Jan 11: Deja-Vu

Well we’ve had a very enjoyable, relaxing, and quiet few days at the beach. It will all end tomorrow though as we head back to La Vega. We have had a couple amusing trips on the gua-guas while here that are worth sharing.

The first involved a relatively short trip from our condo to Sosua beach. As you probably know the gua-gua’s get pretty full and it doesn’t appear that there is a limit. Well today we found the limit. At first the dominicans started expressing displeasure, then they started cursing. Finally, when we stopped to pick up two more people, one lady let loose in a litany of what sounded like not too polite language accompanied by a couple middle fingers. She then proceeded to get off the bus with her young daughter. The response seemed to be a mix of laughter and yet some agreement. All in all I could see at least 25 people in the 12 passenger bus.

The second incident was coming home tonight. I was under the impression that one can request a stop to exit the bus at the location of their choosing. But tonight, when I asked to stop across from our resort the attendant said “no” followed by some Spanish I didn’t understand. As we’re on the outskirts of town the next stop was a good 10 minutes past, far beyond walking and probably requiring a reasonably priced cab. Not to mention that the driver was insane. Now I understand that there are some wild drivers here, but this guy was nuts. The number of times he had to hit the breaks hard enough to cause people to fly out of their seats was unprecedented. But even with these hard stops there were a few times when vehicles in the oncoming traffic lane had to move off the road to avoid a collision!

Anyhow, back to the story. Rather displeased about how far past our resort we had gone, but thankful we had some more change in our pocket, we (quite literally) jumped off the bus at the next stop. We immediately crossed the road to catch another bus back. At least we figured a stop in our town would be either a short walk, or a cheap cab. It took a good 5 minutes before the next bus showed up, and wouldn’t you know it, it was the SAME DRIVER!

This time he did stop at our resort, and I’m not sure why they wouldn’t stop on the way there. Needless to say we did not leave a tip.