Hey family and friends!

Today we woke up energized and ready to visit historical caves called Las Cuevas del Pomier and go swimming at La Toma, a natural public pool. After breakfast, we boarded our bus and drove about forty five minutes to Las Cuevas, where we met the in-country ambassadors as well as our cave tour guides. Everyone was very excited to tour the caves, which were culturally and historically significant because of the aboriginal paintings and religious rituals that used to take place in them. Once we split up into two groups, we put on our awesome hard hats and saw carvings and paintings over 2,000 years old, lots of bats, and spent a minute of silence in total darkness (which felt more like ten minutes). After the tour, we sat with our tour guides and ambassadors to get to know them better and ate a delicious lunch of rice and beans, chicken, plantains, and steamed vegetables.

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We then drove to La Toma, a natural pool where the community gathers to cool off and chill on a hot day. Everyone was happy about the fact that our ambassadors as well as our new tour guide pals were able to accompany us. It was super refreshing to be able to swim in the cool and clear waters and play Marco Polo with our group. We spent about an hour and a half there and also had the chance to purchase snacks from the outside market. Although many of us were tired from the packed day, we still managed to sing and dance to Spanish and American songs on the bus ride back. We were sad to see our Dominican friends go but we knew we would see them again soon.

Once we got back to our hostel, everyone was pooped. We spent a couple hours of free time changing, relaxing, and learning how to salsa and bachata from our leaders and fellow chums before an academic seminar on global business. During the seminar (which we held outside), it suddenly began to pour! For us Californians, it was practically a miracle for us to see such heavy rain all of a sudden; for our one Seattle-ian, it was no surprise. We continued our seminar until dinner time, where we enjoyed galletitas, steamed potatoes, and sausages. For some reason, after dinner we were extremely giggly and had a blast. After that, we had our nightly meeting and shared lots of encouraging comments to top off a fun and memorable day.

We miss you all so dearly and think of you every day. We also all get very emotional while reading your comments on our blog so keep ‘em coming!! Don’t worry too much about us, we’re making lots of memories and having a fab time! Also, we are missing our pets.

 

-Michelle Dalarossa and Ally Francis

P.S. I love Jangli

P.P.S (from Matt, GGL) There’s no photo on this yet, our other great GGL will be uploading one ASAP.