PauP - Timiska - Seguin - Jacmel

Our time in Haiti is coming to an end… but not without a couple last adventures.

On Thursday, I was feeling good enough to venture around P-au-P (Port-au-Prince) for a couple hours. We started off by taking a tap-tap downtown, where we walked around the enormous market, that spilled out of the "Marche de Fer" (Iron Market, which is just an iron building, roofed, that usually houses the market). We walked by the Notre Dame Cathedral, the ceiling of which completely caved in during the earthquake. Then we took a walk to the National Palace, too see if we could get some better pictures.
 

The Iron Market, which was closed to reconstruction.

So happy to not be breathing burning garbage anymore!

Haiti's love their striped shirts, and black shoes!

The UN Soldiers here are just glorified tourists! (They're taking pictures of each other in front of the cathedral!)

 

Inside the fallen Notre Dame Cathedral

Earlier, we had heard it was possible to climb a neighboring tower to get some epic photos of the palace. We had seen some journalists there and asked them about getting up there. They told us we needed to go to the reception to get permission, so we thought we'd give it a try. Communicating was difficult, and the secretary seemed confused when we explained we're not from the media. The country has been swarmed by foreign press doing a 1-year update on the country. But after much finagling, and a little waiting, we were escorted by 3 security guards to the front lawn of the National Palace! We got to take uninterrupted photos of the building, without the 2 rows of fences separating it from the public. Then, we walked over to the tower across the street, and they let us up there too! Very cool pictures of the Palace, as well as the tent city across the street.

Shot from our private and FREE "tour" inside the Palace gates.

The Palace from the back side.

The Palace, with tent city right across the street in Park Champ de Mars.

Friday morning, before the break of dawn, we were up and on our way to Jacmel. We thought to take the scenic route over the Massif de la Selle Mountains, a 6 hour hike, where no cars or moto's can go. So, we hopped on a jam packed truck of a tap-tap for the ride from Petionville to Kenscoff. The truck held 30 people easily, but we had more like 40 that took the ride with us. The slightly disconcerting thing was that you couldn't see anything of where you were going! The sides were all paneled, there was a roof, and the view you would've had out the back was blocked by the hourd of people standing in the "aisles". We made it safely, without seeing much of the uppity part of town we drove through. From Kenscoff, we took a moto to Timiska, which is as far as it could go before the path became too steep and rocky.

Just the moto ride in itself was an adventure. The ride was very up and down, and rocky and bumpy, etc. etc. On the downhills, the driver would turn off his engine to save on gas. I'd see all these big rocks we'd have to dodge as we went faster and faster. We usually missed them… Some parts were so steep that Hans and I would slide into the driver so far I'm surprised he could still drive. At one point, my feet weren't touching anything anymore, and I was just bouncing on the seat between the driver and Hans.

Hans and I with our moto driver.

And from there, our 6 hour hike began. Many people do the hike from Kenscoff, but we thought 6 hours was enough. The "road" was definitely steep, both uphill and down, and we took it slow, just like the locals! We were lucky with slightly overcast skies, so the sun wasn't as wearing as it could have been!

The path was full of locals, mostly going the opposite direction, carrying their goods to market in P-au-P. It was impressive to see how much they could stack on their heads: baskets full of vegetables, clothing, and sometimes chickens! And they walked with such balance and grace… with flimsy flip-flops between them and the jagged, loose rocks.

The mountains were dotted with houses, and their accompanying farm, often built on steep cliffs. But the views were astounding! We were very glad we did it, but we were also happy to reach the other side when we arrived in the town of Seguin. Seguin, though not a big town itself, is the farthest a car (and when I say car, I mean a 4x4) can reach when going north from Jacmel. There we found a moto, which took us down the mountain to the town of Peredo. As it was all downhill, the driver hardly had to use the engine, and so our ride down was very quiet. The silence was only interrupted by his screeching breaks, or cries of pain from Hans, as he bounced up and down behind me. The driver seemed annoyed with us for haggling over the price, and the only words we got out of him was when he yelled at me for squeezing him too much, which was easy, considering we were going downhill the entire time.

Look! We're in the Northwest!

Seguin. Never did see our back up hotel if it had gotten too late to continue!

Seguin

Seguin

After 1.5 uncomfortable hours, and a handful of near falling-overs, we were happy to reach Peredo, where we found a tap-tap for Jacmel. Once in Jacmel we quickly found a nice guest house, where we settled in for CNN, New York City local news, and Forrest Gump. It was good to catch up on American TV, though the news was dominated by the shooting of a congresswoman in Tuscan.

The next morning (Saturday), we were up early with singing from the next door church. The roof of the church had fallen in with the earthquake and huge cracks ran down the walls. The service had therefore been moved outdoors, directly behind the damaged building. Service seemed to still be going on when we returned to the hotel that night, and again in the morning. Haitians are very religious, and church isn't limited to Sundays. There seems to be some sort of gathering almost everyday, be it just choir practice, or (and more often) a full-fledged service.

There is a saying here that the country is 98% catholic, 100% voodoo, as everyone seems to practice at least some form of voodoo. Many people blame the countries troubles (economic, natural disaster, disease, etc.) on a century old pact Haitian priests made with the devil. And now, to make amends, there's an almost religious (haha, pun!) commitment to Christianity.  

The neighboring and all too close church, from our "balcony."

Jacmel is a very cute town. Almost a Trinidad of Haiti. The streets are lined with 2 story buildings, with balconies hanging over the streets. Old reminders of the city's former glory. The French influence is obvious, and it has a somewhat New Orleans feel. Rounded doors in all sorts of colors, flower bushes hanging down the walls. A very picturesque town, I had a ball. We also did a bit of shopping, and I found a nice shirt and a cool messenger bag!

Who knows what this was for, but it's a bunch of orange rinds hanging out to dry?!

The messenger bag we bought... Real Timbuk2? I dunno, but I like it!

Jacmel has lots of artists, and many have their paintings on the street. This girl wearing a Mariner's baseball cap by the way!

From '04 huh?! Haiti is the place for dated tees!

The next morning we were up by 6:30, and back on a tap-tap to P-au-P. The ride was awful, jammed 3-4 to a bench in a standard school bus, up and down a windy road through the mountain. The ride would not have been complete without some more vomiting, which a nice young girl in the seat in front of us so kindly provided. Our intention was to stop off in Leogane, the epicenter of the earthquake, but it was such a small town, we had passed it before we knew it! We found our way back to our guest house (the same one as before) in Delmas, only to discover the water was out. So we spent about 30 minutes lifting buckets of water to the roof (from the well) to pour into the water tank. We got the sinks to work, though the shower somehow never did.

On Monday we were up early again to leave for the Dominican Republic. We were out of money, so we had to walk to the tap-tap stop, which was fun with our heavy bags. We caught a tap-tap at 10:45 and were at the border by noon. The road hugged a lake, and was half flooded in many parts. When we arrived at the border it was a chaos.

Lucky us got to sit up front... sometimes it pays off to be the last ones on board! This was looking through our nicely decorated front windshield! They love this stuff... all the tap-taps have variations of distracting window art.

Bunches of men caving out the rock for gravel.

First we went to the Haitian immigration office to "check out". We were directed to the Customs office, which asked us for $10 USD per person for some form. We were warned that they may try to scam us for money, so we showed them we didn't have any. We were lucky when a Haitian-American arrived, who told us we shouldn't have to pay anything, and that he crosses the border weekly. After waiting 15 minutes to be helped (after we refused to pay, the officer refused to help us), we were finally dismissed. No money paid. Then we went to the immigration office to get our passports stamped. We were told to have 100 Gouds ($2.50 USD) for this, which we were prepared to pay, but they never asked for it. So I guess, you don't need any money to leave Haiti, and any you do pay is just lining some official's pocket. It's sad when you can't even trust officials anymore. Instead we spent our money on snacks and a delicious soup.

Then we went to cross the border. Apparently food and beverage isn't allowed into the DR. But a faux guide snatched up Hans's food and drink (out of his mouth, literally), shoved it in his pocket and pulled us through the border. We learned later, he was doing us this "favor" and guiding us to the necessary immigration offices to extract a tip from us. But we had none of that (except he did steal a piece of bread from the bag he snatched!). We found our way around the DR immigration, then found a moto to Jimani. Like Haiti, the DR has tap-taps they call gua-guas, and motorcycles-for-hire they call motoconchos instead of moto-taxi's. Hans hired a motoconcho, while I got a ride from the DR military Commandante, who we had sought for help when we were waiting at the border.

Commandante Julio and me after the ride into Jimani.

They brought us directly to the bus stop for busses going to Barahona. The ride was just 2 hours long, but we were stopped by no less than 9 military check points. I'm not exaggerating at all. There were 9. During one of the first couple stops, a guy's bag was searched. They found some car stereos, which I guess were suspect, because we took off, and the guy stayed behind. Most of the stops were just a couple minutes, but on one occasion, half the passengers evacuated the bus, while another time all the passengers had to evacuate while the military searched the vehicle. It became clear what they were looking for: illegal Haitian immigrants. Just like the US border with Mexico, the DR has problems with illegal border crossings, and it seems the entire country is very anti-Haitians. The Haitian sitting behind us, who has been crossing the border for the past 5 years for work, and used to this, had his passport checked everyd time. On another occasion, the border guard demanded a lady give him her passport, or 100 dollars. We were only asked for our passports once.

Police check point.

Real official looking guys, with guns in their pants! You can hardly see it, but if you look close, its there!

Checking the suspicious car stereo...

The bumpy road... though far better than those in Haiti!

 

This is what happens when dogs have sex here I guess... Afterwards, they get stuck together, and have to wait for the swelling to go down. Who knows how long that takes... But, we'd seen this in Haiti as well!

We arrived in Baharona at 5pm (and crossed into another time zone, making us now 4 hours ahead of PST), and quickly found an inexpensive (and nice!) hotel, then spent the evening catching the blog up and editing photos.

Good night!!

Posted by Abra, but mostly by Hans