Geek & Jake: Memories of the past

Ok, I have to write about this. I just saw that my friend Pyko tried to chat with me on gmail, and I wasn't around to answer. So here's the story:

For those of you that don't know (I bet I've told almost everyone) my friend Anne-Marthe and I went to the Dominican Republic for three weeks in January 2008. We had such a good time there (except for half my vacation was spent on the loo - BAD case of food poisoning that lasted for 3 months).
Two people we met there truly made our vacation. Petar and Pyko. They moved to the DR from Serbia one year before we met them. Serbia isn't the easiest place to live in and they just wanted to get out. It's so hard to imagine how these to wonderful, welcoming and happy people had been through war in their own country. They told us about life in Belgrade, and it's just crazy.
Anyways, they showed us some really cool places, went surfing with us, we cooked food (noodles with bugs in it - not supposed to be there), hung out and watched Danish movies.
So there we were two Norwegians in the DR watching Danish movies with two people from Serbia.

Never saw that coming.

This picture is from our first night in Santo Domingo. The locals decided to throw us a party at the little hotel in the ghetto.

The next day we crossed the country and travelled to the north coast and the town Cabarete.

I got sick (food poisoned day 1) and puked as soon as we got off the bus. None of the taxi drivers wanted me as a passenger so they left me alone. I was hanging over a fence puking my brains out with all these chickens sitting on the fence watching. I would have liked to have seen it.

Luckily Anne-Marthe drew me a picture of it later.

Local girls on the beach outside our house.

This little boy was called Christopher and his Dad worked for our surf instructor. His Mom had past away and he spent his days with his Dad while he was working. We hung out with him a lot. He always wanted to play and sit on the lap.

This is Benny. He didn't speak much English, but he knew this much:

"Family, you my sister"

So we just called him Benny Family.

Poor Benny, he sold bracelets and stuff at the beach all day and it was SO hot. He would come over to us almost every day and get a drink of water and chat a little. One day him and I made some special design gifts that I could bring home to my real family.

I saw Benny one night at a restaurant with his wife. She was a..uhm...big boned Haitian with a LOT of attitude. I saw her shouting for (or at?) another girl. She was standing there shouting in a small bright pink top and giant tatas. Pouring attitude.
Poor Benny, he was owned.

Surfing and lazy days

One day we (I might have put the pressure on) we went horseback riding in the jungle.

This local girl called someone she knew and we had no clue how or where. We got picked up on a yellow scooter where all three of us (us two + the driver) went on a VERY bumpy ride into the jungle. How that scooter made it I will never know.

On the way we had to stop by several houses to meet the drivers family. They didn't speak a word English and we barely spoke any Spanish, so we just stood there and smiled.

When we got to our end station they wanted to give us home made local liquor called Mamajuana. We figured it would be safer to pour it on the ground when they weren't watching. So we just smiled and rubbed our bellies and said "MMmMMm".

The people were really nice tho and this sign outside their house was comforting:

As soon as we got on the horses this guy jumped on Anne-Marthes horse and he rode with her the whole time. Haha!

This is one of the houses we passed by in the jungle.

It was SO nice and green due to rain season in December.

One day Petar and Pyko took us on a moped safari. Peter rented a motorcycle and Anne-Marthe drove "The Donkey" (Peter's moped that only started when it wanted to). Pyko and I were passengers.

This is a deserted beach we went to.