Question on travel from Haiti to DR

beamah332is

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Jan 18, 2010
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Is it possible now to purchase tickets from either Capital Coach Line or any other bus line from Haiti to DR? My 5 family members have no way of getting their money. I just bought 5 airline tickets for them to fly out of Las Americas to New York since they have visas.
 

Collingwood

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At 5pm today (Monday 18th Jan) I had a conversation with a friend in PAP and she is coming out of PAP to Santo Domingo on Friday on Caribbean Tours. Apparently they are now running 2 to 3 buses per day.

I've not confirmed this but she apparently has 2 tickets.

Try Caribbean Tours HQ in Santo Domingo for concrete info.

Best of luck.
 

mountainannie

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Is it possible now to purchase tickets from either Capital Coach Line or any other bus line from Haiti to DR? My 5 family members have no way of getting their money. I just bought 5 airline tickets for them to fly out of Las Americas to New York since they have visas.

MODS please move to EArthquake thread

I tried Caribe Tours and they have no office in PAP now

will try Capital Coach and perhaps other DR!ers can try Terra or whatever it is
 

mountainannie

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Just spoke with CApital Coach

27 de Febrero, #455
Tel.809.530.8266

You CAN BUY the Tickets Here in SD

Buses leave from Tabarre every morning at 10 am
Cost $40

They have no way to accept international payments for this

So you need to get cash to their office here

do you have friends or family here in SD that can do this for you?
 

beamah332is

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Jan 18, 2010
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Just spoke with CApital Coach

27 de Febrero, #455
Tel.809.530.8266

You CAN BUY the Tickets Here in SD

Buses leave from Tabarre every morning at 10 am
Cost $40

They have no way to accept international payments for this

So you need to get cash to their office here

do you have friends or family here in SD that can do this for you?

Unfortunately, I do not have any friends or family in SD. :(
I'm desperate... I'm thinking about flying out to SD Wednesday just to pay for their bus fare.
 

Adrian Bye

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since this seems pretty urgent, i'm wiling to receive the money in the US and go to the bus office and pay it locally. you'll have to go on trust i'm afraid, but i've been around for a while.

i have US banking and can receive paypal. i can do this as soon as the funds clear.
 
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mountainannie

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since this seems pretty urgent, i'm wiling to receive the money in the US and go to the bus office and pay it locally. you'll have to go on trust i'm afraid, but i've been around for a while.

i have US banking and can receive paypal. i can do this as soon as the funds clear.

email me at haiti@tasdevil.com if you need this.

trust him... my paypal is full up with donations and I have not figured out how to lift the limits
 

aegap

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Mar 19, 2005
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Hope this helps

Just spoke with CApital Coach

27 de Febrero, #455
Tel.809.530.8266

You CAN BUY the Tickets Here in SD

Buses leave from Tabarre every morning at 10 am
Cost $40

They have no way to accept international payments for this

So you need to get cash to their office here

do you have friends or family here in SD that can do this for you?

Here's the Wall Street Journal describing the experience of a pair of Haitian-American, who first flew into SDQ, taking that bus today, ...

Dispatch - WSJ

Finding Marc’s Family: Readying for the Bus Ride
By Gina Chon


OB-FH475_4marc1_F_20100118113750.jpg

Marc waited for the bus to leave from Santo Domingo to Haiti on Monday morning.

As thousands of Haitians flee the capital of Port-au-Prince, Marc Henry Bigot of Miami is going in to rescue what is left of his family. Wall Street Journal reporter Gina Chon is accompanying Marc on his journey. Follow his story here on [the Wall Street Journal's Dispatch blog], and on Facebook.

* * *

At breakfast at the hotel before Marc departed for the bus station, the room [at Barcelo Hotel] was filled with aid workers headed to Haiti.


Marc waited for the bus to leave from Santo Domingo to Haiti on Monday morning.
There were medics from New York and a Benelux Red Cross contingent, in addition to the Israeli aid workers from last night. Marc and Marie were the only Haitians in the room and they went unnoticed. The aid workers were busy discussing their own arrangements.

“I guess everyone wants to go to Haiti,” Marc said with a smile.

Outside the hotel, the relief workers gathered near a bus they were taking to Haiti. Marc and Marie headed to a taxi to get to the bus station in time for the ticket booth opening at 8 a.m.

At the bus station, there were only four other people waiting to go to Haiti. An advertisement for the Capital Coach Line bus promised panoramic views and first class service. It turned out the one-way trip was only $40
, but tax was an additional $27.

As the departure hour of 10 a.m. approached, the bus station steadily filled with people. By 9 a.m., there were about two dozen people and the room started to fill with suitcases. There was a Haitian man from New Jersey searching for family members and another who works for the UN in Haiti. He works in the Public Information Office and said one of the 12 colleagues in his department was killed, but the others made it.

Marc spent the waiting time chatting with the other travelers and smoking. He didn’t get much sleep the night before and said he now felt tired because the end was finally near.
“I have the ticket in my hand so now I feel some relief,” he said. “I’m almost there.”

Finding Marc’s Family: On the Bus to Port-au-Prince

Delays.

Thirty people waited anxiously to take the bus from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic to the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, but first the bus had to be fixed. That pushed back the departure time by more than an hour.

It took another half hour to load all the suitcases on the bus. Knowing they would find little food or water in Haiti, everyone had brought cases of water, bulk-sized packages of cornflakes and fruit. One man even brought a cooler.

As the suitcases were loaded on the bus, which looked similar to a Greyhound vehicle, Marc smoked. He knew once he was on the bus, he wouldn’t be able to have a cigarette for quite a while.

“Smoking relaxes me, and I’ve been too nervous since the earthquake,” Marc said. “I just want to see my girls.”

The trip is scheduled to take more than five hours, and it arrives in the heart of Port-au-Prince. Most of the passengers are Haitians, and they talked about loved ones they hoped to find.

One American volunteer, who only gave his first name, Nick, was bringing in medical supplies to an orphanage. He said he was scared. “I’ve never been to a Third World country before,” the 20-year-old from Idaho said. “I don’t know what to expect.”

Finally, at 11:30 a.m., an hour and a half after the scheduled 10:00 a.m. departure time, the bus pulled out of the station. Some passengers chatted quietly, but Marc and many others took the opportunity to rest. Shortly after boarding the bus, Marc fell asleep.

The bus is scheduled to arrive in Port au Prince after 5 p.m.

Finding Marc’s Family: At the Border Crossing

On the road leading to the Dominican-Haitian border, there was no sign of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince less than a week ago. Trees, shrubs and palm trees filled the landscape, and every now and then there was a home. Cows grazed on patches of grass.

Marc got excited when he saw ?tang Saum?tre, Haiti’s largest lake, which lies just on the Haitian side of the border. “Look, it’s the lake!” Marc said as he pointed to the right. “That means we’re getting close” to the border crossing.

Just before the border was a lone gas station where a makeshift parking lot had formed as people waited in line to buy fuel, so precious and scarce in Haiti. Small stands on the side of the road sold water and other supplies.

Marie Cherie, an old acquaintance of Marc’s who is also seeking her own relatives, began alternately clapping her hands and singing a tune. Marc just strained his neck to look out both windows, not wanting to miss anything.

The border crossing sits along the shore of ?tang Saum?tre, and there passengers saw their first possible sign of the temblor. Some of the cement structures were half under water, while parts some wooden shacks had collapsed.

On the narrow road, a steady stream of pickup trucks, sedans and SUVs that had just left Haiti tried to navigate past Marc’s bus. The area teemed with buses, trucks and cars, and Marc’s bus constantly honked, trying to get by. Crowds of people gathered in pockets, while boys hawked snacks, drinks and cell phone scratch cards.

At the border crossing gate, a line of cars waited to get into Haiti. Many of them carried supplies purchased in the Dominican Republic. Soldiers carrying machine guns stopped each vehicle to ask questions.

Rachelle Sienthelie sat on some gauze-like cloth on the ground near the gate, her right leg in a cast. She was on the top floor of a building when the earthquake hit, she said, and she broke her hip. She had heard doctors in Santo Domingo would help her, and, indeed, they put her leg in a cast. Now she waited for a taxi to take her back to Haiti.

On Marc’s bus, the passengers were led off and sent to the immigration office. It was hot, crowded and chaotic. Dozens of people waited in line, and passengers asked each other what they should be doing.

After a few minutes, one of the bus employees handling the immigration process for the passengers told everyone to return to the bus. “It’s too busy in here and it’s better for everyone to get back on the bus,” she shouted in Creole

You can the Dispatch blog tomorrow at for the next installment.

2marc0118_E_20100118083403.jpg

Marc stayed with his acquaintance, Marie, in Santo Domingo before leaving for Haiti.
 
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beamah332is

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Luckily they have found a way and i have booked a hotel room for them at a hotel there near the airport. They can then fly out to NY on Friday. :)
 

mountainannie

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Dec 11, 2003
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good report from the WSJ

I sent a friend of mine Michael Deibert in from France, over to join them

only ONE correction

the buses do NOT go into the heart of PAP

they go into the terminal at Tabarre near the us embassy about 7 miles from town...

when i traveled that root this year we had to hitch practically in a pick up truck, not even a tap tap since everyone was met with cars'

please keep posting

and glad those Haitians have gotten out!
 

mountainannie

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did not want to take credit for Michael Deibert who has written an excellent book on Haiti during
Aristide called Notes from the Last Testament

just that we are friends

I am having to stuff a lot of emotions as I get calls from the reporters from NPR and the Guardian.. who all have huge budgets and trucks and fixers but want me to give them my contacts and a briefing on what the hell is going on

i am a very small fish now that EVERYONE is doing stories on Haiti DR relations

my camera was taken while at Centro Bono... I am asking for donations on my blog so that I can replace it

I want to get up to Belledare in the next weeks and see what is going on

since most of the internationals do not know where it is and i suspect that is where the first "refugee camps" will be put.

My fee for the story will not even cover the costs of travel.. since I do not get a per diem....

thanks for listening to me whine

i feel better
 

mbetty0128

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Jan 30, 2010
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Is it possible now to purchase tickets from either Capital Coach Line or any other bus line from Haiti to DR? My 5 family members have no way of getting their money. I just bought 5 airline tickets for them to fly out of Las Americas to New York since they have visas.

Hi I am having the same problem:)
(Except my family happends to have cash on them)

They tried to leave today via Capital Coach Line(attempted to wait in line starting at 8am) but the line was too long and the bus was filled to capacity:( So they will try again tommorrow.)

When you relatives waited in line did they go very early like 6am? Also did they purchase the ticket at the bus the day they left?

And last, does it leave only once a day?

Any help would be appreciated:bunny:
 

mbetty0128

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Jan 30, 2010
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Petionville to Santo Domingo...

Hi I am having the same problem:)
(Except my family happends to have cash on them)

They tried to leave today via Capital Coach Line(attempted to wait in line starting at 8am) but the line was too long and the bus was filled to capacity:( So they will try again tommorrow.)

When you relatives waited in line did they go very early like 6am? Also did they purchase the ticket at the bus the day they left?

And last, does it leave only once a day?

Any help would be appreciated:bunny:


Update:

Ive been able to reach the bus reservation departments for all 3 in santo domingo but they all advised me that I need to contact the reservation dept in Haiti, so after they give me the contact number, I call the reservation offices in haiti but now one picks up!?

I dont know what to do, can someone help and advise me How do I make a bus reservation for my father from haiti to DR? :(
 

mountainannie

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Dec 11, 2003
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Update:

Ive been able to reach the bus reservation departments for all 3 in santo domingo but they all advised me that I need to contact the reservation dept in Haiti, so after they give me the contact number, I call the reservation offices in haiti but now one picks up!?

I dont know what to do, can someone help and advise me How do I make a bus reservation for my father from haiti to DR? :(

there are THREE bus companies running buses back and forth DR HAITI

Caribe Tours
Capital Couch
Terra Bus

All THREE are operating out of the Capital Couch office in Tabarre since there is no longer any office in Petionville

I doubt that you will be able to make a reservation on any on these buses coming from Haiti and that it will be first come... first serve.....