Crossing the Haitian-Dominican Border
This was one of the most stressful days of travel thus far. I don’t have good or consistent internet here, so I will post when I can, usually a few days after whatever it is I’m writing about.
From Friday 1–7–2022
I woke to my alarm at 5:30 at the guesthouse I’d been staying at in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic. I rose early because I knew I needed to catch the very first or second bus from Santo Domingo (which is right on the southern coast, kind of in the middle of the country) to Pedernales (which is way over on the farthest southwestern corner). I had get the early bus so I could cross the land border and perform all the formalities to get into Haiti before it closed at 6pm. The first bus, I knew, left around 7:30.
The day before, I’d asked the owner of the guesthouse — a white guy with long hair named Peter who’s fluent in Spanish — about where to catch this bus and scribbled it into my pocket notebook ‘Duerte con Paris’
I thought Peter would be up by 6:45ish to confirm this, and to give him the key, but he was nowhere to be found and the buzzer at the door was switched off from somewhere else in the guesthouse. So I locked the front gate and threw the key into the guesthouse where Peter would easily see it, and I left a note saying I needed to leave.
As advised by the other travelers, I’d used Uber to get a taxi because it’s easier — no haggling early in the morning, especially when not knowing Spanish.
Of course when I got to the Duerto con Paris area, as expected, it was just a bunch of vans, busses, motorcycles, street vendors and other stuff across many blocks. It wasn’t clear which bus stop was which so I kept apologizing for not knowing Spanish, asking vendors and friendly-looking folks waiting for the bus, “Bus a Pedernales?” and they’d say some stuff and I’d interpret their gesticulations, saying “Gracias” and off I’d go, repeating this process with another street vendor, or another motorcycle guy. After about four times, I saw a bus that said Pedernales on it so I said to a nearby vendor something like “A hora? Bus a Pedernales?” and he pointed me to a totally different bus that didn’t say Pedernales on it. Another guy seemed to confirm this is where I was to go and told me to get in, and a passenger inside confirmed that the people in there were in fact going to Pedernales.
When I say bus, for those who haven’t been to the developing world, I do not mean a Greyhound-type vehicle. It’s actually a large van with about 10 rows of seats long and 5 seats across. It’s actually two rows of two-seats across and then they put a folding seat thing in the aisle so the bus can get as full as possible. So I believe they seat 50-ish people. I’ve been on these before, fortunately, so though this was less than comfortable, it wasn’t surprising. But I’d have to be on it for seven hours, and without understanding what was going on in the bus and being the only one not from Haiti and the DR with like $3000 worth of electronics surreptitiously inside my backpack, I was somewhat dreading it.
Also it was hot in there, but not too hot because the windows were cracked open and the AC was on, but it didn’t seem to work very well. Surprisingly, they enforced a mask mandate on the bus, except for two young women and a two guys who seemed to be friends of the driver and money guy.
The route from Santo Domingo to Pedernales kinda winds around the bottom eastern corner of the DR. I was on the side with not too much to see because it wasn’t the side that faced the ocean, but I did see a lot of construction businesses, cement companies, vendors that hopped into the doorway of the vehicle for a few moments while the thing stops at a light or slows down in traffic. They’d have apples, baked sweets, salted nuts, and other food wrapped in plastic. I had a seat right in front of the door, by the aisle, so when anyone from the back of the bus needed to get in or out, it was right past me.
I’d gotten this seat because I was one of the very last people to get on the bus before it got full and left, it seems. Buses like these leave only when they’re full, I’ve noticed. Once they’re full, they try to keep every single seat full for basically the whole duration of the trip somehow. If there’s an empty seat, the money guy leans out and calls out when the vehicle passes gas stations, bus stops, and towns. I also noticed the driver and money guy did mini deliveries between towns. Someone would hand them a wrapped plastic bag in one town, and they’d hand it off to another person in another town a couple hours later. Also, the thing was surprisingly on-time. We left at maybe 7:35 and when we ultimately arrived in Pedernales, it was about ten minutes short of that seven hour estimated travel time.
There was one main bathroom-and-food stop but I stayed on the bus — I didn’t knowing if someone would go through my stuff because I seemed to be the only foreigner and my backpack and duffel were right, right by the door. (I’d had my laptop stolen like this at a train stop on a long journey in Vietnam, but I’d left my backpack unattended with two asshole Vietnamese military guys in the train compartment for like ten minutes, and they probably took it while I was gone.) So while others were eating fried chicken and fries and peeing, I was chilling in the bus with my stomach empty.
This was intentional. I didn’t eat or drink anything except a strong cup of coffee and a little bit of water prior to getting on the bus. Reason being I didn’t want to have to piss or shit at all. In South and Southeast Asia, I’d learned that a mild, controlled state of dehydration is useful while traveling long distances in buses and trains for exactly this reason. This is one of the downsides of traveling alone — otherwise, a friend can watch your stuff for one stop, and you can watch theirs on the next stop.
But anyway, I made it through the seven hours and had arranged to meet someone from Sadhana Forest Haiti at the bus stop. It might’ve been because we arrived early, or because the Project Director, Nixon had to go elsewhere for the day and had sent someone to get me, but when we arrived, there was no one who seemed to be from Sadhana Forest. As I got off the bus, it was less a demarcated bust stop than a hot, dusty, pretty barren street corner. As usual, everyone was descended upon by men offering motorcycle taxis (motos), which is always stressful to me because right when I get off a vehicle, into a place I’ve never been before, right when I really, really want to just chill and orient myself, there’s all this extra stimuli, all these requests being made of me. It’s understandable, but it’s a part of travel I really don’t like. The same is true of when one gets out of an airport especially in poorer countries. Too many questions and scams immediately.
So eventually, I was the only bus passenger left on the street corner. There were two people selling some stuff there too. What was stressful was that for most of the bus trip, I did have cell service and 2/3G, but I lost it in the final hour, so I couldn’t send WhatsApp messages to anyone.
I ended up walking one dusty street up, then a few hot, dry blocks down, toward where there were some stores. In situations like this, I don’t like to be kinda alone or mostly alone on a street, especially when physically looking very much like an outsider. I looked around for helpful faces, saw a woman sitting on a chair on the street, some workers at a motorcycle parts shop, and there were three men playing some game while seated on plastic chairs. I peeked into one small supermarket, and saw two young people sitting — talking to each other, and on their phones. When needing help in a place that feels totally strange, I usually rely on my instincts. It’s a very vulnerable position to be in: in a new place wit no knowledge of the region, not local language understanding, and no ability to contact anyone. And beyond that, I was trying to cross a border before it closed for the night! So this is when I was most stressed.
So I went into the supermarket and asked the two about wifi, prefacing it with some broken Spanish like. “Pardon, no Espaniol.” They started trying to figure out if I needed to use wifi, or if I wanted a sim card with wifi.
At this point, a neurodivergent woman saw me, came up and started talking extremely loudly into my ear about her being able to speak English. Surprisingly, her English was very good. But I did not feel like was the one to help me.
These kids — a boy and a girl both about sixteen years old, I think — were incredibly helpful. They kept trying to call the numbers I had for Sadhana Forest and Nixon, the project director, using WhatsApp on their phones. (I’d later find out that Nixon was up in the mountains out of service, and the Sadhana Forest number was outdated). When that didn’t work, the store owner, who was their friend or relative tried on the regular phone. He gave me the wifi password, too. They got me a chair to sit on and the two teens knew English pretty well, actually. I felt like an idiot and an asshole for knowing next to no Spanish at all. Eventually, they asked why I was trying to go to Haiti and that I was volunteering. I asked if it were possible to walk. (It is, but it’s like a mile and a half, it was super hot, and I really wouldn’t know what I was doing once at the border.)
Eventually, other people from the area showed up, including someone who “is like a police officer” according to the young man. Based on my limited understanding, this person, seemed to think it was a bad idea for me to try to go across the border to Haiti. The others told him I was working with an organization, it seemed, and they discussed for a while. The teens then told me that he was going to see if there was anyone who could help me navigate the border formalities.
I waited and the teens offered me a cold malt soda, saying, “A gift” and I realized I was really thirsty and hot, so I took it. After some time, I wasn’t sure if the guy who was like a police officer would come back so I told them I would check at the bus station again, to see if anyone was there who looked like they were from Sadhana Forest. I put 500 pesos (about $8) on the counter which was much more than the cost of the cola, but tried to say that this was for all their help. They said that they didn’t want the money because they were just helping me when I looked sweaty and confused, but I insisted and went to check the “bus stop” again. Walked a few blocks, saw no one new there, walked back.
At this point I asked the two helpful teens and store owner if it were possible to get a moto to the border. They explained that the cop guy had gone looking for a trustworthy person to do just this. They said, “Here, you are safe. If you go with a moto, we do not know if they will take care of you.”
I would soon figure out what they meant. Their trusty moto dude came by and I hopped onto the back. WE went down a few streets, then to a long street on which there were a couple Dominican soldiers. A few hundred yards down was the border. It must’ve been about 4PM and it this point it was surprisingly crowded, very dusty, with my presence drawing some attention.
At this point, I didn’t understand the logic of the border at all. The border is just dried riverbed with dusty white stones and small government buildings on both sides of it. It seemed Haitians and Dominicans were crossing on foot and on motorcycles just doing their regular business without showing any papers, but they were aware that I wasn’t one of them so I had to show my passport. At the time I was also (and still kinda am) confused about why I had to stop so many times at different government agencies. There’s a Dominican side and a Haitian side. It’s strange because one exits the DR and then one has to enter Haiti. But where am I after I exit one, and before I enter the other?
Anyway, exiting the DR was kinda straightforward — just filling out a form and getting my passport stamped — except one guy was trying to get the moto guy I came with to leave me with him, saying that he knew my brother. It’s good the the first, trustworthy guy was helpful and asked me if I had a brother in Haiti. I, of course, do not.
On the Haitian side, there were three stops: a Haitian military checkpoint, where they asked what I was up to in Haiti, Immigration (as usual) where I paid 600 pesos ($10-ish) for a visa, and another spot that I think was the Haitian Board of Tourism, where I paid another 600 pesos for a tourist visa or something. The moto guy helped translate with the people at all the offices too, Spanish on the Dominican side and Creole on the Haitian side, and English for me. Honestly, without this dude, I would’ve been lost as shit. I almost certainly wouldn’t have stopped at all four agencies, checkpoints, and offices.
After that, the moto guy drove me across dusty, rocky, uneven, unmarked, and winding roads right up to Sadhana Forest. As I got off the moto with my bags, I asked him his name, and he told me it was Issa. I was enormously grateful, patted Issa on the shoulder, and thanked him, and though he did not ask for anything, gave him 400 pesos.
As an extra precaution, the young woman at the store in Pedernales had even taken my WhatsApp number and told me to text her once I had reached my destination, to ensure that this moto guy was in fact trusted and wouldn’t scam me or anything. She said her name was Lola. Later, when I finally got a little bit of wifi, I texted Lola, saying I’d arrived safe and sound. I was exhausted and a little shellshocked, but totally safe and right where I had been trying to go.
Ironically, the border was much more permeable to me afterwards. On the following day I walked around with the Project Director from Sadhana Forest Haiti to get acquainted with the area. We were already in town when he told me he needed to get some things from Pedernales, but I hadn’t brought my passport. We crossed back and forth over the course of an hour or two without my passport. It took some talking, but I crossed both ways without it. The Dominicans were unhappy both entering and returning to Haiti without my passport or papers of any sort, but they allowed it. On the Haitian side, no one batted an eyelid. They remembered me from the day before, and my story held up.
More recently, I crossed back and forth on foot and no one on either side batted an eyelid or asked for my passport. Borders are weird.
