Dominican Republic – Day 8 – Leaving Jimani

After the money incident yesterday evening, we wanted to leave the hotel as early as possible so we packed our stuff and left without having breakfast. But you know, we had nothing to worry about because this country was a a great street food culture. Down from our street was a man selling deep-fried cheese dough for 15 pesos per piece. (We update the real name later). On the way to the gua-guas station to Santo Domingo, we bought a sweet drink with milk, similar to ochata drink from Mexico, and mango juice for 45 pesos. That was our nutrient breakfast for the day.

It would have been an uneventful trip from Jimani back to the capital  if we weren’t checked almost 10 times. Yes you read it right, 10 times. Every half an hour or so, we passed a military post and had to stop for them to check our passports. These “authorities” focused mostly on the black (Haitians) and us. There were four Haitians who didn’t have to show any ID at all. When were asked, they simply pointed to the 2nd driver. At first I thought that the man kept their passports, but later on I noticed that perhaps, there was a secret business going on. When the police asked the man, he simply waved his hand, smiled and said “bueno.” At our 2nd checkpoint, we refused to hand the passport to a punk-looking guy because he wore T-shirt and jeans without any governmental sign or ID to prove that he was a police.  We thought that we already showed our passport just 15 minutes ago, so we held on to our passport and only let him read while someone told us that this guy was really a policeman. We heard many voices from the front shouting “americano, americano.” Probably they meant that we were Americans and there was no need to check us.  Eventually we learned that the man in military uniform only sat outside and sent  his 2nd man to do the job.

At the  2nd check point, we saw the 2nd driver handed money to the police/military.

To fulfill our mission of sampling local food all day, we bought sweet on the street from a Haitian girl carrying an aluminum bowl of sweet and nuts on her head.  Our minivan ran  over a goat; I saw the poor chap sliding to the side of the street. I felt pity for whoever owned that goat; they must have lost a fortune thought I did not know what the use of the goats in this region. Then on the other side, we saw a huge chunk of foundation under the bridge broken up because of the rain the night before. Other than that, there was nothing interesting to talk about.

Now, I really feel mosquito bites on my legs as I have been scratching my skin out.

Sep 8 2008