The easy part was yesterday. We flew into the Dominican Republic and spent the night at a hotel with free Wi-Fi, a hotel bar, bathrooms and showers. Our BlackBerries and cell phones still work reliably.

This morning, we took two taxis to the Catholic Relief Services offices, where a tour bus was waiting.

Among those traveling to Port-au-Prince today are a group of doctors from the University of Maryland; two staff members of Catholic News Service; and Jacques Montouroy, head of logistics and modernization for CRS. He is fluent in French.

The estimate we've received is that it should take us six hours to get to Port-au-Prince, though we wonder if that is optimistic.

At 8:40 a.m. local time, the bus pulled away from the curb. The real journey starts now.