June 19 arrival in San Pedro Sula

Well, we had a good flight to San Pedro Sula. There was a lot of Spanish and English floating all over the airplane. We saw the beautiful mountains and landscape (bananas, palm trees, etc.) We arrived around 11:30 a.m. local time (1:30 EST). Stephanie summed up all of our feelings by sharing she was scared, nervous and excited all at the same time! We waited in line for a while to go through customs, but they were very laid-back and didn't inspect our bags as much as they did in DC.

As we were running our bags through the x-ray machines, we looked out and saw our host for the night, Luis, holding a sign with our name. He greeted us in Spanish and English all mixed together. The heat hit us terribly (hace calor). Steph, Deanna & I went with Luis, and Carl & Katrina went with another vehicle. We picked the non-air-conditioned vehicle, but we enjoyed his company and trying to talk together. It was very noticeable as we drove that we weren't in an affluent American city. We are staying overnight with Luis and his family in a bed & breakfast. His family was very welcoming and immediately brought us fresh mangoes (YUM)!

We were all so exhausted, but decided to take a short trip to the mall for some necessities and a meal. Luis dropped us off and we were on our own to trust Katrina's Spanish 1 learnings and what we haved picked up through study this year. We managed to exchange our money at the bank (banco) and then we got a cellphone for use while in Honduras. That took Carl & Katrina a while, but they did pretty well. The mall we were in looked like any mall in the US (Park City, Chambersburg or Hagerstown Mall). There were mostly American chains. We walked a few blocks (ourselves) back to the house and are now crashed out in our rooms with air-conditioning. It is now 6:30 Honduran time and we are very tired. We are looking forward to a good night's sleep before catching a bus for La Ceiba tomorrow.

Rochelle