Saturday - Flying in and getting halfway there

Flying into Tegucigalpa was, um, interesting.  There's only one runway, it's short (although it was extended a few years ago), the city is built up all around it, and it's down in a bowl surrounded by mountains.  One would hope that the pilots are ex-Navy or ex-Marine Corps, with experience landing on aircraft carriers.  Houses and other buildings are built very close to the runway, much closer than any other airport I've seen.  As we were close to touching down, we could look out the window and see mountains and buildings above us, which is a bit unnerving.

Still, we landed without incident.  The airport is modern but small, just three gates.  We went through passport control and customs en masse.  The customs agents were searching the luggage of passengers in front of us, but they gave up when they saw the size of our group and just waved us through.  In addition to our personal luggage, we had 25 or so large plastic trunks containing medical supplies, teaching materials, power tools and woodworking supplies.  Much of the luggage and all of the trunks went into the truck seen below; the rest went in the bus with us.

Waiting for the trunks to arrive

Part of the baggage is loaded

Our transport to Rancho el Paraíso, the facility in Olancho province run by Honduras Outreach, Inc., was a hand-me-down American school bus.  Much of the public transportation outside the capital is by buses like this, all still in their trademark school bus yellow, and many still bearing the name of the school district that they used to serve.  Ours had been partly painted out: the bus still said "School District", but without a name.

Stopped for a rest break

Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, is in a mountainous area.  Houses are perched on the hillsides, with terrific views.  These photos were taken as our bus climbed out of the valley containing the heart of the city.

Rancho el Paraíso is about eight hours away from Tegucigalpa (by school bus).  The roads outside the capital are almost universally unpaved and in rough shape.  Since we arrived at the airport about 1 p.m., we went only about halfway to the ranch the first day, spending the night in the Hotel Boqueron in the city of Juticalpa.  On the map below, "A" marks Tegucigalpa, "B" marks Juticalpa, and "C" marks Rancho el Paraíso, where we spent the week (click the map to see a larger version).  In Honduras, the north coast is the Caribbean, and the south coast is the Pacific.

We had a nice dinner at the hotel, where the staff was dressed to the nines and was in the midst of their Christmas party.  Theirs is delayed because they are busy hosting customers' parties during the Christmas season.  After dinner we sang a bit and listened to Karen sing and play her guitar.