Last weekend was sopping wet, which sucks when you're deep in the woods. The program took us to Cueva de las Maravillas (Cave of Marvels? Sounds less cheesy in Spanish), which is a cave turned museum that has lots of Taino cave drawings. And bats. And tarantulas, apparently. As weird as it sounds, the cave had great lighting; the parks organization turned about a third of the cave into a museum with nice, smooth paths. So much for hardcore spelunking.
The second stop on our trip let me get more in touch with my inner Jane of the Jungle (anyone remember that crappy video game? It was great). The bus took us to a hotel called Caño Hondo in Los Haitises, a huge national park in the eastern part of the country. The hotel is gorgeous. It's made of wood and stones and there are waterfalls all through the property. We put our things in our rooms and went into the woods for a guided hike. The guide somethings about the local flora and fauna that I´m sure was really interesting, but I can't remember any of it now. 3.7 kilometers and a million mud puddles later, and a cave (this time, without smooth paths), we got back to the hotel.
That night, we had a great dinner and danced a bit. I then stayed up until 5 A.M. talking to kids in the program. Feels like I never left school.
Saturday morning, the program directors dragged us out of bed at 8:00 for some whale watching. I'm all for seeing Shamu in his natural habit, but this was my worst whale watching experience ever. The boat was tiny--maybe 25 feet long, and even that, I think, is being generous. It was a delightfully overcast day and the waves were big. 30 minutes in, I got seasick. 10 minutes later I was laying on my side, covered by one of the ugly yellow raincoats the tour guides gave us. I felt nauseous and weak and dizzy and lightheaded; at one point, I actually thought I would pass out. The only thing to do was to make myself take a nap. I could hear everyone going, 'Oooo! Aahh! Whales!' but I could not lift my head from the seat. When I woke up, we'd docked my this beautiful restaurant, but for our first 20 minutes on dry land, I couldn't look at food. When I heard we would have to get back on the boat to get back to the hotel, I immediately started feeling seasick again.
Once on dry land for good, I took a nap. My group played a lovely game of musical chairs and 'baile de la escoba' (dance of the broom), where everyone has a dancing partner except one person, who has the broom. When the music stop, everyone has to run around and find a different partner so they won't get stuck with the broom. It was a lot of fun. I love how every now and then our program allows us to regress to the kiddie birthday party games. Baila de la escoba turned into a spontaneous dance party. I think I'm getting the hand of this merengue business. I'll report back once I go out again.
It rained all day Sunday, so I spent a few hours playing dominoes before we all boarded the bus back to Santo Domingo. Mind you, this is the same rain that had kept our clothes wet and smelly for the weekend.
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