Last trip I was posting pics of myself sitting beside a pool with socks (maybe something to do with being born in Finland). This time it is only my sandals, no socks or feet.

The sunrise picture at Gate 176 was for those heading to Cancun. The crowd was all tourist ready to go bake on the beaches vs Gate 174 that did not have a single tourist, it was heading to Mexico city.

Of course I love the travel, the excitement to see new places, hang with friends and see what sort of trip this ends up being. So… will I learn something new or can I be a positive influence in someone’s life?

From somewhere near a landing strip sipping on Spicy Clamato and feeling the turbulence. That must be Toronto below me.

Photo taken on today’s almost empty flight and written on an iPhone.

If you ever have had the privilege of driving with Marko across the US/Canada border you know that this will be the first event to happen on a trip—we are always marched into the customs office. Once inside, there has to be a few tough questions thrown my way also, mainly because I have a green card and a Canadian passport. I must say, it would be nice to see open borders that the countries in the European Union enjoy and also countries like El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

Once we reached the customs in Honduras, again I was pulled aside but this time I was not asked any questions as my Spanish consists of about 5 words. It was a technicality in my paperwork, as I needed an address we were staying at and I suppose they didn’t like my answer of Tegucigalpa.

The family that we are boarding at is the same home we had the privilege of staying at in November of last year. To describe our contentment was simply put by our host when we arrived at his home and he told us “Welcome home”. Though this time I get my own bed. Last time I had to share a bed with Marko, who was enjoying foreign bacteria moving through his system.

The short clip I’ve uploaded is a mix of things I saw today.

- An old hanging bridge to get across this deep gorge. During hurricane Mitch the water crested it, even though the river is now 70-100 feet below. At that time several houses disappeared into the river.
- A church that helps the poor neighborhood kids with monthly medical checkups and they also enjoy other activities with a smile as you can see. There was about 94 kids in around the place when we popped in to say hi.
- Random rooster that I’m sure I’ll be hearing tomorrow morning before sunrise.

We stayed a few days in Villa Nueva, located 8 miles from Guatemala City. The city is one of the poorest with 400,000 residents.

One article was quoted as saying that “55,000 of the poorest people in Central America live in Villa Nueva”.

Article from Reuters on Villa Nueva “Slum dwellers armed with shotguns have taken to Guatemala’s streets to hand vigilante justice to youth gangs”

Armed guards with shotguns were everywhere you looked. It was nearly impossible to determine whether they were militia or private security guards as some were in uniform.

Armed with pistol handle shotguns - Image from Google

Great sunrise on the first morning at around 6:00am. The next morning I slept in.