Trip to Haiti

After talking it over with a couple of people, I think I am going to organize a very small trip to Haiti for carnival next year! It's going to be basically the same trip I went on last year for carnival, fly into Port-au-Prince, drive to Jacmel (on the southern coast of the island), drive west along the coast until you get to the end, then turn around and head back to Port-au-Prince to go back home. Now, once again, this is all just wishful thinking until I talk to the brothers who organized last year's mardi gras trip and that won't be until Mother's Day. But, if it does happen, here's what you can expect.

First of all, most of the travel will be by truck (and I love to sit out in the back in the open air). It might get a bit dusty as we will be there in the middle of the dry season but I would rather deal with that then mud any day! There will be limited electricity for most of the trip and you will get breakfast, lunch and dinner. The food is pretty good and there's always something new to try. We stopped in a little town on valentine's day and had fresh fish and coconuts (not together but you get the point). I'm hoping that we can have some goat. Showers and toilets were pretty scary but when you have to go, you have to go and I got use to them pretty fast. Luckily, it's warm enough to take cold showers.

The cost for a week's stay, including airfare, sleeping room, transportation and food is about $1,000.00, I think. I'll make sure what the cost is when I talk to the brother on Mother's day. My cousin Ed can attest that it was fun and outside of the initial shock of port-au-prince (both he and I had never been there before we went for Mardi Gras), we felt very safe. I included some pictures from when I went. The first 50 or so were taken while in a booth watching a Mardi Gras parade in Jacmel.

http://picasaweb.google.com/santana.rich/HaitiPics?authkey=4b5qoirRo7k