On the road again

On April 22^nd, the school at NPH hosted an Earth Day fair. Each grade prepared table set-ups explaining vegetation, sustainability, and how to compost/recycle. They’d been working on it for about 2 months. It was really cool to see how knowledgeable they’ve become about the subject. I made sure to check out the tables of my girls. Since I don’t work in the school, I don’t really know what they do during the day, how much studying they actually do, let alone if they’re actually learning anything. So, attending this fair opened my eyes a bit. I was proud of them.

Earth Day Fair!

A few table set-ups

Seed Mural;; More table set-ups;; Skit performed by 2 girls from the nearby batey.

On April 26^th, we had another Visitors’ Day. I think this is the 4^th one since I’ve been here. As usual we invite relatives, close friends, former volunteers, and sponsors/padrinos to come spend the day with the children. We play music and have a few activities planned for the kids. Same ol’, same ol’. Except this time I wasn’t put on FacePaint duty. I was more than happy about that.

A few Visitor/Family day games: Parachute, Dominos, and Uno

Photos of a few siblings

Goofing off with one of the Bigs while working the welcome table;; And, YES, Emily and I are Skateboarding experts…more or less…(Less) 🙂

At the beginning of May I decided to use up some of the remaining vacation time that I had left. I took a weekend trip back up to Samaná with Jenny and Emily (both volunteers), and my friend Jessica. We took guaguas up to Las Galeras. The guagua was packed when we got on. I had a seat in la cocina (“the kitchen”, the furthest back row & no one wants those seats) where I was seatmates with this guy carrying 4 baby chicks in a bag. It took us about 3 hours to get there! Overall, I wasn’t too impressed by Las Galeras. We wanted to take a few excursions but it seemed that we’d be required to take transport to a different city to actually do them. There weren’t any excursions IN Las Galeras. We enjoyed our weekend, though. We stayed at an aparthotel called La Isleta de Samaná. The first night, we met up with some friends of Jessica and had a small barbecue on the beach.

View from our hotel;; Mini Beach Barbecue

The next morning we took a boat ride over to Playa Rincon and spent the day there. For lunch we had fresh fish, lobster, and of course tostones.

Playa Rincon

Playa Rincon

Starting our Sunday pretty late, Jessica and I met up with our friend, Justine, and took a boat over to Playa Fronton. It was beautiful there. You can only get there by foot or boat, and you’d have to bring your own of everything. There were people camping out there, barbecuing. It was really nice! Earlier that afternoon, Jessica and I booked a hotel in Las Terrenas and headed there afterwards. There we met up with some friends and went to a few bars. It was a fun night; I always enjoy myself in Las Terrenas.

Playa Fronton

Monday afternoon we headed back towards Santo Domingo, and from there I took a guagua back to San Pedro. I spent two days at there and then took a CaribeTours bus up to Santiago. I was there back in September, but only for a day. That was that 3 day weekend where I went from San Pedro to Punta Cana to Santo Domingo to Santiago and back to San Pedro (yeah, too much). So this time I spent 3 days in Santiago. There I stayed with a friend of a friend, Paula. I met her back in September through my friend, Israel. Over those 3 days I visited the Héroes de la Restauración monument, the Aurora Cigar Factory, the San Luis Fortaleza, and a few art museums. I met a lot of cool new people. That Saturday I left Santiago to spend the last few vacation days in Santo Domingo with some friends.

With my friend, Israel, at the Heroes of the Restoration Monument

In Fortaleza San Luis;; A few pieces of art that I liked

Tamboril: Where La Aurora is located;; inside one of the factory buildings

Me, Israel and his 2 friends from Argentina

Randomly ran across 2 tops representing our countries: USA & Argentina

 

———-_________———-________———-

Now, for some random photos 😀

Another trip to Campo Azul, this time with the April babies

Fun activity we did a few Saturdays ago: balloon tossing contest. When I did this a couple months ago it turned into a war!

Spent an afternoon acting silly with this cool kid. He arrived at NPH not speaking any Spanish and now he’s speaking it like a champ. He’s going to help me practice speaking Haitian Creole!

-DeeJay ❤

Mariscos, Pescado, Y Presidentes

Weekend on DR’s North Coast: Las Terrenas

After spending the last few weekends home in San Pedro, I was ready for another weekend getaway. This time I went to Las Terrenas. I road tripped it with Nelly (from Spain, she’s been working with NPH for almost 2 years), her friend Rebecca (also from Spain) who was visiting, and Miriam. From San Pedro, Las Terrenas is about 3.5 hours away. Miriam I stayed at Hotel Casa Los Holandeses. It’s located at Playa Bonita, which is a 10 minute motorconcho ride away from the town center in Las Terrenas. For 3 days, we rented the studio apartment; for about $26 per night we had 2 twin-sized beds, a refrigerator, & a private bathroom. It was really comfortable!

Hotel Casa Los Holandeses, Playa Bonita RD

Playa Bonita!

When we arrived, Miriam and I checked out Playa Bonita. Playa Bonita was definitely less crowded than Playa Las Terrenas. We then headed back to Los Holandeses to get ready to head into town for dinner/dancing with Nelly and Rebecca. The next day we took a day trip to El Salto del Limón. El Salto del Limón is a 130 foot waterfall that ends in a pool. To get there, it’s about a 45 minute walk or you can ride a horse (like I did). It cost about $10 round trip. Won’t lie, I was scared every time we went down a hill. All that horse had to do was trip on 1 rock…Yeah, I didn’t trust that horse much. Later went to eat some seafood at Playa Cosón, the next beach West of Playa Bonita.

Miriam & I getting an early morning (10am ;P ) bite of tostones. Almost ready for an afternoon at El Salto del Limón. 

Thanks to this horse, I made it back from El Salto in one piece, with clean feet (it rained the day before so, the ground was a mix of horse feces, water, and dirt.)

Sights…

El Salto Del Limón

With Miriam, Rebecca, & Nelly @ Playa Cosón: Piña coladas Made the right way!

Playing with the Sunset 🙂

The next day, we took another day trip around the peninsula of Samaná. 1^st stop was the city of Samaná, about an hour east of Las Terrenas. Next stop was Playa Rincón. Playa Rincón was absolutely beautiful. I definitely want to make a few more trips there while I am here. Wasn’t very easy to get here, the road from the highway to get there wasn’t paved & I started wondering if we were going the right way. The good thing was that Playa Rincón wasn’t super crowded! There was only one restaurant for everyone at the beach. The food there was delicious! That night we went to a few bars in Las Terrenas. This one bar called La Bodega was really fun, I had a great time dancing there. Since arriving here in the DR, I haven’t danced much salsa, more so Bachata. But being at La Bodega made me feel like I was back home dancing salsa at my fave spots: Tango Café, Lovin’ Cup, and Boulders!

Quick peek at Samaná

Playa Rincón

Found a “Se Vende” sign

Almuerzo! (Lunch)

Pics from the last night out!

That Sunday, Miriam and I headed back to San Pedro via guagua. It cost about 350 pesos (more or less, I forget). Because there is no direct guagua from Las Terrenas to San Pedro, we had to go all the way into Santo Domingo so that we could catch a second guagua to San Pedro, which cost 120 pesos. We arrived back at NPH around 6pm. I was exhausted; I slept until my alarm sounded at 6am the next morning. It was definitely a great weekend with great people. I can’t wait to go back!

-DeeJay ❤