A whole month Puerto Plata-Cibao-Bavaro and everything in between

Got back yesterday from yet another wonderful trip all over the DR. Took all them kids for a whole month from rugged campo, to not-so-convincing AI-short-stay in Sosua, to water-from-cistern-dragging in the Cibao to chilled-out family-living at the apartment in Bavaro.

enjoyed every minute of it, but especially the little highlights such as - not in chronological order:
- buying a marlin at the beach (500 Pesos) and deliciously feeding our family of 5 for 4 days (and leaving the guy that cleaned it for me and the dueña at the house a big pedazo AND brought some home to the campo).
- the jacuzzi overlooking the sea in the reef at Casa Marina Hotel in Sosua al atardecer. IMPRESSIVE
- camping out in the campo up at the river with food and the kids sliding down the catarata/mini-waterfall and my wonderful Dominican company catching fish, crabs and shrimps with his bare hands
- the occasional crossing of animals in the middle of the road. I mean there was this big black pig
- just stopping at the side of the road, buying lemoncillos and of course always Mango, oh and Caña
- spending over 3 hours getting my pedi-/manicure and hair done at the salon in La Vega, because the planta wasn't working and the luz went out about once an hour. Women travellers: if you speak Spanish, I recommend you do this and hang with the ladies at the salon.
- getting stuck/lost crossing through SD. Where is that turn I'm supposed to take out to Las Americas coming from Autopista Duarte? Despite heavy rain&traffic, SD roads always lots of fun.
- good read: Juan Bosch's La Mañosa. About the only book the Bavaro book store sold. But what's up with the book prices???
- Columbus Water Park in Sosua: although practically falling apart and with only half the slides on, we had ourselves a day of good-waterpark-fun (but missed out on the free AI-food that day)
- and for beach babes: always.. Bar Soles, Bavaro Beach. or if we wanted to have the beach for ourselves, we drove out to Macao Beach, to just lay in the knee-high water and waves for hours without a soul in sight (until the excursion trucks show up (3!) and stop exactly in front of us along with animation guys who keep them in order with whistles and by setting up traffic pillars so they don't walk too far from the group. Are people paying for this, I mean is this real?)
and as always the biggest highlight: just spending time with the esposo, truly good, honest, hard-working, so-the-opposite-of-a-sanky, accepting-my-kids-as-his man of mine (should put this under the 'Positive relationships with a Dominican'-thread)


couldn't get a liking to:
- the Amsha Casa Marina Reef (where was the beach?). We arrived from a long drive and dropped into Sosua to unexpectedly end up at this resort, in lack of obvious alternative. I'm not experienced with AI's but constantly had to fight to get food at the hours we were hungry. Tiny room, mediocre food, just unluxurious all-over, with a much too high walk-in rate.
- Santiago, got lost both times crossing through it... (and probably just wanted to get out so fast to not come across AZB)

missed out on (next time):
- Los Haitises National Park. passed through Hato Mayor twice, but didnt make it down to Sabana de la mar. this has been a trip i've been wanting to do for a while.
- hiking onto Pico Duarte with a mule.
- Laguna El Limon in Miches. why is it I can't just do the things I had been planning to do?
- was in POP during the inauguration of the new beach in front of Playa Dorada, but missed out on seeing the Presidente speak. and does POP area have any nices beaches at all? never been to the North before. (but love Samana)
- partying, due to the new curfew. (we got practically thrown out of a disappointingly short Joseph Fonseca concert)
- leaving behind more kid's clothes for the lady that cleaned the house. when she asked me, I had already packed up all the luggage. but now can't believe I didn't open it back up, and leave a lot more. Summer is almost over here in Europe (so it seems) and my little one won't fit in any of his clothes by next year.

I have so much more to say...

Rick, I haven?t had time to continue my outburst of words, as returning to the job is bitter after 4 weeks out of the office. I?m trying to put some reasonable sequence into my trip impressions while they?re still running around my head. Usually after a few days back at work, it?s all gone again?

The following are observations that I have made on my various DR trips, especially this last one and long one. it is never my intention to judge, as I said these are just observations and my thoughts on them

Body language -
The better I become at understanding Spanish (I should say: Dominican), the more I realize how much communication is done without speech. I?m talking, going on-and-on, and every one around me has among each other already made clear without words what?s going on. (lesson learned: I?m gonna shut my mouth more often. ) it seems to me that so-called third-world countries use body language to a much larger extent than ?developed? ones. I mean I have to take classes to succesfully use it, as our societies seem to have gotten immune to it. My favourite one, I use now too, is: ?wait?, ?esperate?, hold up one hand, palm open towards the recipient with a small and quick move forward that comes to a stop. It makes perfect sense, and every one can understand.

Dominicans? great memory of faces
This probably has something to do with the above statements I made about body language. There is just more room (and time) for people-watching than in our fast-paced-stress-stress-stress society. I haved walked across a stretch of beach over a year later and with a different child, and a stranger I have never seen or talked to before asks me where I have left my older daughter, which was with me last year. So he sits on the beach all day (life?) and is trying to sell artesania but don?t 10?000 other tourists walk by there in a year? Same thing happens to me all the time, entering shops, colmados, what have you. Me for my part can hardly recognize my neighbour of three years or the front-office girl at the company, who I pass every morning. Different priorities I guess, but it is charming to be recognized, and appears to me as a very positive Dominican trait.

Nosiness = less attractive Dominican trait.
I couldn?t walk around without EVERYone asking me, whether my 2-year-old is my own son. Upon my positive reply, aha daddy is Dominican? no he?s not. Oh where is he (the daddy) from and you, and what are you doing here. And of course: where are you from? And do you have a Domincan boy-friend? I?m a talkative and friendly person, but sometimes I just wanna walk in, buy what I need and leave. Oh and this seems to be true of women more than of men. (Men just ask because they wanna talk to you obviously)


Shopping at the colmado
I just love the idea of going across the street or down the block to pick up some missing ingredients while cooking. Seems to me there is a colmado at a stone?s throw ANYwhere in this country. Absolutely love it. No getting in the car, finding parking spaces, lines at the cashier?s, no. BUT shopping at the colmado is not easy, no not for me.
At first you have to know which products they carry. I?m asking for coca cola, no-go. But you will find pain killers & toilet paper at even the smallest of colmadito, although they do occasionally run out of (cold) beer. Ok, so it?s life?s necessities that they carry oil, eggs, garlic,.. well and rum.
Then you have to know how to order. Me ok I walk up and politely stand there among a group of people apparently all wanting to buy something. My first few experiences were tough, because after a 2-minute-or-so wait, every one is like: the rubia has been standing here for hours, why don?t you ask her. Ah, I get it now I don?t have to wait I just walk up, hola and please this and that.
Once everything I need is gathered and nicely wrapped up for me, I?m supposed to pay. But how much? Good thing there is a calculator and I?m shown the total. How am I ever going to find out how much the single items cost? which is important so that I can avoid walking up with a much too large or small bill next time (see also next paragraph). I still don?t know how much a platano costs, is it 10 pesos? After a few visits, I happily get granted a 10 pesos credit when I suggest to come pay the next day, as I?m short. This hasn?t happened to me till the last mom-and-pops-store in my childhood neighbourhood closed down let?s say 15 years ago.

Street holes
The road from Bavaro to Macao which takes you to La Otra Banda and into Higuey was bad, so bad that it was not an alternative to the increasingly traffic-heavy regular route via Veron. I mean bathtub-size holes and on both sides of the road at the same time, so that weaving through them was practically impossible even if you knew where they were (I didn?t). Until about 10 days ago, when I passed two guys with a pushcart who were filling up the holes with cement. They filled up a stretch of maybe 10kms in a day. 1 single day. So I?m thinking, if it?s that easy why not put larger emphasis on fixing the holes?? I understand that sun and heat will always cause holes on bad quality roads, but please have someone fix them every 2 months. Driving would be so much nicer. And safer. And the rental car companies would be happier, especially for the non-SUV renters, such as myself. I tend to differentiate between the trip with jeep and the trip with the economy car. (this trip, was a half-half, half-way into the holiday switched to a SUV and still hit plenty of holes with it and FELT them).

Ridiculously wide range of prices in general
This keeps throwing me off. I understand the principle of making the money where you can, but I have not yet seen such humunguously high differences in prices of articles. The same article for one, e.g.: a bottle of water ranges what I?ve seen from 8 pesos to 100 pesos (=as in 3USD). That?s 12 times more. Of course that?s in and outside of tourist areas, but still. What I find even crazier is the difference in meals inside proper restaurants and a perfectly fine parador, (talking about where food is freshly prepared, I don?t so much like the stuff sitting out in the vitrines). Now I?m assuming that yes the restaurants sitting on the malecon in SD are somewhat touristy but not only. Am I correct?, I don?t know. But why why why would I pay USD25 and more for a single plate if I can feed my whole family of 5 down the street under 500 Pesos. = 8 times more per person. And those pricey restaurants are no fancy French cuisine-type-of-thing with 18 Gault Millau points. Can someone explain this to me!? This difference always causes me not to have the right kind of peso bill in my pocket. Am out in the middle of nowhere the kids want papitas (potato chips), I got a 500 bill, NO ONE has change for the remaining 490 pesos. I get smarter and keep all the 10, 20, 50, which then I can?t use when I?m standing at the gas pump, because a tank full is 1500. I ended up running around with a ridiculously large wallet to keep all the appropriate bills I may need on my explorations of the day. How do you guys who live in DR deal with this?

Higher police presence
Apparently the government is trying to make some changes regarding law enforcement. I had never before seen so many police vehicles. There was a time I didn?t even know DR police owned vehicles? I saw many now, and nice jeepetas too. I even got pulled over driving into San Pedro de Macorix. at a road check-point just about every other car was waved to the side. I thought ok, this is exciting but when he wanted to give me a ticket for not wearing my seat belt and having my son ride in the front (on an adult?s lap), and take away my license until I went to pay it, I didn?t find it so funny after all. Luckily enough my Dominican company was able to convince them to let it slide, we?re on a road trip and have a long way to go, and only were not buckled up since we had just stopped around the last corner? In any case this is a good thing, I read on dr1 news that there are ideas and endeavors to cut down on drunk driving as well. (Good thing but bad for me). Even the new curfew makes somewhat sense if applied sensibly, I guess. I find it funny that it is NOT to be enforced for the holiday of these days. (back in my clubbing days, I remember there used to be a curfew, or rather a ?ban on public dancing? on the high catholic holidays such as Easter over here in Europe. So all the contrary.)

Class differences ? delicate subject I know, so I?m not gonna dwell on this, but
Is the whitest guy in the room, always the richest? And do the rich folks actually work, as in early morning to late night? And where in the Cibao are all these Amelia Vega-type girls that are always talked about? Didn?t see many in the street. maybe they?re busy speed-racing with daddy?s fancy sports car. I?m just babbling but I heard on the radio that a honorable and important family has decided to give up business in the country to show in this way their profound aversion to the alleged cover-up of the case with the kid that was killed in such a way last May, and the powers that allow/enforce? such incidents to happen.
All in all, of course I?m mostly associating with the poorer folks, and haven?t had the chance to see into many rich folks? homes and lives. The few I have seen, I do not prefer over the people I have become friends with who don?t have money. They may be poor, from the campo, and not very good at spelling (!), but hard-working and no ?chopos?.

ok, I got all out. My next trip to the DR won?t be until Christmas, I haven?t been away for such a long period of time in almost 3 years.