Since I never got around to updating the blog after my first campo experience, this one will be dedicated to everything that I have been up to for the past month.
After the first campo, we had fall break and I went with 3 other students to the Samaná Peninsula for the week. We first stopped in Las Galeras for a couple of days. We stayed in a little bungalow about 2.5 km from the beach and town that we walked each day. This town is a very small one and it is considered not a very touristy place, which was awesome! I loved this town, but it might have to do with what we did during our time there. The first day we climbed and walked across these jagged rocks for about an hour to get to Playa Rincón which is considered one of the prettiest beaches in the Dominican Republic and even in the world. On our hike to the beach, a dog led us the whole way without any hesitance. This dog just started following us and when we would stop to figure out where we were going, the dog would continue walking, so we decided to just follow the dog, and eventually we found the beach. We were one of the only people on the beach for the day, which was perfect! You could walk out for about ½ mile while still walking on the sea floor and the water was crystal clear.
The next day we woke up at 4:30 in the morning and walked for an hour and a half to the top of the local mountain, El Firmamento to see the sunrise. This was not the easiest task though. First of all, it started pouring down rain for about half an hour and we did not know where we were going. We only had a drawn map from the hotel owner and the road to follow in the dark. Eventually we found it after treading through fields and past cows through mud and up slippery hills. Through the pain and the exhaustion, it was definitely worth it and one of the best things I have done here so far. The mountain had a 360 degree view of the whole peninsula (Las Galeras is a peninsula of the Samaná Peninsula). After watching the sunset and eating our breakfast, we fell asleep on the ground for an hour and then started our walk back down to the bottom.
On Wednesday, we left for Las Terrenas, which is another town in the Samaná Peninsula. This is a very touristy town and highly populated with Europeans. We got there with nowhere to stay and went into the tourist office and the lady told us of a little place down the road. We stayed in another little bungalow owned by a French woman, who was able to speak some Spanish. The Spanish was French-Spanish so that was definitely something that I have never heard before and it was surprisingly difficult to understand. In Las Terrenas we went to a beach called Playa Bonita, which definitely lived up to its name. Once again, we were one of the only people on the beach. The next day we went to the local beach and then went to a concert on the beach the last night we were there.
A couple of weekends ago, I went to a place called 27 Charcos (27charcos.com – watch the video to get an idea of the experience that I had) and jumped off of 27 waterfalls. It was extremely exhilarating and I would not histate to do it again! We hiked up to the waterfalls and climbed up rocks and we would crawl up little crevices to get to the other waterfalls sometimes the tour guide would grab our hands and fling us up to the next part of the waterfall. We jumped and slid down the rocks into pools of water and one of the jumps was even 40 feet high! I loved everything about it and would recommend it to other Dominican Republic travelers!
Last weekend we went to Jarabacoa and went to a little retreat center. We swam in the pool, ate a typical Dominican lunch and then rode horses to a waterfall and hung out at the waterfall for a while. The horseback riding was definitely different than the US riding. The saddles are very basic and the people in charge do not adjust your stirrups so on one horse my stirrups were two different lengths and sizes. It was fun to ride the horses at whatever speed I wanted though. Most of the time my horse would walk very slowly, but every once in a while he would start galloping, which I had to slow him down because my saddle was not on very securely so it would start sliding down the side, which was definitely frightening! In order to get to this waterfall, we had to cross 2 rivers and go up and down steep hills, so it was awesome that we were able to get off of the trails and do something different and be free to roam.
On a more serious note, I am sure that everyone reading this is aware of the current situation in Haiti. First off, a couple weeks ago, there was a cholera outbreak in Haiti. Because of this outbreak, the borders that separate Haiti and the Dominican Republic have been closed so the outbreak does not spread into the Dominican Republic. I am sure that it is also because the hospitals here in the DR do not want to have a massive increase in the number of patients. Because of the outbreak, we have had to postpone our weekend trip to Dajabón, which is a border city in the north of the Dominican Republic. The main reason that we go to Dajabón is to see the international market that is held in the city a couple of times a week. Our supervisors decided to not have us go, because the main reason that we go is to see the market with all of the Haitians selling their goods. But, since the market is closed, there is not much else we would do. We are hoping to go at a later date, because it would still be an amazing experience to be able to see the bridge that the Haitians cross over each day and to see Haiti from a distance.
Secondly, Haiti was just hit by Hurrican Tómas this past weekend. Originally it was supposed to hit the whole Hispaniola Island (Dominican Republic and Haiti), but it eventually moved west and hit only the western edge of Haiti. The border is closed still not just for the cholera outbreak, but for the hurricane as well. Even though the country did not get the powerful winds that they were planning on getting, they still got all of the rain. Even here in Santiago, with us being surrounded by mountains, we had constant rain from Tuesday to Saturday. The officials are worried that with the movement of all the refuge camps in Haiti and the new pools of rainwater, that the cholera outbreak will increase and spread rapidly. We are just thankful here that Haiti was not hit worse than it was. Haiti has had a rough year with the earthquake in January, the cholera outbreak and then the hurricane.
------New post to appear after Thanksgiving
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