Movin' on

I know, why? Why move on? All good things come to an end, again. Time to load up the bikes and hit the road. After a month here, Las Terrenas feels like home. We wish it was our home! Maybe some day. For now, we move on. While Las Terrenas has been good to us, we think we should see the rest of the island. Besides, we wouldn’t want to lose our “travellers” status just yet. Although tempting, the expat life is still a ways off.


It’s been a great month, including three family and friends shifts. First week in my mother and sister joined us. Shift 2 saw our dear friend Robyn from Nelson here for two weeks of fun in the sun. The final shift was put in by Amy’s mom and sister. By the end we were picking everyone up at the airport like we owned the place. El Catey, the local airport, is one of those small-town airports, like Castlegar, where you park for free beside the door. Except, there is no door....this is the tropics, it’s an open-air airport! Gotta love that.


Highlights of the month -- too many to list -- include a wonderful seaside dinner with Amy's mom and sis. Also, a day trip to Santo Domingo, the nation’s capital, during the first shift with my mom and sister. Again to recap, because of the “Columbus not discovering America, but really discovering the DR” thing (see last post), Santo Domingo, founded in 1496, is the oldest European settlement in the Americas. At a population of 3 million souls, it also merits the title of the largest, and no doubt the most chaotic, city in the Caribbean. Given that it was our third or so day on the island at that point – we didn’t even have our tans yet – it was a bit of a gong show getting in and out of the city in our rental car. Somehow we survived and managed to negotiate the insanity of Santo Domingo’s traffic chaos (lanes...what lanes?) and spent the afternoon walking the Zona Colonial – the original city where all the “New World firsts” are...e.g., oldest church in the Americas, oldest fort, oldest whatever, and of course the Cristoval Colon (aka Christopher Columbus) statue. All in all, a successful mission to the genesis of European civilization in the Americas.


With Robyn, we loaded up the rental scooter and hit the road down to El Limón, a town 15 km from here and the trailhead to a “middle-of-the-jungle” tropical waterfall – Cascada El Limón. It really is one of those postcard-perfect tropical-jungle waterfalls with the swimming hole at the base where you can swim behind the curtain of water and pretend you’re Tarzan. Not sure what was more exciting, the swim behind the curtain, or the three of us riding a scooter on the highway for 30 kms! Another good mission, with the exception of me slipping on the trail and falling hard on my ribs and elbow. Two weeks later I still can’t fully inflate my lungs without grimacing in pain. All part of the fun as they say.




spazboy gets up

Then there is the kite surfing lessons and my evolution towards kite surfing stardom. After three lessons, I was up and kiting, sort of, but my status as a kite surfing god will have to wait a bit. As it turns out, it takes more than a few times to get on the cover of Kite Surf Magazine. Who knew? J Anyway, one day perhaps. The ladies had fun being kite bunnies and watching the hot Dominican dudes flying around. These guys are ripped!


Oh yes, and the salsa dancing. As mentioned in a previous post, a place within staggering distance from us called Mosquitoes (not sure they understand the exact meaning of that word to us...not an entirely enticing name), is THE place for salsa on a Friday night. Women, especially the florescent ones right off the plane from Canada like Robyn, get treated to a crew of young energetic Dominican men looking for dance partners. From what we can tell, the Dominican national salsa team trains here on Friday nights, or at least that what it looks like. Wow, these dudes are good! I have taken a few salsa lessons in my time, and, previous to this, might be willing to reluctantly suggest that I sort of can salsa, a tiny bit. But, there is NO FREAKIN’ WAY I’m going out on that dance floor. Since men lead, it’s all about the man making the moves, of which, I have none. At one point, a very generous Dominican lady had pity on me and insisted I get up and dance (with her). I think she realized her mistake seconds into it. This is high-level stuff, and no place for an unseasoned gringo. Ah well, as with the kite surfing, becoming a latino salsa god will have to wait. Robyn and Amy, on the other hand, were in high demand, and did an admirable job of keeping up with the national team.


So ya, time to move on, regrettably. In Amy’s words “I love it here!”. We may have found our future expat base, but alas, that, as mentioned, is still a bit out there. We’ll see what happens. For now, the plan is to load up the horses and go west along the north coast of the island. If you recall, the “island” is the Island of Hispaniola, which consists of two countries: Dominican Republic and Haiti. To see the entire island therefore, means we have to go to Haiti too. So that’s the plan. Ride west and cross into Haiti, then circle back via central Haiti and the south coast of the island. We’re not entirely sure what to expect, or if you can ride the roads, or if it is even possible to find accommodation and food along the way. But hey, that’s what travelling is all about...as always, more on that adventure soon. Chau!