Central America 2016

Timo got his yellow fever card on email, so we were let to board the bus. Or would have been, if the bus did not break. Half an hour of waiting and the bus company managed to replace the bus with a new one, unfortunately a lot worse one without electricity sockets etc. Anyway, it was a bus and it was able to move, so we got on the way towards Honduras and our destination San Pedro Sula.

Unfortunately the ability of the bus to move was only temporary. I guess they had some engine overheating problems on the old shit of a bus and most of the way we crawled onwards less than 30 kilometers per hour. All the way was on mountains, and heavy trucks were happily passing us even on uphill. The ride was slow but uneventful, and you can guess was anyone interested in Timo's yellow fever card on the border. Yeap, nobody.

We finally arrived to San Pedro Sula bus terminal three hours late of schedule, luckily still early enough to catch our onward bus connection to La Ceiba. Considering that San Pedro Sula is often called the most dangerous city on earth we really didn't wish to spend a night there. Or any extra time for that matter.

We bought our onward tickets on a private luxury bus line, counting that the extra security would be well worth the slight ten dollar increase in price compared to the regular intercity bus services. Some warm sandwiches and Honduran SIM cards (woohoo, internet) in the terminal and we were ready to move on. Now on the bus to La Ceiba with two more hours left to go. In the morning we will continue our journey by ferry to island Utila, where we should stay for a week or so.

We woke up at five and took a taxi to the bus station, where a small surprise awaited us. Honduras obviously requires yellow fever vaccination card to cross the border, if you have previously been in Brazil, Argentina etc.. Neither me or Timo took our cards with us as they are supposedly not needed. The cards should only be required if we would be coming directly from the affected countries.

Well, obviously the bus company has misunderstood something, and they absolutely require the card to board the bus. I don't have a problem as I just changed my passport and I don't have Brazilian etc stamps. Timo however has them.

Well, now we are waiting for Timo's occupational health care nurse to email him the yellow card copy from Finland. She promised to do it quickly, so we should still be able to get on the bus.

Just some flight videos. First some low flying on the coastline. The thing I love about helicopters, you can actually fly 230km/h at the altitude of 30 meters or so:

https://youtu.be/3BVF9Eor2ho

I will add a second video taken from the cockpit with a GoPro camera later on, it's uploading during the night.

This was an incredible day, probably not the best of the trip though. The second best for sure. Like mentioned earlier our local airclub contact Eduardo was ferrying an aircraft to Guatemala during the day and we would join his helicopter distributor partner for a flight.

However, things changed a bit. Fishing boat had went missing yesterday. They had left at noon with no cellphones or other communications devices, with a kid onboard and with a stupid idea of driving a single-engine boat 20 miles out to the sea for fishing. They never came back. So, our flight turned into a marine search and rescue mission. We took an Eurocopter AS350 out to the sea and scanned the area for over two hours before running out of fuel and having to return back to the airport. Unfortunately we saw no signs of the missing boat. After lunch the pilot Rogelio went to have an another searching run, don't know if he had any better results. Pretty nice.. The guys search for the missing fisherman with their own money, on a helicopter that costs 1200 USD an hour to fly in here.

In the afternoon Eduardo arrived to the airport and showed us his really, really impressive collection of museum aircraft. His hobby is restoration of vintage aircraft, and he had some fine examples of that in his hangars. Fouga Magister and C47 (DC-3) were among the most impressive ones, not to mention the polished Cessna 195 which is probably the most beautiful aircraft I have ever seen.

The thing here is that.. Eduardo is happy to play with his toys with us. When we come back from Honduras where we are leaving tomorrow we return to the airport and go flying the things. "You wanna fly a Fouga? I will take you up". Can't wait to be on the controls of those beautiful birds. I especially liked the phrasing "When you come back we can start flying all the aircraft", considering he has eight beauties in the hangar. All cooler than each other.

Our airclub contact Eduardo called us in the morning and told he would be fetching an aircraft from Guatemala and only back in the afternoon. However, his friend distributes helicopters here in El Salvador and could take us for a helicopter ride while waiting for him. Well, cannot say no.. :)

Yesterday evening we totally passed out around eight in the evening and managed to sleep all the way to eight in the morning. So much better now, pretty much adjusted to the local timezone and alive now.

Short walk around the city, photos below. The violent past and also the current crime situation of El Salvador is pretty visible when walking around the city. Electric fences, heavily armed guards..

The city is still pretty nice looking, peaceful feeling and small compared to the other Central American capital cities which are pretty chaotic.

Tomorrow our plan is to go visit the guys at Club Salvadoreano de aviacion civil y reserva, the local air club. I have been emailing with the club president and they told they would be happy to take us flying with them, wouldn't even accept money for that. And I like to fly in different countries and see how aviation works in them. It's going to be interesting, the winds here are quite strong and gusty as we are on the Pacific coast, plus the hot sun generating strong updrafts together with the mountains. :)

Things never go as supposed, especially when they should.. We took some half-legal taxi from the airport and after getting lost a couple of times arrived to the hostel maybe half past ten in the evening, wishing to catch some sleep before our dive trip six o'clock in the morning.

Guess had they lost our reservation, which I made a month ago. And guess were they totally full? Yep. Well, they were in the progress of building another hostel in another part of the city, so we spent our night at that construction yard. At least it was a free night and our beds were brand new, just taken out of plastics.

In the morning the hostel guys drove us back to the main hostel, where we had agreed to meet El Salvador Divers people. With them we departed the city to the beautiful crater lake Ilopango, and did two dives to the bottomless (some 230 meters) deep caldera of an active volcano. Lava stones, some small fish, a bit bad visibility, that's about it. The water was very warm and diving was fun in beautiful sunshine, so that definitely was a good start for the trip.

Today the main hostel had free beds, so our accommodation problem is over and we are just taking it slow, trying to recover from the long flights etc.

Arrived. :)

Ten hours on the aircraft and we landed to Houston. The flight was long and boring, but luckily not so painful as the long haul flights usually are. We were gambling a bit with the seat selections, and fortunately we won the game. The aircraft was fitted with 3+3+3 seating arrangement, and we selected the aisle seats of the middle row, hoping that nobody would take the middle seat. That went exactly as planned, so we had a lot of space with an empty seat in between us. :)

My first experience on a 787 was fine, the aircraft is very quiet compared to older designs and the in-flight entertainment system works as supposed. Bridge of Spies was a good movie, by the way.. United also had WiFi available on the flight, but didn't bother testing it as they only had an entire-flight access pass available for $17.

USA never fails to surprise with the security circus. Obviously they don't have the concept "international transfer" on Houston airport: You have to go through the entire immigration process, get your passport stamped into the country and cross another TSA check before getting onto your connecting flight. The process took more than two hours, ruining our idea of laying in the KLM Crown Lounge sipping gintonics for the duration of the 4 hour layover.. Well, at least my fresh passport now have American stamp too.

Neither of us was really in city-exploring mode yesterday, so we just grabbed quick burgers and beers in the downtown and went to sleep well before midnight.

Now at the airport after a decent hotel breakfast (where was the bacon??), waiting to board our United flight. Will be my first time on a 787. As usual, Timo was the unlucky one to get his passport stamped with SSSS letters. Secondary Security Screening Selection, so Timo will be enjoying the rubber gloves of TSA agents later on. :)