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.

Arriving in Managua

I did this backwards but here are some pictures of our arrival in Managua last night.

Grounded

This morning had breakfast at the Best Western across from the airport and headed over to the airport about 9:00 AM for our flight to Puerto Cabezas. We waited around in the small regional airline terminal till about 10:30 when we found out our flight was canceled due wind so we ended

up spending another day here in Managua. I was pretty tired from yesterday so I took about a 3 hour nap this afternoon and then went to the pool which was a little less warm that I wanted it to be. After that a few of us went over to the airport to buy ice cream and mainly to get out of the hotel. We had been told that the hotel had a good buffet so I waited to eat until 7 only to find out that it was not a buffet but in fact an over priced regular restaurant.

Tomorrow our flight to Puerto leaves around 6 AM so we have to be out of our rooms and in the lobby of the hotel by 4:45 AM, which I'm not really looking forward too. If our luggage arrives in Puerto on the next flight after us tomorrow, we'll make the 6 our truck trip to Francia which will be our home base for the next few months. If our luggage doesn't make it we'll spend the night in Puerto until Friday.

Managua International

The regional terminal.

Swimming pool at the Best Western.

Leaving Lincoln

Just a few shots of the group leaving Lincoln this morning on our way to Managua, Nicaragua. Right now we're in Houston waiting for our flight to Managua.

Retreat

This weekend we went up to the YMCA camp for the annual IRR club retreat. This weekend featured Mike Lowe, an instructor from Wilderness Way Ministries as well as IRR, who shared some of his vast array of stories and insights. Besides the blessing I received from listening to Mike I really enjoyed sitting around afterward and swapping stories about IRR escapades at Union. Sitting around with IRR students and recollecting past outdoor adventures is one of my favorite things to do.

Another remarkable thing about this weekend is the dichotomy between the weather here in Nebraska and the weather I'll be experiencing in 3 days. The overnight low 2 nights ago was -25 real temp without wind chill. This afternoon after our church service we went to the sledding here at the camp which is even cooler with the knowledge of what we'll be up to in less than a week.

Espanol!

One would think that if you were travelling to a foreign country it would be important to learn the language of that country instead of a completely unrelated language. On the miskito coast of Nicaragua, the majority of the inhabitants speak miskito. Miskito is not Spanish, which begs the question; why am I sitting in an intensive medical Spanish class right now. This would make perfect sense if they spoke Spanish on the Miskito coast, however it seems that they don't. But that’s ok I’m not here for it to make sense I'm here for the experience. If there's anything I've learned through the years here at IRR is that asking questions about things that don't make sense only makes things more complicated. Its down to three days before we shove off for Nicaragua and we have only one day of Spanish left, so I guess being stressed is not worth the trouble.