Medical mission in El Horno

We took media out to our humanitarian medical mission in El Horno Wednesday. Our medical team worked out there with a Honduran team Tuesday and Wednesday and saw about 650 patients. The village was only about five minutes away by helicopter, but it would have taken three hours to drive there -- it's up in the mountains. Some people walked more than five hours to see a doctor.

I didn't get many pictures of our people treating patients because I was escorting media and not there to shoot photos. I brought my little personal camera and did shoot a few photos of the people and the village.

This is a couple of boys looking in the window of the school where the doctors were treating some minor ailments.



I saw these three children waiting in front of the school.



This is a Honduran military doctor seeing some patients, and the next is a Honduran dentist extracting a tooth.




The dentists worked out of the village church.



Here's a few shots around El Horno:





And, finally, shots from the inside of the helicopter on the flight back to base:




That's the base outside the window on the photo above.

Back in Honduras

I traveled back from Vegas to Honduras yesterday and took a few photos of the ride on the bus to the base. I also learned an important lesson -- red eye flights suck. I should have taken a nap before I left at 1:55 a.m., especially knowing I would have to wait for the bus and then take the 90-minute ride.

Here's a shot of the airport from the bus.



Not too far from the airport, there are plenty of buildings long the route that look like this:



And yes, the traffic can get pretty thick in Tegucigalpa.



Here's one of the two accidents we saw during the trip. The road from Tegucigalpa sees a lot of accidents, usually not as minor as this one.

Red Rock Canyon

I just got back from a week in Las Vegas and Aud took me to Red Rock Canyon for the day. It's a beautiful place and it is close to the city.

Here are a few photos:







The entire photo set is available at Red Rock Canyon Photos. If you are authorized by me as family or friends, you get to see bonus photos (if you are family or friends and not authorized yet, send me an e-mail and we'll fix that).

U.S. military assists Honduran crews during Comayagua flood

SOTO CANO AIR BASE, Honduras -- U.S. military members from Joint Task Force-Bravo rescued four people from flood waters Oct. 19 in Comayagua, Honduras.

The JTF-Bravo Emergency Response Team was alerted about 9:40 a.m. to assist local Honduran emergency teams in rescue operations, according to Lt. Col. Richard Somers, JTF-Bravo Army Forces commander.

read more | digg story

This month's chapel hike

We had the monthly chapel hike yesterday and 108 people participated this time -- the largest group yet. We hiked a total of about five miles, with the village where we dropped off the food about halfway through the trip. The weather couldn't have been better, and we had a chance to stop at a ruin site on the way in.

We walked on a dirt road most of the way, except for the trail we went down to the ruin, so it was a pretty easy walk.







I really don't know anything about the ruin. We heard it was originally a Mayan site, and if it was, it was poorly restored. The concrete in the stones was obvious.



In the end, some people in need at the village received a lot of food, mostly flour, rice, sugar and oil.

 

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Soggy

It's been raining for a few days, so I decided to go to Tegucigalpa for a Mental Health Weekend. It's not that I have been going crazy, but it's a good excuse to sleep in a big bed and have my own bathroom for a couple days. I'm easily entertained.

It hasn't been raining non-stop, but pretty close. We got a break this morning, but it's pretty overcast, so it'll probably start again soon. I guess that's why they call it the rainy season.



That's the view from the hotel a few minutes ago. The low clouds have been a constant companion for quite a few days. It does keep the heat down.

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Climb a mountain then eat fried food

We drove out to a national park near Lake Yojoa to climb a mountain in search for a waterfall. It was a beautiful trip up, although a little tiring because it was hot and humid -- and we were climbing a mountain. Here's a view from ridge we walked across.



We never found the waterfall, but we did find this pineapple growing in the wild.



After the climb we decided to get some lunch at a restaurant on the lake. I went for the fried chicken (in Spanish I mistakenly ordered chicken-fish -- I need to work on that) and my daughter ordered the fried fish. They fry Tilapia differently here than they do in most restaurants in the states. She said it was delicious.

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Copan Ruinas

The town next to the ruins at Copan is Copan Ruinas. It's a nice little town that is nearly impossible to drive through -- the streets are narrow cobblestone with cars parked everywhere. We stayed at the Hotel Posada Real de Copan on the other side of the ruins and took the free shuttle into town. There are also several hotels in town.



There are plenty of shops and restaurants in town to choose from. The shops sell the typical tourist stuff.



When you need to get back to the hotel and don't care to wait for the next shuttle, or if you just want a ride around town, they have these small, red taxis available. They are inexpensive, but I'm not sure how safe. I'm still alive.

 

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Copan

I just got back from my first trip to Copan and it was pretty amazing. I've always been interested in Maya, Inca and Aztec history, and this was my first time to a site, so I was impressed. I would highly encourage anyone to make the trip to Copan.

Of course I shot a few photos. One of the most recognizable, and most photographed, structure is the ball court. It's not as wide as you would think, but I assume Mayans were not very large people, considering modern Hondurans are not large at all.



And there are also some pyramids. I hear some other sites have taller structures, but Copan is best know for its well-preserved carvings. I thought the structures were quite impressive.



Below are some more smaller structures.



Copan is most known for the ornate stellae. The one below is the 13th ruler of Copan, 18 Rabbit.



I don't know the story of the carving below. My daughter said it reminds her of a Rock-em Sock-em Robot.

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The Cup comes to Hockeytown

The Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley Cup last night, which is good for me because I am a lifetime Red Wings fan. The bad part is now I have to wait until fall to see the Wings play again. To hold me over, for possibly a few days, I am also rooting for the Las Vegas Wranglers to win the Kelly Cup. Game 6 is tonight, and the Wranglers have to win tonight to force a game 7.

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Electrical options

One interesting thing to look at in Tegucigalpa is the way they have the utility poles strung. I am not an electrician. I am also not an electrical engineer. Even so, I've seen a lot of utility poles in my lifetime, and this style is new to me:



And this one isn't as extreme as others I have seen.

The same creativity has found it's way into outdoor advertising:



The best way for Clear Channel or Lamar to make money off of this is to buy a mountain. The Cafe Maya is pretty good coffee. I haven't dialed 8446 on my cell phone yet because my understanding of the Spanish language is still quite limited. I am learning slowly.

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Mango Watch 2008 update

Like I said in a previous post, the mangoes are ripe and have been for a few weeks. We were thinking last week that since the mangoes down here are fresh, and Central America has the best rum on the planet, why not make mango daiquiris? We haven't done it yet, but someone made some mango salsa not too long ago and it was delicious. I'll keep you up to date on the daiquiris. Below is a mango off out tree behind the office.

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Jumping out of prefectly good aircraft

Ok, here's another one from a month ago. We did some combined airborne training with the Hondurans over on the drop zone on our base. I didn't jump because I, like most Air Force troops, trust the aircraft and prefer to ride it all the way to the ground. It's like at the amusement park -- "keep your arms and hands inside and remain seated until the ride comes to a complete stop."

For those who don't live by the tilt-a-whirl mantra, we have them jump out of helicopters nearly every month here. Here's some photos I shot of the last combined op:



I lost a bit of my situational awareness when photographing this guy -- he almost landed on my head (missed by a couple feet).



This is not doctored, that's what it looks like when four jumpers go out the bird right after each other. At this point, six were jumping at a time, but I only captured four.



Yes, the hit the ground hard and bounce. Remember the mantra.

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Ads

You may have noticed I've added a few ads to my site. I just did a few for Amazon.com and hope they aren't too annoying. Hopefully I'll get a few people to order something through them and make a couple bucks. If not, I'll eventually pull them down.

By the way, the Moleskine notebook in the top ad is the same kind I use -- and I take them everywhere. It works great for me, that's why I selected it for the blog. I ordered an address book and a notebook for travelers, so I'll let you know how they work out.

Also, I made three posts today, so make sure you read below.

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Chapel Hike with CNN

The end of April (I know, that was more than a month ago and I need to get on the ball), Barbara Starr from CNN came out to do a story on our Chapel Hikes. It's a monthly volunteer event where we pack-in food (purchased completely through donations) to remote villages around the area. Recently because of drought and rising food prices, some of the villages are really having a problem with famine, so this is just a little way for us to temporarily help, while we get to see the countryside and get some extra exercise while we're at it. The hikes are usually about three miles with varied terrain. Below you can see us walking up the side of the hill while Alfredo (CNN cameraman) shoots video of us. I'm the guy in the green University of Alaska, Anchorage Seawolves hat and Michigan State Spartans shirt.




And below was the bridge, we affectionately named the "Indiana Jones Bridge," we crossed during the hike. It rocked and swayed violently, so it really was fun to cross. If you look below you can see the folks who decided try an alternate river-crossing method.




The CNN story on the hike is at http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2008/05/01/starr.honduras.food.cnn.

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Tropical Storm Alma

We were the proud recipients of the first tropical storm of the season -- TS Alma. She didn't have a lot of punch, it just rained for a day. That's actually a good thing for the people with houses perched on the side of a mountain -- mud slides are a bad thing. Here's a couple pictures of the pond that forms between my office and the gym:





It isn't all that deep, but it didn't rain all that heavy either. It appears the drainage is a little slow here. I'm interested in what happens when we get a long, heavy rain. We're on stilts, as you can see in the next picture, so I have reason to believe it sometimes floods here.





As for the mango update, they have been getting ripe for a few weeks now and I've been eating way too many. In fact, a couple people have started calling me Johnny Mango. We have one tree with mangoes that mature much slower, and they are much bigger. They should start coming ripe in the next week or so.

Sorry about the long pause between updates, but I will start to update more often now. I have another trip to Tegucigalpa planned this weekend, and then a trip to the ruins at Copan next week. I also have some ENT surgery photos I took last week in San Pedro Sula, so I'll work on posting them this week.

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Thunderstorm

We are having the first thunderstorm I've seen since getting here in January. It's pretty good with plenty of lightning and rain. As it was coming in, I took some photos of my neighborhood and caught a bolt of lightning coming down in the distance.




I'm told the rainy season starts in a month or two and it gets mighty wet here. So come June, expect photos of wet things.

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Trip to Tegucigalpa

I took the bus into Tegucigalpa to spend the weekend. The bus was packed -- not a seat was open. A good chunk of the people got off at the Marriott, which was also where I was staying. They usually have plenty of rooms, and I had reservations, so no problems.

We had lunch at Gino's -- an Italian restaurant in the old tourist triangle of town. The food there is outstanding and all the people who work there are friendly. After lunch, we went around the corner to the Casino Royale (the entire casino is smaller than a McDonalds) and gambled for about an hour. I actually came out ahead - I think the casino dog was giving me luck -- it kept licking my feet.

The best part of a relaxing weekend in Tegucigalpa, to me, is relaxing at the hotel. They have a nice little bar with friendly employees, and also a nice area by the pool. Plus I get to sleep in a big bed and have my own bathroom for the night -- luxuries we don't have at Soto Cano Air Base.

The trip back was uneventful. We drove through a little rain, so we had to close the windows. I think I'll take a trip back the beginning of May.

Here are a few photos of the trip out there and just getting into town.

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Moved into a new place

I forgot to post that I moved into a half hooch last week. It's not big, but I like it and it is a permanent location. Below are a couple photos from Casa de Juan. Dig my groovy bedspread?
 

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