Saturday was by far one of the craziest days I've had in a while. Nils and I decided to try to go to Jacmel, a town on the south side of Haiti. To get to the bus station, we took a moto-taxi. The traffic in Port au Prince was absolutely insane, with trucks and motorcycles weaving all over the place. We zoomed past the National Palace, which looked worse than I had seen in photos. Once we arrived at the bus station, we were squeezed into a small van. I sat wedged in between 3 women, all of us sticky and hot during the two hour ride. We wove through lush mountains. The view was breathtaking.
As we walked into town, we saw children playing and women washing clothes in the river. First, we had a drink on the seaside. Then came the best part of the day. We took another mototaxi to Bassin Bleu, about 10 km from Jacmel. In order to get there, we had to cross a river on the motorcycle. It was insane. The road was narrow and winding, with lots of hills. This was without a doubt the countryside. We passed many people walking to and from town, some caring water jugs. Chickens and goats roamed freely.
We finally arrived at Bassin Bleu only to be surrounded by shouting tour guides,each of them wanting us to choose their service. Somehow, two guides decided to accompany us, and they fought the whole way over who was the real guide. I asked our mototaxi driver to accompany us as well, since the shouting guides made me uneasy.
Bassin Bleu was breathtaking. The water was a beautiful blue color. I had no swim suit, so I swam in my clothes--money belt and all. The guides led Nils up steep rocks near the waterfall and they all jumped off into the water. I momentarily panicked when Nils did not resurface right away. After taking a few photos, we made our way back to the mototaxi and drove back through the hills and back across the river.
We made it back to Port au Prince by dusk. We jumped on a mototaxi to return to Sister Marcella's place. This driver was not quite as careful as our other two. I noticed the smell of beer on his breath after we began zipping through traffic. We had to stop at least four times because our driver did not recognize our destination. By now, it was completely dark outside. There were no streetlights and the headlight on our mototaxi was dim. Finally, a very nice Haitian policeman escorted the motorcycle to our destination. I was so relieved to arrive back at Marcella's safe and sound.
