The return journey

This weekend we took our last overnight excursion to Samana, a peninsula on the northeastern coast.  The trip itself will get its own post, but the ride back was note worthy enough to be a story in itself. 

We left Samana about 2pm.  The peninsula its on is very mountainous and the roads are potholed at best, dirt roads with deep ruts at worst.  And STEEP!  So we’re driving up a very steep, very curvy, bumpy road in a stick shift bus.  And of course I had a cup of coffee at lunch right before we left so I really had to go to the bathroom. 

A view from the top.

Well we finally reached the summit and some of us got out to see the view.  By now I really, really had to go to the bathroom, but we were on the top of this mountain with nothing but the bushes.  Luckily one of the other women had to too, so out came the beach towel and we hiked up the road a ways.  Now I consider myself a pretty experienced bathroom-in-the-woods user, but here’s some advice: it’s better to have 2 people holding the towel (so you don’t have to choose between people coming up the road seeing you or people on your bus seeing you) and have your TP ready first (less juggling of your camera and TP role later on).  We were eventually joined by a third woman, and then headed back to the bus.

By this time I was feeling 100% better about the road trip in front of us.  And the ride down the mountain was smoother because we just needed to use the brakes, not surge-and-stop up.  Well we got about half a mile down the road when, uh-oh, we realized amid all the juggling during out restroom escapade, one woman had left her camera hanging on a fence post.  So we pulled over (this time with the view on the other side of the peninsula) and she and Jonathan, one of the ISA leaders, started running back up the road.  Have I mentioned that it was STEEP!  It was so funny watching them jog more and more slowly the further they got until they passed a bend in the road. 

It doesn't really do it justice but
this is the steep mountain road. 

A few minutes later, a motorcycle comes roaring down and off hops the woman with her camera.  Some very nice guy gave her a ride.  No such luck for Jonathan, he had to run back to applause and high-fives.  Honestly, we were so lucky we realized the camera was missing only half a mile down the road and not when we were back in the city.  It worked out nicely.

So back on the bus and smooth sailing almost the whole rest of the trip.  But then, about 10 miles outside Santiago, our tire blew out.  We’d all been feeling a funny pull from the side of the bus for a few miles, but POP, there it went.  Conveniently we were about 20 feet from a roadside colmado (they’re corner stores with snacks. Every neighborhood has one) so we all had the opportunity to buy something to munch on.  Bring on the chocolate cookies!

The tire got changed way faster than I expected and off we drove.  Probably the most amazing thing about all this is that we got back to the city earlier than expected.  We must have been in some sort of time warp because that almost never happens here.  I give lots of props to Wilson, our amazing bus driver who did an incredible job getting us home and keeping us safe!