Back in the States - Haiti Recap Part 1

Hey bloggy friends!

I am now back from my 2 week trip to Haiti. Long story short: It was AWESOME. And PTL (praise the Lord) I didn't get sick and neither did either of my traveling friends!



We were always kept on our toes doing things. We flew in on Sunday May 15 on the 7am flight from Miami. We got into PaP two hours later. For anyone who has flown into the PaP airport before, the band was there just playing away. It's always just a wonderful sound to welcome travellers to the Caribbean island. I love it! Going through customs/immigration/passport check was a breeze. We all found our bags within minutes and made our way out of the airport. There is a recent construction (between now and last May when I was there last) of a nice covered sidewalk that is gated in and leads to a nice big "pick up" parking lot. This is a major difference from last year when we were just dumped out into the *crazy* streets of PaP to hopefully find our ride. So we just waited inside the gate until we saw the MTI truck come into the parking lot - thankfully it was within 10 minutes of our arrival and we didn't have to wait long.

We were informed that the truck that was to drive us down to Cayes needed some sort of repair and licensing thing so we would be spending the night at the PaP guest house. We just rolled with it and said OK. Not much we could do about it, eh? So we hung out in the beautiful guest house and got a driving tour around PaP in the afternoon. We got to see the Palace, the artisan market, lots of earthquake damage, and all sorts of other things. It was very interesting considering I had only seen a single PaP street last year. I just loved the houses just piled up on the mountains. And my mom loved the pictures of the armed guard at the guest house's gate. ;)

Monday morning we woke up and ate breakfast at 6am. We were told we would leave around 8am so we got our bags together and waited further instruction. Harold (our driver) tied our bags up on the roof of the LandCruiser and we climbed in. We sat there for a while and then we were told (in broken English) to get out. We shrugged and complied. Then we were informed that Harold had to drive into town to get a license updated for the vehicle we were supposed to ride in. So we waited. And waited. And waited. At 1:30pm the truck returned and we were ready to go. Haiti time!

To Be Continued...