A Haitian Departure: Part One

Ayiti Cherie!

I promised well over a week ago in my introduction post that I was going to share about my recent trip by bus from Barcelona to Lviv. The conditions under which I began that particular journey are a little bit hilarious; but, in order to tell the whole story and give myself plenty of space to share photos from along the way, I’m going to make a 3-part post describing my journey from Anse-a-Pitres, Haiti to Kathmandu, Nepal. You’d be correct in assuming that a bus ride from Spain to Ukraine is technically not on the way to Nepal from Haiti. That is true. However, as with many of life’s great adventures, taking the most direct path is never very entertaining.

Setting the Stage for an Exit

In Anse-a-Pitres, looking toward the Dominican border

The River Pedernales border crossing. The Yellow cone at bottom right is the end marker of the highway in the DR

Leading up to this eventful adventure, I had spent some time in Haiti working with an NGO in the border town of Anse-a-Pitres. I was responsible for buying things, keeping track of the money, and herding cats. I spent a lot of my time procuring materials and making use of various services in the town of Pedernales in the Dominican Republic, which provided for this very interesting bi-cultural, tri-lingual sort of experience throughout the day. The contrast between Haiti and the DR is quite stark. The soldiers at the border see to it that it remains so. On the Haitian side, Anse-a-Pitres has very unreliable infrastructure at times and virtually no goods or services aside from cell phones and Coca-Cola—even the streetlights don’t have power until a few hours after sundown. But, it’s an amazingly beautiful place with incredible people.

Walking a residential area of Anse-a-Pitres

When the time came to leave Haiti, I was waiting to hear back on a potential opportunity in Nepal; but I also wanted to return to Ukraine for a short visit. I had spent time there several years before and I really, really wanted to go back. So, I decided that I would spend a month in Ukraine while I waited to hear on news from Nepal. If nothing worked out, then I would just stay in Ukraine. Eastern Europe is probably the one place on this planet that I feel most at home: staying in the region was optimal for me in many ways, but something was drawing me to Nepal.

So, my flight itinerary for my Haitian departure was Punta Cana – Brussels – Barcelona – Frankfurt. I’m not sure why the Barcelona leg was in there at all; but I’ll just say that anyone who says the price mechanism serves to ensure that resources are most efficiently allocated within the marketplace have obviously never dealt with airlines very much. But, I was cool with a short trip to Spain on the way to Germany. Why not, right? From Frankfurt, I had booked a bus to Krakow via Prague and then I got a great deal on a flight departing Athens in January to Kathmandu via Istanbul, Doha, and Dubai. How would I get from Ukraine to Greece? Minor detail. These things work themselves out. You’ll see.

I do miss this view

The Prelude to an Adventure
When I crossed the River Pedernales for the last time and got stamped back into the Dominican Republic, it was November 2016. I boarded a bus and undertook the mostly awful trip into Santo Domingo. From the beginning, things were far more confusing than the trip I had taken when arriving in Pedernales earlier that year. We all boarded the bus and were driven to a military post a few kilometres away. I was told to get off the bus and have my passport ready, but then no one wanted to see my passport. They told me to get back on the bus, as if I was silly for ever leaving my seat in the first place. So much for following orders. The rest of the ride was filled with frequent stops, as there are random border checkpoints nearly the entire trip into Santo Domingo. At these stops, any passenger who looks even slightly Haitian is pulled off the bus and questioned about their documents. The same people were often inconvenienced repeatedly. Sometimes a few passengers didn’t return.

The tensions between Haitians and Dominicans can run quite high at times, especially in border towns like Pedernales or places where migrant Haitians find work in the DR. As an outsider, this was a little strange to me at first, but it became very clear to me that the economic and political relationship between the two countries is often expressed in racial terms: I asked a man in Punta Cana if he spoke French and his response to me in Spanish was, “Of course I speak French! Don’t you see the colour of my skin?” This left me wondering whether speaking French to “Haitian-looking” people would open me up to accusations of racism.

I’ll add here that speaking Spanish is extremely vital for getting around in the DR. I hardly ever spoke English and most of those who I did speak English with had a very limited vocabulary—even in Santo Domingo. In the border regions of Haiti, the locals speak Spanish because of the country’s economic dependence on its neighbor; however, French works even better. The trick with French is that it’s considered a bit aloof and elitist, but they obviously make exceptions for the “blans” who visit the island. So, if you speak French, learning Creole is actually pretty easy and a lot of fun.

Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo is one of my favourite cities ever. I love it there. The Zona Colonial is full of great cafes to enjoy an espresso or glass of rum, smoke a cigar, and basically waste away the day in paradise. The history of the place and its architecture are amazing: Parque Colon, Alcazar de Colon, the Cathedral of the Americas, the Columbus Lighthouse. It’s incredible to see.

El Alcázar de Colón o Palacio Virreinal de Don Diego Colón and the city walls of Santo Domingo at the bottom of the hill

This photo smells of rum and cigar smoke to me

A cool church across the street from the best pizza shop on the island

So many choices!

Santa Iglesia Catedral Basílica Metropolitana de Nuestra Señora Santa María de la Encarnación o Anunciación, la Catedral Primada de América

From Santo Domingo, I continued on to Punta Cana to catch my flight to Brussels. The only thing I’ll say about Punta Cana is the beaches are beautiful, but I’m not much of a resort town kind of person. I went there for the cheap flight and I wouldn’t have missed much if I hadn’t gone! But the beaches are nice, I guess.

The flight from Punta Cana to Brussels is 10 hours, which I typically measure in 10 Euro increments since that’s how much they charge for the bottles of wine on budget airlines. Upon arrival, I had a quick layover through Zaventem, stamped into the EU, and caught my flight to Barcelona.

A Catalonian Detour
The plan in Barcelona was to get out and see the city, because I had a 19-hour layover there. I’ve spent many, many long layovers trapped in airports because I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of airport security, delays from traffic, etc. Most recently, I spent 13 hours in the Colombo airport in Sri Lanka for those very reasons. I decided to try something new and maybe make an attempt at being a little more adventurous. So, I got a cab from the airport and asked to be taken to a hotel recommended by the driver.

By Dominican standards, Barcelona was absolutely frigid. Despite the cold and the fact that I hadn’t slept more than an hour or two prior to leaving Punta Cana, I was determined to get out and see the city. I walked around a bit, drank some beer, walked, had a glass of wine to get out of the cold, walked some more…and then the cold won the battle: I determined to head straight back to the hotel and do some work online. On the way, I passed a little shop that sold wine for the kind of ridiculously cheap prices typical of Spain. I simply couldn’t resist having a look.

For those of you who are unaware, Faustino Gran Reserva is a lovely rioja that you really, really need to try if you haven’t done so yet. The bottle pictured below is actually one I shared with my brother in Reykjavik some time before: it’s just for illustration purposes, as I didn’t take any photos in Barcelona.

6 Euro in Barcelona, 38 Euro in Reykjavik. Spain offers much better value!

So, equipped with my new bottle of Faustino, I crossed the street to my hotel and sat down at my computer. The objectives were to accomplish many great things and then catch maybe 4-5 hours of sleep prior to going back to the airport. I had even pre-booked my cab from earlier in the day to come back and get me at a very responsible time. Everything was planned out quite well, really.

Blackness/Darkness/Fogginess
I don’t know if it was the last bottle of wine or if it was all the various drinks I had consumed between that point and Punta Cana…then there’s the fact that I was on two days of awake with less than 6 hours of sleep, but, this is what I can tell you happened: I awoke with a startle, fully dressed lying on top of the bed. My first thoughts were, “Why am I not at my laptop working?” quickly followed by, “SHIT! I FORGOT TO SET MY ALARM.” It was dark outside, so disaster averted. Nothing to worry about. But I wanted to see if I need to get prepared to leave, so I looked at my phone and it said 6:05 AM.

Did I mention my flight was at 6:08 AM? Could it be, I thought, that my phone is on Dominican time or maybe Belgium and Spain decided to go their separate ways in the time zone department during my slumber? Something was off. That was certain. I stumbled about the room and with a high level of confusion clogging my brain’s functioning. I couldn’t help but notice that NOTHING had been accomplished in terms of work on the laptop sitting open on the desk. I would have to fire myself if I didn’t work for myself, it seems.

Back to the main dilemma: it was dark out! This much was evident. It was not possibly 6 in the morning. I needed to find another human to verify this fact. I rushed downstairs to the front desk and, probably in English, demanded to know the time. The response in very curt Castellano was: “Your cab driver left 2 hours ago, sir. We all tried waking you.”

Not possible. Nope. This didn’t just happen.

I’m not sure whether I looked like an emotional wreck at this point or not, but I tore off toward my room again (luckily I brought the key) to attempt some sort of a fix.

Budget airlines don’t have 24-hour call centers it seems. Not that calling them and stating that I had drunkenly slept through my flight would have really helped much. My thoughts turned immediately to the bus I was supposed to catch in Frankfurt at noon. "Shit! OK”, I said, “must recover the bus fare.” I know I spattered out these and some other words in Spanglish while erratically gesticulating with my hands as only someone from the east coast of the United States can do. Luckily, I was able to apply a credit for the Frankfurt-Prague-Krakow ticket to a Bonn-Berlin-Krakow fare leaving the next day. A few extra Euros got me on a bus from Barcelona to Bonn, leaving in just a few hours for an overnight trip. Excellent! I also got to spend the day in Beethoven’s hometown and check out the Christmas Market during my layover. Splendid! Crisis averted…pride still in tatters, however.

I sheepishly slinked past the front reception and out into the crisp winter morning to get some breakfast. The smell of ground coffee beans and fresh-baked bread covered up some of Barcelona's less flattering smells. I strolled half-triumphantly down the street. This little delay was going to cost me a day or two arriving in Lviv, a missed stop in Prague, and arriving in Krakow at some stupid hour in the night; but I was mostly focused on the fabulous cup of espresso and the warm baguette sitting on the café table in front of me.

Follow me to catch part two!