Traveling to Nepal, Part 3

Finally I have time to finish our Traveling Happenings, and the internet is working, so here it is!
(Part 1 and Part 2 are earlier in this blog.)
But first, I did forget to put something in Part 1:

This is Ramon on TV in Curacao when he and the other two doctors 

came back from Haiti and they had an interview with the Prime Minister
and received a decoration!  (How did I forget this?!)

The three of them plus 15 others from Aruba gave attention to 6500 patients during eight difficult days.

Well, after we said good-bye to my family in Maryland, we flew to Paraguay to visit Ramon's family.

We had a layover in Sao Paulo:

...and then it was on to Asuncion--here are a few random pics:

This is in front of the hospital's cafeteria:

This is the place in the mall that sells the MOST delicious hot chocolate: 

(The "secret ingredient" is ice cream!)

We enjoyed visiting with my mother-in-law and the other family members.

Here she and Ramon are buying produce from the farm boys

who come every morning selling their fresh fruits and vegetables!

We went out to eat with friends.

(Yes, that is a TGI Fridays!  But we ate in the pizza place next to it.)

Ramon preached in the church he grew up in and showed some slides from Haiti.

This cute little fan of Paraguay's soccer team is the son of the lady 

who helps take care of my mother-in-law.

Here he is watching the "big boys" play soccer in the street with

Pekina, my mother-in-law's dog.

All too soon it was time to leave and we headed to the airport again!  We had packed very carefully to make sure we were not overweight with our suitcases.  We each were checking through three bags and only wanted to pay for the extra bag, not overweight charges too.  Well, our bags were all exactly 23 kilos (!) except for one that was 22 and one that was 24, so it evened out and the girl said it was OK!  Then, our nice surprise happened!  She didn't charge us for the extra bags!  Her name was Milagro, which Ramon said means miracle and he told her she was a miracle for us!  It was nice!

Back in Sao Paulo for another layover, we found ourselves there at the exact moment that Brazil was playing a game in the World Cup and they scored three goals while we were there!  It was fun to see how the people got so excited!  I never got a picture of them jumping up and down because by the time I turned on my camera, they would settle down!  Oh well.

THEN we had our little moment of drama, if you can call it that.  Our names were called over the loud speaker to come to our gate.  Ramon was already there and I was wandering around looking at the shops.  Imagine my surprise when I heard our names over the loud speakers!  The immigration officer wanted to know why we didn't have a Nepal visa.  We told her that you get the Nepal visas at the airport in Kathmandu when you arrive.  Well, she wanted to know, why didn't we have a letter that stated this fact, if indeed it was a fact .  Well, we didn't because we thought it was common knowledge that you get your visa when you arrive at the airport.  Well, what proof did we have to support this common knowledge.  Well, we didn't have proof.  Would she please look on the internet.  Then we waited while she and two others browsed the internet for some very long minutes and then she finally came back with a smile and told us she found out we were telling the truth and she wished us a good flight and a good time in Nepal.  THEN she asked us in a quiet voice to pray for her!!!  (We had told her that we were missionaries going to take up a new post in Nepal.)  It was a nice moment.

We had nice flights on Swiss Air from Sao Paulo to Zurich to Delhi.  It's a very nice airline and we recommend it!  Here are a couple pictures of Switzerland.

We had an uneventful layover in Delhi (where another World Cup game was in progress, but I don't even remember which one it was!).  I was just excited to be in Asia for the first time!

Finally we left for the short flight to Kathmandu!  Here is our first glimpse of Nepal when we came down out of the clouds:

Here is what we saw right before we landed:

Kathmandu!!!

We made it!  

More later!  Have a nice day!