Lee and Peter Sailing Trip was for Four not Two Years. Now an Italian adventure

Pico Duarte is the highest mountain in the Carribean and Eastern North America, 10,128 feet 3087m high. It is fun and painful to climb to the top of the mountain. First day was really hard, endless steep up up and more up. We started to climb up at 9:00am and arrived at the camping site at 6:00 pm.

• We had two mules, one for food and cloths etc. and one to share riding.

I started the climb on a Mule and soon realized I had to be up and down the Mule all the time. Hurricane Matthew had knocked down a lot of trees across the trail so I had to be down off the Mule “Dominga” so the Mule could climb over the big tree trunks. I found out that I can not go down hill with the Mule. On the first day I fell off and after that felt really scared going down.

Our Guide Edwardo was so sweet and did not complain having to help me to go up on the Mule and down everytime. Peter was keeping up the climb up the mountain by foot steadly. He said it felt like 45° and he was sweating, breathing hard and heart working hard. Hopefully it was very good for him.

The guides carried Machetes to clear the smaller trees and would need to come back with power saws to clear the big ones.

The machete is a one piece do everything tool, hack down a tree, give it wipe and finely chop an onion and mango for dinner.

The dinner was prepared by the guide Edwardo. That was so nice since we did not have any energy left to cook. He prepared the Dominican meal with chicken and rice. We were completely exhausted and went to bed early. Specially to climb up and down from the Mule was so exhausting to me.

We were sleeping all together in a big room on the wooden floor inside of sleeping bags. There were about 30 people in the room, it was a big room with open log fires at each end.

The camp was at 2500m, 8200ft and the air was deliciously fresh and chilly.

The Camp Fire is on all the time and the Guava tree smells so good. It is a very oily wood like pine resin and burns wonderfully. The food is also cooked on open fires. We had wonderful time talking to the different people. There were Missions who are going to Haiti all the time, Japanese group, Dominicans who own an Airballon company

There were groups to start climbing at 4:00am in the morning to see the sunrise from the top of Pico Duarte. They were very noisy and made a lot of noise getting ready.

We started to climb to Pico Duarte in the morning. Most of way, I was on the Mule to Pico Duarte. Last 1.2 km was by foot to the top. 1.2 km does not sound bad but there was a 500m climb as well! At last it was such a wonderful feeling to make to the top. Couple of times, Peter and I thought independly that we may not make it to the top.

The third day was very exhausting day too. We all walked down by foot all the way. We started to walk down at 6:00 am and arrived at 6:00 pm. And it started raining hard at the end. We were walking in the rain for more than two hours. And finally we completed the big challenge! How wonderful it is to have a clean bed and take a warm shower after the mud and hard rain.

During the walk Peter was dreaming of a cold beer, when he was cold and wet the desire changed to a hot shower, men are so fickle.

To get there we rented a motorbike, Drove to Jarabacoa and from there had a car ride to the base of the mountain at Ceinaga. Jarabacoa is at 3000ft and very pleasant, warm during the day and cool at night. It is called the land of eternal spring. To prove it here is the spring flower azalea in October!