Hostel Laguna Park

I could not have imagined a better place to stay here for my first week in the DR. I have to give Jake credit, out of all the hostels we could be staying at, this one was Good Choice.

My second night here, they threw a Dominican Barbecue -a potluck- and everyone staying here, about 6 other 20-somethings, and about a dozen people from neighboring hostels brought a dish (we made caprese salad) and came to get to know each other. 

There were a LOT of interesting people to talk to, a much wider range of ages and reasons for being here than I imagined. Sabrina, a German girl, manages the hostel. She lives up the road but goes surfing in the morning, then brings Cocoa, her dalmatian to the hostel and hangs out here for the afternoon. Then there was Canadian Guy, who worked for the Olympic committee, teaching skiing and snowboarding in the winter; he came down to teach kite boarding. The British couple  nearly made me squirt chinola (passion fruit juice) out my nose when they described their dune buggy as the “tit jiggler”. There was a french guy with a popped collar, a few Norwegian girls, and one from India who made the best hummus I’ve ever had in my LIFE. There were also two other girls from the U.S. One was making pineapple volcano shots (pineapple+marshmallow+151proof+fire), and one from whose parents moved here from Washington to start a farm in the Dominican countryside. I’ll have to talk to her at next week’s potluck about WWOOFing, since our Jarabacoa farm fell through. After Jake, talking with German Girl was the most interesting. We had a long talk about backpacking, and she had a lot of good advice. She just spent half a year in Asia - Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia - and found it easier and friendlier to travelers than here in the Caribbean. Perhaps next summer….