Drivers are screaming over lack of travelers inland

Santo Domingo, DR

On the occasion of the Christmas Eve dinner, on 24 December, the citizens usually travel from Santo Domingo to the provinces of the interior.

Despite the great flow of people that Listin Diario reporters observed entering the buses, the drivers assured that “things are very slack” and that people are not traveling in masses as they used to before.

While Victoria Mejía, who has a small cafeteria in one of the exit points of the bus terminal of Cibao, said that “the sales are not good. Five years ago, I was overflowing with customers.” Passengers, drivers, and vendors highlighted a common factor: “the lack of money flowing in the streets.”

Rosa López, who boarded a bus from Nagua to see her mother, whom she usually visits at Christmas time, in her childhood home to have dinner with her, expressed that she had borrowed the money for the trip.

“I sought that borrowed money to go down to Nagua, I have been unemployed since the middle of the pandemic,” she said. The atmosphere was chaotic at the Parador del Sur: Haitian vendors wanted to forcefully offer their products inside the buses, throwing tantrums at the security guards who tried to explain to them that this action was forbidden. In addition, it was noticeable the tumult of travelers with their suitcases and luggage to travel to their relatives in the South.