Mountain Weekend

This weekend, a few of us headed north to the mountains, a place called Jarabacoa. The highlight activity was whitewater rafting with this organisation. There were a few nerves, but it all went well, no one falling in the water, the boat staying upright, we did all get very wet, especially those of us at the front (one being me). Jarabacoa is a strange place, with more motorcycles than people it seems, though with the roads in the condition they are, its the only efficient way to travel, the other being to ask whoever drives past in a Daihatsu pick-up if you can jump in the back... it works very successfully. Jarabacoa sprawls out into the surrounding countryside, with the quality of life deteriorating the further from the centre you go - aside from a few holiday homes built by the country's middle class as mountain retreats to take advantage of the cooler weather (25C rather than 35C) in the summer. We also saw one of the waterfalls in the surrounding area, Salto Jimenoa. Jimenoa is the name of the river that it's on and this one is called "Jimenoa Dos", they're not so imaginative on names there it seems.

We returned on Sunday night and went to the Malecon, SD's main waterfront street, where there was a parade going on, some Catholic feast day that wasn't really explained in full by our guides - a few of the kids from the orphanage where there's a volunteer project that make the Sunday night "salida" one of their week's big deals. I'm a little envious of the guys who are involved in that project because of the closeness of the relationships they have with the kids. With the orphanage being in the city itself, its easy for us to hang out with them at weekends or evenings when they're allowed out. For me, working in San Cristobal means that not only is there a geographical distance between myself and them, but there's also the gap in intimacy that the 30km creates. I guess I'll just have to work at getting to know the guys at La Refor as much as possible.