GRACIAS DOMINICAN REPUBLIC...DAY 5

DAY 5 

How Do You Say "Please Don't Kill Me" in Spanish??

As much as Kimberly and I like Las Terrenas we only have so much time in the Dominican and we want to see as much of the country as we can. We are moving on today to the Puerto Plato region at the north side of the island, close to the Haiti border. 

Kimberly goes for a morning run as I pack up the rest of my stuff and then read my book outside our hotel room under the glorious blue sky. I am still working through the huge black hard cover book, and I desperately want to finish so I can stop having to lug the 5 pound monster around. 

I am fairly engrossed in it when a loud crashing sound startles me. I look up to see that in the few minutes I had been reading the sky has gone from crystal clear blue to a dark, angry, ominous grey. Thunder is booming loud and close and jagged lightning is streaking across the sky seemingly inches in front of me. How the hell did that happen so fast?

The skies open and pour down rain so hard and fast and in such a huge quantity that it is impossible to see anything. I stumble my way inside our hotel room, myself and my book already completely soaked. 

That's when I remember Kimberly is still out there. 

Twenty minutes later she still isn't back and I start worrying about what to do. I can't go searching for her since I can't even open my eyes outside without my contacts being washed away. Not to mention I can't see through the impenetrable rain anyways. 

Another 10 minutes go by and I decide I have to risk it, that's what friends are for right? Plus I like the idea of myself as a hero. I put on my bathing suit and Kimberly's swim goggles (brillant idea if I do say so myself) and head out to find my poor scared friend and carry her back to safety. 

I crash straight into her as soon as I walk out the door. 

"Kimberly! I was just coming to save you!" I gasp.

"How could you possibly have saved me?" She asks. "You can't see anything out there! And why are you wearing my goggles? And a bathing suit? Are you going swimming?" She looks at me like I am a total idiot. 

I feel that it is obvious why I am wearing the goggles and bathing suit but I explain anyways. 

"No! I am wearing the goggles so my contacts stay in and so I can see through the rain! Exactly the way you can see underwater with them. And the bathing suit is so my clothes don't get wet." I say patiently. "And I had a plan of how to find you." 

"Oh yeah, what plan was that?" She asks sarcastically.

She is wet and pissed that her ipod is broken from the rain, and I actually didn't have any plan whatsoever other than barreling outside with goggles on, so I decide to change the subject.

"Do you think we should still try to leave today? You think a bus can even drive in this?"

After much debating the rain lets up a little and we decide to go for it. We don't want to waste a whole day just sitting in our hotel room anyway, 

Kimberly has the front desk call us a cab to the bus station and shortly after an unmarked minivan pulls up. The driver leaps out in jeans and a black leather jacket, which seems a highly unpractical outfit to me. He throws our luggage in the back of the van and frantically gestures for us to hop in. 

"Is this even our taxi?" I ask Kimberly suspiciously. 

She shrugs. "I guess. Let's just get in." 

Kimberly sits in the front so she can tell him where to take us. It is still raining, but not as heavily as before, so it is possible to sort of see out the window. We get about five miles out of town when the driver suddenly pulls over and says something to Kimberly in Spanish, then gets out of the car. 

"What did he say?" I ask her anxiously. 

"Uh...I'm not totally sure. He either said he is picking up his friend or his friend is picking us up. Or maybe that he is picking up something for a friend..." 

"What??" I squawk. I am beginning to have serious doubts about her translating abilities. 

I crane my head around to see what the driver is doing. The rain is starting to get really heavy again. 

I am squinting through the back window when the door pops open. 

The driver is yelling something at us and tugging at my hand.

"What's he saying?" I scream at Kimberly. 

"He is saying get out." She says as she steps out of the van. I see he has already set our luggage on the side of the road. 

My instinct is to refuse to get out. It is seriously pouring and we are on the side of a dirt mountain road miles from anywhere. 

Leather jacket is still screaming in my face though, and tugging more and more urgently at my arm. Plus I guess I shouldn't leave Kimberly or my luggage so I reluctantly get out. 

The minivan peels away as the driver shouts something out the window at us. 

"He says wait here for his friend." Kimberly says. 

"What the fuck?" I mutter under my breath. 

There we stand, two drenched blond girls, one with a suitcase, one with a backpack. We are in a puddle up to our ankles, and we can see or hear nothing other than relentless rain.  

God only knows how much time passes before a beat up sedan pulls up and honks at us. 

A little man with a squashed beret on his head is in the driver seat, honking and waving at us. 

"Ask him if he is friends with the minivan!" I order Kimberly. 

She tries but his only response is to keep honking. 

"Do we get in???" I ask her. 

"Better than standing on the road." 

We haul our own luggage into the car, and take a seat. 

Kimberly gets the guy, who may or may not be the other guys friend, to agree to take us to the bus station. I have no idea what is going on at this point but figure I have no other choice but to just go with the flow. I lean back in my seat and think about how cool and easy going I am being. 

After about 10 minutes the guy pulls up to what looks like a deserted gas station and tells us to get out. 

"Come on!!!" I shriek hysterically. "This is not the bus station!!" A girl can only take so much.

Kimberly gets in a heated argument with him but he insists this is where you get the bus to Puerto Plata. 

He points to a building in the corner of the empty gas station and tells us to wait in there.
We have no choice but to get back out into the pouring rain with our luggage.
Kimberly and I walk across the filthy wet lot and enter the dark building to discover it is a bar of some sort. A long piece of wood makes up a dingy countertop with assorted plastic bar stools pulled up to it. We stumble through the door and a dead silence falls over the place as twenty men jerk their heads up from their beers to stare at us in bug eyed, eager fascination.
Great, I sigh. Just fucking great.