Follow the Journey

After Otavalo we took a 6 hour bus ride to Santo Domingo. From the bus terminal we were taken to a Banana farm! When we arrived we were greeted by Juan Carlos Verduga and his family. We were astonished to find out that some of us would be staying in what we called ¨the club house¨ while others stayed with the family inside their house.  The family was very generous, thoughtful and welcomed us with warm smiles. We got to know the farm, or ¨finca¨ as they call it, and learned about bananas and their exportation. Surprisingly we found out that some of these bananas were bought by Dole! One of the days we also worked and learned about the whole process of exporting bananas: the boys brought in the heavy bananas while the girls, picked, washed, and packed them in boxes. It was also our first week of Spanish lessons and we were all very excited and thankful to get them.  To end our week here we went to la Playa de Pedernales (a beach about 2 hours away from Santo Domingo). We had a great time swimming, drinking smothies/milkshakes, getting Henna tattoos (temporal), and getting burned!