another roadtrip

yesterday we took another trip to santiago. this time we took a different route though, as namibia, another C21 realtor, offered to show us some contacts along the way that might be beneficial for our business idea. another mountain road, this one is reached by heading towards puerto plata and then hanging a left at some point. the picture is of a truck on the main road heading towards puerto plata and before we got to the mountain road. look closely to see the workmen enjoying some beers (at 11:30am) on their "job". forget open container laws or safety concerns of riding on the back of an 18 wheeler.



there were many picture taking opportunities along the mountain road, but we couldn't stop as we were following namibia. there were some quintessential fruit stands and dominican villages that would have been good to have captured on the camera. oh well, we'll just have to take that route again. the road, by the way, was in terrible condition. at some points, they were working to fix where it was literally sliding away down the mountain. another interesting thing was that the road had a ditch along it for water drainage. over the years, they have been digging dirt etc. from runoff out of the ditch and dumping it on to the road next to the ditch. grass & weeds have grown in many portions of it, so the road is literally slowly becoming less wide. guess there's no money from the gov't to come along and haul away the stuff taken out of the ditches....

we also went to see a furniture maker outside santiago. we were happily surprised by the quality of his work and the size of his operation. the owner spent some time talking to us and showed us the workshop where the furniture is made. he works mostly in rattan and other types of material like that, which is typical for here. he spoke some english, so we didn't have to work at a conversation in spanish.

i think veronica was reminiscing back to the time when she worked in bill bancroft's workshop. here's a shot of his "factory". it was really great to see how many people he employed and how beneficial his business was to the community.



it's been raining here the last 3 and half days. so a lot of yesterday's drive was in the rain. it's hard enough already avoiding the usual potholes, insane drivers passing at the wrong time, stupid people sitting on the road, and the no use of turn signals, nevermind adding rain to the mix. we were pretty tired when we got back, so we just BBQ'ed and hung in.

nicole and karen arrive tonight from amsterdam. we'll be picking them up at the airport. hope the weather improves for their sake!