The morning of 8th January saw a 7am wake-up (which, for me, is EARLY, since I'm a teenager and it was the holidays and all) and Papi dropped me off at Pablo's apartment, where I waited with Gran and Richard for our tour guides to arrive. When they did, we all piled our bags downstairs and met them, they were a couple called Manny and Ollie (Manny being short for Manuel and Ollie being short for...I'm not actually sure that her name was? Gran, say in the comments if you know) and they were, to put it simply, awesome. I don't we would have had half as good a time if we weren't with people like them because they obviously cared SO much about what they do, it really was amazing.

We set of for an incredibly long drive, which was made well worth it by the sights we saw on the way. In England, when you're on a long drive pretty much all you're going to see is motorway, and motorway, and motorway and maybe a few fields of sheep here and there. In the Dominican Republic, however, where the city is a mixture of buildings and rainforest, you can only imagine how breathtaking it was out of the city. After a few hours and only one stop in a small town to go to the pharmacy (at this town, I would like to add, Richard accidentally headbutted Gran and gave himself the most spectacular black eye), we pulled over at the side of the road where there was this AMAZING viewpoint. The sea was sparkling blue and you could see the coast and beaches stretching out across one side, it was really just gorgeous. This stop was also very near the larimar mines, and the family who lived at this viewpoint were selling bits of (cut or uncut) larimar. They were also selling fighting c*** , but we decided that they would be a little awkward in taking back to England. Gran and I both bought pieces of larimar, hers to make a necklace with mine to make a ring, and after admiring the view a bit more we moved on.

We stopped for lunch at a beach in Barahona, and the beach was made not of sand, but almost completely of white pebbles, which was kind of strange? But it did look REALLY pretty. Next the the sea, there was also a freshwater lagoon thing, like a natural wimming pool with a few restaurants etc. built around it. We sat down at our table by the side of the 'pool' and had an absolutely delicious lunch (turns out jsut about every meal we would have on this trip would be delicious) of fish and rice and salad and fried platanos and YUM the avocado....You will never taste better fish than the freshly caught and cooked ones on the coast, it was just gorgeous. After we had eaten, we went off for a swim in the surprisingly very cold natural pool, and Gran got nibbled on by one of the tiny fish that lived in the water. It seems it's not only the dominican mosquitoes that prefer the taste of Brits over everyone else!

After a short swim, we set off back on the road again. We spent pretty much the whole time when we were driving talking with Manny and Ollie about the various aspects of the Dominican environment and it was really interesting to learn more about the country I am living in, I felt more a part of it knowing more about it. After another while, we came to the Sierra de Bahoruco national park, which in itself is a HUGE stretch of land, and we drove through there and along an extremely thin, muddy, bumpy track until we reached the car park for Hoyo del Pelempito. We walked through a forest until we reached the viewpoint building thing, and it was just...stunning. I really find it difficult to put into words what it was like being there, so I think the only way you could ever understand the beautiful serenity of it is if you experienced it yourself. It was so silent. Compared to living in the city, the difference was dramatic. In the city, there is always some sort of noise, for example at the moment I can hear a nearby apartment playing music, and cars and a plane, and people unlocking their apartments and Papi doing something VERY loud in teh kitchen that I'm not sure what. But out there, I could hear only the footsteps of the others with me, and the wind through the trees and every now and then a bird in the forest below. I felt like I physically could not talk any louder than a whisper, it would just be wrong, it was the calmest I had felt in a long time.

We spent a while up there, just looking out over everything and enjoying the feel of it all, until it started to be getting kind of dark so we all walked back to the car, leaving behind that beautiful calm. I'm fairly sure I'll never experience anything like it again. As we got to the car park, about 5 birds came to rest in a nearby tree, and according to Manny they are fairly rare nowadays and you'd be lucky to see one of them when you were out there, and we saw FIVE! It was a nice little goodbye committee. We went back down the thin, bumpy, muddy track and drove off to the small town of Los Pedernales, which is just about ON the border of Haiti, and when we got to our hostel/hotel/place it was fairly dark already, so we put our bags away and ate fairly soon after; we were all fairly knackered I think. Again, the food was delicious, and there was this grapefruit which was like the most delicious grapefruit I have ever tasted in my LIFE, and after eating all that deliciousy goodness we all went off and pretty much just passed out in our rooms. Well, except me. I had a tv in my room and Batman: The Dark Knight was playing in Spanish so I watched that for a bit THEN completely passed out.

So all in all, it was a pretty amazing first day! And the next two were just as amazing, but you shall have to wait till the next post for that, but I hope you enjoyed my description of the first day! It was really difficult to decide which would be the cover photo for this post, so I'll be uploading ALL the photos into an album on here, but I finally settled on the view from where we bought the larimar at the side of the road. Until the next time!

-Jazzy x