Day of Travel

After a long 21 hours of travel, we are finally at the Mission in Guimaca.  First we arrived at LAX at around 10pm and barely made it our gate prior to departure.  Then we took a 5 hour flight from LAX to El Salvador, then from El Salvador to Tegucigalpa. Right before our flight out of LAX, we met some USC dental students on our same flight going to Roatan for their own dental mission trip.  Hopefully we will get to hang out with them before they leave.  We also saw some UCLA alumni-students doing a Habitat for Humanity mission in El Salvador.

So Tegucigalpa is a town known for their crazy landing into the airport.  In 1996 they added a few more meters to the landing area because it was so dangerous or a plane fell off a cliff or something (not too sure on the details).  The plane flies so close to the hills, between a narrow valley.  Here is a youtube video that shows it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_z5HtME9n8

In Tegucigalpa airport, we waited for several hours for Dr. Farhoumond, Dr. Graves, and Father Craig to arrive.  Unfortunately, Dr. Farhoumond lost her luggage.  I guess that was bound to happen to one of us.  But she was so sweet and cool about it.  What a classy lady!!

Afterwards, we left for Valley of Angels where we did some souvenir shopping and had dinner with a view.  It was pretty challenging for our two vegetarians to order food with no raw veggies or veggies not peeled by us.  Father Craig reminded us "Peel it, Cook it, or Forget it."

It got pretty dark after dinner, and it was a bumpy and scary ride to the mission.  Once we got to the mission, we unpacked in our respective rooms, then went to the local ice cream shop.  It was pretty long night so some of us turned in early while the girls watched a movie in bed.

The Sisters and Father Craig were so welcoming and accommodating.  We really appreciate their hospitality. Well stayed tuned, for our adventure will start soon.