Jarabacoa is situated at an altitude of 650 meters, making it a bit cooler here than in the lowland cities. Now that we are away from the larger cities, the streets are mostly filled with smelly motorcycles. Children from a young age also ride these from the moment that they are big enough to climb on them. The motoconcho - a motorcycle taxi - is an extremely practical form of public transport here. The only concern that you will have when using it, is that nothing goes wrong, because nobody uses helmets here. The reckless behaviour of the motoconcho drivers undoubtedly contributes to the fact that the Dominican Republic is one of the top 10 countries with the highest number traffic deaths per capita (over 29 per 10,000 inhabitants). 63% of the traffic casualties come from the category of motorcyclists. So when we visit some sights in the beautiful surroundings of Jarabacoa we hold on tightly and just pray that nothing goes wrong.

A shared pickup brings us via a beautiful road to Constanza. We are in the back of the pickup truck and enjoy the views. Constanza appears to be an extremely dusty town where the Santo Dominicans arrive in the weekends during the hot season to find some coolness. We visit the park Ebano Verde and make a day trip to Salto de Aguas Blancas. Salto de Aguas Blancas is the highest waterfall in the country and is accessible via a bumpy dirt road. While going to the waterfall by motoconcho, we see beautiful views of mountains with neatly landscaped fields. Because the waterfall is only 18 kilometres away from the town of Constanza, we decide to walk a large part of the way back. This way we can better take in the views. We pass small villages of the farm workers. These farm workers are clearly poor, live in huts made of iron roof plates, and they spend long days in the blazing sun. Many Haitians have come illegally to the Dominican Republic to earn some money here. They work here for low wages on the fields and plantations, but they probably earn more here than that they would earn in Haiti. The poorer Dominican workers see the Haitians as displacers in the labour market who keep wages low: that seems true in a country where labour laws don’t exist or where labour laws are not enforced. The more people competing for a job, the less employers have to pay for their labour. If one person does not want to do the job for a certain wage, the other one does. It is shocking to see that workers are spraying pesticides for hours in a row without any kind of protection for themselves.

From the Central Mountain area we go back to Santo Domingo where we stay a few days before going to the mainland of Central America. During our last trip through Central America we visited Mexico, Guatemala and Belize and now we want to move further south from El Salvador. To get to El Salvador, we found a flight from Santo Domingo to Costa Rica and then, after a 6 hour transfer, to San Salvador. Our flight in Santo Domingo leaves at 5:00 in the morning and we decide to spend the evening in advance at the airport. It is a very long night where we read a lot in our books. After missing a night of sleep we arrive in San Salvador; we are exhausted.

After a day of rest in San Salvador we leave immediately for Santa Ana: a colonial town in the northwest of the country. (See also the article about Santa Ana) Santa Ana is a great base for visiting Parque Nacional de Los Volcanes. Here we climb the Santa Ana volcano to enjoy the grandiose views. Highly recommended! We also visit the Mayan city of Tazumal, where you see few other travellers. Honestly, we do understand that tourists skip Tazumal if they have already seen the Maya sites of Guatemala and Mexico. For us as bird watchers, however, it is a beautiful place where we see some beautiful creations of nature.

Because the Christmas period is coming we go back to San Salvador. During high season weeks such as the weeks around Christmas and Easter, we usually look for a non-touristy place to wait until the busy time is over. We prefer to be in a "real" city where we have a supermarket, good internet and plenty of places to drink a cup of coffee. San Salvador meets all these requirements and has also a colourful old centre, a beautiful botanical garden and you can easily take the bus to the beach. We visit the city’s sights and work on the website. The photos of the Dominican Republic are uploaded (see here the photo impression) we write articles about the Dominican Republic (see here) and about Santa Ana and make a video clip about the Dominican Republic (video clip). For us, San Salvador is a great place to get some work done, celebrate Christmas and make a good start in 2018. We look forward to what the coming year will bring us and we want to wish everyone well for 2018.