NCSU in the Dominican Republic
Summer 2009
Thirteen NCSU students embarked on the journey to the Dominican Republic with me on Monday, June 1, 2009. We were supposed to go to Cuernavaca, a study abroad program that NCSU has engaged in for over thirty years. With the help of Kim Priebe in the Office of Study Abroad, we were able to quickly come up with an exciting new destination in the Caribbean: Santiago, Dominican Republic!
Santiago is the Dominican Republic's second largest city (after the capital, Santo Domingo), with a population of nearly one million. The city is located in the DR's Cibao Valley, two hours northwest of Santo Domingo and one hour south of the beaches on the northern coast (Puerto Plata, Cabarete, Sosúa). The Cibao Valley is the most fertile area of the country, where tobacco, bananas, coffee, and other products are grown.
Click on the Jet Blue plane to see pictures of our arrival on June 1, 2009.
During the first week we had orientations with the wonderful International Studies Abroad staff (ISA), Eliesset Sepúlveda and Jonathan Lapaix, and the Español para extranjeros program at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra
(PUCMM), known as the "pucamaima".
During the orientation, I discovered that Aunt Hillary had been here in the Dominican Republic just a few weeks before us! See the U.S. State Department's video of her with Dominican Republic president Leonel Fernández here.
La Romana and Isla Saona
Our first excursion was the weekend of Friday, June 5, and Saturday, June 6, to the Southeast part of the country, to La Romana and Isla Saona. We visited the Cueva de las Maravillas, los Altos de Chavón in the town of La Romana, and stayed overnight in Bayahibe, a small fishing town right outside of La Romana. From there the next day we took a boat to the Isla Saona. The Altos de Chavón was constructed to look like a sixteenth century Italian village, using artificially aged limestone. The city is on a high cliff overlooking the Río Chavón. The 5,000 seat amphitheater has hosted such famous performers as Sting and Shakira.
Bayahibe is just a small, quaint fishing town which is a great place to spend a peaceful night after travelign all day and preparing to go to Isla Saona the next day. We had a nice dinner in the Hotel Bayahibe and some of the students went to the only discoteca in town. On Sunday morning we set out for the one hour boat ride to Isla Saona. The hosts of the boat served us drinks and invited many of the students to dance to tropical music. We got lots of sun and saw some beautiful Caribben sites.
Isla Saona is part of the Parque Nacional del Este. The water in this area is crystal blue. Once you pay to get on the boat to la Isla, a buffet style lunch is included and you can spend the day enjoying the beautiful beach and water and palm trees. Ah, life in the Caribbean!
Click the picture to see the photo album of the excursion.
Cabarete (jueves 11 junio)
Cabarete beach is on the north coast of the island, nestled between Puerto Plata and Sosúa. There is lots of kitesurfing and windsurfing here and it is a very popular tourist destination, especially for Europeans. Many of the businesses are European owned.
Jarabacoa (June 12, 2009)
Jarabacao is a mountain resort area located in Cordillera Central in the Cibao region, about an hour from Santiago. Here there are coffee plantations, waterfalls, hiking trails, and three rivers in which you can do whitewater rafting. Primero hicimos un recorrido a una fábrica de café (Monte Alto). Vimos el proceso de cultivar las plantas, recoger los granos de café y procesarlos. Fue muy interesante ver cómo unas semillas, con tiempo, llegan a ser una sabrosa taza de café. Luego almorzamos en el rancho Baiguate y fuimos al Salto Baiguate. Varios estudiantes llegaron al salto a caballo pero de regreso muchos no se atrevieron a montar a caballo nuevamente. El salto era muy bonito. La naturaleza del lugar era muy impresionante.
Santo Domingo, capital de la República Dominicana (13-14 junio)
Los estudiantes no me acompañaron en este viajecito. Fui a la capital del país para explorarla un poco. Fui en la guagua de Caribe Tours. El viaje duró dos horas. De camino a mi hotel, al lado del Parque Independencia, vi el Palacio Nacional, donde se encuentra la oficina del presidente del país, Leonel Fernández. Al llegar a mi hotel, dejé la mochila y fui a explorar la Zona Colonial. La Calle Conde tiene muchos restaurantes y tiendas. One has to be very careful in this area though, because there are lots of people waiting for the tourists to extract their money from them. The vendors are extremely aggressive -- they beg you and follow and remind you every time you pass by, that they want you to buy from them. One has to get used to that quickly. There is so much history in this part of the country, from Christopher Columbus in 1492 to the more modern times of the infamous dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo and beyond.
Salcedo (26 junio)
In the town of Ojo de Agua, Salcedo proviince, we met Dedé Mirabal, the one surviving sister of what were four Mirabal sisters. The other three, Minerva, Patria, and María Teresa, were killed by Trujillo on November 25, 1960. Dedé converted the sisters' house into a museum and she receives visitors there and speaks with them personally. This tragic murder was the catalyst of Trujillo's downfall, which occurred when he was killed on May 30, 1961. The story of the Mirabal sisters is the subject of Julia Alvarez's famous book, also made into a movie, In the Time of the Butterflies. This was by far our most touching cultural experience on the trip.
Return to Raleigh (sábado 11 julio)
On this day just about everybody was ready to go home, even though we had had an awesome trip. Next year it will be back to Cuernavaca for me! (Hopefully!)
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