The rest of the week was uneventful. I spent some time in Moroceli and saw the progress being made there. I tried to get out early, but the airport was shut until Wednesday, and American didn’t start flying into Toncontin Airport until Saturday, my original departure date.
On Saturday morning early, I drove Kathy Pennybacker’s car to Danli and met Jeannie Loving there. We took Jeannie’s car, me driving, and headed to Tegucigalpa to the airport, leaving plenty of time to get there. My plan was to be at the airport about 3 1/2 hours early just in case. The just in case happened. We got to the airport exit in Teguz, and the exit was closed due to protests in or around the airport. No problemo, we decided to try to find another route to the airport. Right. We got lost, as might be expected, finding ourselves in the depths of old Teguz, on the wrong side of the river, wandering though a large market area swarming with people. I fully expected to hear crunching under my tires, putting some poor Honduran out of their misery. I would have loved to be in that area with my camera and unlimited time, but not trying to catch a plane. After about an hour and half, I noticed an empty taxi in front of us, and asked Jeannie to get out of the car, get in the taxi and tell him to take us to the airport. She did, and he took off. About two blocks later, he turned left and I turned right. Half an hour later, we got back together and proceeded to the other entrance to the airport. Sure enough it was also blocked by protesters. Luckily the taxi driver knew a back way in, and we finally pulled up in front of the terminal.
The airport was swarming with police and soldiers, keeping the protesters at bay. The inside of the airport was swarming with people trying to get out on one of the two flights left that day. I did make the plane, obviously as I am writing this in my basement surrounded by my toys.
Am I going back? Of course.
