Jarabacoa 12/19-12/22 Part 1 REPOST

Disclaimer: After months of posting and reading the posts of others, MY long deserved two week VACATION to the DR went off without a hitch. I can say upfront, ISOC information made it better due to the posts of others….that said, I’ll share without pictures or dishing out my personal “nitty-gritty”….and in doing so I hope someone else finds a better meal, and the fun they are looking for…….

Jarabacoa - Trip Dec 19th-22nd

Major props squared(3) to JimmyDR and Cheeno for their reports. Without those valuable resources this part of my vacation would have never happened and as it turns out, my ATF calls it the BEST 4 days in her life saying she has, “never experienced anything like it before in her life!” You guys made me a ROCKSTAR!

THE RIDE

Up early (7am) to pack, make a quick trip through the Mercure breakfast buffet and catch a cab (Apolo 809.537.0000) to Caribe Tours for the bus to Jarabacoa. Cab driver asked for $150DRP, I gave him $200; the bus was $210DRP per person…a bargain! As a rule, even though I speak pretty good conversational Spanish, my “Nika” does all the negotiating when we roll together…my line of work is more “security” oriented….she’s “muy bella” and get’s better rates, I make people do what I need done…

The Caribe Tours waiting area is nice; there is an upstairs cafeteria and a good amount of talent walking around. If you don’t speak Spanish, you could have a problem here as they don’t announce bus departures in English…I went so far as to go out and look for a sign in front of the bus…there were two….but there was 10 buses! Neither said Jarabacoa. The “paranoid mutha fucka” in me had me ask, “which bus” and I left my “Nika” in charge of listening for the call….which once it’s made…is a “cattle call” to board the bus and like most things Dominican, is “mass confusion”.

The tour bus is just like Cheeno said in a past trip report…cold AC, loud TV, clean and comfortable…I “carry-on” our roll-aways and wear my back pack aboard. The roll-aways are too large for the overhead (they do fit in a plane’s overhead compartment) so I put them on the seats in front of us…no issues, the bus is 50% full. Stowed my backpack in the overhead. My reason for doing so is the bus stops twice en-route TO Jarabacoa. People get off and pick up bags from the baggage compartment outside….it’s not that I don’t trust Dominicans…it’s that I don’t trust anybody….ATF agrees with my philosophy once I explain “the game.”

The bus drivers have got massive pelotas….driving in SDQ itself is a challenge for my patience, much less driving a tour bus…basically he bullies his way out of town and onto the highway…the farther away we get, the better the ride and the views get….stunning is the best way to describe what I saw heading to the mountains….and worth the $7USD fare.

We stop twice, driver warns us not to get off the bus if it’s not “your stop”, tells a lady at the stop in La Vega to piss in the restroom on the bus and then HE gets off to stuff his face with some fried shit from a cart that’s in front of the bus stop in LV…and true to his warning, within like two minutes he gets back on the bus and closes the door…driving off sans one passenger who failed to heed his warning…Sorry bruh, a white FUBU track suit, DG gold frame glasses, bright white sneakers, a New Yawk state-o-mind and a desire for a bag-o-chips an’ a fruit punch will get yo shit left and yo bags transported to anutha town in the DR…. The driber, he esay, “Estay ehere.” You say,“Fuk dat, he’s off I am too!”… I laughed my ass off as we drove away! My ATF said I was “malo”.

The climb up the mountains is a cool ride….the roads get narrow but are in great shape, the pressure changes are noticeable in my ears and I even think I may have had some altitude sickness. Jarabacoa is a lot of farms and pasture land with a small centro that is much cleaner than SD or Sosewer. It’s at 600 mts/ 1800 ft elevation and is the “second highest peak” in the Caribbean…Pico Duarte is the highest at 9,261 feet according to some info I found on the net. Some residents call it the Switzerland of the Caribbean…all I can say is…by the time we’re there I’m looking for a house!

We get to Jarabacoa on time! Getting off the bus is the same “mass confusion” as getting on, except there are hands reaching for bags as we get off…and they are not hands of people I know. I am known as “el burro” because I carry everything…and I am stubborn! I tell a couple of the “helpers”, “I got my stuff” nicely…one knucklehead gets a little too aggressive with me and realizes I’m packin’ more than just my cell phone on my belt …and quickly accepts the fact “I’m carryin” our stuff.

I tell my “Nika” to go find us a cab…which Jarabacoa’s bus “station” has a cab center right there…we’re led to a nice Honda car…that has a large stereo speaker seat belted in the back seat where a passenger would normally sit…our bags are placed in the front seat, as me and my “Nika” squeeze into the back….the driver is cool, takes us to our hotel/resort Gran Jimenoa for $100DRP…I give him $150 and get his card….

The resort “looks great”, the grounds are manicured, the place looks freshly painted, and there is a ton of varnish on all the natural wood. You can hear the rush of the Jimenoa River in the background…..but much like the long rapper inspired gold chain on the neck of the guy we left in La Vega, all that glitters…….is not gold!

That story in my next post…….