Spring Break Shenanigans

Traveling in the DR is always an adventure--a hilarious, maddening, and often dangerous adventure. Recently, Jess and I decided to head out of town and into the mountains for the first week of our lovely two-week-long spring vacation. We were both feeling pretty deserving of some R & R--Jess, because she is in charge of a room full pre-teens whose hormones have clearly kicked into overdrive, and me because the library has suddenly become the most popular afterschool hangout in town, and we are inundated every day with kids who have clearly never learned or even heard of the word "manners" and who's idea of a funny prank is to throw burning garbage onto the thatched roof of the library to see if it will catch on fire. Ha fucking ha!

The Library Crew! They are adorable all the time when they're not hanging all over you demanding paper, crayons, tape, and scissors.

Jess's class. Sure, they look studious...

So, Jess booked us into three different eco-lodges around the mountains in the north-central part of the country. To get to the first one, which in kilometers is really not all that far away, we took three buses and a taxi. After our first three-hour gua gua ride (whose two-seater seats are really only big enough for one-and-half American asses, apparently) we were shoe-horned into a taxi that had basically been stripped of all car-like features on the inside and that moaned and groaned and crunched so badly it felt truly miraculous that we made it to our destination (which luckily was only 15 minutes away). Then, boarded another bus which slowly made its way up into the mountains by way of the "Boulevard de Arepas," which was literally 25 small wooden stalls all set up side by side and all selling the same exact fried flat bread (arepas). So, just in case you didn't feel like flat bread the first 18 times you passed a stall, maybe by the 19th you would have changed your mind. 



We arrived in the mountain town of Jarabacoa, and after witnessing a hysterical 30-minute interaction between 4 or 5 Dominican mototaxi drivers and two Haitian men traveling with all their wordly belongings as they tried to negotiate a short 8 km ride (luckily, in the end the Haitians held out for a fair price because they were clearly being overcharged by a mile), we boarded a pickup truck bound for eco-lodge #1: Sonido Del Yaque. We had run into our friends Andrea and Leire, two girls from Spain who live next door to us in Las Terrenas and volunteer with me at the library, who were heading to the same hotel. We all packed into the back of the pickup, along with an ancient Domincan abuela who took a shine to Andrea and Jess and had an arm around each one for the entire 20-minute journey. Our other traveling companions were a sack full of dead chickens who were unaccompanied and whose destination was unclear.

The Sonido Del Yaque was rustic but set in a gorgeous valley just above the Yaque River (hence the name, “Sound of the Yaque”). We ate our meals in the home of one of the women who ran the place. Luckily for me the vegetarian, there was plenty of chayote on hand, chayote being one of the main crops grown in the region. By itself it’s not all that tasty, but this woman clearly knew what she was doing—it was delicious. 

Chayote vines in the valley.

On our first night, rather than drifting off to the sweet “Sound of the Yaque,” we were instead kept up by the blasting bachata music from the restaurant that lay about 10 feet away from our room. Though we shouldn’t have been all that surprised (we’re fairly used to the booming music everywhere by now), we were a little peeved that our sleepy mountain hideaway was transformed into an all-night disco. We have clearly become old and crotchety. Jess complained about 3 or 4 times, but all it did was make them turn the music up louder. Luckily the next night was quiet as it seemed that all the revelers from the previous night were too hungover to party. Despite all that we spent two lovely days there hiking up hills, swimming in the river, and napping in the hammock that Jess so smartly thought to bring with us. 

After Sonido del Yaque we were headed to another mountain hideaway, which pretty much turned out to be at the end of the world. We had to take another three guaguas to get there. On our last guagua we were sandwiched among a gaggle of people in the back of a pickup truck for an hour-and-a-half ride. Our driver was clearly in no hurry to get anywhere. He stopped every ten minutes to pick up some snacks from the tienda, or to converse with a driver coming in the opposite direction who clearly owed him some money. After a short but heated exchange, 100 pesos was handed over to our driver in addition to a bottle of rum. He took a few slugs and we were on our way! 


Up, up, up into the mountains on a windy dirt road, and he still insisted on stopping every few meters or so to sip on other people’s bottles of rum. To his credit, it was the start of the notorious party weekend, Semana Santa, so it’s understandable that he was bummed to have to be working when he could be drinking. So, why not just mix the two? Who cares that you have a truck full of innocent men, women, and babies who just want to make it to their destination alive? I was so freaked out and pissed off by an hour in, that when he stopped for the eightieth time, Jess ran into the store and got me a big beer. Because if our driver was gonna be drinking, I sure as hell was going to be drinking, too! 

No one likes to drink alone, right Mr. Guagua Driver?

 
By the time we made it to our destination which was 10 miles past the last guagua stop and which we had to pay this drunk asshole extra for him to take us to, we were thrilled to be alive. Even the man from the hotel who received us was like “Dude, that guy is pretty drunk, huh? Yeah, he and his brother who also drives a bus do that shit all the time.” Just because it's "normal" doesn't make it right...



Anyway...ecolodge, a little bit of hiking, fried eggs and boiled plantain for dinner (bleh!), and an awesome tubing adventure down a gorgeously clear, green river with the first female guide we’ve ever encountered in the country. We were only there for one night, which was probably a good thing because there was a family of 20 staying in the room below us and the floors were made of wood planks which don’t block sound even a bit. But the place was lovely, and the staff were rad.

 




The next day, instead of opting to ride in the deathtrap with the rum-swilling jerkface, we rode, one at a time (Jess went first while I stayed behind and learned to play dominoes), on a motorcycle up and down and all around the crazy mountain roads, getting dropped off at a guagua stop that would take us in the direction of our next destination. We were giddy with excitement at having made the whole trek alive so far. And to reward ourselves, we got off the guagua at Fresh Fresh (see previous post) our favorite restaurant in Cabarete! We gorged on vegetables, smoothies, and food with flavor, before boarding yet another guagua that was so full that we had to stand on the runner board of the van on the OUTSIDE while holding on for dear life to anything we could grab on the inside. We didn’t know how far we had to go, but we were both pretty sure that we couldn’t maintain the arm strength to hold on for more than 10 minutes (we both had heavy backpacking backpacks on). Luckily a few people got off and we squeezed into the inside (such luxury!), a privilege which only cost us a couple hundred extra pesos for the greedy cobrador (guy who takes the money on buses).


Off the bus, onto two more motos, more up, up, up, and finally we were at our last ecolodge. The view from the hotel (which was made up of little thatched roof cottages and a big open-air dining hall thingy) was stunning. It was perched on a cliff overlooking the valley all the way to the ocean. The outdoor bathroom had one entire wall missing so that you could sit on the toilet and gaze down over the bucolic scenery. Truly the most enjoyable time I’ve ever spent on the pot.

Who would mind spending 20 minutes on this baby?

Our plan had been to do the 27 waterfalls, which is a sort of adventure tour thing where you climb up a small mountain and then slip, slide, and jump your way down a bunch of waterfalls with deep pools at the bottom of each one. When we realized that it was going to be super crowded there because of the holiday weekend, we opted instead to go on a 4-hour hike with some other people from our hotel to a river that had a similar, but smaller, set up to the 27 waterfalls. There were lovely little cascades and deep, deep blue pools to swim in. It was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.

Rooster with palm.

Jennie's ultimate happy place.

Jess's ultimate happy place.

So, all in all a grand adventure. We made it home alive and even picked up Jess’s sisters in Santiago on the way home! But that is a story for another day…