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So I went to the merengue festival on Friday and it was fun. How could it not be with lots of live, loud music that is meant for dancing to? While there, Freddy and his friends came over and I ended up leaving with them to go to the Alexis y Fido concert. The location: a discoteca inside of a cave. Yes, that is as awesome as it sounds. We got there around 12:30 and they hadn’t begun. That’s fine we’ll just hang out and dance for a little while. By 3:30 am, they had STILL not showed up. Ridiculous. By that point I had sat down and put my head in my hands and nodded off until some of the girls said that they were heading out and offered to share a taxi with me. Knowing I had to be at CIEE before 8:30 am and had a full day ahead of me, I chose to leave with them. Sooo… Alexis y Fido concert was a fail and a waste of 1000 pesos. Not too happy about that.

The next morning I woke up in plenty of time to get to CIEE (despite only getting 4 hours of sleep), but had thrown my keys somewhere when I got back the night before and was locked into the apartment. After frantically searching for them everywhere, I had to wake Madga up to be able to open the door to leave. I ran (as fast as my 8:22 am body would carry me) and was the last person to arrive to the excursion. Me… the one who didn’t even need to be there anyway. But we left on time so it wasn’t too much of a problem. Our first stop was Boca de Nigua, which is an old ingenio (sugar mill) which is one of the largest in this region. It was the sight of terrible conditions and African slaves (although many Dominicans deny any existence of slavery in their country since that would be admitting that they have any African ancestorial roots or ties).

 

Afterwards, we went to hear a local woman talk about “sincretismo,” which is basically a Dominican religion which combines voodoo and Christianity. There are many saints you can pray to depending on what you’re hoping for. There are candles and flags and soaps and scented/colored water, all of which have special purposes and will get you different things. This woman claims to have been “montada” by many of the spirits (meaning they came through to her and she conversed with them). She’s like that lady in Medium, apparently, but not about solving crimes and all that stuff. Lunch was a typical Dominican buffet at a hotel. Best part of buffets: lots and lots of vegetables that I don’t have to cook for myself.

Following lunch we headed to Playa Palenque. It’s only redeeming quality: it’s very popular with the locals and not overrun with tourists. However, there’s a reason for that. The sand is dark grey which means it soaked up all the sun and burned your feet. The water wasn’t the pretty blue/green that it is elsewhere and there were jellyfish in the water that stung about half of our group who decided to actually go in. I decided that I didn’t really need to swim in that water to risk the sting and to keep my hair straight, so I just soaked up some rays and ate lots and lots of limoncillos. After getting back home, Amber (Jordan’s girlfriend who studied abroad with me last semester) had arrived at the apartment and it was good to see her for awhile. While they were out to dinner I talked to Loryn for a good 2 hours and then just headed to bed to get some well needed rest.

This morning I saw Amber and Jordan off after a delicious breakfast of fried eggs, toast, and avocado. After that I really had no idea what to do so I blasted music and played tetris on my phone. Perfect morning. In the afternoon I showed some of the CIEE kids how to get to Juan Dolio and we spent the afternoon at a much more pleasant beach. According to the people I went with I got nice and tan. Hopefully it lasts til I get home.

Tonight I’m trying to convince Elizabeth to hit up the last of the merengue festival with me. We’ll see how that goes!

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