Traveling Honduras

A few weeks ago, the interns went on a little excursion to the northern part of the country, as has been said in many other articles around here. Copan was an excellent place to go for a vacation. It has great restaurants, lots of souvenirs, and, of course, Mayan ruins (I really sound like a travel agent right now). However, contrary to most of the other interns, my favorite part of the trip was the travel. We took buses and taxis (which really start to add up) everywhere we went. The thing about the buses, though, is that they’re highly unpredictable. For instance, our first morning in Tegucigalpa, we woke up at about 4 AM to get to the station to get our tickets for the early bus. It happened to be sold out, so we got the 10 AM bus and went to Dunkin’ Donuts for about 2 and a half hours. We got back to the station, and the bus was over an hour late, but we finally got on. We were on this particular vehicle until San Pedro, where we of course were too late to take the correct bus, so we got some food, and waited for the later one. We finally got to Copan fairly late at night, found 2 Americans who happened to be from the same place as Paul, one of the other interns, who showed us where our hotel was. The next day, we hung out in Copan. We left the following day, with a transportation situation quite similar to the first. So, after all the trouble, getting up early for what seemed like no reason, and complete loss of sleep, why would I enjoy the travel so much? Because it’s real. It is what people all over the world have to deal with (only on a much larger scale) to go somewhere. It made me incredibly appreciative of being able to jump in a car and go wherever in the States. This was just a little reminder to me, that not everyone gets to do that. That’s part of the reason I’m here: to remember that I’ve been blessed in every possible way and to be extremely grateful for it.

Yes, I know that this doesn’t belong in the clinic section, but where else am I supposed to put it?

Side note: those bus movies were pretty sweet. I mean, Bruce Lee cannot be beat.

-Tristan McPherson