This month we did not have a direct change of countries, even though we were going from the Dominican Republic to Haiti. We had our first debrief between them. For debrief, we left our Month 1 ministry site on Sep 7 to go to Puerto Plata (tourist-y city on the northern coast of the island) to meet with our leadership team to talk about our first-month experience and to be commissioned to continue the work that we have already started. We spent about five days in Puerto Plata before we left for Haiti.
We had a short travel day, as far as World Race standards. My roommates and I woke up at 4 AM so that we could be ready to pack our big packs into some vehicles at 4:30, to then walk to the bus station at 5 AM. Just in case you were wondering, it is still dark at 5 AM even in the Caribbean. We left for the bus station at 5 so we could get there in ample time to make our 6 AM bus to Santo Domingo (the capital of DR and also on the southern coast of the island.
We arrived in Santo Domingo around 10:30, but it was supposed to arrive around 9-9:30 so that we could catch our bus to Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. Fortunately enough, my squad was the majority of the passengers on the bus that they held the bus for us. We left Santo Domingo around 11 with an estimated time of arrival of about 7 PM. Long story short, we had about a two-hour long border crossing simply to leave the Dominican and about another five minutes to enter Haiti. The best part of the border crossing was then we were able to watch the sunset over the ocean and the mountains of Haiti.
We arrived in Port-au-Prince around 7:30 or 8 PM. We were met by some of our hosts, translators, and ministry contacts for the month. My team and another had another hour-long bus ride to our ministry site. Honestly, it was a great time to take a nap after a seemingly long travel day. In the end, it was just over 17 hours. Yes, for the average traveler a 17-hour journey is long, but with our next travel day itinerary already sent out to the squad, this will be like a nap. (Our travel day to South Africa, Month 3, will be about four days long.)
TL;DR: Just watch the highlight video, it’s three minutes long.
Angie
