GRACIAS DOMINICAN REPUBLIC...DAY 2

Part II 
Pepe Rocks My World...Fabio, Not So Much 

The van ride down the mountain is an experience in itself. We are traveling on incredibly bumpy dirt roads in a vehicle that has no shocks, and most likely no brakes. Luckily we never achieve a speed faster than five mph so it still feels relatively safe. Because the sides of the van are missing entirely I am able to enjoy the views unobstructed. We are in deep jungle terrain, small tin shacks line the sides of the roads and happy brown children chase after us screaming and laughing, and then dart back into the thick green foliage. I scan ahead for any sign of the ocean but as far as my eye can see there is just dirt road and shiny green leaves.
After driving for what seems an eternity I am ready to give up all hope of ever finding the fabled city of Las Terrenas. The old man driving us appears to be deaf as well as blind, since he makes no response to Kimberly's repeated efforts to communicate with him. My suspicions about him grow as the minutes pass. He hasn't said a word to us, we seem to be going deeper into the jungle instead of towards the water, plus the fact that neither of his eyes look real is just plain creeping me out.
I am about to tell Kimberly my master plan of jumping out of the side of the van. I figure since he can't see or hear it will escape unnoticed, when we come over a little hill and there it is. The Caribbean spread out before us in all its aquamarine glory.
"Las Terrenas." The driver says and points to a small cluster of buildings way below us along the water front.
Kimberly and I both burst out into cheers, and she pats our driver on the shoulder. I see a glimmer of a smile on his face and feel horrible for ever doubting him.
It is another hour before we get to Las Terrenas, and even longer before we find a hotel that has vacancy. How anyone else even managed to find this place is beyond me.
We finally score a decent little room right across from the water for about $50 a night. I am dying to get straight into the ocean. I cannot believe I have been on the island this long already and haven't felt it yet.
We throw our bathing suits on and run across the street and dive right in. It feels even more incredible than I imagined. Enticingly warm and welcoming. So salty that I feel buoyant in it. We effortlessly swim towards some music we hear in the distance.
As we get closer we can see a DJ set up on the beach. All around him people of all ages and sizes and colors are dancing on the beach and in the water. As soon as I hear the music better I can understand why.
This is the first time I have ever heard real Reggaeton. I had heard the Pitbull Americanized version of it of course, but that pales in comparison to what the real thing is like. It is an irresistible mix of reggae, hip hop, and house. It is the music my body has waited its whole life to hear. The hypnotic beats fill me and force me to move in time in the warm water. I look over and Kimberly is float dancing as well. I look towards shore and watch the dozens of bodies moving along.
"Holy Shit." I say to Kimberly. "I feel like I literally am in Heaven."
"I know." She says breathlessly. "This is fucking incredible."
We float and swim and dance until the sun sets in a glorious array of pinks and blues, and my hunger finally forces me out of the water.
We eat dinner at a little Spanish restaurant right on the sand. Kimberly and I share a huge dish of paella, fragrant steamy seasoned rice piled high with fresh seafood, washed down by the refreshing local beer Presidente.
As we are finishing I catch a strong whiff of cologne and look up to see a man standing at our table. He is wearing skin tight white jeans and a button up light blue silk blouse, strategically unbuttoned enough to show several inches of oiled tan chest and a thick gold chain. Sandy blond hair carefully oiled back, and a plastic smile greet us.
"Hello." He says in a thick Italian accent. "I would like to invite you ladies to accompany my friend and I for a drink." He points to his friend who is standing about 20 feet away. The friend is pudgy, awkward, adorably shy looking. He has his wrinkled white linen shirt uncomfortably tucked into khaki pants, accenting his round belly. He has tried to smooth down his hair but the humidity has already started to mess it up.  I instantly like him.
The slick guy in front of us keeps talking. "That is Sergio." He says, waving carelessly towards his friend.
"I. Am. Fabio." He announces proudly.
Kimberly and I both burst into laughter.
"Hahahaha! Seriously?" I gasp.
"Of course you are." Kimberly chuckles.
You can tell this hurts Fabio's feelings.
"It is a common name in Italy!" He says loudly. "Only you Americans have that reaction! It is a very respectable name."
"I'm sure it is." I soothe him. "Thank you for the invitation, but we have already made plans for the night."
He seems put out and walks back to Sergio in a huff. Poor Fabio.
Kimberly and I head to a gorgeous lounge next door to the restaurant. Spread throughout the sand are huge sparkling clean puffy white couches with fluffy deep purple pillows piled on them. I can't imagine how they keep them so white and clean. The palm trees are strewn with tinkling little lights, and you can watch the ocean gently lapping the sand right in front of you. Everything about the place is perfectly, tastefully done. The problem is there are no people in it. Kimberly and I are literally the only customers. It has the same eerily empty feeling the restaurants in Santo Domingo had the night before. We drink a few mojitos and then decide to explore and see if we can find any people anywhere. Granted, we are here in the off season, but some of the hotels were entirely full so there has to be some people around here somewhere!
The main stretch of town is only about two blocks long and consists of a multitude of bars and restaurants along the waterfront. Almost all of them are empty and about to close. When we get to the very end we find a cool little sailor bar that has a decent crowd. When we order Caipirinhas the bartender insists we try the rum straight. He says Dominican Republic has some of the best rum in the world and we must sip it and appreciate it as it is.
It is something of an acquired taste but by the third glass I am starting to really see what he is talking about. We carry our fourth big glass of straight rum out onto the back patio so we can enjoy the warm night air and listen to the ocean waves.
The first thing we see when we step outside is Sergio. His shirt has come completely untucked and partially unbuttoned, he has spilled rum all down the front of it and he is completely covered in sweat. His hair is sticking up every which way, and he is in the middle of playing his heart out on a set of bongo drums while smoking on a giant cigar. When he sees us he yells 'Girls!!!' wildly, runs at us and embraces us as if we were life long friends. I don't know if it is the rum or just his enthusiasm but Kimberly and I can't help but respond the same.
"Sergio!" I shout excitedly as I return his bear hug.
He introduces us round to his large group of male and female Italian friends, including Fabio who still seems a little sulky with us.
There is a local band playing merengue and the Italians all trade off accompanying them on the bongo drum and dancing madly through out the bar. They are loud, drunk, and unbelievably fun. After countless more glasses of the now incomparably delicious local rum some of us wander over to a 4 story night club across the street. We watch a local man renact the entire dance of Thriller to perfection and then start dancing to more Reggaeton, the absolute greatest music I have ever listened to. 
Suddenly the music goes completely silent and the lights go out. I think it must be another black out, but then I start to hear a weird creepy little tune, like something that would be played in an old horror movie. The crowd goes absolutely ballistic, screaming insanely and jumping up and down ecstatically. Kimberly and I look at each other in confusion. What the hell is going on?
Evil laughter pours out over the loudspeakers while everyone in the crowd pumps their fist in the air wildly. Then the best beat I have heard yet starts pumping, the lights start flashing, and the words 'Pepe! Pepe! Pepepepepepepe! Pepe!' start.
I know it is the greatest song ever written, never mind that I cannot understand the Spanish words, and that 90% of it is simply Pepe said over and over. It is the way it is said, the way the entire crowd of sweaty bodies move together in unison to the perfect beat. I throw my head back and shout at the top of my lungs with everyone else.
"PEPE PEPE PEPE!"
I've never felt better.

GRACIAS DOMINICAN REPUBLIC....DAY 2

Part I 
I'm A Survivor 

When I wake up everything is fresh and new and glistening in the way that only happens after a heavy rain. Our free breakfast consists of lusciously sweet tropical fruits and scrambled eggs with more of that delicious hot pepper infused olive oil. The coffee, made from local beans, is rich and strong without a hint of bitterness. After breakfast we roam the beautiful streets of the colonial district.

As much as Kimberly and I love Santo Domingo we want to head to a place with more of a beach town vibe. We had read about a hidden little spot called Las Terrenas on the north side of the island that sounds incredible.
The bus station (like most of them) is located in a run down section of the city. We were told there are north bound buses leaving every hour, but when we get there we find there is a 4 hour wait for our bus. The station is stiflingly hot, crowded, and dirty so we decide to walk around outside.
In this part of town, instead of washing everything clean, the rain has simply pooled in smelly muck filled pot holes. There are no sidewalks and by the time we have walked to the nearest cafe both myself and my suitcase are covered in an unappealing mixture of dirty asphalt water, mud, dust, sweat, and bus station grime.
I perk up at the smell of the food in the cafe though. It is served cafeteria style and consists mainly of beans, rice, chicken, and some type of meat. Everything is intensely flavored, and when I see the option of an entire peeled avocado I am sold. The cashier puts an enormous scoop of raw chopped onions on top of my plate, and although my first instinct is to protest so as not to have my mouth taste like onion for my four hour bus ride, I decide to just go with it. The entire thing, including the whole avocado and a beer comes to less than five dollars. Kimberly and I both smother our plates with that incredible hot sauce and are in heaven. Most of what you eat on the island is grown locally, especially at these cheap local joints, and it is the way food is meant to be. The chickens run wild through the streets, and the meat is the most flavorful I have every tried. The white onions are honestly one of the greatest things I have ever tasted. Sweet, fresh, crunchy, full of flavor, and absolutely no onion after taste.
After stuffing ourselves I panic about my stomach getting upset on a bus that may or may not have a bathroom and quickly shove a handful of pepto bismol pills in my mouth. Someone told me once that pepto can coat your stomach and help prevent food poisoning so I pop them like candy every time I eat.
Kimberly thinks I am insane and shakes her head at me every time she sees me do this. Kimberly also brushes her teeth with the water from the faucet, which not even the locals will do here.
Once we get back to the station and are on our surprisingly comfortable bus I make Kimberly promise not to fall asleep. The bus driver only speaks Spanish and I want to make sure we don't miss our stop.
She swears on her life, but I understandably can't trust her so I start telling very entertaining stories about my childhood in a loud voice.
Halfway into an engrossing story about my fifth birthday party, she claims the only thing that will keep her awake is listening to talk radio on her ipod, puts her headphones on, and promptly falls fast asleep.
God damn it!
I had made the mistake of starting a very long, very heavy, hard back book right before the trip, and since I always have to finish what I start I was forced to take it with me. I take out my huge book and start reading it, stopping and listening carefully to every announcement the bus driver makes and making sure to scan every sign we pass for the words Las Terrenas, while Kimberly peacefully snoozes away.
I finally hear the driver say 'Las Terrenas' along with a lot of other Spanish words I can't understand, and he screeches to a halt in the absolute middle of nowhere and a couple people start to get off.
I violently shake Kimberly awake.
"I think we are here!" I say.
She squints out the window at the dusty road. "I don't think so," she murmurs while drifting back to sleep. "It is supposed to be the beach."
"I swear he said Las Terrenas! KIMBERLY!" I shout. "Ask him."
She grumpily gets up and the bus driver tells her indeed this is the stop for Las Terrenas. I see her arguing with him but she finally motions for me to follow her off the bus.
Before I even have both feet on the ground he roars away. I steady myself and take a look around.
We are truly in the middle of nowhere. There is an abandoned shell of a building behind us, and nothing but hot, dry, dusty road in all directions.
"Uh, Kimberly?" I ask. "What did the bus driver say to do from here?"
"He didn't." She says. "He basically just yelled at us to get off the bus."
"What??" I squawk. "Well, ask them!" I point at the other people who got off the bus with us.
As she is about to ask them a loud rumbling fills the air.
"What is that??" I clutch Kimberly's arm tightly.
In every direction I look a scooter is coming directly at us. Very quickly we are surrounded by an entire gang of men on scooters.
Holy shit. This is actually happening. I am about to be kidnapped. And to add insult to injury it is by a fucking scooter gang.
"No Gracias!!!" I yell hysterically as I brandish my enormous book like a weapon and swing it at a guy who makes a grab for my suitcase and then at another guy who is motioning me towards his scooter. No way am I going down without a fight.
"Kimberly!" I scream as the guys back off me a little. "Get behind me! I think they are afraid of my book!"
I take another menacing swing at the circle of men.
I see some of the other people from the bus get on the back of a couple of the scooters and zoom away.
"Oh my God! They are in on it!" I shout to Kimberly.
"I think these guys are just trying to give us a ride to the real bus stop." Kimberly, who has been listening in on the Spanish says. "They want us to pay them and they will take us. Sounds like they have some arrangement with the bus driver."
"What?? Wait? So....we aren't getting kidnapped?"
She laughs at me. "I don't think so, Dayna."
I still refuse to get on the back of a scooter, especially because they want to put my suitcase on a separate scooter. Plus, I still kind of think we might be in the middle of a kidnapping. If it wasn't for my bravery and my giant book we could have been easily snatched up.
I make Kimberly walk up the hill with me in the direction the station is supposed to be in. The scooters follow us the whole way shouting and honking at us. Every time one gets too close I wave my book at them and Kimberly laughs at me.
"You're welcome for saving your life!" I mutter under my breath.
We finally come to some thing resembling a town and negotiate a mini van with no doors and a driver who can't be a day under 90 and appears to have two glass eyes, to take us into Las Terrenas. Apparently it is another 15 miles or so down the mountain.
I am hot, tired, and now hungry again. I am a little shook up from the shock of nearly being kidnapped. We are standing in a dusty little dump of a town, with no hint of the ocean being anywhere near us. The scooter gang is still yelling and grabbing at us to get on their scooters.
I don't like the thought of getting in the decrepit mini van and heading down a mountain with an ancient dude who has no eyes at the wheel, but at this point it seems the best option.
I look at Kimberly as we sit down on the ripped up seats, trying to avoid the rusty springs sticking out of them.
"I swear to fucking god, if you fall asleep this time I will kill you myself." I vow as the van lurches to a bumpy start.

GRACIAS DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

DAY 1 TWO CAPITAL CITIES 

Part I 

Brave New World 

I never traveled outside of the country as a child. I had a few chances to go to Mexico but my mom was convinced that if I set one single toe over the border I would be instantly kidnapped and sold into sex slavery.
So of course, as soon as I turned 18 and graduated high school I flew straight to Puerto Vallarta with several thousand other over privileged suburban teenagers and spent a week on a drunken binge at bars geared towards making white American tourists feel right at home. The most authentic foreign experience I had was when some Mexican children tried to sell me chiclets outside the airport. Still, I felt victorious when I returned home without a single kidnapping scare.
After having thus established my extreme travel savvy, independence, and bravery, other than a couple of brief forays into Canada, I didn't feel the need to leave the country again until ten years later, when I was sent on a business trip to China.
Going to China was like entering another world. Everything about it was different than anything I had ever known. The people, the food, the buildings, the language, even the air. The suffering I saw, and the level of poverty was astounding. You can't truly realize the conditions people are capable of living in until you see it with your own eyes. And then you see that they are happy. That they are able to survive and even thrive. When I came back from China I was a changed person. I looked at the world with different eyes. And I was desperately eager to immediately travel again.
When my friend Kimberly asked me to go on a trip with her I jumped at the chance. We decided on the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
At the airport waiting for our flight my youngest sister calls me. She sounds on the verge of tears.
"Dayna, I don't want you to go! I don't think it's safe! What if you get kidnapped??" she wails.
"Have you been talking to Mom?" I demand. "Listen, no one is going to kidnap me! I am a brown belt second degree in karate! I have enormous teeth for biting! I am not afraid to fight dirty and I can scream really loud! Plus---"
She cuts me off before I can finish listing all the ways why it would be nearly impossible to kidnap me. "No, I just watched the movie Taken!" she says. "And now I am really scared for you."
I assure her I will be fine and we hang up. Two seconds later my middle sister calls me.
"Dayna! Mom said you might be going to Haiti? You are NOT going there! Do you know how dangerous it is? There are literally no laws there. I am worried enough about you in the DR but I forbid you to go to Haiti. I absolutely forbid it!"
"You can't forbid me!" I exclaim. "You're my younger sister. You have no say in the matter. I'm going to Haiti."
"I am not fucking kidding Dayna. You are not going to Haiti."
I can see this conversation is going no where so I tell her we are flying into the Dominican and will probably not make it into Haiti. After a few more threats we say our I love you's and hang up.
Instantly my phone rings again. Crap, it is my mom.
"I know you are a grown woman." she starts out with. "But I am still your mother and I just want you to be really careful! Don't leave your hotel at night. Don't walk anywhere ever! Don't eat anything weird! Don't talk to any strangers!"
I appease her by falsely agreeing to these impossible demands, say my good byes, and board the plane.
Kimberly and I are taking a red eye to Puerto Rico where we have a 12 hour layover, and then flying on to Santo Domingo, the capital of Dominican Republic. I hate red eyes because I can never sleep on planes.
I pull my book out and settle in for take off. I turn to Kimberly to comment on what a long night this is going to be and discover she is already fast asleep, head crammed against the window, snoring softly.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me." I mutter.
Ten tediously long hours later we land in San Juan, Puerto Rico and I have to physically shake Kimberly awake. She yawns and stretches luxuriously.
"We're here already?" she asks sleepily.
I have to restrain myself from slapping her.
Because we have 12 hours to kill Kimberly wants to leave the airport and explore San Juan, she has been here once before and says the old part of town is the best.
I feel oddly nervous to leave the relative safety of the airport.
"Are you sure?" I ask her. "Maybe its better to just stay here until our flight."
She looks at me like I am a moron. "I'm not staying in the airport for 12 hours, you can if you want."
She heads out of the airport and I quickly tag along behind.
We get in a cab headed to Old San Juan. The driver asks us where we are staying and how long we will be in Puerto Rico. When we tell him we are going on to Dominican he is instantly concerned.
"No!" He says. "Dominican is very dangerous for American women, especially two blond women. No, you better just stay here. No one even speaks English there!"
I feel a tinge of alarm. What if my family is right? What if I am going to some dangerous place? I sneak a glimpse at Kimberly to see if she looks scared. She just looks insulted.
"What makes you think we don't speak Spanish?" she snaps. Although I am darker than her, Kimberly is actually half Mexican and speaks a decent amount of Spanish.
Her and the cab driver start speaking back and forth in Spanish to each other and I am stuck grinning like an idiot whenever they burst into laughter, and occasionally saying "Si" when the cab driver directs  a question my way. God only knows what I am agreeing to.
We spend the day roaming the charming cobblestone streets of Old San Juan. The buildings are beautiful pastel colors with intricate rod iron railings covering windows and balconies. This is the clean, well preserved, tourist friendly section of the capitol.
We eat an incredible meal of scrambled eggs with spicy peppers, tomatoes, onions, and cilantro and a french press of fragrantly strong, fresh dark coffee at a charming little cafe.
We finally get back to the airport and take a seat to wait for our flight to Dominican. Not only does Kimberly end up sleeping the entire one hour flight there, but she falls asleep in her chair at the airport and I have to wake her up for boarding. I have surpassed 48 full hours with no sleep and am starting to find her ease at falling and staying asleep pretty god damn annoying.

Part II
I'm Home

I love Santo Domingo instantly and irreversibly. As soon as I leave the airport the soft humid air wraps me in a warm welcoming embrace. The smell of the nearby salty sea and wet pavement from a recent rain, the sound of Spanish being shouted and horns honking, the sight of the almost painfully blue sky, all combine to be completely foreign to me and yet utterly, comfortingly familiar at the same time. I feel as if I have just arrived home, as if this was where I've always been meant to be.
Kimberly and I are staying in the Zona Colonial district of the capitol city and have arranged for a driver from our hotel to pick us up at the airport. As soon as we start driving he begins talking away to us. He speaks no English so it is up to Kimberly to listen and respond to what he is saying. She manages to do this for the first five minutes of the drive, at which point she falls soundly asleep against her travel pillow. I've got to get me one of those.
I'm left gamely nodding my head at him whenever he makes eye contact with me in the rearview mirror, or points something out through the window. The more I see of the city, the more deeply I fall in love with it. The ocean is a stunningly gorgeous shade of clear turquoise. Huge green tropical plants sprout up everywhere, leaves still sparkling from what must have been a very recent rain. The streets are busy with cars and people, wonderfully loud with music and voices and laughter. From the beach comes the enticing aroma of BBQ'd meat and I realize how starving I am.
Our hotel is a 300 year old building that has served as everything from a sanitarium, to most recently a convent. It is absolutely stunning. High, white washed stone walls face the street and we enter a peaceful courtyard through a huge arched wooden door. We walk through a tropical paradise of secluded palm fronds to reach our peacefully beautiful room of terra cotta tile and simple rod iron beds.
We are paying less than $80 for the room and we get a free breakfast. We are both amazed at how nice, tasteful, and serene it is.
We walk the streets for several blocks looking for a row of restaurants Kimberly had read about. We walk through shady squares where old men play dominoes and read papers under majestic old trees. Dogs run happily through the streets, frolicking and playing with each other. Beautiful Latin women push adorable little babies in strollers.
The row of restaurants lines an enormous, important looking square. There are political statues and monuments, and stairs arranged like bleachers before a stage. At the moment it is completely deserted other than for the dozens of pigeons loitering around.
The restaurants are all virtually deserted too. There about ten of them and someone runs out of each of them to beg us to stay and eat. It is a weird feeling to be the only customers in sight and this feeling increases when we choose a pizza place. The hostess takes us throughout the three story building showing us each and every table to ensure we get our top choice.
What we really want is to sit outside, and although she seems reluctant she finally lets us.
We face the huge square and watch the sun slowly set over the silent statues as we sip our first taste of the local beer, Presidente. The beer is light, refreshing, and completely smooth and delicious. We have several by the time our pizza arrives. The crust is thin and crispy, the cheese tangy, and when we ask for hot sauce we are given a bottle of olive oil with a multitude of peppers floating in it. It is flavorful, spicy, and like nothing I've ever tasted before. Kimberly and I can't get enough of it.
Just as we are finishing up a torrential downpour starts with no warning. One minute the skies are clear and pocketed with stars, the next we are instantly soaked with rain. Maybe this is why the hostess didn't  want us sitting outside....
The servers quickly rush us and our remaining pizza and beer inside where we stand dripping wet, unsure what to do. They are trying to set up a table for us when the lights go out. The entire street goes pitch black. Kimberly and I stand in the impenetrable dark for what seems a lifetime, unable to see a single thing, until someone finally lights a candle. What's left of our pizza is ruined so we just drink our beer and pay our bill. It is an eerie feeling, being somewhere totally unknown, unable to see anything except the small circle of light from the candle, listening to the rain absolutely belting against the roof and the streets.
When we leave the building to grab a cab the rain is like no rain I have ever felt. It is the same as being underwater. Water fills my nose and my mouth, soaks every single part of me, is already past ankle high in the streets. It is both terrifying and totally exciting at the same time. Kimberly and I start laughing somewhat hysterically at each other.
I have no idea how the driver can see anything on our cab ride home, the windshield wipers don't stand a chance against the speed of the rain. Somehow we make it safely and feel our way up to our room in the slippery dark.
I lay wide awake on my bed, listening to the deafening sound of the rain, my heart beating in exhilaration at being in a foreign land, in the middle of a city wide blackout, in a storm like none I could ever have imagined. I have never felt more adventurous in my life. I try to tell this to Kimberly but her only response is soft snores. Of course. She is already asleep.