March 30, 2014

8.33 To get to Constanza from Santiago there’s a gua-gua to Labanico where you take another gua-gua to your destination. Ok, we can do it. As long as they tell us when to get off!

Today the time changed in Italy but not here, so now there are 6 hours difference (they were 5 until yesterday).

3.07pm There’s wifi at the hotel, but it’s not working. I hope they’ll fix it, but I doubt. The owner called a guy a couple of times while we were waiting, but now why should he care?

It’s cold, I’ll have to wear an undershirt and to sleep there’s a duvet. We are in Constanza, 1.200m above sea level. It wasn’t easy to get here! One and a half hour on the truck of a pickup whose owner didn’t bother putting wooden boards to rest our butts, like they did in Cap Haitien. So it was about 10 people sitting on the edge of the truck, a couple in the middle, plus our backpacks and other bags. The landscape was nice, but I was too busy keeping my butts moving (when I could) to shift the pain and to keep tight not to be thrown out, to enjoy the view. All around are cultivations. They even grow flowers and strawberries. As if it wasn’t full enough (there’s never a limit to the number of people they can get on a taxi, that in cases like this is good, because if we are all stuck together it’s more difficult to fall off), a guy took onboard two large bundles of chrysantemums and roses (these with their nice big thorns), that we arranged right in the middle.

There are some huge clouds over there. Nearby thee’s a natural park with a lake where you can bath and walk 12km in the forest, but it’s at the bottom of the mountain, in El Abanico, where we took the camioneta/pick-up.

incontri sulle strade di montagna di Costanza
Encounters on the mountain roads of Constanza

4.45 The sky is darker and darker, almost scary, but I don’t think it will rain. Earlier it rained a couple of minutes only. I think it’s normal here. After a stroll around this tiny village, that is pretty and lives of cultivations and local tourism, we stopped at a baseball field to watch a match, with thousands of white butterflies flying around our heads.

7.02pm We are in a Grill&Tapas, it must be a new place, it doesn’t even have a sign outside. It has diner-style seats and a white Harley Davidson in the middle of the room. Food is not cheap, but we wanted something different from the usual chicken and rice. So angus burger, a chicken cooked I don’t know how, and two caipirinhas. Luca should drink a hot tea, because it’s his turn to be sick, but he couldn’t resist. Ahhh… the caipirinha is so good!