La Capital

It’s been like three weeks, right? I don’t know why I’ve been so busy, but combined with the issues uploading pictures and the access to internet, I haven’t posted on schedule.

Side note: DON’T use Picasa to store pictures because if you have more than 200 pictures or 1 GB, they want you to pay. I switched back to Facebook because people wanted to be tagged in pictures anyway. I am very unhappy about it, but it’s time to move on.

What has three eyes, a long list of firsts, the voice of an angel, and pours out all it has? If you answered Santo Domingo, how smart you are. It is also home to the capital building, museums, and an aquarium.

Santo Domingo is a great place for anyone who loves history…. Which doesn’t happen to be me, but that’s beside the point. I like experiencing history and that’s what matters. Everything is “The First of the New World.” Santo Domingo is NOT the first place that Columbus (or Colón in Spanish) landed, but it was the first place he colonized (get it COLONized, funny how this things are realized).  Below are the map of the exploration route, and the map of my own route.

As I said, that Friday involved a lot of history, a lot of touring, and a lot of heat. We also did some shopping, but the prices were much higher than Santiago unless you bartered down. I didn’t really get the chance to do that much, but I will get what I want here for much less.

Santo Domingo was my third (that I can remember) Aquarium experience. I don’t think we have Aquariums in Michigan, but if they do I need to get to one when I get home to make it four months in a row.  It was pretty cool, better than the Boston aquarium (which I have yet to blog about), and interestingly open air.

After that I had a brand new experience when we toured the Tres Ojos caves. That was awesome, impressive, and beautiful. The downside was that I was fairly disappointed with my cameras performance. The lighting was just not on my side, but that’s alright.

While touring with ISA was all good and fun, the stories that will stick with me happened during the rest of the weekend. Ten of us stayed in Santo Domingo for the weekend to go to a concert. It was a bit more stressful and a lot more wet than I anticipated. Checking into the hostel was a mess and a half because of confusion over rooms. Taylor and I had booked separately, but after seeing the room we were supposed to stay in with a small fan and an outdoor bathroom, we weren’t that into it. I spent an hour trying to work out pricing and rooming with the manager. Luckily he spoke English and was very nice, but it still took him awhile for him to understand me. I think we still would be there debating it if I had to explain to him in Spanish. The owner did give me a thirty pesos discount after all the trouble instead of giving me change.

The hostel was not what you would typically expect. Four of us shared a room with a full size bed, a bunk bed, the smallest bathroom in the world, a TV, and air conditioning for $10 per night each. It was more like a motel than any hostel that I have heard of, but an amazing price. Granted, in addition to the check-in issue, we had to have our doorknob taken off because the key got stuck, none of our keys to the hostel entrance worked, and our water stopped working in the middle of our last night. The water part is ironic, because it rained buckets that night.

I have never stood out in rain that bad in my life. We arrived at the stadium three hours before the concert was scheduled to start on recommendation of my family. Taylor and I had different tickets than the rest of the group, so we were in the back half of the standing section on the field. The crowd was huge and had a ton of energy with their thunder sticks. It would have been a real great concert without the rain.

It rained a couple times before the concert started, but as soon as the opener went on, it began to pour. I could barely see the stage when Juan Luis Guerra went on. I was wringing my shirt out every two minutes to try to protect my phone (which hates it here and barely functions for anything) and my camera (which I forgot to put batteries in and was completely useless either way). The only way I could have taken pictures is if I had brought my camera (with batteries) in my waterproof bag. We decided to stick it out until the song “Como Yo” played and left the stadium right after.

It took an hour to get a cab between the large crowd leaving, taxis asking for 700 pesos (US $17.50), and no one wanting to drive gringas mojadas. It probably would have made just as much sense to stay, and had I know that JUANES(!!!!) was making a guest appearance, I would have just resolved to buy a new phone. I will probably be kicking myself until I see Juanes in concert.

Even though the taxi driver was not happy with us for making his seats wet, we reached the hostel successfully. After changing out of my sopping wet clothes, I joined Kara, Leandra, and some other people staying at the hostel for a long game of “Nunca en mi vida.” It was probably my favorite part of the weekend, because of the simplicity of it. Sitting on a covered patio, getting to know people, listening to the rain, and hunting down the mangos that rolled off the tin roof from the tree above…

The next morning I had the best mango for breakfast before checking out and heading back to Santiago.