Puerto Cabezas

Getting on the Grand Caravan in Managua.

The Miskito Coast.

Our plane in Puerto Cabezas.

Unloading our gear.

Our ride from the airport into town.

Dan, Matt and I on the truck.

Walking in downtown Puerto

The beach behind our hotel.

This morning we woke up at 4:00 AM to get to the airport by 5 AM for our flight to Puerto Cabezas. The flight didn't end up leaving until 7 AM so the getting up early might have been a little overkill considering the airport was right across the street from our hotel. The flight was in a single engine Cessna Grand Caravan and took about an hour and a half to get to Puerto. The airport in Puerto is pretty rudimentary, the planes don't even taxi up to the terminal, they have to send out a bus to pick up the passengers by the runway.

The plan was to wait and see if the rest of our luggage arrived from Managua on the next flight to decide if we would drive to Francia Sirpi or not. We were picked up at the airport by a old army truck owned by the church here in Puerto. They took us to the Adventist school where we dumped our stuff. After a little bit of waiting we explored the market area and went to a grocery store. I bought some Coke, chips and some TP, which I've heard can become an invaluable resource in the future.

After our shopping excursion we headed back to the school and played a little bit of American football with a coconut and just sat around for a while. We met one of the doctors from the clinic in Francia and his wife who is a nurse. It turns out one of the SMs from Southern is a guy I went to academy with back at Highland; it really is a small world.

After hanging out for a while four of us went to eat at a little restaurant around the corner. The meal consisted of rice and beans with some kind of cabbage stuff. We've been told that bottled drinks are the safe way to go so I stuck with bottled water to go with my meal.

After lunch we drove back to the airport to see if our luggage had arrived from Managua but it still hadn't so we drove back to the Adventist school. Tonight we are spending the night in a hotel by the beach where they serve coconut milk right out of the coconut…pretty impressive.

I just got back from eating pizza at a restaurant across town. During the meal the power went out and the people at the restaurant brought out candles so we ate our pizza by candle light, very romantic. Now I'm at the girl's hotel where the internet happens to be. I skyped home but the call quality was so poor I had to give up.

So I think I'm going to head to bed soon because I didn't get very much sleep last night and I've been up for over 16 hours. Hopefully tomorrow its off to Francia in the truck.