Act III:The Resort

I thought it would happen. I hoped it would happen. I pretty much told the world it would happen. It didn’t happen.

We did not close on the resort as planned, but we got closer. There were just too many legal loose ends to tie up. In one respect, the trip to Tegucigalpa was a failure, but in another, it was fruitful in that we got a lot of legal stuff done that would have taken quite some time if we hadn’t gone.

Laurie and I had flown to Roatan on Tuesday, and the next day we took an early morning flight to Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. Saying Tegucigalpa is off the beaten track is an understatement because, really, all of Honduras is off the beaten track. Honduras is quite a mountainous country with the lower regions being dense jungle and the higher regions covered in tall pine trees. Tegucigalpa is located in a bowl 3,241 feet above sea level, surrounded by mountains.

George, his lawyer Hector, Laurie and I flew to Tegucigalpa in 20-seat turboprop, and it was quite a scenic flight as you leave the costal jungle for the high pine forests. Our lawyer, Luis, who is located in Tegucigalpa, had his wife, Anna (she’s also a lawyer), pick us up at the airport and take us to their office/home located on a pine tree covered mountainside. If the air had been a tad less humid, I would have thought we were in Colorado.

On the drive from the airport, Anna asked, “How was the landing?”

Now I’ve had people ask me, how was the flight or how was the trip, but never how was the landing. “It was…fine…”

Sensing my puzzlement, she added, “You know this is one of the most dangerous airports in the world.” I swear I heard some pride in her voice.

Later, I googled this fine bit of information and saw it was listed as low as 3^rd most dangerous by some folks. For a plane to land at Tegucigalpa airport, it must drop into the “bowl” while making a 45-degree turn, then skim across rooftops and hit a rather short runway. No biggie.

“Well no, Anna, we didn’t know that.” And as for me I would have been happy continuing to not know that.

There had been some uncertainty about how to do the purchase. The business, which included, of course, all the assets is set up in a corporation and there had been a good bit of discussion on whether we were buying the corporation or just the assets. There were advantages and disadvantages to both. We’d decided to buy the corporation, which is a completely different type of purchase than buying assets (real estate). Some of the corporate documents needed some tweaking that caused a postponement on the closing.

Everyone was quite displeased—after all it took time and money to get to Tegucigalpa and we didn’t accomplish what we’d hoped to accomplish. George was especially unhappy, but for Laurie and me, it was a chance to see some of Honduras we’d never seen, and we really enjoyed that part of the trip.

Upon returning to the airport, Hector, who’d lived and worked in Tegucigalpa for several years, pointed out a road that ran straight towards the airstrip. It ended and was barricaded at the edge of the airport property.

“See that road?” He said pointing.

“…Yes.”

(I swear I’m not making this up!) “There used to be a road there that crossed the runway. They had a stoplight on each side and it would turn red when a plane was landing or taking off.”

“Oh….Boy, oh boy! When did they barricade it?”

“About 9 years ago. You know, too many people getting killed.”

When we took off, I stared at the barricaded road, wondering if airplanes have horns and if 15 year-old pilots know how to honk them.

So we didn’t get the deal closed, but next week is another week here in paradise and those cigars will have to wait a bit longer.