On Friday we went to Santo Domingo for our second excursion with ISA. Santo Domingo is the capital of the DR and I believe it is the biggest city. We left early that morning and took the tour hour bus ride down to the city. Once we actually got into Santo Domingo, I noticed the poverty. Along the way there was also plenty of spots on the side of the road that were just covered in litter. Seriously looked like something you’d see on the adopt a child commercials where they show kids in Africa hunting for food in a pile of trash. It’s sad that it’s actually a reality here. There isn’t much of that in Santiago, and it definitely wasn’t all of Santo Domingo, but the outskirts seemed very poor. Well, once we got into the city, we picked up our guide for the day. Oddly enough, we were just stopped at a stop light and all of the sudden our bus driver opens the door and this man climbs on. I was very confused and a little scared… then he starts in on telling us all about the city and I sorta figured it out. We toured around by bus first, saw some of the biggest most beautiful houses in SD, and stopped at the President’s Palace! It took me a little while to realize that this was actually the president of the whole country… sometimes I feel as though the DR is just a state, then I remember it’s a country! We took lots of pictures there and it was fun to see- my first time visiting any nation’s capital!
After the Palace we drove into town and got out for a walking tour. We pretty much did the boring, somewhat interesting tourist thing for the rest of the morning… we looked through different museums and got the low-down on everything. Most of the places we went to were beautiful, but sometimes it just got a little old because it seemed as though we were always waiting for someone to catch up. We saw the first Catholic church built in the new world (or so I thought he said), we went to the house of Christopher Columbus, and we got to see some of the large Fortresses. We also went to this big morgue where someone said that Christopher Columbus was buried, but I’m not sure if that was true… I’m not even sure we went to his house! I had thought we were at the house of Diego Columbus (who he is I have no idea) until later Friday night when I was back home and my host family told me it was Cristobols.. haha so who knows. But we went to some cool old house! We then broke off for lunch and I ate the sandwich Bienvenida packed for me. The sandwiches here are very different, and when I saw one for the first time I thought I was going to hate it. They usually have ham and cheese, a big hunk of tomato, and mustard, ketchup, and mayo. I LOVE THEM! Haha, so lunch was good. Then I tried some of their frozen yogurt which was great; I got to choose three fresh toppings and they mixed them for me!
After lunch we went to “las cuevas de los ojos” which means “Caves of the Eyes”. This was my favorite part of the day by far. The caves weren’t super far into the ground, but still low enough were it was darker. There were 4 beautiful lakes in 4 different parts and we got to go right down into the water! The water was crystal clear and so beautiful. The only bad thing was the like million fish in them… gross. To get to one of the caves, we had to cross one of the lakes by boat, which was fun except there were probably 10 bats flying around, and the ceiling got pretty low at one point! A man was cliff diving in this cave and it looked pretty crazy! The final cave we went to was called “Lago de las Damas” which means “Lake of the Women”. Apparently there is a legend that if a woman touches the water, she will have twins. Not instantly, I don’t think, although they did tell us this part in Spanish… haha. Well most of us just touched it, and we got pictures! But the first one of mine didn’t turn out so I had to touch it again! Not sure if that means I will be having two sets of twins or rather quadruplets. We’ll see I guess… talk to me in 10 years.
Our final stop of the day was the zoo, which was actually pretty small. I guess I’m used to the Minnesota zoo, but I think even the Como Zoo is bigger than this one! My favorite animal was the Hippo, they had one baby hippo! Most of us were really tired at this point, so it was kind of a slow part of the day. Anyway, after that we headed home and I had my first empanada as a snack! They are delicious! It’s basically a big fried thing filled with anything you like, different kinds of meat and cheese usually. They are to die for.
I tried doing some of my homework, I started classes last week! I don’t have much, but the stuff that I do have is basically history reading, and it’s somewhat tough. I’m trying to take it bit by bit. Well that’s about it for now, hope everyone back home is well!
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