That is, until they made half of us check our carry on bags to our final destination. Luckily, every bag made it to San Pedro Sula airport (take that American Airlines and Rapid City, SD).  

     There was a long line at immigration but customs was a breeze. Ernie (Ernesto) and Allison met us just the other side of customs. We then loaded up the bus with luggage and supplies, took a necessary bano break, and headed to the restaurant for a late lunch. We ate at Las Tejas, which had an authentic Honduran meal prepared quickly when we arrived.

Can you spot the differences in the team photos above? 

     After lunch we drove to Ernesto and Allison's house and Mission on the Move campus where we will be hosting a clinic on Saturday. Below you will see some of the scenery along the way from San Pedro to Santa Elena. We drove past the bridge that is no more. It was destroyed by earthquake ten years ago. We stopped a ta fruit stand to grab some fruit for the week. We drank some coconut water straight from the fruit. We ate a fruit that looks like an eyeball inside a sea urchin and tastes like a dry grape. And some enjoyed frozen chocolate-bananas.

We are now settling into our home away from home: Hotel Honduyate. Tune in the rest of this week for more on our experience in and around Santa Elena, Honduras. As I type the rain is coming down on the tin roof of our patio and calling me to take a pre-dinner nap.