Pico Duarte

First things first: all of the money for my library has been donated! Thank you to everyone who donated money, helped spread the word and/or supported my cause! Because of all of you, my Peace Corps grant has been filled, and giving my community of La Caya a library is one giant step closer. I could never have done this without all your help and support, and my gratitude is literally as big as this island.

Now, we are waiting for PC in Washington DC to send a check to our PC office in Santo Domingo. Once this happens, I will open a joint- account with my project partner and we will then start the process of buying all the books and supplies we need to make this library a reality.

I will keep my blog updated with the library’s progress. Hopefully within a few months, La Caya will have the small but need library it deserves! Thank you again!

Second: Remi and I returned home victoriously from our five-day mountain hike up Pico Duarte- the Caribbean’s highest mountain peak. It proved to be a long, hard and at times strenuous hike, but well worth the fight. It was beautiful, and it felt pretty incredible to be in the mountains again. Surprisngly for both of us, a lot of the trail reminded us of Nevada and California- more specifically where those two worlds collide: the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

The DR is an incredibly diverse island, and even on our five-day hike we witnessed this at great lengths. There would be times when we would be climbing at about 5000 feet and the air would be hot, the dirt dry and the smell of sagebrush (no lie) would linger. It honestly felt like we were hiking around Lake Tahoe, and after our day of good hiking, we could head over to T’s for some delicious tacos. And then, the trail would drop over a thousand feet in altitude and as we climbed down, we would be walking through a swampy kind of Caribbean wonderland, all the while being shaded by bamboo trees. At these moments, it felt like monkeys could be flying above us searching for fruit in the tall trees.

The trail continued like this for all five days, up and down, up and down. It felt like we climbed about 10 mountains before we actually got to Pico Duarte. It took us 2.5 days to get to Pico Duarte and then 2.5 days back. I never would have thought it would take just as long to get back as it did to get there, but seriously with all our ups and downs, I believe it now.

The five days were as follows: the first day we hiked 18 kilometers, the second day 12k, the third day 26k, the fourth12k again and the fifth 18k again. Everyday we would end at a different camp ground along the trail, which had old wooden houses with open fire pit stoves in them for us to sleep and cook in. On the third day, we actually climbed up to Pico Duarte and back down again to our campsite in the “Valley de Boa.”

I actually thought the hardest days were the second and fourth, because they had the steepest ups and downs, even though they were the least amount distance-wise. However, after we finished the second day, we ended in the Valle de Boa, which is a vast valley with a river skirting the edge. The valley is at the base of La Pelona, which is the mountain you must climb before you actually reach Pico Duarte. The valley was beautiful, and we stayed there two nights, as we summated Pico Duarte and returned to the valley in one day.

Climbing Pico Duarte on the third day was great. It took us about 5 hours to get from the Valley to the statue of Juan Pablo Duarte, which looms over the peak. The view from the top of Pico was spectacular and breath taking to say the least. You stand up there, the wind blowing, the Dominican flag soaring, and you see all the mountain ranges laid out in front of you. We were lucky enough to be there on a clear day, before the clouds rolled-in in the afternoon. It was almost scary, to be that high and to know how far down the bottom actually is.

I haven’t yet mentioned our guides. Although the hike can be done without guides, we took the advice of other PCV’s and hired a guide, Tony, 50-something-years-old) from Mata Grande- the town where the hike began. Much to our demise, Tony insisted that we needed two guides (him and his 70-year-old brother) and a mule. The mule was a great idea, because it carried our bags up and down the mountain, and Remi and I only had to bring a daypack each with us for water and snacks and such. Although Remi and I really didn’t need two guides, now that it is all over with, I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

The brother, the 70-year-old, literally drank rum and smoked the ENTIRE time. Not joking you, climbing the mountain, going down the mountain, at camp, the guy always had a cigarette and a flask. And his cigarettes were not regular cigarettes. He hand rolled them all… with lined paper. Like paper you use in school, out of notebook. No filter, no nothing, just tobacco and lined paper. On the third day, he followed us up Pico Duarte on the mule, while Tony stayed back at camp with our bags. He always gave us a head start and when we were about ½ way up La Pelona, I could smell his tobacco and I knew he was coming.

Both Tony and his brother were skinny, toothless, Dominican country men. They had spent most of their lives in those mountains and knew them like the backs of their hands. Tony cooked dinner for us every night, which consisted of rice and beans or rice and lentils. We ate salami and cheese for lunch and after our day was done hiking, Tony would treat us to burnt coffee or over-sugared hot chocolate. It was great, I wouldn’t have wanted it another way.

The guides loved Remi too. As most of you know, Remi is quite handy in the great-outdoors, and he proved this to me and our guides without having to speak any Spanish. The first night he and I froze in our sleeping bags, because we didn’t have a sleeping pad or anything. The next night and all that followed, Remi made us mattresses out of pine needles and soft fern branches. Tony told me we should sell them to people.

At our second campsite, there weren’t enough chairs around the fire, so Remi built one out of three sticks, old rope he found on the ground a rock. Our guides couldn’t get enough of it, and each sat on it with amazement. The third night, Remi was bored and so he literally welded a spear out of an old tent pipe he found on the ground. The guides kept looking at him and then telling me what he was doing in Spanish. It was pretty hilarious, because even though Rem speaks no Spanish, the guides were impressed with him to say the least. The entire five-days they kept looking at him like, “what crazy thing is he going to do next?”

We finished the hike on the fifth day with flying colors. Remi and I beat Tony, his brother and the mule almost everyday. Tony told me it was rare to have people who could out-walk him in the mountains. We climbed to the top of Pico Duarte (and several other small mountains and hills along the way). I can now check it off my list of “must-dos” while living in the DR. And if you ever find yourself in the DR, looking to climb the Caribbean’s highest peak, go to Mata Grande and ask for Tony. Tell him the guy who made mattresses, a chair and spear sent you.