Camp Las Galeras: The Eagle has Landed

So, I’m always amazed with modern travel. You leave your house, get on a plane, a few hours later get off the plane and whammo, you’re in a whole different world. It really is no different than what time travel would feel like, if that were possible. But our trip yesterday/today from Boston to Las Galeras was something else. We got on a plane at 10 pm, dozed through the 4 hour flight to Santo Domingo, dozed through 3 hour pitch black car ride from the southern to the northern coast of La Isla Hispañola and arrived aptly with the sunrise at Casa Dorado at 6 am. If I were a better writer I would be able to better describe the displaced feeling this adventure created in me. But I’m not after all. We got to the house so much efficiently than I anticipated that Roberto, el dueño de La Casa Dorado, wasn’t even awake yet. The dogs though announced our arrival and Roberto groggily let us in and showed us to our rooms where we promptly crashed for 4 hours.

And here’s why I love the DR so much. After our nap we headed in to town to pick up some supplies (discovering that it isn’t so easy to find sunblock here, which is odd since this a seaside community. But I’ll save that story for another time) and some food for lunch. On our way, we passed a limoncello tree and Tanya’s eyes lit up as she noticed that the tall, gangly tree was heavy with the ripe mini-lemons that she loves. So, she stopped and asked an older man who was hanging around if she could buy some. (She also asked if the fruits were “bueno” which I laughed at because she always asks this question and gets the same answer - oh sí sí - whether the fruits are tasty or not). The man called over a younger man who walked with us to the base of the tree and then called over to a friend who brought aover a ladder and proceeded to climb up the tree to get us bunches of limoncellos. Tanya gave the man 250 pesos (about 6 bucks) which was way more than she usually pays. When I commented on this - because I’m a cheap bastard- Tanya said, “I know. I’m making connections.” You would think I would know by now not to question anything my wife does. Here’s why. About an hour later we were still working on lunch items to buy because we really wanted some avocados and couldn’t find any ripe ones anywhere. We were at a colmado talking to the owner about where else we could try when a man drove up on a motoconcho with three ripe avocados for us. He was the brother of the colmado owner who, heard us asking her for avocados and went and found a few for us. When Tanya offered him some money he wouldn’t take any. Turns out he was the man who got the limoncellos for us. And so Tanya started chatting with this man as she does and asks him if he has any children. When he says yes she proceeds to tell him about the camp we are running and invites his kids to join us.

(By the way at some point I switched tenses in this story. Don’t know how that happened but I’m too tired to fix it)

Which brings me back to why I’m writing all of this. We are starting the camp on Monday and are freaking out a bit about whether we will actually have any campers show up (and by we I mean me of course). But we have a meeting with the woman who works for the mayor and has been helping us organize the camp tomorrow afternoon so no need to worry right?