Jarabacoa

Not quite ripe coffee beans.

Our program took a trip to Jarabacoa Friday to visit a coffee making farm/factory and ride horses.  It all went swimmingly at first.  We had a smooth bus ride and got to sample some goodies along the way (torta- which is a sort of under cooked sweet corn bread and jonnykaykay- like a big round flat funnel cake, fried of course).

The coffee farm was interesting although not exactly what I expected.  No wonderful smell of freshly brewed coffee here.  Mostly just manure.  But I had never see a coffee plant before so that was pretty awesome.  Did you know that the beans are green and then red while they grow?

Yaddy-yadda, we went back to the hotel that was our base camp, ate lunch and prepared to take our riding adventure.  Here’s where everything went astray. 

As we were walking down to the stable I noticed the sun peaking out of the clouds and was struck by the sudden urge to reapply my sunscreen.  I certainly didn’t want a repeat of that awful burn two weeks ago (FYI there’s a spot on my foot that is still red!)  So I and a couple other students headed back to the bus, did a quick application and ran to catch up.  By the time we arrived almost everyone else was sitting on their horses.

So, how to pick ours.  There were a dozen or so small boys (between 6 and 14) running around who were helping and would sit behind those of us who were less experienced while we rode.  I was motioned over to a horse, helped up and then handed the reins.  And then I waited for some little guy to hop on behind me because no way was I going to attempt this by myself.  The only other time in my life I have ridden a horse I was 7 and we all walked in straight line. 

So, waiting, waiting.  Everyone else who wanted a helper had one but me.  There seemed to be some disagreement between the horsemen who would be riding with me.  This should have been a red flag, but no, I was just obliviously exciting to be underway. 

Finally I got my guide and off we all went.  Clop, clop, clop down the trail which was muddy from earlier rain.  ‘Okay,’ I was thinking, ‘This is kinda fun!’  And then my horse started to trot.  ‘Okay,’ I thought, ‘This is kinda bumpy.’  And then my horse started to gallop!  (Well, according to the horse people in our group it was a canter but I don’t care.  It was fast!)  By this time I was no longer having totally coherent thoughts.  I kept saying things like ‘Oh my God!  Oh my God!’ and I may have uttered what, from a less graceful person, might be classified as a shriek. 

This was no smooth road people!  There were ups and downs and river crossings and while we didn’t canter the whole time, it was enough to keep my heart rate up.  Oh, and the saddle I was in did not have much to hold on to.  So I was flopping around, holding on for dear life, with a 12 year old pretty much the only thing keeping me on the horse. 

Turns out I got a ‘bad horse that likes to run all the time’ as explained to me by my riding partner.  Wonderful.  By the time we got to our destination, this incredible waterfall, my legs were jelly.  All I could hope was that I got a different horse on the return journey.  I did, thank goodness. 

This experience has also given me a new respect for cowboy boots.  I can see their purpose now that I, and several others in the group, have scrapes and bruises from the stirrups.  

La Romana and other news

So I've been a slacker blogger of late.  Here's a general update about a lot of things:

Last weekend we took a group trip to La Romana, a beautiful spot on the south east side of the island.  The drive took about 5 hours, literally cross-country, but I love looking at the country side here.  Half was spent going through the lush mountains, half traveling along the coast, getting to see the incredible Caribbean.

On Friday we visited the 'Caves of Wonder' which are these natural underground caves that contain drawings left from the Taina (the indigenous people who lived on the island before Columbus depopulated it).  Basically this means the drawings are well over 500 years old.  There was also tons of stalagmites and stalactites which, our guild explained, grew about 1 centimeter every century.

Next stop was a village that had been built only about 30 years ago, but was meant to look like an Italian town of old.  There was an amphitheater, a fountain, several gift shops and an amazing view.  The village is built on a bluff over looking a river that feeds into the sea.

The next morning is was off to the beach.  We took a boat to another, bigger boat and sailed about two hours to and island off the southern coast.  I cannot emphasis enough the spectacular beauty of the water, the palm trees and the sand.  Wow!  We swam, we ate, we lounged in the sun.  (The sun part, in retrospect, was a terrible idea as I and many others got horrible sun burns.  I need to just except I am not a person who has the ability to lay in the sun for hours on end.  A week later I still have red spots on my feet.)

This size pot makes six cups.

In other news, I love Dominican coffee!  My host mom makes me a cup every morning and this is quite a jump start to my day.  A cup is really more like a shot, it's less than half a normal mug, but whenever she adds the sugar for me I'm pretty sure she adds about a tablespoon.  Bitter-SWEET!

Today is a national holiday here, Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes.  Catholicism is the national religion of the Dominican Republic so many of the holidays are related to the Church.  Most people are off of work and there is no school, which is great, but doesn't actually affect the international students very much because we don't have class on Fridays anyway.  But as I was walking home from the university yesterday everyone one I passed looked really happy so that counts for something.