Travel Day Two...Detour

After going to bed at 8 p.m. [Pastor Dan and Joy were on LaGonave so no talking] we started breakfast shortly after 7.

Sorted out some hospital supplies for LaGonave to leave and then repacked the truck for the ride home.

We left around 8:30 and stopped about 30 minutes down the road to say HI to our friends the Rollings and see their trees, plants and dragon fruits.

Then after another short drive we stopped for only about 15 minutes at a grocery store and exchanged money. Other short stops included buying gas, mangos, kenips [spanish limes] and banana peze.


We crested the biggest mountain and started down hill when Cory remarked that home was 1.5 hours away which would of put our arrival time close to 3 p.m. not bad.

Earlier Anna, still a bit confused about her Haitian geography asked if we would be traveling through Cap Haitian on our way home.

Normally we do NOT as we turn off Route National One at Limbeè and head west before arriving in Cap Haitian.

 We joked about adding a review of major Haitian city locations to our school year. Little did we know!

Then the traffic stopped. We followed a smaller top-top with a man waving it on past bigger trucks because the truck we'd been following had smoking breaks.

We rejoiced to get ahead of him but after passing a couple trucks we realized that the traffic was not moving and pulled in a spot along the road behind a fuel tanker.

We could see further down the mountain that the stopped traffic was facing up the mountain but could not see the problem.

After about 30 minutes of waiting and seeing smaller vehicles turning around, being advised by a  French couple about taking another road to Cap Haitian Cory started to make phone calls. A friend in the central plateau advised a better, longer route than the shorter, washed out, 'dicey' way that the other couple had suggested.

After learning that the accident had occurred the night before and a tow truck would be needed to clear the road [now 2 p.m.] and no one knew when the road would open we turned around and headed back up the mountain.

Our friend said the new way would be about 3 hours to Cap Haitian but his truck is bigger than ours and he drives faster.

 We forded 12 streams and did a whole lot of bumping, shaking and rolling.

Snack foods and limited water kept us going. After a while Anna started to sing all her words. A few appropriate songs sung while in the silly stage included 'Take me home country roads, Food glorious food and Cory's suggestion of 'A three hour tour'.

We saw the sun set over the mountains as we entered Cap Haitian at 7 p.m. and arrived home in the dark at about 8:15.

Unloaded and sending messages on our working internet by 8:30. Supper of rice with beef-veggie sauce enjoyed by all! Showers and bed at 10.

Thankful for: a safe trip, internet, good attitudes and laughter, snack foods, healthy pets, friends to help unload and prepare a meal, cold showers, electricity, our own beds, no rain before home [2 inches last night] wonderful prayer partners.