A morning well spent

Yesterday I called a friend of a friend who lives in a campo about an hour outside of Santiago.  My friend has encouraged me to visit and stay in this small town and get to know the people almost since I got here, and winter break is the time to do it. 

So with hopeful feelings and positive thoughts I called the number.  But here’s the thing about me and talking on the phone in Spanish: I’m very intimidated by it.  I usually can’t hear people when they’re talking, so communicating becomes very difficult.  I usually don’t even answer my phone if I don’t recognize the number (it is almost never for me, and more than once when it’s a guy on the other end, he’s asked me if I was married/had a boyfriend before I hung up.  Sigh.)

But all went well.  Nestor, the guy who lives in the campo, told me he’d be in a closer town the next day, if I wanted to meet him.  Well, of course!  The conversation only lasted about 4 minutes, but from what I got, I was totally welcome to come and he would meet me.

So this morning I got up, packed my backpack and headed out.  I had to take a bus out of town I never had before, so I was a little nervous.  I think it is a testament to my growing comfort level here that I was willing to do this alone, without almost any idea of where I was going or who I was meeting.  Taking it on faith. 

Yes I did find a map of the Caribbean with Tamboril
picked out.

I lucked out and sat next to a really nice woman on the bus who told me where to get off.  “You want us to drop you at the police station?  Why?”  I had a little trouble getting across that I was only meeting someone there, not that I needed the police. 

It took Nestor about 60 seconds to find me.  As pretty much the only gringa around I stood out.  We walked down the street a ways and sat in a park across from the church.  We chatted about his family, my family, the whether, our mutual friend.  Then he asked me when I thought I’d be able to come and stay at his house. 

“Well,” I responded, “I guess I thought, I mean, I can do it any time.  Today, if that works for you.”  I was a bit thrown.  Perhaps we had gotten our wires crossed somewhere. 

Yep, we had.

“Ah, well,” he said, “It’s just that I have a lot of work in the next week.  It being Christmas and all.”

“Yes!  Yes, of course.  We can totally do it another time.  I have so much free time in the next 2 weeks.  Any time that will work for you!”  This had the potential to be pretty awkward, but only if we’d let it.  Which we didn’t.

So we made plans for after Christmas (a better time), he walked me across the street where I caught another bus and that was that.  Three hours of my morning and less than US$2 and I now know a little bit more of the area around Santiago and one more person’s name.  I call that a success.

Smokin' Dominicans

Last week we took a little trip to the oldest cigar factory in the DR.  I don’t remember exactly what I was expecting- maybe something along the lines of a huge warehouse and rows and rows machines- but this was not it. 

The factory itself is in a small, brightly painted building with two, room long rows of desks for the cigar makers to sit at.  At the front was an elevated platform with a desk.  I imagine this is where the boss sat 100+ years ago, keeping a watchful eye on all the employees.  The cigar maker’s desks were divided into about 10 parts each, giving the person who sat there a designated space to work. 

The day we went there were only four people rolling cigars, and one guy to give us a tour.  While we watched, our guide explained how the tobacco is aged for at least two years before being rolled (it’s aged longer for the higher end cigars).  This brings out the flavor.  There are also several different sizes of cigars: long and fat (for those who want to smoke one for hours), short and thin (almost like cigarettes), and everything in between.  There are different flavors too.  Not just the strong vs. mild cigar, but vanilla and honey as well. 

All I can say is the cigar making is truly and art.  As we watched, this guy rolled several perfectly equal, beautiful cigars.  Like any art, cigar rolling takes years of practice- I think the demonstrator has been working there for over twenty years. 

 

As for smoking them- I haven’t yet, but I want to.  Dominican cigars rival Cuban’s on the world market in terms of quality and I want to at least try one just to say I did.  

Samana

This past weekend was spent in Samana on the northeastern peninsula of this lovely little island.  After getting up at 5:30 AM to be on the road by 6:15, munching on pineapple and a pb&j on the bus, and trying to snooze, we finally arrived.

First stop was an old neighborhood, settled over 150 years ago by former US slaves.  That's right, freed slaves from the US were promised land if they'd be willing to move to the DR.  We got to speak with Doña Leticia, a descendent of these settlers.  According to her, about 30 families moved to this part of the island, most of them part of an African Protestant denomination.  She spoke almost perfect English which she said was her first language.  It was all pretty interesting and at the end we got to snack on Jonny&Kate cakes and coconut biscuits so a success all around.

Image compliments of the Los Haitises website.

Next stop was Los Haitises National Park.  We took an hour boat ride off the southern end of the peninsula and ended up amid these amazing tree covered islands.  Our guide explained that the islands had been formed hundreds of thousands of years ago by coral that eventually was compacted together, and then through earthquakes got pushed up out of the ocean.  We were divided into two groups, one to go kayaking through mangroves and the other to explore a giant cave.

  

The kayaking was so cool!  There were little crabs everywhere, (which at first kind of freaked me out because I thought they were spiders) and giants trees with tangled roots.  Our guide had us all be quiet for a minute so we could just listen to the bird calls and ocean sounds.  

The cave was pretty impressive too.  There were stalactites and stalagmites, giant mangrove roots reaching down 30+ feet to find more soil and rock paintings/carvings done by the Tainos.  The cave was named San Gabriel by fishermen after the conquest because one of the stalagmites looks like the figure of a saint.

That night we went to a hotel on the other side of the peninsula.  After a yummy buffet supper, I went to my room and discovered I could see the ocean from just outside the door.  Awesome!  The next morning we explored and the beach.  It was one of the most impressive so far.  I've been to beaches on all sides of the island, and while this one would probably be the worst for swimming, it was also the best for wave watching.  There were tons of rocks under the water that the waves break on at various times on their ride into shore.  And the sound!  The waves are so loud, it was hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that this sound is never turned off.  Day and night, always these waves are coming in.

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!

COOLEST DAY EVER!

Geared up and ready to go!

So on Friday our group went on a trip to 27 charcos (a ‘charco’ is a pool, as in a pool of water at the base of a water fall.  Before we left they told us to wear shorts over our swimsuits and sturdy sandals or tennis shoes.  When we got there, they gave each of us a life jacket and a helmet (this is to give you an idea of what we all looked like heading out). 

To get to the first charco, we hiked about fifteen minutes along this trail splashing across a river several times.  The first pool had a 10-foot waterfall flowing into in and just above that another 12-foot waterfall.  In we go.  It’s hard to describe but we swam and climbed and were heaved up this series of waterfalls and pools and canyons.  It was amazing and at times quite frightening.  Lets just say I was really, really happy I had a helmet on.  On one of them we were each literally hoisted up by our feet by one guide while the second grabbed our hands.  I’m sure I was air born for a least part of that and then landed in the middle of a waterfall and had to scramble and shimmy up the rest.   There were also places with wet ladders to climb and/or ropes we used to pull ourselves up cliff faces.  It was a GREAT work out. 

 

After over a mile of swimming, climbing and hiking up this chain of waterfalls and river, we finally got to number 27 where we promptly turned around and headed back.  But going back was oh so different than on our way up.  Instead of climbing, we got to jump!  We each took turns jumping and sliding down the waterfalls.  That’s right; in places the water had worn the rock smooth, creating a natural waterslide.  The highest place we all jumped from was about 25-30 feet.  From the top I would have sworn it was at least 50, but the guide was like, ‘no, it’s only 15.’  Yeah, right. 

This is me sliding down one of the natural water slides!  

Whenever one of us would get nervous about doing something we would invoke the words of one of our members: “One life yo!”  And we’d end up doing it. 

I feel like my description is just not capturing how amazing this way.  The water was so clear, and when you flipped over on your back floating down six feet wide canals with twenty-foot high walls, you could see the sun flittering through the ultra-green leaves.  It was so beautiful and so unique.  We all joked that there is no way this could exist in the US because everyone would all have to sign too many waivers.  That’s just one of the great things about being here. 

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.