Del Suroeste al Este

Tuesday we headed out of Santo Domingo for a three day jaunt around the country. Thankfully, it's a small country, but with public transportation, it is still a trek! We went by guagua to Wil's hometown of Las Matas de Farfan. Wil showed us around to meet family and neighbors. Eventually, we walked back to the center of town to get in a vehicle to visit an aunt who lives outside of the town. We visited his sister and niece and they escorted us to the campo (like the family homestead) where his aunt lives. Initially, our plan was to pick fresh mangoes from the campo (free is always good), but the ones that were ripe were surrounded by a rice field with knee-high mud. So we had to buy mangoes instead. Boo hoo.


Kathy and Joel under a tree of unripe mangoes at the campo.

Later that night we fought the mosquitoes while his aunt and some friends/neighbors played dominoes for 5 hours straight. Kathy climbed under the mosquito net for some relief while Wil and I visited with a couple of his cousins.



Guest blogger Kathy here -- we had some internet trouble last night which is why we're posting this a bit later than planned. Let me tell you -- Wil's campo was SO much like being at the Grant ranch I couldn't believe it. Complete with me being eaten alive by mosquitoes. They loved me as a child and apparently still love me as an adult. Wil was bitten a lot too, on his legs. My bites are primarily on my right arm, but seem to be healing by now. They don't show up as much on Wil, though. I was so desperate to get under that mosquito net (mosquitero) that I went to bed about three & a half hours before everyone else. Mosquitoes suck. Literally. When we left the next morning, we were unable to get a ride with the milkman as planned, so despite my (understandable) fear of hopping on a moped with another person and our luggage, necessity won out and we walked to the main road and took motoconchos back to where we caught the guagua back to Santo Domingo. Next stop -- yet another guagua to Las Terrenas in Samana, to visit the aptly named Playa Bonita. Back to Joel . . .

Yes, you read that correctly, we had to go all the way back to Santo Domingo (southeast of Las Matas) to catch a guagua to Las Terrenas (northeast of Las Matas). The three cities sort of create a triangle, but for some reason it is not possible to go across the one leg of the triangle, wah wah. So, we went back and then forth to Las Terrenas.


Here we are, making the best of several guagua rides around The Dominican Republic!

We arrived at the Hotel Acaya (where Wil and I stayed last time) in time for swimming before the sun went down. Then we had a fabulous dinner and a few drinks.







Wil had a little drink, but mostly napped after dinner, in the hammock next to our table!

The next morning we headed back to the beach for swimming, bodysurfing, beachcombing, and sand burial, as shown.








The nice thing about Hotel Acaya is that, like many things in The D.R., they are very fluid about time. Instead of having a set check-out time, they told us to enjoy ourselves on the beach as long as we wanted, to shower and use the room until we needed to leave to catch the last guagua for Santo Domingo at 3 p.m.




Guest blogger Kathy again -- I have often said I couldn't imagine enjoying myself in a tropical climate because I'm not too fond of the heat. This was before I knew how fan-farking-tastic the Carribbean is! The water is beautiful and clear (and certainly warmer than Washington waters), the scenery is gorgeous . . . seriously, I can't say enough good things about this trip to Las Terrenas & Playa Bonita. I felt like a new woman. The only downside was my failed attempt to get a LITTLE color on my skin. I got a little color; unfortunately, it is RED. Yes, I was burned by the equatorial sun. However, it's nowhere near as bad as the burn I got when I graduated from Evergreen, so I'm not worried. The plus side of it is that now my red mosquito bites blend right in and are nearly invisible. Back to Joel for the closing . . .

Our friend at the Hotel Acaya, Mery, called motoconchos to take us to the guagua stop. When they arrived, Mery introduced them to us. Kathy and I each heard part of the introductions. Only tonight, when we were getting ready to blog, did we compare notes. She said, "well I know the name of your driver was Marco." and I'm like, "no way, I heard the one name as Polo." So, yes we are going with that Marco and Polo were our drivers.



Kathy on Polo's bike. Wil jumped on as well.



My driver was pretty determined to get ahead of Polo, so it was somewhat difficult to balance my backpack, hold on, and try to take photos of Kathy and Wil on the motoconcho as they and I swerved and veered through traffic.

Obviously we made it back safe and sound. In fact, a friend of Wil's came over soon after we arrived in Santo Domingo to make us dinner! Cinthia's Dominican Spaghetti was delicious and we had fun with her.