Hi All! :bunny:
Well Tina & I are here! We are settled in a great apartment here in Cabarete thanks to a kind recommendation from a DR1 poster! We have been ripped off by a local wide-boy who charged us 3000 pesos to drive us around one afternoon to "look for a villa" but which was actually a session of meeting his family and giving lifts to various of his "brothers and sisters". We have been charged 300 pesos for sitting at a table on the beach one afternoon for a quick Coke which was free the evening before! We have taken a taxi to look at a place in Costambar (before we found this one) and after getting the price down from $120US to $50, we spent more time refusing to look at gift shops and cigar factories than the journey took! We have taken a "bus" to Sosua to the big supermarket we saw there (I counted 23 people, excluding the driver on it at one point) and spent 5000 pesos there, only to find our local "Janet's", just around the corner, is MUCH cheaper! We were offered a rental car (heap of junk) for $1500US for a month and finally got a beaten up Corolla for $475! Tina has found BIG bottles of water for the price we paid for a tiny one and I've discovered the art of making proper Pina Colada's (chuck some stuff in, add cream and at least 2 bottles of rum!). We drove to Santiago (because it's there! - stupid question) using a map we bought locally for 375 pesos and found it took us nearly two hours to get there in the rain because of the state of the roads, the town too confusing to actually stop anywhere and nearly five hours to get back because of the lack of signposts and the endless election parades we got stuck in (often the same one several times from several different directions!). Tina and I are JUST about talking again (why can't women navigate????) and I have a few words to say to the chap who sold me the satnav card that he said works in the Caribbean when I get back to the UK!
Are we living the Dominican life yet????:cheeky:
So, now we're settled, we found we had no internet connection except for an unsecured one which was only on part of the day. We asked around and a German chap said it was his and he would leave it on all day for us. I offered him something towards the price, but he wouldn't hear of it! 300 pesos to sit in a grubby plastic chair for 5 minutes and then free internet - I guess it takes all sorts all over the world!
To my question - We'd love to meet up with some of you ex-pats over here to pick your brains and we're mobile, given a rusty Toyota and providing you give us FULL directions of where to find you (or the name of a good divorce lawyer PM'd directly to ME). Are there ever any get-together's on the north coast? It would be nice to meet with a few other Newbies and less intimidating than just you long-established, mega experienced guys?
If not, (and there should be, so when I'm established, I'll start some), would any of you care to meet up with a pair of barely-speaking-to-each-other-without-a-satnav plonkers like us??? Please PM me - have rust bucket, will travel......?
Oh, and now the cynics amongst you can rip all this apart to your heart's content - we're HERE and LURVING it!
Well Tina & I are here! We are settled in a great apartment here in Cabarete thanks to a kind recommendation from a DR1 poster! We have been ripped off by a local wide-boy who charged us 3000 pesos to drive us around one afternoon to "look for a villa" but which was actually a session of meeting his family and giving lifts to various of his "brothers and sisters". We have been charged 300 pesos for sitting at a table on the beach one afternoon for a quick Coke which was free the evening before! We have taken a taxi to look at a place in Costambar (before we found this one) and after getting the price down from $120US to $50, we spent more time refusing to look at gift shops and cigar factories than the journey took! We have taken a "bus" to Sosua to the big supermarket we saw there (I counted 23 people, excluding the driver on it at one point) and spent 5000 pesos there, only to find our local "Janet's", just around the corner, is MUCH cheaper! We were offered a rental car (heap of junk) for $1500US for a month and finally got a beaten up Corolla for $475! Tina has found BIG bottles of water for the price we paid for a tiny one and I've discovered the art of making proper Pina Colada's (chuck some stuff in, add cream and at least 2 bottles of rum!). We drove to Santiago (because it's there! - stupid question) using a map we bought locally for 375 pesos and found it took us nearly two hours to get there in the rain because of the state of the roads, the town too confusing to actually stop anywhere and nearly five hours to get back because of the lack of signposts and the endless election parades we got stuck in (often the same one several times from several different directions!). Tina and I are JUST about talking again (why can't women navigate????) and I have a few words to say to the chap who sold me the satnav card that he said works in the Caribbean when I get back to the UK!
Are we living the Dominican life yet????:cheeky:
So, now we're settled, we found we had no internet connection except for an unsecured one which was only on part of the day. We asked around and a German chap said it was his and he would leave it on all day for us. I offered him something towards the price, but he wouldn't hear of it! 300 pesos to sit in a grubby plastic chair for 5 minutes and then free internet - I guess it takes all sorts all over the world!
To my question - We'd love to meet up with some of you ex-pats over here to pick your brains and we're mobile, given a rusty Toyota and providing you give us FULL directions of where to find you (or the name of a good divorce lawyer PM'd directly to ME). Are there ever any get-together's on the north coast? It would be nice to meet with a few other Newbies and less intimidating than just you long-established, mega experienced guys?
If not, (and there should be, so when I'm established, I'll start some), would any of you care to meet up with a pair of barely-speaking-to-each-other-without-a-satnav plonkers like us??? Please PM me - have rust bucket, will travel......?
Oh, and now the cynics amongst you can rip all this apart to your heart's content - we're HERE and LURVING it!
