Jarabacoa

This weekend was the Jarabacoa weekend!  Overall, it was a lot of fun and the area is so beautiful!  There were many aspects that reminded me of back home.  It made me really homesick - but in a good way. 

Saturday morning, I finished packing, and waited for everyone else to arrive.  Paula and Gerardo came to the apartment and then we waited for Arturo and Sylvia to arrive so that we could head out.  I looked as though I was leaving for a week - but we were told to bring things like our own towel and blanket so that took up a bit of room!  We made a quick stop at Arturo and Sylvia's apartment to pick up some games before hitting the road.

The drive was fairly uneventful.  I was cozied between Paula and Gerardo in the back of the truck.  We stopped about half way to get some beer.  It still feels weird to drink beer in a vehicle.  Once we got to Jarabacoa we stopped to have lunch at a little restaurant.  Their sandwiches were quite good!  While we were waiting for our food to be made, one of the DVD salesmen came by.  Sylvia ended up getting 3 movies, but only after she made the guy promise that they were all in English and were ripped from DVD's not videotaped versions from the theatre.  He promised.  Paula also bought a CD from him. Two of Arturo's friends joined us for lunch, Kim and Tony.  Kim is originally from the Netherlands but moved here a while ago as she married Tony.  They run a paragliding school in Jarabacoa.  After lunch, we got some groceries for Sunday's breakfast and headed to the house.  We were hoping to go paragliding but the wind was too strong that afternoon.

The house was quite lovely, very cozy!  Paula and I chose to stay in the room with its own bathroom and balcony!  The yard was gorgeous with lots of different trees and great views of the river below.  I think my favourite tree was Arturo's spiky tree - I have never seen anything like it before!  We decided to take a walk around the yard and then down to the river.  It had been raining earlier so the water was not as clear as it normally is, but it was still quite nice.  We found some interesting flowers, including the one below.  After the walk, Kim and Tony stopped by and we all sat around playing the game where someone thinks of a topic and you go around and say things in that topic until someone doesn't have an answer or repeats an answer.  Tiny rum shots were available for those who lost the round.  We had a lot of fun doing that, especially our last round which was types of dances - but we decided we had to demonstrate the dances as well.  There were moments that it was difficult for me since we were playing in Spanish and English, and a few times, I ended up repeating one because I didn't recognize it in Spanish... Good times!  After Kim and Tony went to pick up their son, two more of Arturo's friends came by, who were also going to stay at the house: Orlando and Joelissa.  We sat around for a while longer and then ate some unripe mangos with lemon and salt (something both Paula and Gerardo eat back home). We had a hard time finding lemons.  We looked at the grocery store, a fruit vendor and at the colmado beside the house (which by the way was the most attractive colmado I have ever seen!).  However, on Gerardo's way back from the colmado, he found a lemon tree in Arturo's yard - so all was good again!

The rest of the evening was spent playing Cranium.  Arturo and Sylvia were on one team, Orlando and Joelissa on another, and Gerardo, Paula and I on the remaining team.   We played outside in the gazebo, which was fun, except for all of the bugs, moths and butterflies that were flapping and buzzing around the lights - and once and a while smacking into one of us.  Kim, Tony and their son joined us a bit later for a while as well.  We played until around 11:00pm - our team ended up winning, with Orlando and Joelissa close behind, and Sylvia and Arturo... well, they put in a solid effort!  We then saw a crazy creature flying around - it was bright green and blue.  Pretty, except for the fact that it was rather large and didn't seem to know where it was going and we were all a bit fearful of it.  When it finally landed on the side of the house, we checked it out.  Everyone told me that it was a grasshopper.  Could be, but this grasshopper was massive - at least 12cm long.  Seriously.  We hadn't eaten supper yet so we headed into town to get some pizza.  The Colombian place that Sylvia likes was closed so we went to Pizza & Pepperoni.  I had their margarita pizza and it was so tasty - it was all about the sauce - an excellent sauce!  We were all very tired by this point so everyone quickly hopped into bed once we got back to the house.

We all slept in a bit on Sunday morning (except Orlando and Joelissa, who went to try to meet Joelissa's friend for a rafting trip) and ate an amazing breakfast courtesy of Arturo and Sylvia.  Since the weather still not good for paragliding, we decided to watch Crazy Heart out in the gazebo.  We tried to watch one of the movies that Sylvia had purchased the day before, but the DVD salesman did lie; it wasn't in English.  Near the end of the movie Orlando and Joelissa came back.  Joelissa was able to go rafting and it sounds like she had a lot of fun!  After the movie, we decided to go for a hike to a nearby waterfall.  Joelissa was tired from rafting so she stayed behind at the house.  We had to drive for a bit to get to the location.  It was in an eco-reserve and we had to pay to get in.  The hike down was fairly quick although tough in some spots because it had been raining earlier that day - so slippery rocks and mud.  It was worth it though as the waterfall was beautiful!

All of us, except Paula went into the pool at the bottom of the waterfall.  It was quite cold, but once we were in, it wasn't that bad.  We went and stood right in the spray - it was like being in a storm on the ocean.  The spray from the waterfall was flying at us horizontally and there were waves that kept us unsteady the entire time!  It was a lot of fun though.  When we went to get out and dried off, it started to rain, so we all tried to get as dry as possible while putting our clothes back on at the same time.  A fairly large group which included a lot of children had arrived as well - but the kids were loving every minute of it.  They were even sliding down some rocks like it was a slide!  The hike back up was not fun - even more mud and more slippery rocks then on the way down.  By the time we got back up - I was exhausted!  Since we were all so wet and muddy, we decided it would be best to go back to the house in the box of the truck - so we wouldn't get the truck dirty.  When we got in and going, I noticed that I had tons of ants crawling on my shoes and biting my ankles!  Frantically, I was trying to get my shoes and socks off so that I could brush off all of the ants.  Since Arturo had already started driving, Paula was helping me with one shoe while I worked at the other, since it was hard to untie shoes while trying to stay upright in the truck!  I ended up with a lot of bites on my ankles - still itchy today!

After we got back, all of us showered, cleaned up and headed into town for a late lunch.  Again, the Colombian place was closed, so we went back to the same place as the night before.  I had the same pizza again - it was just too good to resist!  I also had a piece of strawberry cheesecake.  Mmm.

Following lunch, we headed back to the house, packed up our stuff and went back to the city.