This past week, we took a little vacation within Haiti! We headed up 9.5 hours on extremely rocky, pothole-y, mountainous roads to Cap Haitien, where we say the Citadel and Christophe's Palace. The Citadel used to be a fort (it's the largest fort in the Americas) in the early 1800s. It was built after Haiti got its independence from the French in order to protect the country from any future attacks. The fort was built on top of a mountain so that it could overlook the entire valley below. We drove up most of the mountain, then had a little hike up to the actual fort. The views from the fort were amazing, and we were able to explore the fort. Henri Christophe named himself the King of the northern part of Haiti also around the early 1800s, and his palace was at the foot of the mountain that the Citadel is on. We got a chance to see that too, although the palace is mostly ruins. It was heavily damaged in a huge earthquake in the mid-1800s.
After we did a day of sight-seeing at the Citadel, we headed to Cormier Plage for a day at the beach! The trip to and from the hotel was kind of rough- we sat in the back of a pick up truck (it had benches) and headed up on some mountainous rocky roads. On the way up, I got whacked in the face by some tree branches, and on the ride back down, we hit a pothole so hard that we all flew up from our seats and came back down onto the seat really hard- I'm still recovering. However, the hotel was beautiful, and the private beach was amazing as well. It was definitely worth the rough drive up. We all just spent time in the warm water and enjoyed good food at the hotel restaurant!
In summary- we traveled up to Cap Haitien all day Monday, stayed in a guesthouse near the Citadel on Monday, visited the Citadel and the palace on Tuesday, went to the beach on Wednesday and stayed there overnight. Today, we made the long journey back until Port-au-Prince and are staying here overnight. Tomorrow, we'll be doing a little bit of sight seeing around Port-au-Prince and then we'll head back to Leogane in the afternoon!
Enjoy the pictures!
 |
| View during the ride up to the city of Cap Haitien |
 |
| On the walk up to the Citadel |
 |
| View from the Citadel |
 |
| More mountains! |
 |
| View of part of the fort from the roof |
 |
| Tons of cannonballs- they were never used because the fort was never under attack |
 |
| Christophe's Palace- also known as the Sans Souci (carefree) Palace |
 |
| The hotel |
 |
| Me and Priscille at dinner after getting dark all day in the ocean |
 |
| View of the beach |
so neat that you guys got to go there!
ReplyDelete