On the way back we stopped at a place called Les 3 Ojos (the 3 eyes). It was an underground cave with different levels and stairs that you could use to walk down to them. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen and I can't believe how far down it descended. On the way down we saw a massive iguana chillin' on the walkway. He was gray and appeared to be sunbathing. We walked down to another level and had to take a little wooden boat pulled by overhanging ropes by one of the workers to get across the lake. Once across, we walked down a few more levels and on the way down we saw these massive bee hives, bats flying around, and tree roots that hung down from the trees on the above levels that were about 5 times the length of the tree itself! On the last level we got to see the body of water where a scene from Jurassic Park was filmed. Apparently the scene took 30 hours to film and was edited down to only 20 minutes in the actual movie! I'll have to watch it again and look for that part. I can't believe that such a beautiful, beautiful world exists underneath the earth!
We stopped for lunch at a nice restaurant along the side of the road. I ordered Creole soup and a chicken salad which were both massive! Dominican portion sizes are sooooooo biggggggg! And there are never ever any desserts - just amazingly fresh fruit virtually everywhere! I bought some Dominican gummy-type candy just to see what it was like - It was sweet and tasted like candy back home, but I don't think they made it with high fructose corn syrup. I wonder if there is a lot of that ingredient down here? While we were waiting for everyone else to finish up with paying and whatnot me and Alicia walked around a small village next to the restaurant. It is amazing how poverty and wealth can coexist so closely!! We saw a mansion with gates and barbed wire next to run down wooden huts that barely had doors that closed. That is the DR for ya!
We arrived back home at 4pm. I was super tired from traveling and dancing and all the stuff we did and I felt so grateful that I had a nice home to come back to. Which makes me think about people who don't have that - who embark on long journeys to find food or work or do other survival type things and then have no place to come back to.
I gave Camilla the necklace I bought her and made her a card that said "Happy Birthday! You are a beautiful girl! With Love, Leila." She was upstairs playing a princess game - she loves the Disney princesses. It was the first time I got to see her room and I noticed that a lot of her toys were American - like the Jonas Brothers bag and disney princess everything and Hannah Montana. Sleeping Beauty is called Princess Aurora here. Rolando and Bolivar (the boys) were home when I came back. We went outside and played spanish music and drank some wine followed by whiskey and club soda (haha) by the "hot" tub, which was really a cold tub since they don't turn on the electricity because it costs too much to heat. Rolando (who is a DJ and an amazing dancer) taught me how to salsa and merengue in the hot tub and then he helped me with my spanish. It was paradise, as usual.
As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate lovingly, our own
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