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Back from vacation I am! In the effort to live up to my endless summer mixtape, A friend and I took to the skies to do some questing in the Dominican Republic. The why: We’d never been, and it’s close enough to the States and still below the equator. The mountainside is lush, the streets are dirty, the mosquitoes bite. I got dark. I (unknowingly) danced with prostitutes. I ate hella plantains. I drank hella beer. I got swindled. I swam in a waterfall. It was fun.

Will had already spent a good amount of 2009 traveling, and mostly on Couchsurfing‘s dime, so I trusted that we could find couchsurfing members in the DR. Much to our chagrin though, they were not many to be found – atleast the ones that were able to host. If you’ve never heard of Couchsurfing before, the premise is simple – social network for travelers that allows you to either stay at someones house, or host people at your house free of charge. The more people you interact with on Couchsurfer(and that give you positive testimonials), the more people will trust you. It’s an interesting concept that really gives you faith in the goodness of people! However: most people we found on CS were only able to hang out (this option is ‘meet for coffee’ instead of ‘couch available’), so we had to bite the bullet and find hostels for most days. Later after meeting some CS people I was informed that the lack of hosters in the DR could be a cultural thing – people don’t leave the house until they get married, so we’d have to be couchsurfing with families, which might be too close for comfort for people.

Another thing we had to bite the bullet on was the money we spent on the trip. We were trying to be thrifty, but it seemed like most of the locations we went to were very tourist-centric(not really our intention), and the prices were adjusted accordingly. My whole thing when I travel is that I want to get away from tourist trap areas, all those kinda spots that everyone already has pictures of – another good reason to seek out couchsurfers, because they’ll bring you to local spots that are off the beaten path and way cooler. Nearing the end of our trip we were able to meet up with some locals and we got to see some really beautiful parts of DR.

My command of the Spanish language is not horrible, not great – whatever I can remember from my three years of high school Spanish has survived me enough in Los Angeles, but most of the time I can understand through context – atleast I thought. As the trip progressed I tried speaking more Spanish to people, but there were times when I was trying my hardest to understand/reply and people would look at me like what the fuck or just give me like the meanest rolleye, and I’m just like EEEK I’M SO SORRY FOR BUTCHERING YOUR LANGUAGE. I also learned that ‘orale’ is strictly a Mexican thing. Living in L.A. has really narrowed my scope of Spanish slang – there are some pretty sweet ones I learned on the trip.

One thing I’ve got to touch on is the DR sandwich. Them dudes got the sandwich game proper. Everything with copious amounts of cheese and butter. I don’t believe I’ve talked about it, but me and sandwiches are like THIS (crosses fingers), and each time I had a sandwich in DR it was like heaven in my mouth. Most places, whether it’s a restaurant or a cafeteria or a diner-style eatamabob had a very tried and true list of sandwiches that they could make – my favorite of the trip was a completo, which consists of ham & cheese & shredded chicken & butter & a tomato slice, all sandwich pressed. Are you kidding. I think the dealbreaker here is the sandwich press – these fucking things make sandwiches 200% better and I swear I need to have one in my house.

Other than the usual Dominican music – merengue, bachata, etc – the couchsurfers we met up with showed us some local indie music, and it was pretty sick! A reggae band who’s name is currently escaping me, and Rita Indiana y Los Misterios. There was a small live concert for her that we went to, and I enjoyed what I was hearing. Check this track, Jardinera. The keys are really sick on it, the whole song slightly reminds me of Behind The Front era BEP, which I will never not be a fan of, no matter how lame they are currently – my eyes unfortunately were witness to their newest music video one night at another couchsurfers house, I cannot unsee or unhear ;_;

Staying true to my i shoot film mantra, I only brought two film cameras and about thirty rolls of film to use up. I would never trade for digital, but I definitely made a sacrifice in bringing all that film – shit is heavy! My backpack could(and should) have been lighter for easier travel, but I really can’t have it any other way. Plus if I got jacked of my camera I wouldn’t be crying about it. Many times while we were walking around, some good natured people or police would tell us to guard our cameras/hold our straps tight, because it isn’t safe. WHATEVVVVSSS. My only regret is at the Dominican airport, on our flight out – having a good grasp of Spanish would have helped immensely. I wanted to hand check my film because I was worried about x-rays doing the dirty to my negs, but the dude was like ‘no es importa’ and just ran it through anyway. THE NERVE! QUE MAS IMPORTA! And now my negs have an annoying x-ray strip in them. Motherfucker. It’s not THAT bad, it lends the picture some authenticity and i’m all about film imperfections, but ugh – it coulda been avoided.

I know I said that I was going to try and stay away from the internet as much as possible during the trip, but that proved difficult when we had to check Couchsurfing nigh daily to see if we could find people to host us. I still locked myself out of other things by purposely not bringing any electronics except for maybe my camera(no digital!) – no watch, no phone, no ipod, no lcd screens to look at or check constantly during the day. It was liberating. Even as I type up this entry right now, I’m feeling like I shouldn’t be stuck to a monitor – that’ll be tough once work comes around. But that feeling of no responsibilities, no cares in the world except for where to sleep tonight and what we’re doing tomorrow, no attachment – traveling provides it in an unrivaled way. I’m already thinking of the next trip, maybe S.E. Asia sector in May – my aunt lives in Cambodia and I can most likely stay there for free.99 and then just take the bus all over.

The End! I’m sorting through pics already and will be posting them up to my Flickr intermittently, with some more detailed descriptions of how my trip went.