More Random Photos!!

Sunset up on the loma (hill) talking to Mom and Dad.


My friend and favorite motoconcho driver Papito.


One of my favorite farmers, Cadito and I in front of his house.


Actually this is a good story. I was on my way back from the capital and arrived in San Juan at 5 pm, which is pretty late when you're trying to get home by dark, but what I almost always do because then I can sleep in a little bit. I arrived at 5 and walked to the motoconcho stop to wait. Meanwhile storm clouds were threatening from the north, which is where I live. Luckily a friend of mine showed up right after I got there. So I strapped my casco on my head and hopped on and another friend hopped on behind me since it was the only motorcyle likely to pass for quite a while. We started heading up the road and saw a friend heading down in his truck. He stopped and told us it was a huge storm up in El Batey and we should stop at so and so's house on the way and wait for him. We continued on heading to so and so's house, however, before we had gone far, it started pouring rain, the thunder was so loud the ground felt like it was shaking, and lightning strikes were landing decidedly too close for comfort. We arrived at so and so's house (I just don't know the guy's name, thus why he's so and so) and got us and the motorcycle under cover and waited for our friend with the truck. About half an hour later he showed up and we loaded the motorcycle in the back of the truck and we all hopped in. We got back to El Batey, but unfortunately, the river had come down. This happens when it rains really hard up in the mountains and comes pretty much like a flash flood. Needless to say, I live on the other side of the river. Pretty soon we had a crowd gathered there waiting for the water to go down. About 45 minutes later my friend Coco decided to try to wade across to see if the water was low enough for us to cross in the truck. Coco stripped to his underwear and crossed the river which was up to about his waist without too much trouble so we decided we would probably be okay. We started out as far up as possible on the upstream side. We almost got stuck in the middle, water was coming into the cab, and when we made it to the other side we were as far downstream as we could be and still be able to get onto the road.