March 25 or 26, I lost count.
Midday in Cap Haitien. We are on a tap-tap (the back of a pickup) waiting that it fills up to go to Labadie. It’s a bit late because we got up slowly, we went to Caribe tours to book the trip to the Dominican Republic (they told us there is no need to book, we can just go there tomorrow morning) and breakfast. Here comes an elder lady with an elder man carrying a push-cart with a bag of sugar and one of rice. Everything goes on the pick-up, under our feet. So far Luca is the only man. I think we might be waiting for a couple of people more, before we leave (but here you never know, when they think the tap-tap is full enough).
The large bus (comfortable and direct) to Santiago costs 25 USD. Going by tap-tap is 20 USD cheaper, but it’s a much longer and tiring trip, because you should get on a tap-tap to the border, cross the border on foot, and once in the Dominican Republic get on a gua-gua to the next destination.
In Haiti I saw many pregnant women. All young. The elder like myself (37) are forgotten.
3h15 Drink break at Cornier Bar, a hotel-restaurant-bar for foreigners. These two juices are going to cost us more than tonight’s dinner, but we really needed them and it’s so nice to drink something cool on these chairs by the sea. If I want wifi it’s 3 USD more. In the parking there are UNHCR trucks. Poor NGO workers?
We went to see a beach nearby where the cruise ships dock. It was surrounded by a metal fence to keep intruders out. And we were out of the fence with other Haitians looking at the tourists bathing in the sea and in the sun like you would look at monkeys at the zoo.
We went to bath, but while we were drying there were so many mosquitoes we had to leave. And a lot of sea urchins, I was scared.
We came back to Cap Haitien on a motorbike (the two of us and the driver on one bike) because there were no more pickups. It wasn’t very comfortable, on that rough road. We had time to do a short tour of the town: the main square with the Town Hall (Delegation du Nord), the Gingerbread houses, the seafront, the Croissant d’Or, a bakery-patisserie (quite rare here). Dinner with half a chicken each and yuca. We are hungry tonight.
9 or 10 in the evening, I don’t know. Luca is tired and is unhappy of everything. I’m afraid he’s in the phase “Damn that time I met you!” and that he’s not happy he’s accepted to follow me here. I hope this will pass soon!
