here and there 11-18 to 11-26

I dont usually give trip reports, because i dont usually stay at resorts very long if at all.
But i do get around and I see lots of things.. This last trip I made a few excursions, one being a duck hunting up on the north coast west of Nagua, in a tidal flow swamp. What a sight...lots of wildlife...the fishermen working their nets and traps...being poled along in the shallow soft bottomed bays. saw plenty of ducks and even managed to harvest a few. The mangroves grow all around, so thick you have no idea where the shore actually is. They grow down into the water and form a set of bars preventing any passage. Since we didnt see the numbers we expected we abandoned that set up and went looking for the ducks and or sighting of them. Which led us to many thousands of acres of rice fields beign worked. Where not to our surprise we found thousands of ducks...all dead . Seems in this area the rice is planted by throwing in onto a muddy prepped field then flooded....instead of the pre grown stalk of rice being planted by hand. As such the ducks come in at night and gorge themselves on the rice.. It was said that sometimes they fields are stripped of 50% of their planted rice in a single night. So the workers spray the rice fields after they throw the rice seeds with poisons. Seems to work pretty good. Kinda makes my 4 ducks pale in comparison..HUH?
It is an adventure to be out off the beaten path...something I really appreciate. I am sure in that swamp way out back , when i walked with my waders across the flat...I walked where possibly no man has walked for hundreds of years maybe more.. The fishermen used these really rinky narrow boats that didnt look like they would last 10 minutes before they sunk....On the way back in we passed some very old wodden huts. On one insrcibed over the door was the letters S.M. with the date 9-42......history stands still way out in the sticks.
On the way back from la Vegs coming into LiCEy Via the aiport road....traffic was stopped and being rerouted...i figured and accident, because the road has a deep cement trench on either side of the road..( no place to go if you leave the road surface) the detour took me the very long way around and onto the Avenue duarte(rt 14) into the middle of Li Cey...when i hit that road it was obvious what the hold up was. there was a protest going on. Tire were burning in the street garbage was all over the road and several building sites had hundreds of their cement blocks busted in the road way...it wa a maze getting by , and there were few people about until i got to the light where the airport road connect...thats where the military and police vehicles were stacked up. One being and armoured personel carrier. there was only one car on the road besides mine and we were going the same way....I wish i had my camera when i passed the soldiers kneeling on every corner some had their guns aimed at a second floor window across the street. as if they were waiting for a target to engage full riot gear..flack jackets, helmets, face shields, and FALs......
My Gf told me that she thinks it has somethign to do with the highschool........
when I get time i'll report about my stay in sosua at Sosua By The Sea for two nights......and a few trips to the stadium to watch the Aquilas win...
bob

me and my GF planned to attend the T day bash at rockys in sosua. I had previously asked about hotels in town that fit my needs, and hopefully were as nice as the Piergorgio hotel which we have stayed at a few times already. The trip was uneventful except for the detour through Puerto Platta....is wasnt as bad as i have experienced there before though...but i think i missed a turn and we ended up all the way down on the Malecon!.

But just before we got there we pass a guy pushing a vendor cart and he is selling boilded cor on the cobb.....my gf is crying for it.....but I didnt want to try and turn around....so i said well get the next guy.... there wasnt one...and she said forget it lets keep going....well once in Sosua and settled...we thought about eating and that corn on the cob couldnt be held back from taking front stage...soooo we asked around......and asked and asked....the best we could work out was the Hotel we stayed at.Sosua By The Sea said if we go buy the corn , they will cook it up for us.....so off we went. and we found it on Pedro Clisente down at that little grocery store...in a pack of three...dont know how long it was there. but we bought it any way.. we went back to the resturant at the hotel and told them what we wanted....along with the rest of the meal we ordered off the menu......it was a nice meal , the only problem was i think the corn was cow corn...super starchy and tough...my GF took 2 bites and said no forget it, ha ha ha...I am gonna pay dearly for passing that corn guy for a long time.

The Hotel was nice, the room was big..we opted for the slight upgrade to see the ocean...( didnt even bother looking at it much in the end , because it was just a slight "view". the furnishings were nice in the room and the bed was great...the bath was a little tight......and the bathroom is where I judge the quality of a room....super clean big nice looking bathrooms make an impression on the rest of the room to me.. it looks like they spent some time taking care of the room, but left the bathroom like it probably always was...a few areas of chipped porcelin, and not enough room to move around.....

the room had a side room with a pull out bed-couch TV and fridge..I liked that...
the access to a balcony was in that extra room . But you could not close the door to latch the door closed because of a rusty hinge...but i called the desk they sent a guy up and together we figured out how to fix it, so I could lock the door......the beach isnt much to speak up, but the hotel was more than nice enough for me....it was close enough to walk into town as well..and there was a nice hair salon across the street for my GF.....$110 a night.....One drawback was the construction going on RIGHT next door on another hotel..actually remodeling...and for both mornings a guy hammered away with his sledge on what will someday be a window openeing....after two days he almost had a 3 foot square hole where they used to be only a 8"x 18" ish sized window....I could have spit on him.......both figureatively and literally....he was our alarm clock each morning......

I got sucked into a time share pitch.....I was really hungry and the guy said the Sosua Bay Hotel had a resturant overlooking the bay I could eat ate after the pitch..and he could earn $25.....we took the pitch( about 1 hours worth of time) and ended up the resturant wasnt open till the evening..it was about noon! we checked out the room at the Villa next to Sosua Bay where the time shares were...but i wasnt impressed... the bathroom didnt pass the test, and the room were on par with Jack Tar Villiage in Playa Dorado....( not that great)....even the super upgrade.. wasnt much to speak of...even with its curved staircase t a second floor bedroom and high vantage to see the bay.......and at $17K with a $50 per night fee...for 25 weeks of nights.....it was laughable.

the regular Villas were $4K with the $50 per night feee, that got you the same 25 weeks of stays..........BUt you got to book Jetblue into POP for $174..in the wee hours of the night.....not my cup of tea.

On to Rockys gig....we got there late because of a 2.5 hour hair do....(the salon was nice but busy and a little slow) cant ruch a woman getting ready... and then I didnt take advantage of all the members being in one place to get around and meet more of them.....I guess i was too shy..

hope everyone else had a good time.... I didnt even see a card game materialize.....Did Howmar even go??????

the meal was just like home...great job....Ted didnt have to say half the Im sorry for the delays.....he was so worried about making everyone happy and getting them their food in the order they came in....I felt bad for him.....

I guess the murder of that Fiscal Happened while we slept or were out dancing...but we never heard a peep about until we saw all the Bloggin Blondes at Field of dreams friday mid day.....

On the way home we stopped at the Los Colinas mall...in santiago....not nearly finnished, but it will be a very nice mall when it does get done...there were about a dozen stores already open....looks to be either three or four floors .......looks as american as any mall around here......I actually sw DRYWALL......first time in the DR........

anyway...If I get a chance Ill post up about more of the trip later


bob

hello again....I dont know if I am putting people to sleep or not...since my report basically isnt a resort type feed back thing.

anyway...for anyone wanting to go see a dominican baseball game. here is how we went about it. My gfs favorite team is the Cibeo Aquilas.....I get that right? She really watches a lot of the games on TV. But has never made it a game in person....there were two home games sceduled while I was in town and one in San Fransisco De Macoris... which was close enough to be a possibility....

we got to the first game a little late, but quickly bought a banner for my GF...and then the hordes of vendors hit us like a wall!!.....they were polite though..no rude comments...then the scalpers( if you can call them that there) found us...the guy said the tickets he had were close to the first row... I cant read them, the writing is so small.. and my GF doesnt know how the stadium is laid out...but the guy wanted 600 pesos each..and said the stadium was sold out for seats this close..and the other seats that we could buy from the ticket counter would cost us 500 pesos....I dont have a lot of leverage to challenge him....so when he was done..i told my GF to take the tickets over to the cop standing all by himself.. and in her best little cute innocent tone...ask where these seats are.....dont ask him if they are close...just ask him "where"....sure enough he said right up front.

we bought them and went in side like a breeze....they had a stadium employee blocking the stairs down to our seats to keep people without those tickest out..they let us by...we were behind the screen behind home plate just off to the side a little...great seats except my cameras auto focus kept trying to focus on the netting instead of the players on the field when I took pictures.

we had a blast...we were chatting with everyone around us about the game and anything else......one note.. they sold a small can drink..about the size of a redbull....and it had alcohol in it....it was wierd tasting...and had a weird name....it was all in spanish..so they dont sell it in america....it could not have been more than 8 oz.....my GF was seeing stars after about half of it!!!!!!!!!........I thought she was going to pass out....I had the rest... and later that night.. I felt like a got a buzz....on HALF of it.....
and we watched her open it in front of us....
anyone know about it?
the Aquilas won!

the next time we went I invited my GFs mother..and she was estatic to go!..but our rental SUV broke down on the way in Li Cey....but luckily the rental company guys were there in 30 minutes with another car and off we went again( over heated and died)....NOT bad...i thought the night was ruined...
so we showed up about the same lateness..( third inning).. this tme the guys rushing to sell us tickets were shoving and pushing each other to be the first to get to us...I really though it was going to come to blows.....this time i wanted seats over behind the home team dugout...so we could see the players close and watch the hot cheerleaders... ( and they were hot) ( man can they bend)....well the guy wanted 800 pesos each...and said they were exactly were we wanted....( come on I am thinking)...we checked with another cop..and sure enough they were!!!!!!!!!!! but i only offered 600 pesos each... and he took it fast....so in we go, and sure enough we got the seats we wanted...4 th row up off the dugout....Jose Lima was pitching..i think he leads the league in wins...we got a picture with him last spring at one of the discos in Santiago....I think he is my GF favorite player... That team has a few major league baseball players on it...the game was great and our team won again!!! The guy with the TV camera came aroun dand found my GF..they got her on TV and put her face up on the huge screen above center field!!!!!!!!!!thats was nice...

Later on in the week, we met Luis Polonia at Rancho Tipico in Los Colinas...in santiago...my GF recognized him at the bar....with a girl that we found out was his daughter! we talked a little, nice guy.......we told him my GF was the teams new good luck charm.....he said he wanted her to come to all the games.

got lots of pictures.....too bad the cheerleaders moved around so much...... lots of blurs

sorry it was alittle long winded

till next time.....

take care

bob

thats it for baseball......

no it was a dark colored can I think......

the picture I saw on the link you provided showed a light green can.....

bob

CFA123 said:

LPFan,
Maybe it was a Caipiri?a Veritas?
Their logo "Brasil en lata" means Brasil in a can.

Point Of Solutions has a photo of the product.

Click to expand...

well I asked my GF and she tells me it was...carpirina..extra berry

but it didnt look like that can shown at all

nice catch there.

bob