Honduras, Day 1 – Houston, We Almost Had a Problem

We started the day not bright and very early at the crack of 3. Boarded the plan around 5:45, supposed to take off at 6:05. But you can probably imagine that things didn’t happen the way they were supposed to. We sat on the tarmac for a good hour or so while the guys in Houston advised us to take another route and load up more fuel because of a set of thunderstorms. In order to do that, they had to take some suitcases off. This will be important later.

It was finally decided that the storms had moved out of our way and we could commence our flight, regular flight route, no extra fuel needed. We finally took off around 7. It was a three hour flight, and if it had left on time, we would have had just under an hour to meet our connection to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. But if you have decent reading comprehension, you will notice that we ate up that hour on the tarmac in Detroit. 

Hmmm….

So all the way to Houston, the group is speculating: will we make it on time? How far away are the two gates? When is the next flight to SPS if we miss this one (turns out it was 24 hours later)? Do you think if we radioed ahead, they would hold the plane for us?

Meanwhile, these clowns behind us (you know, the spring breakers type who pre-tan before they spend a whole week tanning on the beach and who order cocktails on a 6am flight out of Detroit) were whining about possibly missing their connector to Riviera Maya. But hello, it’s Spring Break – there are flights to Riviera Maya every two hours. Seriously. If I had a lempira (Honduran currency) for every time I wanted to turn around in my seat and tell them to JUST COOL IT…I could probably buy a Coke. It’s about 20 lempira to a dollar right now.

The flight lands in Houston, and as it’s taxiing to a terminal, the flight attendant asks everyone who does not have an immediate connection to remain seated and let people through. The plane stops, seatbelt sign goes off, and EVERYBODY STANDS UP. I was this close to body-checking those Riviera Maya people, who had several noisy conversations earlier with Houston to switch all of them to the flight leaving two hours later. They were not in nearly the hurry that our group was in.

We got off our plane and rummaged in bags for our boarding passes to SPS, trying to determine how far away the gate was. I wish I could tell you that it was right next door. It was not. We were at terminal B, and SPS was leaving from terminal E. So we hoofed it like we’d never hoofed it before through escalators, people-movers, and a metro.

Word on the moving sidewalk was that they were holding the plane for us and to move to our gate as quickly as possible. And there, around the corner and at the farthest possible corner of the terminal, was our gate.

We made it, by the way.

They held the plane for us for about half an hour, which we realllllly appreciated and thanked them for profusely. I think I apologized to just about every row of people I passed, I was just so relieved to have made the flight. The next one to SPS was something like 11am the next day. That flight was fairly uneventful. No crazy party-hearty spring breakers, at least. And each seat had its own media screen, with live DirecTV and movies for just a swipe of the credit card! No thanks. I stuck with my Kindle.

We landed in San Pedro Sula around 11:45am, I think. I wasn’t sure with the time difference. The ticket said we were expected to land at 10:55, but of course, we delayed them taking off, and there was an hour or two of time difference in there, but whatever. I honestly didn’t care what time it was. I was just happy to be in Honduras.

We made our way through customs and on to baggage claim with the rest of the passengers and lined up around the carousel to grab suitcases. Let’s do some math here: there are 19 of us on this trip, each has a personal suitcase, plus there were approximately 20 “clinic suitcases” filled with equipment, tools, and about 1,500 pairs of glasses. Each of us was responsible for a clinic suitcase in addition to our own suitcase and carry-ons (carries-on?). So we wait around the carousel, grabbing any and all bags with our signature red duct tape strips. The crowd is beginning to thin out, bags at the end have been claimed by people in the back of the line at customs, and our group has claimed a little over half of our suitcases. The luggage hombres close the doors to the outside, announce “Han bajado todos” (all of them have been brought down off the plane), and head to the nearest coffee kiosk.

Yikes.

Remember those suitcases that they took off the plane out of Detroit in order to make room for more fuel that we ended up not needing anyway and they took it back off and didn’t put the suitcases back on in their places?

Nine of us (including me) ended up without our personal suitcases, and I think 6 or 7 clinic suitcases were left behind as well. Most of them had glasses in them, which kind of stinks because we’re planning to set up and start seeing people right away tomorrow. The good news in all of this is that by the time we had reached SPS, our bags had caught another plane out of Detroit to Houston, and a small plane was arranged to bring our missing luggage into SPS sometime late tonight or tomorrow morning. We were told that we could expect our bags to be here at the hotel when we get back from the clinic.

Kids, this is why you put everything you can’t live without in your carry-on.

We took a bus from SPS to La Esperanza, where we’re staying, and I drifted in and out, so I’m not sure how much time it actually took. I would estimate 3 to 4 hours, which is pretty good for a giant chartered bus and mountain roads across that distance. First, we dropped all of the clinic bags and equipment at the clinic and said hi to some Lions Club members who are hosting us, and then around 6pm we arrived at our hotel for the week. The hotel is owned by Lions Club members that host this group every time they come to do the clinic. I like them already. They’re going to be cooking all of our breakfasts and a good portion of our dinners, and they’re taking great care to wash the fruits and vegetables with bottled and treated water so that we don’t get sick.

The under 30 crowd (me, an optometrist named Nisha, an optometry 4th-year named Dan, and Mackenzie) plus my Uncle Bill immediately hopped on the lobby’s wifi. I’m hoping to post every day since the wifi is right downstairs. Around 7, we were served dinner, and after eating, I peaced out and headed up to my room for a shower and to type this and then to bed. It’s 10:30pm Grand Rapids time, I’ve been awake since 3am….I’m too tired to do the math. 18 hours? Ish. Night night, ya’ll. Sleep tight. I know I will. My bed here is bigger than my bed at home.