Dajabon and Haiti

So, we went to Haiti! Yup, Haiti! It was so fun, although a little scary at times. You can click on the photo collage and see them bigger, as I know I've crammed a lot into it. When the collage is bigger, scroll over it and there should be a spot to click on for enlarging on the bottom right.

Here's the story:
Emily and I met Ross, a guy who's staying in Caraballo, at Sosua where we caught a bus. We went to the border and stayed the night in the city called Dajabon. As we were getting off, the driver asked me if this was my first time in Dajabon, and I said yes, he said be very careful and watch what we were doing. Very reassuring! Anyhow, we found a little hotel and checked in for the night. We managed to find some dinner at Roca Pollo, rice and beans, fried chicken. After getting back to our hotel, we found there was a party in the park across from where we were staying that was playing the loudest music! It was literally shaking the shutters! So that lasted until midnight which was nice, but we eventually went to sleep.

At 7am, we were ready to head to the market. It was so incredible, the colors, smells, sights, wow. It is an open market mostly visited by Dominicans and Haitians, as the Haitian border is opened for the few hours in the morning, allowing them to cross freely into the D.R. We walked around the market for awhile and then got up the guts to cross the border. They apparently sometimes will still charge tourists lots of money to cross, so we were a bit nervous about it all. We pretended to know what we were doing and confidently walked across the bridge, with guards and UN officials all over! We walked to an orphanage just over the border and were able to look around and meet some new people. We handed out some food on the streets and attracted loads of people, which was a little overwhelming.

After we finished taking photos and walking a bit more, we started crossing back into the D.R. As we were crossing a border official stopped us and asked us for our passports. My heart was racing...I didn't want to be detained in Haiti!!! He asked what we were doing, where we spent the night, why we were in Haiti. I told him we were visiting the orphanage and because it was market day, we entered earlier in the morning without any problems. At that point, the UN guy came over and agreed with me and said he had seen us enter earlier that morning, and then we were allowed to pass back to D.R. Once safely on the other side, we got some more photos and a sigh of relief!

It was back to the hotel to collect our things, then another bus ride back to Caraballo where we had juice and relaxed and relived the excitement from the day.

I'm so glad to have done it and been there, what an experience.