So on Saturday morning, we packed up and departed Haiti and headed to San Juan, Dominican Republic, where I am at the house currently typing this blog. More on our current location and this month’s ministry in a future blog, but first, I must, of course, narrate the journey of our travel day. As you know, normal traveling just doesn’t occur with the World Race. So without further adieu, our journey from Port Au Prince, Haiti to San Juan, Dominican Republic.
At about 6 AM Haiti time (HT), we loaded up onto a school bus (bus #1) (a colorful school bus that had “Grace Divine” painted on the side with a long puma painted across the side below that. Awesome!) and left our house in Fon Tamara. We then rode about 45 minutes to the Caribe Tours bus station. We waited outside for about 15 minutes until it opened at 7 AM (HT). At this time, we started to load our luggage onto the charter bus that would take us to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. After loading our luggage, buying some juice and gum from street vendors and hanging out for a little bit, we loaded up onto the charter bus (bus #2). Now this charter bus was not at all what we were expecting. It had air conditioning, comfortable seats, fairly spacious leg room. What a blessing! (However, I did have the thought of “what has my life become that I’m excited about a charter bus. Oh World Race!) So anyways, we travel along enjoying the comforts of the charter bus, and at around 11:30 AM (HT), we reached the Haitian border. We got off the bus, got our passport stamped to leave the country, and got back on the bus. We crossed the border, got off the bus, got our passport stamped to enter the Dominican Republic, and got back on the bus. We then continued on the road to Santo Domingo. Now I know at this point, you’re probably thinking, “Man, this seems like a pretty normal trip. Where’s the crazy World Race style travel?” Oh, it’s about to begin.
At about 6 AM Haiti time (HT), we loaded up onto a school bus (bus #1) (a colorful school bus that had “Grace Divine” painted on the side with a long puma painted across the side below that. Awesome!) and left our house in Fon Tamara. We then rode about 45 minutes to the Caribe Tours bus station. We waited outside for about 15 minutes until it opened at 7 AM (HT). At this time, we started to load our luggage onto the charter bus that would take us to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. After loading our luggage, buying some juice and gum from street vendors and hanging out for a little bit, we loaded up onto the charter bus (bus #2). Now this charter bus was not at all what we were expecting. It had air conditioning, comfortable seats, fairly spacious leg room. What a blessing! (However, I did have the thought of “what has my life become that I’m excited about a charter bus. Oh World Race!) So anyways, we travel along enjoying the comforts of the charter bus, and at around 11:30 AM (HT), we reached the Haitian border. We got off the bus, got our passport stamped to leave the country, and got back on the bus. We crossed the border, got off the bus, got our passport stamped to enter the Dominican Republic, and got back on the bus. We then continued on the road to Santo Domingo. Now I know at this point, you’re probably thinking, “Man, this seems like a pretty normal trip. Where’s the crazy World Race style travel?” Oh, it’s about to begin.
So at about 2 PM Dominican time (DT) (Dominican Republic is an hour ahead of Haiti), we were fed lunch provided by Caribe Tours. Lunch consisted of beef (or perhaps goat), rice and beans, and some kind of vegetable (it might have been cabbage). All in all, it was actually pretty delicious and much appreciated. So at about 2:45 PM (DT), we start heading up a hill and then come to a stop. We hear the engine rev, roll back down the hill a little bit, hear the engine rev a couple more times, and then the bus stops again. We are then told that the bus is too heavy to make it up this hill so some of us need to get off until we get past the hill. So a bunch of us get off the bus, walk around the bend and up the hill, and wait . . . and wait . . . still no sign of the bus. Finally, after about 10 minutes, we see the bus coming up the hill, and it then pulls to the side of the road. Apparently, there was something wrong with the bus because another charter bus shows up, and we’re told that we have to switch all of our luggage from our current bus to the other bus, and that’ll be the bus we will be riding for the rest of the way to Santo Domingo. So we switch our luggage and get on the new bus (bus #3). Unfortunately, on this bus, the seats were not quite as comfortable and the leg room not quite as spacious. However, it did still have A/C, and it showed movies. On the rest of the way to Santo Domingo, we watched Transporters 3 (Oh Jason Statham! Why are you so ridiculous??) and Night at the Museum 2 (actually a pretty good movie). So at about 6:30 PM (DT), we finally arrived at Santo Domingo. However, there were two problems. One, the new bus that we had switched to did not have the same final destination in Santo Domingo as our original Caribe Tours bus. Two, the trip from Port Au Prince to Santo Domingo took a lot longer than we had been told; as a result, our bus to San Juan was long gone. Luckily, God is faithful and worked everything out. After a couple phone calls, we got another bus to take us to the bus station we were supposed to be at. So we took our luggage and got on the new bus (bus #4) and rode about 15 minutes or so to the bus station. We got off the bus, switched our luggage over to the bus that would take us to San Juan (bus # 5), took a quick bathroom break, and headed off to San Juan. About 3 hours later, at about 10 PM (DT), we finally arrived at our final destination, the house that we’ll be living in for the month.
So we left for San Juan at about 6 AM (HT) and about 15 hours, 5 busses, 2 movies, and some goat meat later, we arrived in San Juan. I’m sure it won’t be the most exciting World Race travel day I’ll have over my journey, but it is certainly one for the books.
P.S. A “Goodbye Haiti” month 1 summary blog will be coming soon. Just haven’t written it yet.
