*A little background on me.
I am an attorney in Florida. I have been to 32 Countries
I travel for pleasure and to meet the locals and engage their culture
I am an EXCELLENT driver and have easily navigated myself all over the world alone with a steering wheel and a map. If they'll cook it, I'll eat it.
The Great Dominican Adventure
I was scheduled to fly out of Fort Lauderdale at 1pm to arrive at 4pm Dominican Time (3pm American)
Now this plan was partly predicated on the fact that when I booked my flight ($197 on Spirit) I read that the taxi from the airport to the hotel was $40.00
But I checked and found I could rent a car for $23.00 a day!
So I rented the car, knew I had plenty of time to dr... ive from the airport and get myself oriented in the city and maybe sight see a little before dark.
(Oh yes, you can see where this is going)
That's right...the plane broke.
Replacement had to be flown in From Detroit.
3 hours late. So we left after 4 and did not get in till after 7. Well after dark.
Naturally we flew through some storms which caused the pilot to come in from East to West, flying over the entire country.
I can easily say that I have never flown over a country at night where there simply were no lights on. It was amazing.
I guess they have power issues here and they have brownouts or blackouts every day.
(Edit - I talked to a guy in the DR that said there are places where the people only get 2 hours of power a day and most all places lose power for at least a couple of hours a day. And any business of any size has a generator)
But no problem, I'm a pro! Soldier on I will!
I get to the Dollar rental counter and the guy starts checking me in
First, there is a $900 deductible, that you can't buy out, that they put a hold on my debit card for. Um...ok...
Next, as we are going along I say, I'm going to stay at the Hotel Napolitano
And I need a map to get there from the airport
Guy looks me right in the eye and says.....we don't have maps...serious
I'm like...WHAT THE F**K!!! Never...never ever in driving since I was 14 has a rental company not had a map.
I say...well OK I am now ****ed because I did not print off a map and I have NO idea how to get there.
Guy says...we have GPS...but it's $10 (Like I would not want it because it is so expensive). I'LL TAKE IT!!!
Get the car...Nice, almost identical to the one I drive only a Hundai
Get in, leave the lot, look at the GPS and the system shows I can either go right or left.
The right road is pink, the left road is orange.
Now I'll admit I don't use GPS, but I was really kind of expecting Green, or white or something other than Pink and Orange.
So I get to the choice and go right...
(Oh yes, you can see where this is going)
I get on an "Interstate?" (Say the word with your voice going up at the end like a question.
It was divided with a concrete wall and was 3ish lanes wide.
No lights, no street lights, no crossing lights, it's f***ing pitch black
I'm driving along with a semi on one side, an SUV on the other and ALL OVER THE PLACE are these motor scooters COMING THE WRONG WAY UP THE SIDES (and the middle) OF THE ROAD!!!!
No lights on them, not on the front or the back. To this minute I have no idea how I did not cream the s**t out of some of them.
When they were not coming at me, they were going 80 miles an hour from behind zipping in and out of cars with no room between.
Scariest crap ever.
And then naturally, about every mile there is a hooker on the side of the road so someone will stop to talk to her...in the middle of the road...just ...stop
I was like ...F**K!!!!
So yes, 30 kilometers later my GPS got me turned around. I was darn near to Romana now that I look back at it. And after a bit I get the GPS kind of figured out. And the truth is that no map in the world would have been able to get me to this hotel because the route that I had to take was some SERIOUSLY convoluted stuff.
So I type this as the hotel management is preparing another room because the safe in this one won't work. But I am very much looking forward to going down and having some Dominican food and a beer.
Quite the adventure so far...
But I love it!
-----------------------------------
Dominican Update #2
Don't drink the water! Turns out they have a cholera epidemic here.
And no, apparently Cholera did not go out with the black plague, it is still alive and well and living in the water in the Dominican Republic. I guess it is so bad that you can't even brush your teeth with the tap water.
I took no chances and just used beer. mmmmm beer....
My rule of thumb is that if they touch American money they speak English.
Rule abandoned in the DR
I've met no one...and I mean NO ONE that has spoken decent English
And only 2 that have spoken Spanglish
Turns out it was a significant problem so far
Luckily I spoke to a guy at the hotel that kind of spoke English and he gave me a handler.
This guy has taken me around to different clubs and to a good place for dinner.
I paid 300 DP (Dominican Pesos) $39 pesos to the dollar so $7.50? For a handler and a taxi for the evening.
What brought it about is that I was trying to find one of the dealers or drink girls in the casino who spoke English and this 65 year old lady approached me and started speaking Spanglish, told me she knew what I wanted, took me by the hand and led me outside and started to hail a cab to go someplace.."Over there"
Talk about a hard core hustle! Holy cow!
So when I got free of her I was set upon by the local touts.
Knowing I was in trouble, I went back in the casino and asked the pit boss for someone that could help me and he gave me my guy.
Good food! I had Mofongo that was delicious! It was crispy on the bottom! I also had some beers "vestida de novia" Icey cold! Delish.
I also had he national dish called Sancocho. It's a soup with tons of pork and other meaty bits. Quite tasty!
Tomorrow I search for the place that cooks the whole suckling pig!
Chicharonne! Bueno!
-------------------------------------
Dominican Republic- Day 2 Mid day report.
So I started the day by going to the hotel barber and getting a shave and a haircut for $5.00. He first used isopropyl alcohol to rub everything down then shaved me with a straight razor. Then of course used baby powder at the end. I miss the days of the straight razor. No shave compares.
Afterwards I drove around the Zona Colonial a bit. The car really is necessary because the city is so big.
But the motor scooters will test you. Granted you need to have balls of titanium to drive anyway, but you add in those motor scooters and you best be on your "A" game.
Tried to hire an English speaking tour guide or local college kid or something to show me around and failed miserably. While I'm picking up more of my Spanish every time I speak, I'm still way way way too poor to be carrying on a conversation.
As I was just driving along the waterfront I recognized the statute to the resistance of General Trujillo. I remember seeing it from the Anthony Bourdain show No Reservations. (It's a food/travel show if you don't know it)
But in particular I remember there was a Lechon restaurant right across the street!
Sure enough, it was there so I stopped.
They had a pig on a huge wooden stake (log?) under the sign out front to draw the people in.
I went in and said I wanted some Lechon
The guy goes out and gets the pig from under the sign.
Truthfully, I was kind of expecting to see some pork cut up in the shop, but no, turns out the pig-sign was not just a sign but it was also a wood burning cooker under the pig.
The guy puts it on the cutting table and takes out the largest machette I have ever seen. VERY reminicent of the machette used in Apocolypse Now to kill the water buffalo.
He slices off a piece of skin, fat and meat and gives it to me to try.
this is the part where you can go ahead and be jealous of me because...damn...yeah
So I give him the thumbs up and he rares up the machette and gets ready to cut the pig in half.
I'm like...whoa..whoa...whoa
I'm thinking I am getting ready to buy a whole pig. While I like pork, and love Lechon, I did not really want a whole one.
So in broken Spanglish I try to tell the guy that I don't want a whole one I only want lunch.
The guy then tells me in perfect Spanish something about "Libre" and the back leg and a sawing motion and a scale.
I'm like...alrighty then...so I pull out 500 pesos (About $12.50) and say this much!
He says alright and commences to hack off a section about 4" wide all the way through the pig just in front of the back leg, so ...haunch? Fat back?
He then chops it up and weighs it, gets ready to go back to chopping more and I'm like, that's plenty.
I have a coca cola and the lechon and it was fantastic.
The skin was nice and crispy! Sooooooooo good.
Came back to the hotel for dental floss and because I remembered I forgot my license!
Off for an afternoon adventure and maybe a massage!
--------------------------------
Dominican Update Morning
Walked all over the Old Town yesterday
Very reminicent of Puerto Rico in many respects with the old churches and old buildings. Went into a place where the guy was hand rolling cigars and bought a cigar.
Got away from Gringo Gulch last night and went to a true Tica bar.
Since I was going to a bar I decided to take the taxi.
Beware the Dominican Taxi drivers, they are cheats.
Never, never, never get in a cab or try to buy something before finding out how much it costs.
Luckily I knew this rule, but a couple of the cabs I approached were CRAZY outrageous in their price
Ended up meeting a Hair dresser from some place 2 hours away that was in town shopping for her kids birthday and spoke a smattering of English, But I got her to call her Amiga who was a nurse who spoke pretty good English.
Took her to dinner to chat about the culture and the people. She's like I'll go but no Sexo! I'm like...perfect!
So we go to dinner and are chatting and she gets called by HER Amiga who is a government worker that issues state issued Identification cards. She was in town cloths shopping. So my English speaker asked if her Amiga could join and I'm like...sure.
31 years old but just cute as a button. A Nicki Minaj look a like. Super expressive and funny as hell.
So the 3 of us had dinner and went to different clubs drinking and dancing.
Fun evening!
I learned that the girl that is a nurse earns $500 a month and the Government worker Earns $600 a month
But a meal in the City costs over $15.00 each.
Serious disconnect between the average Dominican and the tourist area
Going to drive around the city today
-----------------------------------------------
Sunday my Nurse friend calls me at 7:30 am and wants to know what I'm doing
She comes over and we drive all over the city
Ended up eating lunch at a diner in the Zona Colonial
Great local food, yes I should have written the name of the place down, my bad
We went to the Christopher Columbus house and my gal starts going off on the Italians and how they abused the indigenous people of her country and there should not be a shrine to them. I'm like...wow...never knew folks had heat with the Italians, but there you go. She was quite passionate about it too.
I do a little photograph here and there and driving around the Zona Colonial was amazing. The old facades, buildings, brick...amazing. It would make for some breathtaking back drops for photos. Unfortunately, time kept me from doing any shoots.
Drove out past the Olympic stadium and along some of the major roads. Turns out once you get away from the ocean it's quite a large city with some pretty major road ways.
I enjoyed my time in Santo Domingo and plan on going back on 11-22-12 for another visit
Hopefully this time I'll be able to set up a shoot and use some of those facades.
Oh and to eat more pork! Lechon!
I am an attorney in Florida. I have been to 32 Countries
I travel for pleasure and to meet the locals and engage their culture
I am an EXCELLENT driver and have easily navigated myself all over the world alone with a steering wheel and a map. If they'll cook it, I'll eat it.
The Great Dominican Adventure
I was scheduled to fly out of Fort Lauderdale at 1pm to arrive at 4pm Dominican Time (3pm American)
Now this plan was partly predicated on the fact that when I booked my flight ($197 on Spirit) I read that the taxi from the airport to the hotel was $40.00
But I checked and found I could rent a car for $23.00 a day!
So I rented the car, knew I had plenty of time to dr... ive from the airport and get myself oriented in the city and maybe sight see a little before dark.
(Oh yes, you can see where this is going)
That's right...the plane broke.
Replacement had to be flown in From Detroit.
3 hours late. So we left after 4 and did not get in till after 7. Well after dark.
Naturally we flew through some storms which caused the pilot to come in from East to West, flying over the entire country.
I can easily say that I have never flown over a country at night where there simply were no lights on. It was amazing.
I guess they have power issues here and they have brownouts or blackouts every day.
(Edit - I talked to a guy in the DR that said there are places where the people only get 2 hours of power a day and most all places lose power for at least a couple of hours a day. And any business of any size has a generator)
But no problem, I'm a pro! Soldier on I will!
I get to the Dollar rental counter and the guy starts checking me in
First, there is a $900 deductible, that you can't buy out, that they put a hold on my debit card for. Um...ok...
Next, as we are going along I say, I'm going to stay at the Hotel Napolitano
And I need a map to get there from the airport
Guy looks me right in the eye and says.....we don't have maps...serious
I'm like...WHAT THE F**K!!! Never...never ever in driving since I was 14 has a rental company not had a map.
I say...well OK I am now ****ed because I did not print off a map and I have NO idea how to get there.
Guy says...we have GPS...but it's $10 (Like I would not want it because it is so expensive). I'LL TAKE IT!!!
Get the car...Nice, almost identical to the one I drive only a Hundai
Get in, leave the lot, look at the GPS and the system shows I can either go right or left.
The right road is pink, the left road is orange.
Now I'll admit I don't use GPS, but I was really kind of expecting Green, or white or something other than Pink and Orange.
So I get to the choice and go right...
(Oh yes, you can see where this is going)
I get on an "Interstate?" (Say the word with your voice going up at the end like a question.
It was divided with a concrete wall and was 3ish lanes wide.
No lights, no street lights, no crossing lights, it's f***ing pitch black
I'm driving along with a semi on one side, an SUV on the other and ALL OVER THE PLACE are these motor scooters COMING THE WRONG WAY UP THE SIDES (and the middle) OF THE ROAD!!!!
No lights on them, not on the front or the back. To this minute I have no idea how I did not cream the s**t out of some of them.
When they were not coming at me, they were going 80 miles an hour from behind zipping in and out of cars with no room between.
Scariest crap ever.
And then naturally, about every mile there is a hooker on the side of the road so someone will stop to talk to her...in the middle of the road...just ...stop
I was like ...F**K!!!!
So yes, 30 kilometers later my GPS got me turned around. I was darn near to Romana now that I look back at it. And after a bit I get the GPS kind of figured out. And the truth is that no map in the world would have been able to get me to this hotel because the route that I had to take was some SERIOUSLY convoluted stuff.
So I type this as the hotel management is preparing another room because the safe in this one won't work. But I am very much looking forward to going down and having some Dominican food and a beer.
Quite the adventure so far...
But I love it!
-----------------------------------
Dominican Update #2
Don't drink the water! Turns out they have a cholera epidemic here.
And no, apparently Cholera did not go out with the black plague, it is still alive and well and living in the water in the Dominican Republic. I guess it is so bad that you can't even brush your teeth with the tap water.
I took no chances and just used beer. mmmmm beer....
My rule of thumb is that if they touch American money they speak English.
Rule abandoned in the DR
I've met no one...and I mean NO ONE that has spoken decent English
And only 2 that have spoken Spanglish
Turns out it was a significant problem so far
Luckily I spoke to a guy at the hotel that kind of spoke English and he gave me a handler.
This guy has taken me around to different clubs and to a good place for dinner.
I paid 300 DP (Dominican Pesos) $39 pesos to the dollar so $7.50? For a handler and a taxi for the evening.
What brought it about is that I was trying to find one of the dealers or drink girls in the casino who spoke English and this 65 year old lady approached me and started speaking Spanglish, told me she knew what I wanted, took me by the hand and led me outside and started to hail a cab to go someplace.."Over there"
Talk about a hard core hustle! Holy cow!
So when I got free of her I was set upon by the local touts.
Knowing I was in trouble, I went back in the casino and asked the pit boss for someone that could help me and he gave me my guy.
Good food! I had Mofongo that was delicious! It was crispy on the bottom! I also had some beers "vestida de novia" Icey cold! Delish.
I also had he national dish called Sancocho. It's a soup with tons of pork and other meaty bits. Quite tasty!
Tomorrow I search for the place that cooks the whole suckling pig!
Chicharonne! Bueno!
-------------------------------------
Dominican Republic- Day 2 Mid day report.
So I started the day by going to the hotel barber and getting a shave and a haircut for $5.00. He first used isopropyl alcohol to rub everything down then shaved me with a straight razor. Then of course used baby powder at the end. I miss the days of the straight razor. No shave compares.
Afterwards I drove around the Zona Colonial a bit. The car really is necessary because the city is so big.
But the motor scooters will test you. Granted you need to have balls of titanium to drive anyway, but you add in those motor scooters and you best be on your "A" game.
Tried to hire an English speaking tour guide or local college kid or something to show me around and failed miserably. While I'm picking up more of my Spanish every time I speak, I'm still way way way too poor to be carrying on a conversation.
As I was just driving along the waterfront I recognized the statute to the resistance of General Trujillo. I remember seeing it from the Anthony Bourdain show No Reservations. (It's a food/travel show if you don't know it)
But in particular I remember there was a Lechon restaurant right across the street!
Sure enough, it was there so I stopped.
They had a pig on a huge wooden stake (log?) under the sign out front to draw the people in.
I went in and said I wanted some Lechon
The guy goes out and gets the pig from under the sign.
Truthfully, I was kind of expecting to see some pork cut up in the shop, but no, turns out the pig-sign was not just a sign but it was also a wood burning cooker under the pig.
The guy puts it on the cutting table and takes out the largest machette I have ever seen. VERY reminicent of the machette used in Apocolypse Now to kill the water buffalo.
He slices off a piece of skin, fat and meat and gives it to me to try.
this is the part where you can go ahead and be jealous of me because...damn...yeah
So I give him the thumbs up and he rares up the machette and gets ready to cut the pig in half.
I'm like...whoa..whoa...whoa
I'm thinking I am getting ready to buy a whole pig. While I like pork, and love Lechon, I did not really want a whole one.
So in broken Spanglish I try to tell the guy that I don't want a whole one I only want lunch.
The guy then tells me in perfect Spanish something about "Libre" and the back leg and a sawing motion and a scale.
I'm like...alrighty then...so I pull out 500 pesos (About $12.50) and say this much!
He says alright and commences to hack off a section about 4" wide all the way through the pig just in front of the back leg, so ...haunch? Fat back?
He then chops it up and weighs it, gets ready to go back to chopping more and I'm like, that's plenty.
I have a coca cola and the lechon and it was fantastic.
The skin was nice and crispy! Sooooooooo good.
Came back to the hotel for dental floss and because I remembered I forgot my license!
Off for an afternoon adventure and maybe a massage!
--------------------------------
Dominican Update Morning
Walked all over the Old Town yesterday
Very reminicent of Puerto Rico in many respects with the old churches and old buildings. Went into a place where the guy was hand rolling cigars and bought a cigar.
Got away from Gringo Gulch last night and went to a true Tica bar.
Since I was going to a bar I decided to take the taxi.
Beware the Dominican Taxi drivers, they are cheats.
Never, never, never get in a cab or try to buy something before finding out how much it costs.
Luckily I knew this rule, but a couple of the cabs I approached were CRAZY outrageous in their price
Ended up meeting a Hair dresser from some place 2 hours away that was in town shopping for her kids birthday and spoke a smattering of English, But I got her to call her Amiga who was a nurse who spoke pretty good English.
Took her to dinner to chat about the culture and the people. She's like I'll go but no Sexo! I'm like...perfect!
So we go to dinner and are chatting and she gets called by HER Amiga who is a government worker that issues state issued Identification cards. She was in town cloths shopping. So my English speaker asked if her Amiga could join and I'm like...sure.
31 years old but just cute as a button. A Nicki Minaj look a like. Super expressive and funny as hell.
So the 3 of us had dinner and went to different clubs drinking and dancing.
Fun evening!
I learned that the girl that is a nurse earns $500 a month and the Government worker Earns $600 a month
But a meal in the City costs over $15.00 each.
Serious disconnect between the average Dominican and the tourist area
Going to drive around the city today
-----------------------------------------------
Sunday my Nurse friend calls me at 7:30 am and wants to know what I'm doing
She comes over and we drive all over the city
Ended up eating lunch at a diner in the Zona Colonial
Great local food, yes I should have written the name of the place down, my bad
We went to the Christopher Columbus house and my gal starts going off on the Italians and how they abused the indigenous people of her country and there should not be a shrine to them. I'm like...wow...never knew folks had heat with the Italians, but there you go. She was quite passionate about it too.
I do a little photograph here and there and driving around the Zona Colonial was amazing. The old facades, buildings, brick...amazing. It would make for some breathtaking back drops for photos. Unfortunately, time kept me from doing any shoots.
Drove out past the Olympic stadium and along some of the major roads. Turns out once you get away from the ocean it's quite a large city with some pretty major road ways.
I enjoyed my time in Santo Domingo and plan on going back on 11-22-12 for another visit
Hopefully this time I'll be able to set up a shoot and use some of those facades.
Oh and to eat more pork! Lechon!
