The Trip to Haiti

We had a one night lay over in Fort Lauderdale on the way to Haiti.  We spent the evening at the beach.  The weather was nice, but we all agreed that it was windy and humid.  On the way back home after spending a week in Haiti, it didn't seem humid at all in Fort Lauderdale! 

We ate dinner at a restaurant called Margarita Cantina, and we thought the food was really good. 

The next morning we got up early to go to the airport.  Our flight to Haiti was on a commuter airline.  There was no security to go through, no need to remove your shoes, and no need to place your 3 oz liquids in a quart size ziplock bag.  It was rather nice.  Here's a picture of the plane.  It was larger than I had expected it to be.  I had been rather nervous about flying on a small plane, but it was fine.  We had to stop in the Bahamas to refuel, and the landing there was rough.  Other than that, it was really not that much different that flying on a larger plane.

This is the airport in Cap-Haitian, Haiti.  This picture was taken just as we got off the plane.  We were thankful to have arrived safely.

Our bags were loading on to the top of a vehicle.  I rode to the hospital in Milot in an ambulance, along with 5 other people.  The ride was extremely bumpy.  Imagine the worst dirt road you have ever driven on and magnify the roughness of the road by tenfold.  It was terrible.

After we go into the ambulance we watched the crowd outside through the small window in the back door.  The woman that is seated in the photo was selling bags of popcorn.  She had one bag on top of her head.

The ambulance

Here's where we slept.  It was a covered porch, and we're glad it didn't rain.  It was noisy.  There were dogs and wild roosters that made noise though the night.  I slept with my ipod playing, and that helped drown out some of the noise.  There were lots of bugs and lizards.  I applied 100% DEET two or three times every day, and I still had twenty some odd bug bites by the end of the week.  You can see the mosquito nets that we slept under in the photo.

Another photo of the same place.  This one was taken the morning we left.

There was a banana tree near the porch.  It was in plain view from where we slept.  I had seen lots of banana trees before, but this was the first time I saw one with fruit.  I never knew that the banana grew up like that.