Jarabacoa and learning to drive again

In my must-enjoy-every-weekend-to-the fullest plan, I had another great weekend in the Dominican Republic... I'm a little behind on writing so all these events took place two weeks ago.

Last weekend, I wanted a change so me and my roomie Will went to Jarabacoa which is in the mountains. Don't know if you guys knew, but I didn't before coming: Pico Duarte is the highest peak in all the Carribean islands, and for that matter, the tallest mountain in all of the Americas outside of the great western cordileras ( Rockies, Andes and their associated systems). (ok, i did a little wikipedia copy-paste here....sue me!)

One of the nice things about this area is the not-so-tropical climate. Instead of the extreme wet heath that always surrounds me in the city, it is a cooler mountain climate. It even gets a little chilly at night.

We visited three different waterfalls; salto de Baiguate, salto de Jimenoa 1& salto de Jimenoa 2. In my humble opinion, Jimenoa 2 is the nicest one! Jimenoa 1 is a tourist attraction, tour buses drop people and it's a really easy walk. We got there early, before the buses arrived, and met a lovely dominican at the entrance who offered to guide us to Jimenoa 2 and thus succeeded. It was a little difficult getting there but as usual that means no Punta Cana people and in this case it ment no people at all besides the three of us. The waterfall is 60 metres high and amazingly beautiful! The sound of the water is so loud and there's a strong wind. But still, swimming really hard, you could get quite close to the waterfall. Apparently, the crew from Jurassic Parc felt the same way as I did about Jimenoa as some footage was shot here.

After, we went horse back riding. The last time I did it was a few years ago in Honduras and I didn't fall of back then so I felt quite secure I wouldn't now either. Normally, a little kid goes with you, sitting behind you, but I told them I knew very well how to drive this baby, named Caramelo around.

Back to the city then. At last, I got over my fear to drive in Santo Domingo and the company finally gave me a car. I already had to give it back, but ok. During my one week drive, I think I've become more Dominican then ever! My dominican friends are even proud of me. Honking is simply a way of communication, I'm constantly insulting the crazy taxi drivers and I even ignore the red lights every now and then. The general belief that we drive on the right and pass the others on the left hasn't gotten to this side of the world yet either. Motorcycles usually don't have lights. The most difficult however, are the big crosspoints, even if you just want to drive straight forward. Imagine a road with 3 driving lanes. 100 meters before the crosspoints, the white lines will dissapear and the road might become a bit wider, resulting in a complete chaos. Everyone is out of lane and honking at each other. At least 5 or 6 cars fit closely together now. Now the battle starts not to have a guy cleaning your front window. They are really sneaky and will just throw the spunge on your window, sometimes from behind. The best, but less appreciated solution, is to turn on your window cleaners. Most traffic lights have a counter, so 5 seconds before the light turns green again, the circus begins. After the crosspoint, logically, everyone needs to fit again into 3 traffic lanes. A clean example of Darwin's theory on survival of the fittest. The survivors, definitely are the guaguas, these are mini vans which always surprise me by the mere fact they are still driving. Next are the taxi's. Same thing just smaller then the guaguas which puts them in second place. Next are the SUV's, me in this case, followed by the carro's, the smaller cars. Ofcourse, this ranking depends of the driver and his nerves as well. Over the week I've gotten quite good at it. But it does sometimes feel like a huge video game, avoiding obstacles (and children are double points, I always say).