When last we left our here, he needed a nap. So in he hopped into this guagua (bus) and went looking for one:

Repetitive Dominican dance music filled the crowded guaggua as climbed up, up, up into the mountains to the chilly mountain town of Costanza, where our hoped to find relaxation and adventure.

And he arrived at his mountain hotel (finishing the trip by motorcycle taxi), about a mile from the town.

Once there, even though the pool was dry (too cold for a swim anyway), and the hot tub did not have hot water, and the room did not have hot water, and the wifi didn’t work, and the cell phone signal was hardly there, he did sleep, deeply, profoundly.

In the town was good food:

And near the hotel were some backroads good for a little hike:

And, the town had a nice park.

But once sleeping was over, what was there to do in this little burg of ours? Our hero heard a tale of a marvelous strawberry farm, where they had many delightful things to do for tourist. The hostess of the hotel told him about it. He asked her if she could tell the hotel boy how to get there, so that he could take our hero there to suck the sweet, sweet strawberry juice of life. And the boy said yes. And took him far, far afield asking around where a strawberry farm was – it seems he was just trying to find him any strawberry farm!

Why did the hostess not tell the boy where this particular strawberry farm was? Is she bad at Spanish? Is he? One of many times our hero was reminded that there is just something set up about Dominican brains that is different from his.

So our hero gave the boy step by step instructions for how to get to this particular strawberry farm, navigating with a cell phone in his hand from the back of the boy’s motorcycle. Helmetless of course. Safety first!

Arriving at the farm, he invited the boy (who was really a man, but was treated like a boy by the lady who ran the hotel) if he wanted to come and do a tour with him, at the hero’s expense. At first he said yes, turning the idea of a “tour” around in his head. And then he decided not to and motorcycled off. Such things were not for him.

And it was worth going to this very touristy strawberry farm!

The farm was apparently founded by a Japanese couple who, the tour guide said, brought modern agricultural methods to the Dominican Republic. At one point, the hero was invited to toast a marshmallow while someone took his photo. Of course, as our hero was beyond the wall he had toasted many a marshmallow before, and so did not really need a photo of him doing this strange thing. Still, he wondered, do I get to make a s’more? I see no chocolate or graham crackers! As soon as he took the marshmallow from the fire, the hostess took his stick and threw the marshmallow into the flame. Flabbergasted, our hero sputtered, “Don’t you eat those?” “Yes,” said the hostess, “but that one is burnt. These ones are for eating,” showing the drawer full of untoasted marshmallows. They had people toasting marshmallows solely to take a picture …

Uncertain of how best to spend the rest of his days in this town, our hero found a tour group that was going high into the mountains. He boarded a well-ventilated bus with enthusiastic tourists from Santo Domingo and went up into the cold, cold mountains. He had not really thought to bring warm clothes to this Caribbean island!

On his very last day he found a shortcut to town …

And after that it was time for city living again.