My trip to the Dominican Republic

On Monday, our flight from Chicago to New York got cancelled, so we stayed in the airport's hotel and most of our time spent there was just sitting in a room talking about everything together - this ended up being called "bonding time" (some of the best moments throughout this trip was during these late night times together too).

Tuesday (our first night in the Dominican), we met the other group from Tennessee at the first hotel in the city of Santo Domingo. That "group" actually ended up being only one person our age and his group leader. All of us kids had a second bonding night that night and we stayed up super late. That was the latest/earliest I've ever taken a shower: 2am (rebellion!), and then we all finally fell asleep around 3am.

Wednesday, we got up early and rode the bus into the central mountain region. We stayed in an area called Angostura for the night; it was so so beautiful there on top of a mountain - such a wonderful view! It stormed the first night we stayed there, so we played Jenga with spoons, danced in the rain, and sat around the tables and did a whole table compliments thing in the candlelight, where we started at one person and everyone at the table took a turn complimenting them. That was such a good idea and it helped the entire group connect a lot more.

Thursday, we went water rafting in Jarabacoa. I loved doing that so much - it was definitely a great experience for my first time trying that. Then, we visited an almost completely vertical plantation (since it was in the mountains) that grew coffee beans and got to try pure and fresh coffee, which was amazing! One of the little girls who lived there gave me a gardenia flower. I've never seen one in person before, and it was so beautiful and it smelled amazing. That night, we went to our next hotel that we stayed in for three nights, called Blue Moon.

Friday, we went to the city of Puerto Plata and painted a church, a playground, and a basketball court, and we also got to play with the local children. Later that day, we went to the beach and got to swim in the ocean. There were so many sand dollars! Then we went back to our hotel and ate dinner, swam in the little pool, met a spider bigger than my hand in our cabin, and were then afraid for our lives, which ended up with us girls making the boys sleep in the same cabin to protect us from the crazy wilderness we've encountered so far.

Saturday, we went back to Puerto Plata to finish painting the basketball court, play with the kids more, and go shopping in the city area right around the beach we were at the day before. Then later at dinner, I met another spider bigger than my hand when it decided to fall from the ceiling onto the table, and try to jump onto my lap (thankfully, I ran away before it could). The owner of the place then picked it up and said it's the Dominican version of the American "daddy long leg"; it didn't bite and it wasn't poisonous (surprisingly, and thankfully, there was absolutely nothing poisonous on the entire island). You never know what you'll encounter in a different country!

Sunday, we got up and went straight to our mangrove tour. Before we got onto the boat, we walked to a couple of different nearby beaches. I found so many shells and pieces of coral, along with tiny crabs and even one big hermit crab! Then, we walked back to the boat area and got onto our boat. We rode out across that area of the Caribbean Sea and we went into a very small cave on the side of the island. Then, they stopped the boat at a small natural pool area and they let us jump out of the boat into the water and swim around for a few. There were a bunch of super small hermit crabs and some weird looking fish on the side of the rocks there, and it was overall a really fun tour! After we got back and got off the boat, we went to a little gift shop right next to that place. We got back on the bus and went to lunch at a nice little restaurant, and then went to yet another beach to do surfing lessons in Cabarete! That was so much fun to try, and I made it all the way to the shore once (then skinned my knees when my board got caught on the coral, but that's beside the point)! After surfing, we went back to Blue Moon to drop Nathan and Rob off since they were staying there one more night and our group was heading to a different hotel for our last night. That night, we were SO thankful to be out of the bugs and spiders and into an actual hotel.

Looking back on it now, the cabins in the mountains weren't that bad at all, but after a while, really nice beds are something we were so so thankful to have on our last night there. For the last time, we all sat in one room together and had a bonding night, and our plan was to stay up all night since we had to be awake at 4am, but I was one of the few who were too worn out to try, so I didn't make it. Monday morning, we all got up super early, got to the airport, and got back to New York. We had a six-hour wait for our next flight, which ended up being delayed anyway, but we finally made it back!