Hey all,
Here’s just a quick update about what how my transition to life in Honduras is going. I flew in around noon on Friday into the city of Tegucigalpa. Landing there is interesting because the runway is not as long as it needs to be, and we stopped with only about 25m of runway remaining. I was sitting next to a warrant officer from the 1-228th, the helicopter aviation unit here, and he told me that an investigation was going on because a plane had ran off the runway a couple months ago.
I got through customs fine and met up with a Captain and found the bus that runs to Soto Cano Air Force Base. The ride took about an hour and a half and here are some of the things I noticed:
Tegucigalpa is very hilly, and the city itself seems to be built by hewing away from the hills and building wherever there is flat land. This creates an interesting look with lots of steep unpaved roads up and down from the main paved roads to brightly painted houses.
Honduran drivers are insane. Someone told me that Honduras ranks in the top of the world for most fatal traffic accidents, and I believe it. Not only are there no guard rails for the majority of the roads that I’ve travelled on (which supposedly is the best road in Honduras), almost all of the roads are 2 lanes. This wouldn’t be a problem if the Hondurans didn’t like to pass so much. On an average trip, I would estimate that a Honduran vehicle is in the wrong lane just as often as the right one. We saw one head on collision on our ride to the base, and I was very surprised there weren’t more.
I got to the base and settled in with the other 4 male cadets that had arrived into our “Hooch.” This is a wooden one room building with 10 beds, 3 wall lockers, a fridge wall air conditioning, and TV. To be honest, it’s not a bad situation, especially since we had been told to expect much worse.
Th
e next day (Saturday the 3rd) we took a bus down to a place called Lake Yojoa and took out a pontoon boat. We swam in the lake for a bit even though there was a bunch of algae, and in some places the sea grass came up to the surface. We ate lunch at a Honduran restaurant which fried fish whole, and also had fried plantains and cabbage salad which was pretty good. Since then we've just been learning our way around the air base, and enjoying the 75 degree, sunny weather.
Anyway, I better cut this off, if you need to contact me, just send me an email or facebook message. I go to my unit for the first time tomorrow, the Joint Security Force (or MP's in conjunction with the Hondurans), which ought to be a fun experience.
Later,
CJR
