Long Day

Yesterday, I went to San Pedro Sula to look for a car. It turned out to be more of an adventure than I was expecting. I went with a Honduras friend who has some friends in the used car industry. He asked if we could leave at 5am, so that we could get there, do some searching, and get back to La Ceiba before it was too late (San Pedro is about a 3 hour car ride from La Ceiba). Later, he called and asked if we could leave at 4:30 instead of 5. I did not realize why at the time, but it was because he heard that there was going to be a political rally that would block the main road between La Ceiba and San Pedro.

He was right, as we got just past a main bridge just outside of San Pedro, we saw a large crowd of some 600 protestors headed toward the bridge to 'take it over' in order to make a statement to the government. If we would have left five minutes later, we would not have been able to cross the bridge and get to San Pedro.

The looking for a car was the easy part of the day. I think we found the one we are going to get! After we finished our car shopping, we knew we had some time to kill, so we went to the mall for some coffee and just hung out. It was a great opportunity for me to share with a man I just met why I am here in Honduras and what the Lord is doing in and through me to help the people here.

We heard the protestors were going to 'give the bridge back' around 2pm, so we decided to get back to our car and get on the road so that we could get home before too long. Well, turns out my friend's car battery died and as we were checking out that problem, he locked his keys in the car. So, we got all those things taken care of and decided to head home with a dead battery. In order to do this, we figured it best to not use lights and/or air conditioning and/or the radio.

It turns out we could have waited longer to leave, because we ended up sitting on the freeway (no a/c or radio) for about 2 hours waiting to cross the bridge, then had lots of traffic the whole way home. We got home at about 8pm. So, it ended up being a 16 hour day in which I was not able to do too much.

Some good things:
1. I think we found our future car.
2. I got to talk with these guys a lot. (This was also tiring since I did not speak to anyone in English, except ashley on the phone, all day.)
3. I got to experience new things in Honduras.

All in all, it was a good day, but it was a long day. I am still a little tired today, but thankfully I have some time this weekend in which I can rest.

If you are interested, here is a news article (in Spanish) about the 'taking of the bridge' - http://www.laprensa.hn/Secciones-Principales/Honduras/Valle-de-Sula/Campesinos-se-toman-carretera-de-La-Lima-a-El-Progreso