Downtime in the Dominican Republic/Haiti
Easter 1996
Tuesday April 2nd
Jo and I drove to Manchester Airport for the10.30am 11 hour flight full of tourists. The Dominican Republic is a large mountainous island of Spanish heritage between Cuba and Puerto Rica. The left third of the island contained Haiti, French origin and infamous for its terrible dictatorships. We touched down at Puerto Plata Airport on the north coast of the island around 3pm, losing 5 hours en route. We were travelling as light as possible, carrying only hand luggage and charged off the plane, straight through immigration and into car rental companies. By the time the tourists had emerged to be chauffeured to their resorts, we had scanned six offices and secured a cheap car from Eddy at 'Best Quality (sic) Rent-a-Car' for the following day. The Dominican Republic has successfully attracted tourism by building large self contained resorts where the tourists are locked away from the dusty, untidy towns to enjoy private beaches and the usual pampering. We wanted to see the real island. It turned out that we would see few other tourists until we returned to the airport seven days later.
After changing our US dollars into pesos (13 to a $US), we walked out of the small airport, turning down offers of motorbike rides and flagged down a 'publico' - an old battered minibus that served as the main island transport for the locals who didn't have a moped or motorbike. We were driven in a packed bus through the towering fields of sugar cane into Puerto Plate itself.. The heat was immense. This major town was a hive of activity (all towns were the same), hundreds of motorbikes screaming around with terrible exhausts, no lane discipline.
Puerto Plata is the main town in between the resorts but we saw no tourists. Someone tried to take us to a hotel, but I just wanted a cold beer and a chance to get my bearings. 'Presidente' is the local beer and comes in litres. Ice cold. I had only found one decent guide book before the trip and it was not a Rough guide. Just a block from the main plaza, Hostal Jimesson on Cayer John F Kennedy was modern, yet its antiques and old furniture gave it a feeling of an old home. For 400 pesos (£20) we got a decent ensuite room. We did not realise that this would be the best room we would get all week. We were both tired from the heat and the incessant activity outside. Half way though my shower, covered in soap, the water stopped. I was forced to rinse off using water from the toilet!. It came back on later so I tried again.
Then a tropical thunderstorm hit town, struck a cable and we had no electricity for the rest of the night. There was an oil lamp in the room to provide light. We ventured out in the dark about 9pm and found a cafe which provided us with toasted ham and cheese sandwiches (the cooker was powered by a battery), strong rum sangria and milkshakes. The rain was lashing down outside. The gutters were flowing with water. We got drenched getting back to the hotel a block away, back to a room with no light or air conditioning. Some poor electrician attempted to fix the cable in waterproofs as gallons of water poured over him.
Wednesday April 3rd
The locals were up by 5am and on the move. The sun blasted out over the red corrugated tin roofs, but it was cool enough to hit the streets. Walking back to the plaza around 7am, we got another Publico back to the airport. The car was not back or ready as promised and we ended up waiting at the airport until 11am before we got our small Honda and finally got going. Outside the airport, there was a long parade of trucks on a Presidential campaign rally. The Presidential elections were due in May and the entire island was full of posters of the candidates everywhere. In towns, on trees in the middle of nowhere, anywhere where they could be stuck. Bridges and trees were painted in reds or purples, the colours of the major parties. While we stopped to take photos, one of the campaigners was hit by a truck. He survived. We would see many of these convoys throughout the week. We filled up the tank for 150 pesos (£6). Petrol was cheap.
It was hot - in the 90s as we headed east towards the Samana Peninsula. Driving on the right hand side, it was hard work on substandard roads with huge potholes, motorcycles coming at you from every direction, publicos hurling past at great speed regardless of corners or oncoming traffic, other vehicles pulling out from sideroads without a glance, dogs, donkeys, goats and cows also scattered along the side or on the road. We passed through Sosua, supposedly an up market resort area. It was covered in dust and litter and very unappealing. We picked up a road map - the best we could find. I had read about a decent hotel at Playa Cabarete which we checked out. It had a great beach but was stuck next to the loud main road. We considered it as a potential stop later in the week, but never found time to return.
Onwards, through Gaspar Hernandez, we discovered a public beach at Playa Grande. Locals offered to look after our car. We removed our luggage, headed for the beach and no sooner had I had a dip, than a tropical storm appeared and everyone headed for their cars. We had lunch at Cabrera. Plumping for the standard Comida Corrida, we were presented with rice and beans, salad and a soup with meat. It took sometime before we realised it was tripe. We also discovered that rum was £4 a litre. It took hours to drive around the coastal road. I soon discovered that the tracking on the car was dodgy. On the rare occasions I got up to 80+ kilometres an hour, the steering was awful and potholes appeared out of nowhere . Most of the week became an exercise in rally driving from hell and we expected a puncture every time we hit a road ramp, rock or pothole. Some of them were three feet across and nearly a foot deep.
We crunched on to Nagua, which I had also read was a good stop. The major problem with driving on the island was the lack of traffic signs. Half the time you didn't know where you were or if you were even on the right road. When you entered towns, you assumed that if you followed the road you would emerge out of the other side of town. This rarely happened. The road would peter into a dead end of sand, rocks or mud. We ended up driving around in circles trying to find the road out of town which had magically been moved ten blocks to the right of left. We had this problem in Nagua. We couldn't even find the beach and followed a road out of town. About 45 minutes later, we saw our first town sign at Pimental that alerted us to the fact we were completely off track. Returning to Nagua we found the turn off for our road (it was impossible to see from the other direction and unmarked).
The coastal road was lovely with a blue ocean protected by forests of palm trees. We passed a host of people trying to pull a mangled car which had landed over a cliff - though we could not see how they had crashed there. It was getting late, but we decided to push onto the Samana Peninsula to Sanchez the major town which was another busy dust hole. We headed over the hills on a twisty road with great views over the coastline to Las Terrenas, a supposedly undeveloped resort on the coast. It was packed with locals and more road bumps. Making our way to the beach, loud music (and I mean loud - you could talk not over it) boomed out. All the hotels were full or too expensive. On a side road we found a cheap hotel at Dinny's. A large mosquito net hung over the bed. The car was already nursing its wounds after one day and refused to start. We enjoyed steaks at the restaurant in the evening. It was a nice setting by the ocean, but the locals did not seem to sleep. Motorbikes tore past the room all night. Again there was a power cut and we lit candles.
Thursday April 4th
We got up early for a walk along the beach. The music was already going and the first bottles of rum were being drunk by the locals at their stalls. Picking up a fresh pineapple and oranges, we left to retrace our path back to Nagua. Outside Santhez, I spied a young soldier hitching and we picked him up. He was heading for Santiago. We drove back to Nagua and onto Pimental where we had got lost the previous day. The soldier guided us through the lanes and got us through a police block. He stayed with us all the way to the main highway No 1, and got out when we turned south for the Capital Santa Domingo just south at La Vega.
We had decided to head south, potentially to check out the Haitian Embassy. It was a crowded road full of big trucks and long lines of traffic. At a cafe en route we could not hear ourselves speak over the music. The garage supplied us with small cups of coffee gratis. We entered the two million strong capital without a decent map and found it a nightmare to negotiate. Trying to find the old rebuilt colonial quarter we ended up going round in circles, getting stuck in traffic jams. I took an illegal U turn and a policemen stopped us. He cautioned us, but let us go. Later on, we were not so lucky. Taking what I thought was a legal left turn, another policemen pulled us up. They were everywhere. He told us it was a 400 peso fine or a court case. We haggled in Spanish. He climbed in the back and settled for 200 pesos. We were starting to hate the place. When we did find the colonial quarter, there was nowhere to park and it looked nothing special. Thousands of locals on the streets everywhere.
We decided to escape over a bridge and I spotted the Columbus lighthouse. This monumental edifice stood out like a huge concrete block. It had been built (over 100 years) to commemorate Columbus and supposedly contained his tomb. It was closed but we could see the tomb through the glass. Soldiers protected the building. Cutting our losses, we took Highway 3 east towards the main airport. More resorts, palm trees and coastlines. There was a toll to pay, and political campaigners took advantage of the long queues to hand out literature. Vendors peddled anything they had. The scenery was dry, flat and pleasant.
Making good time along the southeast coast, we finally took a side road down to the Playa La Caleta. The road was rocky and bad, but it was good to flee the traffic and people for an hour in the sun. We never reached the beach. - the road gave out to a path. The major tourist town La Romana was another nightmare and we headed north instead or south, and retraced our steps. I was dog tired after 11 hours of pretty much continual driving. We decided to try the small fishing village of Bayahibe, reaching it at dusk down another long unmade road. A local offered us a room in his wooden shack. It was basic with restricted power and a cold shower, but the sea was nearby with fishing boats tied up. Drinking rum as the sun came down over the ocean, we had a good meal at a restaurant overlooking the small bay. A few German tourists were here. Midges bit us all night despite the mosquito repellant.
Friday April 5th
Refreshed, the cockerels awoke us to a glorious morning sun. We strolled around the bay, and turned down offers to hire a boat around the coastline. I needed a minimal day of driving and we headed north east to Higuey through the fields of sugarcane. Local farmers all carrried machetes hooked to their belts. Traffic was non existent. We called in on a couple of tourist markets, but found it all quite expensive and nothing special.
Our destination was Playa de Macao, and after El Macoa, we had a 20 km drive along a unmade road past tiny villages to the beach. A small army outpost let us in, where we found a small wooded enclave containing a few cabanas right by a wonderful beach with the sea crashing on the shore a hundred feet away. This was it. The kind of place I had been looking for. No tourists or locals. Isolation. It cost £5 each for a small basic mud cabana with a toilet and cold shower. A hammock hung outside the door. The women who ran it offered meals and cold beers. We hit the beach for some rest, before someone came to get us to have lunch. Fish fresh out of the sea. The afternoon was spent reading, napping and drinking rum by the sea, with no one bothering us. Late in the afternoon, we strolled along the beach to where the locals had stalls selling rum. Around dusk, I made a campfire by the sea and we had another slap up meal. Then back to the fire. It was my favourite day of the holiday. We slept with the sea in our ears.
Saturday April 6th
I wanted to stay, but we had to cross the country today to allow us time to get to visit Haiti. Again, we had to retrace our way back to Higuey, where we found a supermarket and stocked up on picnic food, cheap champagne and rum to bring home. I bought an oil lamp as a souvenir. We had used enough of them. After getting lost in Higuey we finally found Highway 4 heading west. At Hato Major we had planned to take a side road, but it was impassable and we were forced to stay on Highway 4 all the way back to Santa Domingo. We managed to negotiate our way across town relatively successfully. The weekend traffic was quieter. It was very hot.
We took Highway 1 back up the same way we had come down on Thursday. As we approached Bonao, a tropical storm hit us and the roads were soon flooded. It was so bad I could no longer see the pot holes in the roads. I had never driven in such weather. Many cars had stopped by the side of the road to let it pass. Other mortals rocketed past us oblivious to it all. We were looking for a turn off left to Constanza in the mountains. It was dreadful driving. We turned round and Jo spotted a hidden turn off. It was her finest moment in navigation. Stopping to ask a local to check, he tried to put us off by saying that it was too dangerous to take the road. Something had happened up there, but we cold not understand what. It was a good, if twisty road, shrouded in fog, with the rain continuing to pelt down. We soon discovered the problems. Landslides were occurring and rocks were lying in the road - the latest hazard. A car had gone over the cliff. It was getting dark and as we passed through each village, there were no signs. Locals were walking along the road to the bars for a Saturday night out. We could not see any mountains for the fog. Darkness fell. We started to wonder if we would be spending the night in the car. The lights of Constanza suddenly appeared in a valley. Relief, but it took four attempts to find a hotel that wasn’t full. A fat old lady who tendered a bar let us into a house across the road. Shock horror - hot water for a shower. Well a little. The water soon finished and there wasn’t even any to flush the toilet. People in the other room turned out to have seriously bad digestive systems! We had a beer and then strolled around the place. It was hardly the picturesque town we had been led to believe. We discovered a tiny shack place that served fresh fried chicken and sweet potatoes. Cheap and tasty.
Saturday April 7th
The lack of water and state of the toilet drove us out early just after 6am. It was a lovely drive back to Highway 1 with views of the mountains awash in sunlight. At a pottery stall I purchased a vase, before we ventured north to Santiago, the second largest city. The highway ceased to exist at the outskirts and we drove around a construction sight to enter the city. It seemed unappealing and we were keen to try our luck with Haiti. We wanted to try another back road to Moncion en route. The lovely lush scenery of the mountains was tempered by an awful rocky road which took its toll on the car. It was all rocks and dust. I don’t know how we escaped a puncture. We were reduced to 40 kph and it took an age. At Bulla, crossing the river, we took the better of two roads which ended up in a construction site half an hour later. We had to return along the dusty road to Bulla and try the other one. Down to a quarter of a tank of petrol, we had to seriously consider our situation. We were not sure if we were on the right road or far we had to go. Then the brakes went and we had to be really careful. It was a relief to eventually find a gas station at Moncion. The brakes started to work again, but the car had been battered by the roads. From now on, we would try and stick to the main roads - as bad as they were. We followed route 18 to Dajabon. The relief of surfaced roads again. About 10 km from the border town, a policeman stopped us for a check and asked us to take an old man to the town. He guided us to the border where our next adventure was to start.
We had no information on Haiti at all. We did not even know if we were allowed to cross into it. We parked at a border where a young local adopted us and took us through the complicated procedure of immigration. First we had to visit the Dominican Rep police and pay $5, then immigration to pay $10 each to leave the country. Also a visit to the army office. We obtained a visa and went to collect the car. We then discovered that we could not take the car across. It would have to be left behind. The army would guard it for a fee of 100 pesos. As we unpacked I thought we would never see it again. We crossed a bridge into Haiti, checked by the army and then into immigration for another 200 peso pay out. This was getting to be an expensive excursion but at least we had Haiti stamps in our passports. No computers here, the immigration officer wrote our names in a book and put us down as Northern Irish. One German had passed through the previous day. That was the only tourist I saw in the book. Our guide talked to everyone for us. We had met an ex Rhodesian on the border who knew our guide and said he was ok. Mike suggested we visit Fort Liberte where there was a decent hotel. He himself had one in Monte Cristi where we were headed tomorrow afternoon when we returned.
Passing up potential taxi and motorcycle rides into Quanaminthe (Jo’s decision - not mine), we walked a good mile in the sweltering heat to the main street where a pickup truck was about to head to Fort Liberte. Our guide exchanged $40 US (we weren’t even sure about the rate - it appeared to be 2.50 Haiti Gourdes to the US dollar, but the currency had been devalued and the notes confused us. A 25 Gourde note was actually 5 Gourdes and so on). Climbing aboard, I tipping him $5 for his help. The driver chatted to us in French/English as we hurtled along a dusty road towards our destination. The ride cost us 30 Gourdes and everything seemed expensive. The landscape was very arid. Fort Liberte was a desert town by the coast. An old French arch stood in the main street now with Baby Doc’s picture and a motto to “Go in peace with everything you do”. The driver took us to the big hotel which looked very comfortable with a lovely location by the protected fishing port. Getting a room was another matter. We hung around while the staff decided and then rejected us. The place was empty and we could not work out why they would refuse our custom, but they did. Fortunately, there was another small hotel along the coast.
We walked through the town as the black locals stopped and stared. We were the only white people in town. Finding the hotel by the kindergarten, we were in for a shock. It was surrounded by barbed wire, sandbags and made of cheap concrete blocks. The owner having a shower, told us to check out Room 3. It was a bare concrete cell with a bed. No electricity. For this, he wanted $6 each. I described it as something from the Papa Doc School of Interior Decoration. It looked like Bobby Sand’s cell. It was after 5pm and we were resigned to stay here for better or worse. Jo used her French to butter him up, and he finally showed us a better room (“reserved for the Europeans”) with a bed with a sheet, an oil lamp, basin and bucket. The only toilet was outside, next to a shower which was just a tank above you head. You pulled a rope to get any water. The water had heated in the sun and it was very refreshing. We were desperately short of Gourdes, but felt we could escape the next day with US dollars so we cruised the streets looking for somewhere to eat. Nothing looked appealing. We stopped somewhere which had a beer but no food. Everyone ate in the day, not in the evening. We would greet groups of locals with “Bon Soire”. Everyone greeted us, and we did not feel uncomfortable. Small children would laugh at us and yell “Give me a dollar mister”. After an hour or so, it all looked the same. We resigned ourselves to the fact we would not be eating that evening. Since it was Easter Sunday, there was a large group of schoolchildren in their cub/scout uniforms all heading for church. They laughed their way past us. Despite the poverty, and they were certainly worse off than anyone we had seen in the Dom Rep, they seemed a happy bunch of people. We returned to the room and I read by oil lamp. Fortunately, there were no mosquitos. We had forgotten to bring any rum with us.
Monday April 8th
The cockerels got us up. We had a lovely view of the sea from the patio. Local fisherman paddled out to catch something. We packed and walked past the local dump where women and children squatted for their ablutions. There was litter everywhere. Pigs rooted around the dumps for scraps. Everyone lived in wooden shacks. We passed through a market where local women sold vegetables, rice, beans, salt, plastic goods, piles of shoes and clothes. All were displayed on the ground. On the main street (paved), we found our truck driver who took our last 30 Gourdes to get us back to the frontier. All in all, it was a pretty desperate place but an adventure and worth the visit.
Back at the border, we visited immigration to get an exit stamp. The bridge was full of Haitians all attempting to cross over into the Dom Rep. We waded through the queues and got back to Dom Rep immigration. We knew the procedure so it was easy to fill out the forms. A German couple also came through with a guide. Shock horror, our car was still there. As we approached, local kids surrounded us asking for money. Ignoring them, our guide from yesterday appeared and told us to pay off the army. It was well worth it. Attempting to get out of town, a local told us to follow him on moped and took us out to the Monte Cristi road. We were home and dry - or at least it felt like it. We drove north through police blocks to Monte Cristi which was a pleasant seaside resort, wide streets and the most relaxed town we had experienced. At a restaurant we had toasted cheese and ham sandwiches and milkshakes which tasted wonderful.
We explored the town for hotels and found Mike’s but decided against it. We drove to the sand spit on the edge of the Pacque Nacional Monti Cristi, famous for it El Morre cliffs. We drove along the rocky road to see it, then returned to a hotel we had seen en route. It was basic, but by the sea, and I wanted another afternoon on the beach. Checking into the first floor, we discovered that there was no running water. We would drag buckets up to the room to flush the toilet and have a wash. I suppose we were hardened to it all by now. The beach was grubby, but with ample rum and books we made do. After Haiti, it was relative luxury. In the evening, we drove into town to a restaurant for a slap up meal. The French proprietor had no other customers and we spent a couple of hours talking to him while eating excellent steak and salads. It was our farewell meal and we tipped well with US dollars. I stayed up all night reading by torchlight.
Wednesday April 10th
Washing from a bucket is quite an experience, but we did it, before leaving the hotel on our final day. We drove back to El Morre for photos. It was too hot to climb, and after a milkshake and changing money at the bank (complementary coffee), we pushed on along Highway 1 heading for Puerto Plata and our flight home. The roads deteriorated and we were stopped 4 times by police blocks. They appeared to want money from American tourists, but as soon as we explained we were English, they waved us on. It all got a bit repetitive. After Navarrete, we turned north onto Highway 5. We had driven so much that the sight of presidential candidate posters, goats, dogs, horses, cows, motorbikes, buses was almost natural to us. We no longer felt the pressure we had felt earlier in the trip. Something was there to protect the car. Stopping at a road side cafe, we had a large lunch of beef, chicken, lots of potatoes and cold beer.
At Puerto Plata, seemingly a lot worse than we remembered it, we explored for giftshops and found a couple for T-shirts and postcards. We were locals now and we could haggle with our experience of the week around the island. A nice drive by the coast before returning the car intact to Eddie at the Airport. Checking in, we passed the time sipping rum, congratulating ourselves that we had conquered this island. We would never be back, but it would go down in the annals as a through adventure. The lack of history, major sites, electricity, water and appalling roads were compensated by the lovely peaceful scenery, stunning sunshine, friendly and unintimidating natives. They let us go buy with a wave or a smile. Few asked for money. I would not, however, choose to spend a week in a resort here.
