we saw whales!

Last weekend the whole Makarios gang headed over to Samana. It is in the northeast corner of the country and that area is supposed the prettiest it can get. Saturday morning we took a boat out into the ocean to go whale watching. I have never seen anything like it before. We saw a single whale swimming in the water near us. It would jump partly out of the water and also swim on its back with its flippers in the air. You know, doing a little back stroke action. It was really cool. Later we saw a group of 4 whales, one female with 3 males trying to be her "escort." It was pretty interesting. Later as we were going back to shore, a large group of dolphins were riding the wake from our boat. I had never been so close to see stuff like this before, it was awesome. Keith got sea sick though, which wasn't pretty. (Sorry Keith).

That night we drove to a beach, secluded in the corners of the island. An old local cooked fish for us and we ate it right there as we watched the sun set. We camped out on the beach and literally had the place to ourselves. There were ten of us total (Jennie, Miguel, Alexia, me, Keith, Ruben, Ana Maria, Wilton, Rosi, and Nini~ Ruben's wife and kids). After playing around some in the morning, we packed up our tents and headed out.

It was a really cool experience. Everything was so relaxed and beautiful, we really were in paradise.