My Caribbean Tour:

Impressions of the Greater Antilles

 

Photos are here 

 

Since Americans abroad can vote in U.S. elections, I’m active in Sweden with Democrats Abroad, a branch of the U.S. Democratic Party (equivalent to a state, for example in nominating presidential candidates). Each year there’s a global meeting of DA leaders, and this year it was in the Dominican Republic. When that location was decided upon last year – since I’d never been in the Caribbean – I immediately started planning this trip.

 

I thought about starting in Trinidad and island-hopping north to Puerto Rico before turning west to DR, but that would have taken far too much time and money (boats are few, and flying is expensive), and my major interest was in the Great Antilles (i.e., the large islands): Puerto Rico in the east; Dominican Republic and Haiti (which share the island of Hispaniola); Jamaica to the southwest; and Cuba in the northwest. So I flew to San Juan, PR, and worked my way west, spending 34 days in all.

 

In general – after my brief experience – I would say that Puerto Rico is by far the most developed and richest, but the Dominican Republic and Jamaica are well-functioning at a lower level. Cuba is well-functioning (in its own way) at a still lower level, due to its failure to utilize markets even in many areas where they would make sense. (Surprisingly to me, however – comparing GDP per capita figures given by Wikipedia – Cuba is slightly higher than Jamaica or Dominican Republic, while in purchasing-power-parity terms it’s higher still. My guess is that that reflects better public goods in Cuba, such as education and medical care, since market goods aren’t there in the same way or to the same extent.)

 

Though I had read Lonely Planet’s Caribbean guidebook, and had some ideas where I wanted to go and what I wanted to see, in any of those countries one could easily just land and explore. But Haiti is harder. I wouldn’t discourage anyone from going to Haiti, but if going again myself, I would want to know a lot more about the country and the language (with a thorough phrase book in Creole and/or French); preferably have some contacts; and have some more detailed plan about what I wanted to do (perhaps volunteer in some way?).

 

Haiti was thus the most difficult, and everywhere I went, Americans and other foreigners seemed most interested in (and supportive of) the fact that I was going to Cuba. So I will give most detail about Haiti and Cuba.

 

In Puerto Rico – an American territory (Commonwealth) – I was hardly noticed. In the Dominican Republic, I stood out a bit more as a “rich” foreign tourist, so got hit upon more. For example (from several beautiful young ladies), “You have beautiful eyes, do you want to go for a walk?” I declined. (On a similar theme, a man in Cuba asked, “What would you like, Amigo? Tobacco? Rum? Viagra?”)

 

Haiti is very African, very black. There are some mulattoes (i.e., lighter skinned), but virtually no whites. (The funniest comment on the street was in Haiti – shortly after I was pick-pocketed – from a workman to his fellows, while working on something on the street: “Pied blanco (white feet)!” Apparently he hadn’t yet seen the rest of me!)

 

Haiti was the only place I saw women – and sometimes men – carrying things on their head, a very African custom. In Cuba I experienced an Afro-Cuban religious ceremony (involving mass animal sacrifice, which I didn’t especially like, though of course it was interesting).

 

In Puerto Rico I ate several times at a sports bar near the hostel (for example, corn fritters and fried mashed plantain bananas with garlic), where I saw lots of American sports, especially basketball. I also noticed American professional basketball on Cuban TV (which only seems to have about 8 channels, including a possibly Mexican soap opera and sophisticated music videos that someone told me are made in Cuba though I had a hard time believing it).

 

Though the Dominican Republic is known for producing American baseball stars, I didn’t happen to notice baseball in DR. But in Cuba I saw kids playing baseball (beisball) in the street as well as on playgrounds (and also American baseball scores on TV). In Cuba I also noticed occasional American-flag-themed clothes – or actual American flags, one on a bicycle rickshaw peddling around Havana – which I hadn’t expected. Once I noticed a waving American flag as screen-saver on someone’s cell phone.

 

In Haiti I noticed a big billboard, funded by USAID (U.S. foreign assistance), promoting birth control and small, happy, healthy families. In Jamaica there were lots of government-sponsored billboards promoting public health in one way or another, such as good nutrition, good driving habits, etc. In Cuba there were of course revolutionary slogans painted on walls or wherever. One that caught my eye said that “The Revolution is invincible” (or irreversible, or something to that effect) – which made me wonder why, if so, it was necessary to say so.

 

Puerto Ricans speak Spanish predominantly, as do Dominicans (and of course Cubans). I had a year of Spanish in high school, and have absorbed a little bit from the general culture too, so I was gradually able to both understand and speak some words. I also had some French in both high school and college – not enough to ever speak, but enough to be able to read somewhat – so again I could make out a bit, and speak a tiny bit, in Haiti, although Haitian Creole is only partly French.

 

In all these countries, when fumbling to say something that I knew wouldn’t work in English, I would unconsciously try whatever non-English phrases came to mind – sometimes even in Swedish (which didn’t help at all!). In Jamaica it was a shock to hear “ordinary people” speaking English, albeit in a heavily accented way (and often with unusual vocabulary too), so that I frequently had to ask people to repeat what they had said.

 

Impressions of Puerto Rico

In Puerto Rico I stayed at an inexpensive and fun backpacker hostel (Island Time). A common theme in the Caribbean is old Spanish forts guarding ports, which I explored first in San Juan (and later in Santo Domingo and Santiago de Cuba). I had rented a car so then drove about 40 km out to Guavate, an area in the forested hills where, on weekends, one finds lots of food, music, and general reveling in restaurants strung all along the road. I drove to El Yunque, the only tropical rainforest in the National Park system, and climbed to a mountain top, above tree-line, then took a dip in the ocean at nearby Luquillo Beach. I walked around San Juan and visited Museo de las Américas including exhibits on aboriginal peoples from throughout the Americas.

 

Leaving San Juan, I drove west and then south – stopping once for gas and a fresh-fruit smoothie – to Arecibo Observatory, a huge radio telescope set into a natural depression (sinkhole) in the forested hills. Before the tour I read about radio astronomy, radar astronomy, and atmospheric science in the visitors’ center. I drove on through the mountains to the southern coast, finding a place to stay in La Parguera, as well as a tour boat to explore the Phosphorescent Bay (La Bahia Fosforescente). Though we went out after dark, there was about a quarter moon and thus it was too light for the best effect. But swimming in the shadow of the boat was magical, with “diamonds” flashing off my arms (from bacteria in the water that fluoresce – emit light – when disturbed).

 

I hiked a bit in the Dry Forest at Guánica, then drove on to Puerto Rico’s second city, Ponce. The fantastically-painted lion statues watched as I bought mangoes and ate ice cream in the city square. I explored the great collection at the Ponce Art Museum, then – sitting in their coffee shop – used wifi to catch up on emails. Just after I passed a major intersection as I was leaving the city I heard a screech and looked in the rearview mirror in time to see one speeding car violently rear-end another. Some people’s lives had just changed suddenly and substantially.

 

Back in San Juan I visited the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, then toured the Bacardi Rum Factory and got certified as a mixologist! After mixing and drinking three drinks, I tried to be especially alert while driving to the airport to drop off the car and catch a taxi to the Pan American Terminal. I sailed with America Cruise Ferries to Santo Domingo, chatting at the stern rail – as we sailed west along the coast – with an older Puerto Rican man (a Vietnam veteran) on his way to visit a girlfriend in DR.

 

Impressions of the Dominican Republic

A former chair of DA-DR (Francis) had provided information to help me with planning, and now he met me when I came off the ferry and drove me to my lodging – which I had arranged via AirBnB – in Zona Colonial (the historic heart of the city), close to a long walking street. My middle-aged hostess spoke almost no English, but her three sons aged 18, 20, and 22 spoke excellent English and were eager to talk and to help in any way. One of them showed me a pod of “green” (undried) cocoa (chocolate) beans, and I decided to look for some to take home from Cuba. But in Haiti I saw people drying cocoa beans on the street and (not knowing what they were) asked about them. They gave me some which I brought home. They taste (naturally enough) like very dark chocolate (with no sugar at all, of course).

 

Francis drove me all around town, including past the monstrous Columbus Monument which some recent dictator erected (more to himself than to Columbus, I expect). When we stopped for lunch at a cafeteria in a department store, Francis even bought me a phone to use while in DR (which I gave back to him later), and took me to his apartment as well (where I met one of his daughters), before dropping me off home again.

 

I walked over to the lovely interesting walking street, found something to eat at a place with wifi (so I could catch up on emails), then – even though it was Saturday evening – I walked a few kilometers to the bus station, but everything was closed, so I walked home again (taking a different route to see more of the city).

 

On Sunday – after agreeing upon the fare – I accepted an offer of a taxi ride to the bus station and bought a ticket to the north coast for the next day as well as a ticket to Cap Haitien (Haiti) for the following Monday. I looked through the Museum of Dominican Man (apologies for the sexism), then met the current DA chair (Roque), who showed me more of the city, including the botanical garden (where the American Embassy happened to be sponsoring some environmental event with a live band) and – far on the other side of town – the national aquarium. We ended up at Roque’s apartment where I met his family and we chatted about DA internal politics, which was enlightening to me, since I was not a voting representative so hadn’t been paying much attention.

 

I’ve found that local people – especially if relatively well off – often think that walking in their city (after dark!) is more dangerous than it feels to me. Roque wanted to drive me home, but – as it was earlier than I had walked roughly the same route home the night before – I insisted on walking. On the way I stopped to ask a fruit-seller about some fruit I hadn’t seen before, and discovered that he – though Dominican – was also an American citizen (so, naturally, I encouraged him to vote, and to join DA).

 

Here in Sweden, most American expats (expatriates) met a Swede and came here for love (as I did). But, as Roque explained to me, the profile in DR is different. While there are some native-born Americans who retire in DR, most American citizens there were born in DR, emigrated to the U.S. and worked there for many years – eventually taking American citizenship – and then returned to DR.

 

On Monday morning my hostess called a taxi to take me to the bus station, though I’m sure I could have gotten one as quickly, and cheaper, just by walking outside. When I got off the bus in Samaná, several taxi drivers wanted to take me the 30 km to Las Galeras – a sleepy fishing village on the north coast – for US$30, five times what it had just cost me to travel six times as far on the bus! When I made it clear that I didn’t want a taxi and wasn’t paying in dollars in any case, a helpful man pulled me aside and flagged down a pickup truck (called tap tap in Haiti) for me. It cost the equivalent of $4 or less. The taxi drivers were not happy with him, but I tipped him another $4 for his help and he was happy! (People hopped in and out of the pickup truck all the way to Las Galeras, it was a “share taxi”.)

 

I enjoyed riding in the back of the pickup truck, something I hadn’t done for many years, maybe since 1984 when I met Ellinor in Bangladesh. The driver was eager to help me find lodging, presumably to curry favor with (and perhaps get a cut of the price from) the “hotel”. We couldn’t find anyone at the first place he tried, so we drove back about a kilometer from the beach and found a place. They wanted $16/night but it was off-season and the town was pretty deserted (i.e., no pressure from tourists for the abundant lodgings), so without much difficulty I succeeded in bargaining them down to $12.

 

I ate lunch at a small local restaurant where a young French woman was waitressing and said she’d been doing so for 6 months out of each of the last 6 years. She kindly asked if I wanted bottled water (for a price) or “gallon water” (for free) from a huge jug which they also buy. I immediately latched onto that distinction. (I dislike paying for bottled water. In Haiti and Cuba – and anywhere that people said that tap water wasn’t safe – I chemically treated my drinking water.)

 

I walked east along the beach away from people and found a spot to sunbathe and (sea) bathe. Later some sellers insisted I come check out their alcohol, tobacco, souvenirs, etc.. I wasn’t interested in buying anything, but one of the men walked back to town with me, showing me a short-cut which brought us out at a little local restaurant he recommended, where I had good cheap food for dinner, and ate there again later too. While I was there a man on a motorcycle pulled in with a gunny sack full of some unknown (to me) kind of fruit that he was selling, so naturally I bought a couple. There were also mangoes falling off trees, littering the trail I’d just been on, but apparently they weren’t the best, as they were ignored.

 

After breakfast the next day – rather than hiring an expensive boat to take me to fantastic beaches further away – I used my GPS to navigate a back route to a point on the beach a few kilometers west (since cliffs obstructed following the beach directly). I hadn’t snorkeled since probably 1978 in Hawaii, but had brought a mask and snorkel tube so set out to try them. At first I seemed to be breathing salt-water vapor into my lungs, but soon got the hang of it. The water was shallow, only about 2 or 3 feet deep over a huge area, with connected sandy patches running through the predominant vegetation. Many species of fish – some very colorful, others cleverly camouflaged – seemed to inhabit the border between sand and vegetation. Out of concern for sunburn, I didn’t stay out too long, though I got burned a bit anyway. Looking up at one point, I saw a fin sticking out of the water and almost panicked. Standing up to see better, I watched a large stingray make a wide pass around me, about 20 yards away, circling in towards shore and then back out again. Quite magical. It reminded me of kayaking with playful sea lions in Resurrection Bay in Alaska.

 

The next morning I got up and was out by the side of the road before sun-up so as to catch the direct bus from Las Galeras in order to be back in Santo Domingo for a DA luncheon and, later, a bilingual panel discussion of American politics followed by a DA dinner. Despite the predominance of Spanish in Puerto Rico, I’m in favor of its being a state if Puerto Ricans want it to be. But this bilingual panel discussion, run by Spanish-speakers who didn’t always realize how inadequate the English translations were, was an awakening. How exactly do community meetings work when not everybody speaks the same language?

 

After a lovely outdoor dinner near the original house of Columbus’ family, several of us drove to the beach resort of Punta Cana – arriving about 2:00 AM – where I had paid for lodging for that night before knowing about the events in Santo Domingo. Fortunately, Quaide – one of my roommates – was awake and let me in, as, tired as I was, I couldn’t figure out how to open the key-box.

 

On Thursday – the first day of DA meetings – I first went exploring for local food. A tout asked what I wanted: Souvenirs? Women? Tours? I said “food”. So he showed me through a passageway to a “hidden” stairway and up to a small kitchen where a woman had rice and beans and chicken and pork cooking in pots and – while a few other women and children watched and giggled – gave me a good lunch, including tamarind juice to drink, for about $1 (though it was charged and paid in local currency, of course).

 

The DA meetings were held at an “all-inclusive” hotel on the beach, and I thought to cut over to the beach and follow it north to the meeting hotel. But this entire stretch of beach is one all-inclusive hotel after another, and they don’t let anybody go through their property to the beach. Security is tight. (I know because I tried 3 or 4 of these hotels in a row. Once, walking as innocently as possible, I got past the primary guard post, but was turned back at a secondary one.) Eventually I came to the end of this row of hotels and walked several kilometers back up the beach – past all of them again – to the site of DA’s meeting.

 

All-inclusive means that 3 meals plus drinks of all kinds (alcoholic as well as otherwise) plus various activities are included in the room price (that’s why the room price was higher than I wanted to pay – $109 – so I and a few others had arranged an alternative). But now – since there was no nearby alternative for food – we were offered (or required) to buy a “day pass” for lunch plus drinks for $30. This was still far more than I would have normally paid for lunch: Witness the $1 lunch I had just eaten! But since there was no alternative, I made sure to get my money’s worth from the elaborate buffet each day, plus drinking endless piña coladas. (If I don’t remember so much about the meetings themselves, that could be part of the reason. I wasn’t voting, so didn’t feel obligated to keep track of all the details.)

 

After the final meeting session on Sunday, the DA vice chair arranged a ride back to Santo Domingo for me with an audio-visual technician who had worked the meeting. He was happy to have company as well as a tip for his trouble. I had arranged another AirBnB place, quite close to the bus station this time, so he dropped me there. Next morning, after a breakfast that my host fixed, I went to the station, paid DR’s $25 departure tax, and boarded the bus for Cap Haitien.

 

Impressions of Haiti

After the global meeting of Democrats Abroad in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic –

which was my excuse for traveling in the Caribbean, where I’d never been – I took a bus from Santo Domingo to Cap Haitien in northern Haiti. It was a large and comfortable yellow Caribe Tours bus. We stopped for lunch in Santiago, where most of the passengers got off, leaving only four. After that the road deteriorated substantially, making clear that trade with northern Haiti was not a priority.

 

The border area was teeming with people, small traders trying to sell something from spots on the ground, and masses of people filling the road as well as side areas. Arriving in this big bus felt very out of place, like touring a refugee camp from on-high. People were washing clothes in the little bit of water in the river which marks the border.

 

Tourist facilities in Haiti are minimal, so I had arranged a hotel in Milot, the small village half an hour south of Cap Haitien from which I wanted to visit some of the grandiose remains of Henri Christophe’s brief reign as king after the slave revolt which freed Haiti from France in 1804.

 

Someone from the hotel met me on a motorcycle and took me on the busy highway to Milot, with my large backpack on my back and my daypack in his lap. At first I locked my arms around my driver, but when someone on another motorcycle laughed and commented, I realized that everyone else was calmly balancing without holding on, so I relaxed my grip (while still in position to grab hold if I needed to). I was a bit concerned about the manholes without apparent manhole covers – probably resulting from the fact that, when they re-pave they don’t remove the old pavement, and also don’t want to pave over the manhole cover, so a “pit” develops which gets deeper and deeper – but I didn't witness anyone dropping a wheel into one of them. (I wouldn't want to drive that road at night.)

 

When we got to the hotel, they put me on a cell phone and I learned that the owner or manager – with whom I’d been emailing, and who arranged my ride from the bus station – was actually in Florida, where he lives. The local staff spoke a little English, but he said, if there’s any problem or question, anything that’s not understood, just call him, so that’s what we did.
 

In the evening I walked up to Sans Souci, the ruins of Henri Christophe's magnificent palace, and found out about going to The Citadel, his huge mountain-top fortress built about 1810 to resist an expected French invasion. The invasion never came, and I doubt that the fortress deterred it – partly because Haiti also paid "reparations" for a century or so to France in return for diplomatic recognition, but also because the fort was so remote, the French could have just ignored it – so the reported 20,000 lives lost during construction were probably lost pointlessly.
 

Dogs barked sporadically all night long. I swear to God, “if I had a hammer” I would have beaten the nearest one to death before the roosters started crowing about 4:00 A.M. In order to save electricity, the air conditioning had gone off at 1:00 A.M., and my room had never cooled off sufficiently to start with (maybe because I hadn’t set the A/C very cold), so I didn’t sleep well. Breakfast was bread with (unnecessarily) fancy imported cheese in little packets. (At dinner they had charged for bottled water, although later I noticed chilled “gallon water” available upstairs.)

The next morning I set out to walk up to The Citadel, though it's about 7 or 8 km (5 miles) and up almost a thousand meters (three thousand feet). As expected, I was "hit" almost immediately – like a fishing lure – by young men on motorcycles who wanted to give me a ride or be my guide (or both) for a fee.

Prices in Haiti seem to be routinely quoted in dollars for foreigners, and prices are highly inflated from local levels as well. At the border I changed my Dominican Republic pesos for Haitian gourdes, so I told people that I'm not paying in dollars and I want to know the local rate. (Of course communication was difficult because my Creole is non-existent and my French minimal, while their English varied greatly; and of course my semi-fluent Swedish, which I tried occasionally by mistake, was totally useless.)

I don't like to have a guide because they tend to take over, telling me what to do, where to take pictures, talking constantly, and it becomes totally boring. But once we'd negotiated a reasonable price (200 gourdes = $4 – probably still at least double the local rate, but better than the $20 they had started at!) for a motorcycle ride up to the parking area below the summit, I accepted a teeth-pounding ride on the 
"paved" rock road, then walked up the remaining thousand or so feet.

 

Again almost immediately I was hit by young men wanting to be my guide, or wanting me to ride a horse. I declined the horse and told the potential guides (since they were persistent) that they were welcome to walk with me if they wanted to, but I wasn't paying for a guide. That got rid of all but one. He said it was okay, he had clean-up work to do at The Citadel, so I didn't discourage him further. Occasionally he shared interesting information in a non-controlling manner, but I was careful not to ask questions that would put me into the client role.

At the top, as we approached the gate, he actually stooped to pick up some bits of litter, which triggered my "trash response", since I like to pick up trash along trails in Sweden and Alaska and elsewhere. He was quite surprised and grateful.

In my experience, Haiti is totally trashed out, along roadways, streets, in rivers and ravines, you name it. I commented so to Jerry (my "guide"). Back at Sans Souci I had paid a $5 fee to enter both historical sites (plus another one even further away if I wanted to). Jerry mentioned that Haitian tourists (who also come to marvel at The Citadel, the symbol of their independence) are only charged $1. And then, if one points out the rules to them – which, of course, include not littering – they say, "We paid our dollar and we'll do as we like." This does NOT show pride in one's country.

Jerry and I proceeded to explore the huge complex fortress, picking up trash as we went. Other workers, of which there were a few scattered here and there, were as surprised as Jerry had been that I was helping, so I continued throughout, and it seemed to inspire them a bit too. I maintained my "non-client" status so that, for example, when Jerry said "Now we go up here," I made a point of (subtly) going some other way, just wandering off as though I hadn't heard. When he said we needed a light to go into one dark area, and offered one, I only went as far as I could see without the light, then declined its assistance. When I said perhaps I'd find a place to sit in the shade for awhile and read, and he went to borrow a chair from some office, I declined it. When he called for someone to come unlock a door to let us out at the bottom, rather than having to climb back around to the door we'd come in, I declined.

In the end I gave him 250 gourde ($5) which pleased him. I also explained my "philosophy" of guides and clients, and complimented him on being unobtrusive. He seemed to understand.

 

As I left to start down, I stopped to buy some tiny bananas for lunch, but only had a 20 gourde bill or 500, and didn't think the sales woman was going to have change from 500, so asked how many I could get (which turned out to be 5 bananas) for 20 gourde (about 40 cents). As they were quite small, Jerry didn't think that was sufficient for my lunch (or for the money?), and came over and "arranged" for me to get about 15 more, which made a good lunch. (Did he pay for them? Or was that the REAL rate? I don't know, though I didn't see any further money change hands.)

Coming down I took a well-traveled short-cut to avoid a long switch-back, and it was totally trashed out. Haitians drink water purchased in small plastic bags, which then get tossed everywhere.

I was getting quite hot in the sun, and started thinking about coconuts from which I'd drunk the "water" (juice) the week before on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. Just then a little "stand" came into view – the first one I'd seen here – with someone selling coconuts. (If my nose worked better, I'd think perhaps I'd smelled them.) The seller wanted $2 for 1 coconut, but I said I wasn't into dollar prices, what's the gourde price? He said 50 ($1) – probably still way too high, but I agreed. I asked if he had a straw and he said yes, but he hadn't understood (or, possibly, had lied, but I doubt it), because after he'd whacked off the top with a machete, leaving just a small hole, it turned out that one should suck (drink) the "water" out through that hole, which worked okay once I got used to it and stopped making loud slurping noises.

When I finished drinking from the coconut, the seller whacked off the bottom to make a circular edge for a scoop, then whacked the remainder in half and showed me that I could scoop out the soft "pulp" which I guess is starting to turn into coconut "meat". It was good, but got bitter when I scraped too deeply. Later I had a coconut on the street in Port-au-Prince but it must not have been as ripe because it was smaller and lacked pulp, though the water was good.

Now I only had 500 gourde notes so needed 450 gourde in change for the coconut. (I wasn't carrying any dollars, though later I started doing so, both because it's sometimes easier and so I wouldn't run out of gourde before I left for Jamaica 4 days later – I HATE paying ATM fees! And even finding an ATM in Haiti might have been difficult.)

 

Of course the coconut seller didn't have change, but he'd indicated beforehand that it could be arranged. Now he sent a young woman down the hill with the 500 note – and me trailing behind – quite a distance until she found someone to change the bill. Then they tried to give me only 400 in change, but I protested, the agreed price was 50. Then they handed me a 250 note but I – thinking it was a 50 – started to put all the "change" (400 + 250) in my wallet, and now THEY protested strenuously, until finally I realized what was happening and gave them back 200.

When meeting people I often said a soft and friendly Bon Jour or Bon Soir (which I thought was “good evening” but seemed to start immediately after noon). It seemed to defuse the occasional suspicious or even slightly hostile look.

In the evening I stopped at a bridge, quickly and I hoped unobtrusively, to take a picture of all the trash in the river which flows through the middle of Milot, and there happened to be a pig finding something good to eat there below the bridge just then. But a man who perhaps lived next to the river and was perhaps standing outside his house said something that caught my attention. I immediately said Bon Soir in the softest, pleasantest tone I could muster, but he wasn't mollified, and said something else. I said, "Je ne comprends pas" (I don't understand), and he said, "Just go" (a little disgustedly, I thought), so I did.

I had dinner at the only other lodging-place there seemed to be in town, and talked with a young Frenchman (of half Vietnamese extraction) who happened to be staying there. He'd been there for a month, on a 5-month "internship" studying local agriculture. He said he often hikes in the mountains on weekends – though he hadn't been up to The Citadel yet – and people were very friendly and kind, often offering him food or drinks, sometimes for pay, sometimes not. That reminds me of Nepal, where people in the hills had often not been "spoiled" by the influx of tourists, and didn't try to gouge for extravagant prices.

But here in town – and in the rest of Haiti, as I experienced it – there didn't seem to be much of a market in tourist services, or even (for example) in small restaurants where locals might eat. Consequently, the few there were seemed able to charge extortionate prices. For example, both where I stayed and ate the first night, and where the Frenchman was staying, they charged $10 for dinner (plus $1 for a bottle of water and $2 for beer). Where I was at the beach in northern DR last week – in a small fishing village/tourist destination – I could have gotten the same dinner, not served as nicely, but just as good food, for $3 or $4. And Haiti is much poorer, so labor prices as well as food prices should be much lower. They seem to have gotten used to gouging foreigners, however. (I didn't mind too much, since I was only there for a few days, and they certainly need the help.) Another alternative, however, is that they seem to think that foreigners should (must?) have imported (and thus expensive) goods, like imported packaged soft cheese (Laughing Cow?) for breakfast.

 

I didn't like children begging in the streets. I saw very many very cute children, dressed in their school uniforms, girls with hair made up very specially, but often they would stretch out a hand and ask for a dollar. Some even requested that I take their picture, but then wanted to be paid, I believe. They've gotten into some very poor habits.

 

I had forgotten to make arrangements when I arrived for onward bus travel to Port-au-Prince, so in the evening someone at the hotel tried to call for me, without any clear result. In the morning the nice man who had picked me up with his motorcycle took me to the bus station at 8:00 to see if I could get on the 9:00 bus, which worked out, although I’m not sure how, since the bus seemed full (and at some point I think we were told that it was full, too). Perhaps – since I might have been paying a higher fare – they might have paid someone else to wait till later? Still it cost less than $14 for a six-hour ride (including a lunch break).

 

Someone had written numbers (I had #4) on boarding cards that we passengers were given, which I hadn’t noticed or paid attention to. Seeing other passengers heading towards the back of the bus – and the front right seat available – I took it. Later I realized that that was seat #1. There were two men in suits with religious titles (deacon or such) on name-labels who should have had seats 1 and 2 (together), but one of them kindly took seat 4 on the other side, and declined when I later realized what had happened and asked if he wanted to switch. I appreciated having a good view.

 

The road was the worst I’ve ever seen – severely rutted and pot-holed – until we got through the mountains and better road over towards the west coast. The expert driver dodged pot holes and slowed down sometimes when ruts were overwhelming, but he almost never slowed down for traffic ahead, passing on curves simply by honking his horn longer. (I guessed that that’s what a yellow line in the center meant: Honk longer.) Smaller traffic – motorcycles, pickup trucks, whatever – got out of our way.

 

When we stopped for lunch a kindly fellow passenger – a young Venezuelan Christian (Assembly of God) missionary who had lived in Haiti about 10 years – saw that I didn’t know what to do and offered to help (in fact he offered to buy my lunch, but I didn’t let him). He helped me interpret the menu and ordered for me – rice with lots of beans (for about $1.50) was all I wanted, the beans to help moisten up the rice, because my mouth remains dry since radiation treatments in 2010. I’m also extremely sensitive to “hot” spice, which – to my regret – I sometimes forgot about when asking about food and ordering.

 

At some point my missionary friend inquired about my religion and seemed rather shocked when I said Buddhist, though he recovered quickly and didn’t treat me any worse for it!

 

When we got to Port-au-Prince he offered that someone coming to pick him up could also give me a ride to my lodging, but when his ride arrived the driver said he didn’t have time, so my friend helped me negotiate a price for a taxi. I thought $12 sounded like a lot – since I’d had much cheaper taxi rides (for comparable distances) in Santo Domingo, and I was convinced that Haiti should be cheaper – so the taxi driver agreed (at least so I understood) on $10 (I’m converting from local currency). But when we got there, he insisted that I should pay $12, which I refused to do: A deal is a deal. But it was awkward since I hadn’t negotiated the deal myself, which I wished I had. My hosts at my new AirBnB lodging witnessed this conflict, which didn’t start my relationship with them off on exactly the right foot.

 

Still they allowed me to try using their computer to send a message home, but I couldn’t get online because of the poor connection, so went out to explore the neighborhood. In a small pharmacy I asked for shampoo but was told, with a giggle, that they only had for women, not for men! (What’s the difference – between shampoos, I mean?) In a small grocery store I spotted Alaska brand condensed milk so bought some to have with fruit (instead of the yoghurt that I always eat at home). I had seen Alaska as a brand name signifying cool (or cold) in Santo Domingo too, on big juice or ice cream coolers (years ago I saw it in the Mediterranean too). Whenever someone asked where I was from (in Spanish-speaking countries), if I said “Alaska”, they said “frio”, cold.

 

When I asked about finding a place to email, a friendly man at the store – who mentioned that he had worked in the States – pointed out a “cyber café” across the street (back through a passageway and then upstairs). It wasn’t actually a café, but they did have four computers – though I was the only customer I ever saw there – and it was quite cheap, about $1.50/hour. I came back several times during the next two days.

 

After a good breakfast – which was, again, foreign-seeming products, including croissants and something artificial like Tang (instead of fresh fruit juice) – I started walking into town, stopping first at a bank to change some dollars (which I had taken out of an ATM in Puerto Rico). There was quite a line of customers – I waited in line about half an hour (and other customers seemed a bit sullen) – and security was tight, both inside and outside. (No cell phones were allowed inside, so I explained that the GPS I was looking at was not a cell phone.) Here and other places (such as gas stations!), outside guards appeared to be carrying large-bore shotguns.

 

I followed very crowded main roads into town, nodding to people and saying “Bonjour” when that seemed appropriate. There were people everywhere. The Frenchman I met in Milot had mentioned that Haitians generally don’t like having their pictures taken, and I had the feeling that people were a bit suspicious of me at first, so I refrained from taking pictures on the street. At first I was wearing dark glasses because of the bright sun, but soon removed them to improve connection with people.

 

A young woman (perhaps about 30) walking ahead of me was carrying a cardboard box on her head, and suddenly lost her balance on some uneven sidewalk. She caught the box, but out fell a cellophane-wrapped package of perhaps 6 bars of soap as well as an old-style kerosene lantern, and of course the glass chimney broke. She picked up the soap, I handed her the unbroken bottom of the lantern, and she went on her way, while I carried and then tossed the broken chimney as soon as I could find a trash can (which wasn’t soon). I was happy that no one on the crowded street had accused me of causing the fall! (Was I a little paranoid?)

 

I visited the Museum of Haitian Art but – except for a very small area adjoining the lobby – it was closed for reconstruction because of the earthquake in January 2010 which was centered near Port-au-Prince. (Besides massive property damage, it killed more than 230,000 people.) I was able to buy postcards at the museum, however.

 

I saw a sign for “natural juice” – meaning not bottled, but actually fresh-pressed – so stopped at a small café. When I was at the Port-au-Prince airport on my way to Jamaica two days later I started feeling a stomach bug (despite my drinking treated water throughout, also for tooth-brushing). Could it have been that juice? Perhaps there was a reason there were almost exclusively bottled drinks? The waitress tried to cheat on the change, acting like she didn’t understand when I pointed out the discrepancy.

 

I found what might have been the main post office – which seemed barely functioning – in temporary or damaged quarters. It cost $3 to mail a postcard to Sweden ($2 to Alaska), but they only had stamps with values equivalent to 40 cents – and of course there isn’t a lot of space for stamps on a postcard – so, without a second thought, they placed one stamp over another and then another, leaving only the numbers indicating value visible. They miscalculated – or tried to cheat – on the change (not the first time, nor the last, that that happened, but the most official). The post card showed up in Sweden 3½ weeks later (but at least it showed up).

 

It was hot and I stopped at another juice place, this one featuring canned “milkshakes” from Mexico and Peru, perhaps none are manufactured in Haiti? Again I had to insist on getting proper change. The waitress tried to tell me that my change was “her money”. Finally – because she didn’t have exact change – she gave me more than she owed, and expected something back. I told her (with a smile) that that was “my money” and she laughed, perhaps in recognition of our common humanity? (Of course I gave her the change.)

 

I walked past Champs des Mars (the central “square”), only glancing at the art works and souvenirs in order to deflect attention from artists and touts. Two young white women stood out in the crowd, the only foreign tourists – and almost the only white people – I saw. (The others were expats at a fancy hotel and conference locale.)

 

I walked through many market streets to the ruins of the Catholic Cathedral as well as the new one being built next door, then on through many more heavily-trafficked blocks of street-markets. I was concerned about the possibility of getting pick-pocketed, so was in the habit of walking with one hand inconspicuously brushing the right-front pants pocket containing my wallet (which is also attached to my belt with a light chain), the other hand brushing my velcro-closed left-front vest pocket containing my GPS. (I wasn’t especially concerned about my daypack since it contained nothing of much value to anyone else, though of course they didn’t know that.)

 

I stopped to buy fruit for dinner from some women selling mangoes set out in carefully constructed piles on a cloth. I offered a bill worth about 40 cents and asked (with gestures) if that would be okay for one large mango, and was surprised when they said no. But it turned out they thought I was offering that price for the entire pile of perhaps 8 or 9 mangoes. They were quite happy to give me 4 large mangoes for 40 cents.

 

By now I had walked about 20 kilometers (12 miles) and was quite tired. I looked for a pickup truck share-taxi running up Delmas (the street near which I lived, many kilometers away) but the first one I tried was going somewhere else, so people on the street waved me off and helped me find one going where I wanted to go.

 

Sitting down on the bench running along the inside of the pickup truck, I took off my daypack and noticed that both the smallest pocket and the middle pocket were unzipped. I’m normally quite careful to close the zippers after getting into the pockets, but of course I was hot and sweaty and tired, so could I have spaced that out? I didn’t worry more about it.

 

The next day I set out to walk the other way, to Petionville, the richer (and supposedly safer) suburb in the hills where there are government agencies and aid agencies as well as fancy hotels, restaurants, and bars. A fancy bakery along the way sold croissants as well as lots of cream-filled French pastries. At a large supermarket I saw a fruit I didn’t recognize, labeled “grenadine”, so I bought one but then didn’t know what to do with it. It had a thick soft outer “shell” which, however, didn’t taste good. Inside were masses of seeds in “jelly” which was good, but how to separate it from the seeds? Turns out it was a variety of passion fruit, but – since I couldn’t figure out what to do with it – I left it for my hosts when I left.

 

As I walked along the street crowded with thousands of people, suddenly a totally naked woman, perhaps about 35 or 40 years old, appeared in front of me, walking in my direction. I pretended I didn’t see her – as everyone else seemed to do as well – and walked on by. Perhaps she was mentally deranged? A little later I heard a voice seemingly calling “Rick, Rick” and turned around to find my missionary friend from the day before, heading to the American Embassy to apply for a visa for some church conference in North Carolina. Then there was a woman (presumably begging on the street) with what I took to be club foot – a monstrously enlarged foot and lower leg – but it must have a different name because now I’ve learned that club foot means something else (feet turned inwards).

 

As I approached Petionville there seemed to be a major transit interchange where people were densely packed. Starting through the crowd, I felt someone tug at my daypack. Instantly I sought to verify that my wallet and GPS were in place, but the GPS was missing. Visualizing the rest of my trip without it – needing to find and consult maps constantly in order to know where I was or how to get anywhere – I went black and apparently exploded. I think I grabbed the person in front of me, who then ran off through the crowd, shouting something which I later imagined to have been “I don’t have it” (though it was presumably in Creole, so I wouldn’t know). I fell and scraped my knee pretty good (but not pretty bad – who makes up these scales?). A space in the crowd had opened up around me. Getting up and turning around, someone – a child, I think – handed the GPS back to me. Apparently the pickpocket had dropped it when I attacked – or realized that it wasn’t what he expected, a wallet or smartphone, and dropped it?

 

There happened to be a large “store-front” church nearby, on whose steps I sat down, both to calm down and to try to clean dirt and blood from my knee. A concerned group of people watched, and one middle-aged woman who could communicate in English said this area wasn’t safe and offered to escort me to where the street was less crowded, an offer which I gratefully accepted. But first I noticed that the zippers on the two smaller pockets on my daypack had been opened (again), and I realized that people had opened them, like the day before. The only thing I noticed missing was a saline-solution-with-aloe inhaler which I had picked up in Puerto Rico to help keep my nose lubricated, no great loss. I realized that I could weave the zipper-pulls together in such a way that no one – including me – could easily and quickly open them. It was a pain, but I did that for the rest of the trip.

 

Using my GPS (!), I located and went to a Best Western Hotel where – despite careful security – I was of course let in, despite my rather-shaken demeanor, trekker’s clothes, and injured knee. I explained what had happened and asked if I could use their restroom to clean up my knee, which of course they allowed.

 

I was curious to know more about the earthquake, and to see more of its effects, so asked at the reception desk if they knew of any tours available for tourists, like the tour we took when we visited New Orleans after the 2005 flood. There were none. There are (essentially) no tourists! I could rent a car and they could find a driver/guide, but that would be expensive as well as time-consuming, so I declined.

 

I stopped at a fancy restaurant for pineapple/passionfruit juice and cheesecake crème brûlée with caramel sauce dripped over it – served with a small glass of sugar water (not sugarcane juice as I imagined, but sugar water, a Caribbean tradition, I was told) – then walked several kilometers to another fancy hotel – reportedly, the fanciest – which is also a major conference locale. After another fruit drink there, I walked back out to a main road and caught a share-taxi pickup truck for a few kilometers, then walked the final few kilometers home. On the way, looking up above Petionville, I was surprised that all the houses on the hills to the left were painted bright colors, while those to the right were not. It was a government project, but why they didn’t do more, I don’t know. As I walked home, with a stream of cars passing me on the other side of a 2-way road, one stopped, since he’d noticed my injured leg, to ask very kindly where I was going and if I needed help, but I said I could make it okay.

 

I stopped to buy some packaged dried bananas to have for dinner with fresh fruit I’d purchased during the day. The seller also had packages of something similar but distinctly different, I thought, so I chose one of each and – since my hands were full – dropped the two small packages on the ground by my feet while I fished out money with which to pay. A small crowd of young school boys stood watching and commenting as I tried to negotiate a price. The seller wanted considerably more than I thought reasonable, so I objected. Finally another seller nearby told me the “correct” price, which I was willing to pay.

 

In order not to have to fish out my wallet for small purchases, I had put lots of coins in a small upper outside vest pocket, but later I had also added some Haitian bills there. Now I was trying to get coins out of the little pocket without pulling out the bills, but I came out with only some very small coins. At this the school boys hooted and jeered, at which I should have walked away, but I didn’t.

 

Now instead – trying to put an end to the process – I hauled out a wad of bills, and the school boys hollered more, clearly believing that, since I was so rich, I should pay the seller whatever he wanted. Meanwhile he – perhaps insulted because I had dropped his product by my feet? – had picked up the two packages I wanted. When I finally paid and he gave me two packages, they were identical, so I hadn’t gotten the other kind that I wanted, who knows whether by accident or, possibly, the other one was worth more? Or maybe there was no essential difference? I was happy to be out of that situation and went home to fix my fruit and evaporated milk dinner.

 

My flight on InterCaribbean Airways (formerly Air Turks & Caicos) from Port-au-Prince to Kingston, Jamaica, had earlier been rescheduled from mid-afternoon to late morning, although the change wasn’t notified very clearly and I was lucky to notice it just as I began the trip.  I had considered ordering a taxi to the airport, but instead, after breakfast, started walking – with my big backpack on my back, and my daypack over my shoulder – confident that I had time to walk all the way if necessary (and the sun wasn’t yet too high), but that a taxi would likely offer me a reasonable fare quite soon. To my surprise, even though I was walking along what seemed like a fairly main road, no taxis came by, so I walked about a kilometer before an older man (with a helmet, a rarity!) asked if I wanted a motorcycle ride and offered me a reasonable fare (in local currency), so I accepted and tipped him besides.

 

He’d probably never been to the airport before, so didn’t quite get me to the departure area, or even to the terminal (and I didn’t know where it was either), but close enough. I walked into an office that said something like Airport Security and asked where I should go. A man working there immediately took me under his wing and led me to the check-in counter, the emigration counter, then to and through security (I think he walked through without being checked). At the emigration counter the officer asked “What you need to go to Jamaica?” I thought, I don’t need to go, I want to go? But he continues, “Just buy ticket and go?” Perhaps he was jealous because he couldn’t go? It might be a much greater hassle for a Haitian than for an American or a Swede.

 

I asked if there was anyplace to change Haitian money for Jamaican, and he or someone said yes,  back outside. So I went back, across the street, where money changers were standing around. They had no Jamaican money, so I traded for dollars instead, then went back in through security again.

 

There was no arrivals or departures board, and no one seemed to speak English, but when I asked about the flight, people said “just wait”, so I sat down in the waiting area. Nervous that I might miss the flight since I wouldn’t know when it was arriving, I looked around and found two others with carry-on bags similarly marked for Kingston. At least, if we missed the plane, there would be three of us. Suddenly a woman weighing somewhere north of 300 lbs (136 kg) got up from the other end of my row of 4 seats and “rocked my world”.

 

About two hours after the scheduled departure time, someone came directly up to us and indicated that our plane had arrived. There were only four passengers bound for Kingston – on a plane easily able to seat 50 – so I guess they’d been keeping an eye on us. As we boarded, a stewardess asked us (all 4 of us) to move to the back of the plane (which reminded me of taking off in a float plane in Alaska, when weight distribution could matter, and one might need to shift one’s weight to help it get “up on the step”)!

 

Meanwhile my stomach had started feeling a bit “off”, and I started breathing deeply to try to relieve it, thinking it was just an indication of stress, after 3 weeks of travel, getting pick-pocketed the day before, etc. It never knocked me down hard, but it turned out that I’d picked up some kind of a stomach bug – maybe that juice the first day in Port-au-Prince? – and I had slight diarrhea during my time in Jamaica.

 

Incidentally, someone mentioned that healthcare is so scarce in Haiti that, when people have an injured or infected limb, it is often simply amputated. I did indeed notice several limb-less people in Haiti, and I don’t remember seeing any anywhere else. The Frenchman I met in Milot commented that life expectancy in Haiti is about 54 years, so funeral arranger would be a good profession. And sure enough, I didn’t see many old people in Haiti.

 

Impressions of Jamaica and Cuba are here.