Photo: typical traffic in Santo Domingo

From Punta Najayo we drove into the semi-organised chaos of Santo Domingo, the Dominican capitol. We think most driver's licenses here come out of cereal boxes or something, because rush hour here makes a drive around the Arc de Triomphe look like the Armdale rotary at 3 a.m. Lane markings, traffic lights, stop signs, yield signs, speed signs, any regulatory signs at all are merely to be regarded as vague suggestions of vehicular conduct to be considered only if time and space permit, of which neither rarely seems to exist in this neck of the woods. It doesn't matter where you are or when you are there, you have to expect traffic to come at you from any angle, even going the wrong way on your side of the road and along the shoulder. How it is we haven't seen a motorcycle fatality here escapes me, because these folks are completely nuts by Canadian standards; we have seen motorcycles bombing along and weaving in and out around trucks and cars carrying everything from propane tanks, 5m lengths of pipe, sacks of veggies, goats, and the entire family of five: dad with the infant in front astride the gas tank, and two more children wedged between him and mum who is perched on the back with about 2cm of seat left to adhere to.
We spent a few hours exploring the colonial centre of the city, namely the pedestrian mall that extends from the crypt of the nation's founders to one of the city's main cathedrals. We picked up a few items of clothing and a few souvenirs in the form of some artisanal paintings and a beautifully carved wooden mask.

The drive out of the city was wild, for reasons listed above, and with the presidential election heating up, the various candidates' volunteers were out everywhere, waving flags and handing out stickers, and riding around on open pick-up trucks with massive speakers playing music that made the ground thump.
As we headed north back towards Luperon with sunset fast approaching, we decided to head once again into La Vega to find a hotel, only to find that four days after our first foray in La Vega, Carnaval was still in progress, with the main street still blocked off and people in costume (we saw a bunch of Hispanic Elvises) making their way towards the main square. We managed to extricate ourselves from the associated traffic snarl and head out of town a ways to a hotel recommended by one of the locals. Just on the outskirts of town we came across another bridge washed out by Noel, with a work party of about half a dozen young teenagers hard at work filling buckets and dumping them in the larger holes in the pavement. With much coaxing and direction pointing by "the boys", we headed off the pavement, down the gravel ramp, into the river (which was fortunately only two feet deep), and out the other side. Keeping with local practice, we tipped the work gang a hundred pesos for their efforts. Still, given that it has been so long since the storm, and that the road was a fairly substantial connection to La Vega, I mused whether the enterprising road crew wasn't taking the fill out at night and starting anew every day, thereby prolonging their money-making scheme. Then again, since the DR Department of Public Works and Potholes or whoever is nominally responsible for road maintenance hadn't made an apparent appearance yet, I can't say as I could blame them if that were to be the case.