June 13 - on the road to Cape Haitian

Monday morning we were on the road for Cape Haitian.  The route is 150 miles from Port-au-Prince (PaP) to Cape Haitian (CH).  Google Maps says 3 hours and 45 minutes.  We made it 9 hours.

We left PaP around 8am and drove to Hertz to pick up our rental truck.  We had the five Schmids (David, Phyllis, Karen, Amy and Jeff) in our truck and the three Schmids (Mel, Marsha and Matt) and two Eimes (Mandie and James) in the rental.  Cousin Matt drove the rental. 

We finally made to on the road at 9am.  We swerved through crazy traffic of four lanes in each direction on a road designed for three lanes each way just to get to the national highway North.  The road from PaP to Gonaives (where we stopped for our first potty break) is paved, mostly.  There are sections with big potholes.  And I mean BIG ones.  Other sections are nicely paved, with lines on the road and passing and no passing zones!  Incredible!!  It took about 4 hours to get to Gonaives.  As is tradition when driving north, we stopped at Chez France for a potty break and a cola. 

We then at our packed lunch on the road.  Quite a feat since the road went from paved to rocky.  Sometimes the rocky part was a packed-down drive at 30 or so miles per hour.  Other times the road was so bad we never made it over 10 miles per hour.

All the rivers I was so looking forward to crossing had beautiful bridges.  They were all built since the earthquake in January 2010.  A company from the Dominican Republic has been building them.  The long term goal is to pave the road from PaP to CH.

We bounced our way through big and small towns.  We arrived in the town of Chansolme to find paved roads, curbing and sidewalks!!!  The reason it was done: the town of Port de Paix wanted rights to the water source in Chansolme and the response was pave the road and you can have access.  So they did!

Once we made it through the town of Chansolme (it took about 2 minutes), we hit the rocky road again.  In one section, the rains had literally washed the road away and we took a detour.  This section of road as so bad, we crawled our way through.

Needless to say we arrived in CH badly in need of a rest from the bumpy roads.  We stayed in a lovely guesthouse.  At least it looked lovely.  The rooms were nice and the food was wonderful.  Despite the nicely laid out suites, the rooms were blazing hot.  None of us slept very well our first night.