check this out, i have smileys!!!!!!that was exiting...

ANYWAY. So. This weekend we went up to Samana to see the waterfall at el limon. We left early on friday morning, after recieving a phone call at 5.30am from James, who was in a taxi, somewhere in the middle of Santo Domingo, and drunk, saying that he didnt want to come because he couldnt be bothered. Lazy lard. So yea me, itzea, sam and chris all hopped on the bus for four hours until we finally made it to Las Terrenas, where we checked into our hotel, which was only 5 ponds a night, but was also very basic, and had lizards scampering around the rooms which was interesting...not! Anyway, typically, just as we all got our stuff organised and all ready to spend an aftie relaxing on the beach the heavens opened, and we were stuck in the middle of a lovely thunderstormoo-er. So yea instead we spent the rest of the day sheltering under a brollie parasol thing, which was fun. not. On Saturday we got up, and hitched a ride on the back of a pick up truck to el limon (which ws v fun!!) where we walked to the horse ranch place. From there we got on our trusty steeds and made our way up the mountain to the waterfall, which was very stressful, as although i insisted on making sure the horses seemed well looked after before we agreed to anything, i might as well have not bothered, because they practically had to walk up sheer rock faces to get there which i wasnt very happy about! And one of the guides (who was wearing a dashing pirate bandana, may i add, and did not stop singing once. As i have said many a time, dominicains are clinically insane) kept on getting the horses to trot downhill, which just about killed both me and the horse. Anyway eventually we arrived, and after ripping my trousers on a big nail that was sticking out of the saddle, we walked down to the waterfall. Needless to say, the second we got there pirate guy was ripping off his wellies and scaling the falls so that he could do a backflip into the pool below. Someone send for the men in white coats, please!!!! After we had bummed around for a bit at the bottom of the waterfall we hiked all the way back up, and yes, whilst we were all puffing and panting, practically rock climbing to get to the top, the pirate jogged the whole way up and sat at the top laughing at us all. When we got back tp the ranch we had an inspired luch of, yes you guessed it, rice and beans. oh yummy! Anyway, then we jumped on the back of yet another pick up, and made our way up to samana, which was a bit of a dissapontment due to its lack of beach, but we booked into a french hotel with a tres nice pool, so that made up for it. That evening we took our behinds down to a merengue concert, some dude called johnny ´ace´ ventura, who is apparently very big here, but you wouldnt have guessed it from the crowd´s reaction, all they did was stand and watch, abseloutley no dancing at all, which was a bit boring. On Sunday we just mucked around by the pool. We would have gone to yummy paradise island but chris, after speanding the previous day complaining that he was on a budget, and moaning about having to fork out an extra 2 pounds for a comfier ride into town, was quite happy to pay another rd$500 to on this stupid trip, managed to convince some dominicain randoms to go with him instead, basically cutting us right out of the whole trip, which we were NOT happy about. Anyway so us girls just hung around the pool all day, which we had all to ourselves, and then caught the bus back to santo domingo at 1. On monday we had a whole load of new voulunteers arrive, another brit called Min (shes working in el cafe aswell), a canadian called Tracy, a norweigan viking called erik (hilarious, knows more about british history than we do, and knows st a´s aswell which was quite exiting) and a danish random called Casper (he stole my name!!!) who is going to work in the surf school, but doesnt actually know how to surf...