Special Day!

No pictures....this post is really just so I can record a bit of what I experienced.

Wednesday was the day the Lush Ladies had planned a ride.  Lynn thought she had heard of a beach just past Sosua that was nice so that was our ultimate destination.  We stopped in Sosua first to have lunch with some of her friends.  Colleen was part of the group.  She had lived in this area for six years and was ready to "give it up".  Evidently that's the term used for when you've had enough of this crazy life and want to go back home.  I'm thinking she may be missing this beautiful warm weather and beaches when she's back in a Canadian winter, but who knows.

After lunch we headed off to the beach.  We turned off the main road and started through some narrow winding roads.  This was very much a business area with jewelry stores, colmadas and clothing stores.  But not an area intended for tourists.  Of course these three retired white ladies on motorcycles attracted lots of attention.  Lynn asked several times for direction to "la playa" and they kept pointing us deeper and deeper into this barrio.  The roads got more and more narrow and we were definitely in a very residential area, but a very poor one.  We finally came to a dead end.  By that time we had a gaggle of kids staring at us wondering "what the heck".  A young man (mid-20s) who lived in the house at the dead end explained to us that the playa was down this walkway.  No way to ride our bikes any further.  Lynn asked me what I thought about leaving our bikes there and walking.  My reaction was no, not a good idea.  Now Lynn's spanish is not much better than mine but she attempted to tell this man that in the area she lives there are "mucho ladrons" (many thieves) and that her bike was her only means of transportation.  He assured us that our bikes would be safe and he would show us the beach.  Lynn decided it would be safe to leave them there.

As soon as we agreed to leaving the bikes, this man's mother came out of the house with her plastic chair and sat down right next to the bikes to watch them.  An older man started stringing a line between two trees and brought out a tarp to shade the bikes so the seats wouldn't be hot when we returned.  Then the young man started leading us off to "la playa".   Oh, and of course there were about 12 kids that followed along.  Meanwhile, I made new friends.  One little girl had come up to me immediately.  I asked her name, which I couldn't understand.  How old she was, she was ten.  And told her how pretty she was and she said gracias.  She wanted to walk next to me and hold my hand on the way to "la playa".  Another little girl was shyly hanging nearby.  I asked her name, it was Erica and how old she was - she was eight.  Then she was my new amiga as well.  Erica wanted to hold my other hand but I was holding my helmet and a beach towel in that hand.  She solved that issue.  She gave my helmet to the first girl to carry and she took my towel.  So into the barrio we headed, me with a beautiful little girl on each hand.

He stopped to show us their school and took us right inside.  The teacher smiled and was very sweet about us interrupting her kids.  This school was for the youngest kids, no more than eight years old. It was obvious that our guide was very proud of this school. I can't describe how close everything was.  It was house after house built right on top of each other, with a few colmados and cafeterias mixed into the jumble.  Kids and dogs were everywhere.

Well we got to the beach....not a beach at all.  Just a rocky cliff looking down to the ocean.  From that cliff we could very clearly see Sosua beach which is our favorite beach in the DR.  It was also very obvious that our guide was very proud of the view from his barrio.  I thought of all the times I'd lounged at that beach and looked at these cliffs and never had any idea what was on top of the cliff.  I asked my little amigas if they liked to swim and yes they did.  My first little amiga asked "voy ala playa contigo" - if she could go to the beach with me.  When I asked what beach, she pointed to Sosua beach.  I asked her "what about your mother" and she told me her mother didn't live there.  Her father was a policeman and working.  I asked how would we get there.  On my moto.  Sadly I had to try and explain to my girls that I couldn't take them to the beach.

Then we headed back through the maze and there were our bikes, perfectly ok and well guarded.  We gave our tour guide $100 pesos (about $2.50 usd) and his mother another $100 for guarding the bikes and off we went.  What an experience.

Here's what I learned.....just because you are poor does not mean you are dishonest, just because you are poor doesn't mean you can't be proud of what you have and just because you are poor doesn't mean you can't be happy.

Next week the Lush Ladies are taking on something much tamer.  Lynn has a German friend, Lyndie, who has a beautiful house up in the mountains.  She was one of the ladies we lunched with.  She invited us up to visit her on our next ride.  But she doesn't feel that her road is safe for motorcycles so we're going to head part of the way up the mountain and she has a friend who's house we can park our bikes at.  Then Lyndie will come pick us up in her car.  She promised us cold beer and hot pizza....so that sounds good.