Even More of Haiti

Welcome to Part II of my series on the different parts of Haiti I have the privilege of visiting. This installment documents a trip taken a few weeks ago for the very important purpose of…some R&R!  🙂

My friend, Marie (a nurse practitioner with Haiti Health Ministries), and I took a little overnight excursion to Jacmel. Remember the map from last time (see the last entry if you need a refresher)? Jacmel is almost directly across from us on the southern coast of Haiti.  I was surprised that it was only about a 1.5 hour drive to Jacmel.

The waters of Jacmel are a little rougher since that side of the island is exposed to the open Caribbean Sea (as opposed to the more protected waters of Canal du Sud on our side – part of the Golfe de la Gonave, the largest gulf of the Caribbean Sea in the Antilles).

There is a new, beautiful boardwalk in Jacmel…

…lined with all kinds of amazing mosaics!

Jacmel has some beautiful French/Creole architecture! – a little reminiscent of the French Quarter in New Orleans. The fact these older buildings are standing leads me to believe that perhaps this area was not hit hard by the 2010 earthquake.

I took this one for my mom – she loves cool door photos. 🙂

Jacmel celebrates 2 weekends of Kanaval (Carnival) in February. Here you can see some of the decorations.

We caught this group making a music video for Kanaval.

Here is the gorgeous place we stayed for the night. Our room was the top left window in the building on the right. The room itself was nothing special, but the view was amazing!

The pool…of which we took advantage. 🙂

The outdoor bar

The restaurant

Marie, as we waited for our lunch

And best of all…the view!

After lunch, we went for a swim in the hotel’s own little bay. The water was a bit rough, but great. Later we drove to a nearby beach that was big, had nice sand, and lots of people. When we got back to the hotel, we took another dip…this time in the pool. 🙂

After a little time reading pool-side, the sun began to go down…so I moved to a better vantage point to to catch the show.

My vantage point 🙂

After a yummy dinner and a good night’s sleep, we decided to head to Basin Bleu the next day before heading back. It was quite a process trying to find a route through town…with Kanaval preparations and Sunday market blocking the streets. And then we had to drive across a river bed and up a mountain, so we were thankful for a moto guy who led the way. We arrived to this scenic area.

Basin Bleu is a series of 3 main basins, or pools, of crystal blue water filled by waterfalls.

On the hike up to the basins, we stopped in this small cave.

Amazing tree roots growing out of the rock near the cave

Basin #1

Basin #2 – each one gets deeper

To get to the third basin, you can swim across the 2nd…or hike up and over. The rocks on the way down are slick, so the guides are there with a rope to help.

The final basin – 75 feet deep!

So fun to jump in! And refreshing!

Me and one of our guides over by the falls. He dove in from the big rock above us. I wish I could have shimmied up there the way he did!

Swimming back to meet Marie. Marie and I swam around a bit and then crossed over to basin #2 which we swam back across. What a great experience!

On our drive back, we got this great view over Jacmel – God’s creation never ceases to amaze me!