The initial purpose of our trip was a friend's wedding. We added some vacation on since we'd be in Honduras anyway. The wedding was on Oct. 25th, so we left early in the morning on the 24th. Our plan was to arrive by noon on the 24th with lots of time to see people and get a bit settled before the wedding. Our trip started out great. We left BWI on time and stopped in Miami. After a short layover, we boarded and started flying from Miami to Tegucigalpa, our final destination. We got about as far as Cuba when the pilot announced that a spoiler was malfunctioning, and since it's part of the braking system and Tegucigalpa has a VERY short runway, we would have to return to Miami. So, we did a nice little u-turn in the sky and headed back to Miami. They initially planned to fix the aircraft, or get us a new one, but that didn't work out so they cancelled our flight and booked us all onto a flight the following morning. They put us in a great hotel and paid for all our meals... but... they kept our bags. Since everything had gone through security and screening, they kept the bags and said they would put them on the plane with us the next day. So, we enjoyed the freebies from the hotel like toothbrushes and toothpaste, and tried not to think about wearing the same clothes again. Oh well - two days in a row isn't too bad.
We got up the next morning, headed back to the airport and went straight to our gate. We were able to depart and all seemed well. Shortly before we were to land in Tegucigalpa, the pilot made an announcement that all of the systems he usually uses for landing were not functioning, so he would have to land by sight. He was concerned due to the clouds (since we were to land in a city surrounded by mountains) and warned us that he may have to fly us to another city. We were a bit concerned, but he was able to land the plane, and we were in the city we wanted to be in... only a day late. During this whole traveling process, we realized that we couldn't remember the region of the city we needed to get to for the wedding. We knew the name of the retreat center, but didn't think that would be enough to get us there. In all of the commotion of the last 24 hours, the name had totally slipped Andy's mind. I prayed and prayed that the name would just pop into our minds. Well, my prayer was answered! Going through immigration, we had to hand in a little paper that said where we were staying. We just wrote the name of the retreat center, and apparently the immigration official recognized it, because she added on the name of the region we needed to get to! Elated by this great turn of events, we thought our adventures were over. We went to the luggage area and we waited for our luggage... and waited... and waited... only to learn that they forgot to ship the luggage of about half the passengers. So, we moved from waiting at the luggage belt to waiting in line to report the missing luggage. This process took about an hour, and when we finally emerged from the airport, there was only one taxi left. Unfortunately, this meant no reasonable price for us. It didn't matter how good our bargaining skills were - he knew very well that we needed a taxi and he was our ONLY option. I hope he took his family out for a nice dinner because we sure paid him enough to do that! :)
So, with a taxi hired, we headed out to the retreat center. By this time it was just past lunch, and we didn't know if we had missed the wedding or would still make it. We arrived at the retreat center to learn that it was still 90 minutes until the wedding. That was great news because we made it in time. It was not so great news because it meant no time to go shopping for other clothing. We attended the wedding in t-shirts and jeans. I've never done that before, and I have no desire to do it again! It was a beautiful wedding, and we're so glad that we made it in time for that. Following the wedding, we were supposed to stay one night at the retreat center. Well, near the end of the reception, the retreat staff came to tell us that they had double-booked, and we would all need to go somewhere else for night. Most people went to another hotel, but Andy's former host family was at the wedding and they invited us to their house, so we went. We pretty much fell straight into bed (a single bed for the two of us, so it was cozy!) and slept. We were so tired.
The next morning, we woke up to find that there was no running water. Because of infrastructure challenges, water is shut off to various parts of the city at various times. It was the rainy season, so they thought it would just be off a short while, but it ended up being shut off for days. Good thing we know how to take bucket baths! That morning, we headed to church with Andy's host family in the same clothes again! I'm sure people were beginning to wonder if that's all we owned. Little did they know, that's really all we had at the moment! That afternoon we were able to pick up our suitcase from the airport, and prove to the world that we did have other clothes. We spent the rest of Sunday visiting friends and family that Andy knew from his times of service there.
Sunday night was a night to be remembered. I woke up at 3:45 a.m. to Andy turning on the light and something crawling on my back. I remember him holding a piece of wood like a weapon and saying in a stage whisper "DON'T MOVE!" (A little side note - feeling like someone is about to hit me with a piece of wood is not the reassurance I need to stay still!) There was a cockroach crawling on me, and after it got off my back, Andy took care of it. (Thanks for waiting Andy! I was scared of the bruise I would have...) We turned out the lights, and about 30 seconds later, heard another cockroach. On went the lights and out came the piece of wood. This is how the rest of our night passed. We never did go back to sleep.
We were pretty exhausted on Monday morning, but decided to continue with our plans of heading out into the city. I wanted to see some of the places that Andy had been while he lived there. Unfortunately, we quickly learned that it was a holiday, so almost nothing was open. Regardless, it was still fun to experience what I've heard so much about. Shortly after lunch we were heading back to his host family's house when we had a rather exciting moment. We unexpectedly shared some money with a total stranger at a bus stop. (This is a nice way of saying we were robbed.) We're grateful that we only lost a few dollars, and we were not hurt. Though not a highlight of our trip, it gives us great cause to be thankful! With the stress of the day, and the lack of sleep the previous night, we decided to spend Monday night in a hotel. We ended up in a beautiful hotel, and had a great relaxing night, complete with hot showers!
On Tuesday, we wanted to fly to Roatan, an island, to spend the rest of the week on vacation there. When we got to the airport in the morning, we checked in, and all seemed well. (This time our carry-on was strategically packed in case of lost luggage! Lesson learned!) The time passed for us to board and nothing happened. Departure time passed and nothing happened. Eventually they told us that due to rain, La Ceiba (our layover city) and Roatan airports were closed. They hoped to wait out the rains. After some more time, they allowed us to board the plane. We eagerly did so, only to learn that we would continue to wait on the plane. Eventually someone came on the plane and announced that only those passengers for Roatan should stay on the plane. Everyone going to La Ceiba should get off because La Ceiba was still closed and we would be flying straight to Roatan. This was good news for us. We had a short, but very bumpy flight, and at least one of us made good use of the little white bag in the seat pocket! Upon arriving in Roatan, we were greeted by cloudy skies and drizzle, but a beautiful island breeze. We took a taxi to our guesthouse, only to learn that it would be several hours before we could check in. How do you spend several hours on the beach with luggage in the rain? We tried, and they must have felt bad for us, because eventually they showed us our room and invited us to sit outside on the porch until the room was ready.
The next few days in Roatan were not quite the beautiful beach experience we had hoped for, but we knew when we planned the trip that it would be rainy season, so who can complain about rain? We spent most of the time in our room or on our porch because of the rain, but we did get to go ziplining through the rainforest one afternoon, and spent a few hours on the beach one morning when the sun peeked through. Another 'highlight' of our island time includes finding out that our roof had a major leak when we woke up to a big lake in our room.
On Friday, we were scheduled to fly back to Tegucigalpa because we had flights back home on Saturday. We arrived at the airport in good time, checked in, and settled into the boarding lounge. Our boarding time passed and nothing happened. Our departure time passed and nothing happened. It felt like deja vu. We really weren't concerned. This seemed normal. However, as time passed, we began to get a bit antsy. About 2-3 hours after our flight was supposed to depart, they finally told us that La Ceiba and Tegucigalpa airports were both closed due to weather. Our flight was cancelled and we would have to fly the next day. We tried to find other options since our international flight was departing the next day, but it seemed there were none. For a brief moment we thought we were booked onto a flight going to a different mainland city, but there was some confusion, they took us off that flight, and then when we confirmed that we DID want to be on that flight, they had closed it and it was too late for us. We spent a long time with various airline employees trying to get the scoop on what would happen the next day and what our best options were. We learned that it seemed unlikely for the weather to clear up enough in the next few days to fly back into Tegucigalpa. We were very ready to be home, and so we didn't want to take chances on more flights being cancelled. We changed our flights to the city of San Pedro Sula, hoping that we could also make a change to our international tickets, and have our departure out of San Pedro. With tickets set for the next day, we headed back to our guesthouse where they were very surprised to see us. Thankfully, they had a room open (with no leaky roof!) and we were able to stay there one more night. I spent time on the phone that evening with American Airlines, working on flight changes. We didn't think we could get to the mainland on time on Saturday to catch a Saturday flight. They didn't recommend flying Sunday because flights were full, so we settled on a change to Monday, giving us two extra unplanned days. With that in place, we went back to our room and crashed for the night.
First thing on Saturday morning, we caught a taxi and headed back to the airport. (Did I mention it was pouring rain?!) We did the whole check-in and wait routine again, but thankfully this time we were able to fly, even though we were a bit late. We made good use of the little white bag in the seat pocket again :( and found ourselves in San Pedro Sula by mid-morning. After checking flight schedules, we realized that we could make it onto a flight later that afternoon. We headed to the airline counter and changed our tickets again... back to Saturday. (I really wish all this had been done with Monopoly money, not our credit card...) We got on the flight, and after a brief stop in Miami, made it back to BWI late on Saturday night.
Okay, you can unstrap your seatbelt. That's our trip, in a nutshell. I'm sure I missed a few details, but that gives you an idea of what the week was like. We did take a few pictures amidst all the craziness, so here's a glimpse of some of the better parts of our week.
All "dressed up" and ready for the wedding. Seriously, this is what we wore!
One of many times that I got to have a granita de cafe.
Basically, a coffee smoothie, but definitely the best I've ever had!
Basically, a coffee smoothie, but definitely the best I've ever had!
Ziplining
The sun shone for one morning, and we enjoyed it!
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