First day, May 2, 2014

Yesterday's post was a bit short and sweet.....I was pretty worn out after a long day on the road with little sleep.  I should just say a little about where we are and the place where we are staying.  San Jose de Ocoa (now I am going to refer to it as Ocoa) is sort of in the centre of the country in the midst of some pretty impressive mountains. It was getting pretty dark when we arrived, so I could not take any photos. I will remediate that in the next few days.  It is a small city and it is active! Lot of noise and action. I will also put up shots of the town too over the course of the trip.

The convent, which is called the "campus" is a series of buildings around a courtyard with classroom, sleeping accommodations and some places to meet and eat.

                                

                               

                               

You can see that it is pretty well appointed, clean, organized and in pleasant surroundings.  You get a sense of the mountains in the background. We were serenaded to sleep by the sounds of motorcycles and music in the streets and woken up to the sounds of rooster, dogs and goats.  It is about 7 am and the traffic is becoming the dominant noise. The quality of the air is quite bad as most every vehicle is diesel and mostly old, so the emissions are easy to see and smell.

Today we are organizing and getting a tour so we can situate ourselves.  I am looking forward to some Dominican coffee....it is supposed to be good,