The day had finally arrived.
My bags were packed; I was ready to go!
Last year’s Costa a Costa didn’t turn out so well for me since I tore a
ligament in my knee at the end of Day 3 and couldn’t finish the ride. This year I was determined to do better. I had done a lot of training while in
Florida. Yeah, it was all in the flats,
but miles are miles!
Gloria picked me up at 8:00am. We were told to be at Wendy’s, ready to go,
at 8:30, so we gave ourselves plenty of time.
Jorge, Gloria’s husband, and Roman were actually riding their bikes from
Siguatepeque to La Ceiba – in one
day. They had left at 4:00am. Jan, Gloria and Jorge’s son, Frederico, and I
would be the three from Comayagua taking the bus.
Naturally, we were early for the bus and stood there waiting
and talking. After a bit, Gloria called
Claudia and found out that the bus had not left Tegucigalpa at 7:00am as
planned, but at 8:30. Ah, Honduras… So we knew we would be waiting a while. Then a bit later, Claudia called Gloria and
told her that the bus wasn’t going to come in to Comayagua, that we should meet
them at the highway entrance to Comayagua.
That was all well and good since Gloria was there, but if I had gone
with my original plan, which was to be dropped off at Wendy’s in the morning,
it would have been more than a bit difficult for me to get myself, my bike, and
my luggage to the new rendezvous point.
We had just gotten the bikes down from the pick-up truck
when Gloria got the call, so then we loaded up Jan’s bike, my bike, and now,
Frederico’s bike into the truck to head to the new pick up location. Once
there, it was just a matter of putting luggage and bikes on the truck and then
get on the bus. Since my bike is new, I
made sure I oversaw its loading.
Definitely not the way we do it in the States. I’m glad I had taken the time to wrap so much
of my bike. I also brought some bungee
cords to secure it better to the truck.
 |
| Although this picture is from later in the week, it's near where we met the bus. |
Another funny thing happened when we met up with the bus and
truck: Pablo, one of our bus drivers from last year asked me, almost right
away, if I had any hex keys. I did and
pulled a brand new set out of my bag.
They needed it to make some adjustments on one of the busses – the other
one, not the one I got on. I just found
it funny, or maybe interesting is a better word, that Pablo asked me, not
anyone else among the group, for the tools.
After leaving Comayagua, our next stop was
Siguatepeque. After loading up the group
from there, we got back on the road at 11:10am – more than 2 hours later than
scheduled. Ah, Honduras…
Once I got on the bus, I started seeing some people I had
met the year before. And more familiar
faces joined in at Siguat. The rest of
the ride was fairly uneventful. We
stopped in El Progreso to pick up our lunches (hamburgers and fries) and then a
few minutes later we stopped at the mall there to pick up the last of the
group. This group included many from San
Pedro Sula and a group of Canadians who had come down for the tour.
When we arrived in La Ceiba, it was raining fairly
hard. But we had an event to do – the
first one of the week. After all, Costa
a Costa is a ride put on by Transformemos Honduras, with the goal of raising
awareness of education in the country.
At each event, several of the top public school students in math and
science were honored. They received
various gifts and prizes: books, scholarship money, a bicycle, and others.
At the conclusion of the event, we got back on the busses
and headed for the Mennonite Campamento outside of town. The first order of business was dinner and
then an introductory meeting. In
addition to all the Hondurans, there were people from Canada, Grand Rapids, MI,
and New Jersey.
Later, while getting settled in the dorm (think: one big
room with about 15 sets of bunk beds), I noticed that the girl in the bunk next
to me was just sitting on her bed, with her knees pulled up to her chest and
her arms wrapped around them. She did
not look happy. A few minutes later, she
was still pretty much in the same position and that was when I noticed that she
hadn’t put any sheets or anything on the bed.
I asked her if she had brought bed clothes. She hadn’t.
So, without hesitation I took my sheet and just tossed it over to her
and told her she could use it, but that I didn’t have an extra blanket or
pillow. The sheet was enough, and
brought a huge smile to her face, and a sense of relief. I learned that her name is Karin and that she
is from Siguatepeque. Once the ride got
under way, I would also learn that she was one of the fast racers.
It rained, sometimes very hard, for most of the night. I was just hoping and praying – lots of
praying – that it would stop before we started to ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment