Cap Haitian

Sans Souci Palace

Sans Souci Palace--back

I got to go up to Cap Haitian with the ladies. I was supposed to be on an earlier flight that left at 7:15am but as it turned out the airline was 3 hours late because there was only one plane available (and actually I think we were flown up on a plane from another airline so I don’t know what the story was)…but there was room for some of the ladies to come on the first flight with me. We went up and started the sight-seeing with the Sans Souci Palace (without worries palace) that was built in the 1800s. It is only ruins now but still very beautiful. With our guide there we weren’t hounded much by the vendors. We walked up and through the palace and got picked up on the other side.

Catholic Church at Sans Souci Palace

Then we were dropped at another parking lot where we got horses that took us up to the Citadel, a fort built after independence in 1803 by 200,000 freed slaves (20,000 died in the construction). It was built so that Napoleon wouldn’t be able to come back and take over which he never tried to do so it was never used. There are 365 iron and bronze cannons that were brought up by hand and then never used. The Citadel is being restored now and is a pretty intimidating place.

We took our horses back down and were mobbed by the vendors there…it was not a pretty scene and while we know that they are only trying to earn money so they can support their families it is very off-putting to be so forward. We had lunch with the rest of the group from the 2^nd flight and then got to relax in the town of Milot while the others did their tour of the ruins. We went for a walk around the town and it felt so nice to wander on our own. (It’s nice being out of the city!)