And picking up where I
left off…
Ometepe Island; a gift of God to allow me to regain the sense of adventure and
excitement of being on the World Race. Our original plan was to go straight back to Managua for debrief, but
through a change of plans we had a couple hour, 15 crammed in a microbus, ride
to Jinotepe, Nicaragua where Teams 180 and Rama had spent the entire
month. Hotel Mateo, is a hotel in
Jinotepe with the goal of hosting missions teams that come through. We stayed
at Hotel Mateo for several days to debrief, rest, and enjoy being with the
entire squad whilst I fell completely head-over-heels in love… with those dang
calzones.
After, eating our fill, the 46 of us loaded a chicken bus at
4am and headed for the Managua International Airport where we arrived around
6am. That was an interesting ride… Everyone seemed to be half-awake, except for the driver, who I believe
wasn’t even half-awake.
At the airport we had a couple hours before our flight left
to enjoy some last minute Spanish speaking. We then boarded a plane
on the way to Miami, FL which took over four
hours if I remember correctly. We had
just over an hour to get off the plane, go through customs, pick up our bags
from the baggage claim, check back in, and board the next plane to Los Angeles.
What a rush that was. I was the last one
to make it on as they closed the gate. To all those that didn’t make the flight… I really tried to stall them
as long as I could! I think that flight
was around 5 hours?
*bucks and enjoy some American food. Unfortunately, the LA airport has nothing, absolutely nothing, in the
International terminal… and I had gone through security already. I will never make that mistake again. We then boarded the biggest plane I have ever
ridden on, to Tai Pei, Taiwan. That
flight was 12 or so hours and we crossed the Date Line. We then walked around the airport for a few,
and boarded the next plane to Bangkok, Thailand. I believe that flight was four hours.
We then went through the ridiculously confusing customs at
the Bangkok airport scoring another sweet
passport stamp, and boarded up some
trucks for an hour or so ride to the other side of Bangkok. After some limited sightseeing I finally laid down to sleep at the YWAM Bangkok base. I chose not to sleep while I was on any of the planes, which means that
I slept about 2 hours total out of our 3 straight days of uninterrupted travel. Maybe, that’s what the bus driver in Nicaragua
had been doing?
To be continued…
