This trip was to spend time getting to know part of the south coast. There were no plans made in advance with the exception of the flight booking.
We flew into La Romana late on a Monday night. We took a taxi to straight Boca Chica and checked into the Castello Italiano hotel. After freshening up, we hit the main drag, trolling for food after the day of travelling.
The main street was blocked off to traffic and was transformed into a giant beer garden type setup. It was almost 11 PM so a lot of the places were already closed for dinner, but we found a small Italian pizza parlour and enjoyed some slices. It was a Monday, so although the music was blaring and the clubs were open, we didn't find it particularly busy...The streets were somewhat empty.
The next morning we went to check out the beach...To our surprise, it was very busy! The majority of the folks were Italian and European tourists and the average age was at least 60 I would say...My impression was that Boca Chica at least in that area is geared to families and retirees...being in our late 20?s early 20?s it wasn?t our scene.
We couldn't find anyplace to really enjoy Domincan food or music...not that we don't like Italian food, but being from Toronto, we can get that at home!!! So we decided to check out of the hotel and take a taxi to Juan Dolio.
We found the Fior di Loto hotel and we got a couple of rooms at an unbelievably low price of $10 US. That was perfect for our group, considering we'd planned to only stay there for sleeping and showering! The hotel was very clean and secure and very unique. We also liked the fact that Juan Dolio was on the main highway and we use it as a "home base" to take day trips to Santo Domingo and San Pedro de Macoris on a budget. We decided to stay there for the rest of the week.
We enjoyed the public beach and spent some time between day trips at the Don Pedro pub, El Bambu and the Oasis cafe. It was another very Italian town, but we were able to walk mostly everywhere on foot and we found a couple of comedors to have some comida criolla, although I can't say that was the best Dominican food I'd ever eaten. We ventured across the highway to El Conucos which was a more typical Dominican barrio. It was a very quaint, tranquil place.
Juan Dolio for the most part, outside of the All-Inclusive resort area was very quiet. The public beach was very tranquil and the water was warm. There was a tremendous amount of shells/coral remains that made the floor of some spots a little rough on the feet, but overall it was very pleasant. One person in our group would?ve enjoyed some waves for surfing etc., but the rest of us were very content with the tranquil waters.
We also noticed that a lot of the business/hotels were vacant or for sale on the main street as it appeared to us that Juan Dolio was at one time a very busy place that had calmed down after some time. I hope things change as I saw a lot of potential in that area.
Some of our dinners were at the cafe Raymond on the main highway. The Italian owners were gracious and served generous portions of both Italian and criolla food. The first night we we ate there, two of us ordered steak, only to have a small panic attack when the owner came back with a platter of meat!!! We weren't sure what to do!!! Later, we found out that we could just take the pieces we wanted and leave the rest...it was fun!
We took the publico into Santo Domingo and visited some friends in the east end and central parts of the city. On the one rainy day, we took an opportunity to see the Sanky Panky movie which was fun!
We explored the Zonal Colonial and El Conde. I loved the vibrancy and diversity of that area. It was very clean. There were cleaners everywhere picking up every shred of garbage.
On another day we took the publico in the other direction to San Pedro. Then we hired some motoconchos to drive us around the city where we stopped at the malecon and some other places of interest. It was different to a lot of the other places I'd been in that I found it very industrial...and people were very busy. The malecon was literally deserted as it was a mid week. We were told that the place comes alive with street vendors and local visitors on the weekend.
Fortunately for us, we found a poster for Jhonny Jon, a local merenguero who happens to be an acquaintance of ours...we returned two nights later to take in his concert at a graduation party for IPONA class of 2007. What an adventure!
It was a Friday night, so we were looking forward to our first full night out considering the curfew ends at 2:00 AM. We took the guagua to San Pedro and we couldn't find anyone who knew where the concert was. Luckily a motoconcho driver dropped us at a campus of IPONA where after a stream of qualifying questions like "how do you know Jhonny Jon and where do you come from" etc, an employee actually offered to drive us to the venue.
We paid our entrance and sat by the stage. The DJ started the evening off with a few good tunes while the sound people set up the stage. Suddenly we noticed that the Guarda had come in and was demanding cedulas from everyone. They were arresting anyone who was underage. Fortunately none of us are, although one person in our group did not have any ID with them and almost got taken away!
First, there was an announcement at that only anyone who was under the age of 17 had to leave. A few minutes later someone made an announcement saying the club was to be closed and everyone was to go outside. People moved quite slowly...maybe too slowly for La Guarda so they shut ALL the lights off. Thankfully in this day and age we all guided ourselves out by the light of our cellphones and cameras.
The youngsters (about 50% of the crowd) were escorted off in handcuffs in the truck. Everyone else remained calm, some people left while others started wondering what the club was going to do with our cover charge.
After about a half hour the club opened up again and we went inside to try and enjoy the music, although the sound check was never properly completed. We couldn't really hear the singers although the band was nice! Jhonny was surprised to see us - it was a good laugh...
Back to Juan Dolio...our last night was Sunday as the plane was leaving late Monday evening.
We spent most of the day at the beach which was full of Dominicans and street vendors. We enjoyed pi?a coladas at Don Pedro, chicken and pork skewers from the Japanese owners of Colmado Naito and Jhonny queques from the vendor outside El Bambu?
Sunday night, Fior di Loto had a pyjama party. It was funny to watch some of the chicas dancing with the resident "tigureon" a retired New Yorker who was staying there. We enjoyed ourselves very much although there was an undertone of sadness as we knew we'd soon leave our new "home".
The next day we checked out late, spent a few hours in Santo Domingo to say goodbye to our friends and went straight to la Romana airport.
Arriving quite early, we were disappointed to find that our flight was somewhat delayed due to bad weather in Toronto. We weren't sure what we'd do for the rest of the evening, but things changed quickly. My travel buddy was stopped at the medal detector by some sort of captain of the national drug enforcement agency for what they called a "routine" inspection, while myself and what seemed like all of the other passengers on our flight glided on through...
One officer was particularly abrupt with her, so she started to complain quite loudly. This afforded us an opportunity to be taken to the back offices for more questioning and the threat of an x-ray. We had nothing to hide except for the fact that we were thoroughly annoyed at the pace of the questioning...
We each had to sign a paper acknowledging that we'd been questioned and we made our way off to the waiting area, where we were then free to have a good laugh at ourselves (although we weren't laughing when we were being questioned).
Here ends my trip report. There are some miscellaneous pictures posted here mostly of our unique hotel in Juan Dolio and some of the sites...My group didn?t want any personal pics shared, so I had to leave the majority of them out.
Juan Dolio and Santo Domingo - I will definitely be back!
I hope you can see the pictures posted here:
Yahoo! Photos - nanissar's Photos - Juan Dolio-Santo Domingo Feb 2007
We flew into La Romana late on a Monday night. We took a taxi to straight Boca Chica and checked into the Castello Italiano hotel. After freshening up, we hit the main drag, trolling for food after the day of travelling.
The main street was blocked off to traffic and was transformed into a giant beer garden type setup. It was almost 11 PM so a lot of the places were already closed for dinner, but we found a small Italian pizza parlour and enjoyed some slices. It was a Monday, so although the music was blaring and the clubs were open, we didn't find it particularly busy...The streets were somewhat empty.
The next morning we went to check out the beach...To our surprise, it was very busy! The majority of the folks were Italian and European tourists and the average age was at least 60 I would say...My impression was that Boca Chica at least in that area is geared to families and retirees...being in our late 20?s early 20?s it wasn?t our scene.
We couldn't find anyplace to really enjoy Domincan food or music...not that we don't like Italian food, but being from Toronto, we can get that at home!!! So we decided to check out of the hotel and take a taxi to Juan Dolio.
We found the Fior di Loto hotel and we got a couple of rooms at an unbelievably low price of $10 US. That was perfect for our group, considering we'd planned to only stay there for sleeping and showering! The hotel was very clean and secure and very unique. We also liked the fact that Juan Dolio was on the main highway and we use it as a "home base" to take day trips to Santo Domingo and San Pedro de Macoris on a budget. We decided to stay there for the rest of the week.
We enjoyed the public beach and spent some time between day trips at the Don Pedro pub, El Bambu and the Oasis cafe. It was another very Italian town, but we were able to walk mostly everywhere on foot and we found a couple of comedors to have some comida criolla, although I can't say that was the best Dominican food I'd ever eaten. We ventured across the highway to El Conucos which was a more typical Dominican barrio. It was a very quaint, tranquil place.
Juan Dolio for the most part, outside of the All-Inclusive resort area was very quiet. The public beach was very tranquil and the water was warm. There was a tremendous amount of shells/coral remains that made the floor of some spots a little rough on the feet, but overall it was very pleasant. One person in our group would?ve enjoyed some waves for surfing etc., but the rest of us were very content with the tranquil waters.
We also noticed that a lot of the business/hotels were vacant or for sale on the main street as it appeared to us that Juan Dolio was at one time a very busy place that had calmed down after some time. I hope things change as I saw a lot of potential in that area.
Some of our dinners were at the cafe Raymond on the main highway. The Italian owners were gracious and served generous portions of both Italian and criolla food. The first night we we ate there, two of us ordered steak, only to have a small panic attack when the owner came back with a platter of meat!!! We weren't sure what to do!!! Later, we found out that we could just take the pieces we wanted and leave the rest...it was fun!
We took the publico into Santo Domingo and visited some friends in the east end and central parts of the city. On the one rainy day, we took an opportunity to see the Sanky Panky movie which was fun!
We explored the Zonal Colonial and El Conde. I loved the vibrancy and diversity of that area. It was very clean. There were cleaners everywhere picking up every shred of garbage.
On another day we took the publico in the other direction to San Pedro. Then we hired some motoconchos to drive us around the city where we stopped at the malecon and some other places of interest. It was different to a lot of the other places I'd been in that I found it very industrial...and people were very busy. The malecon was literally deserted as it was a mid week. We were told that the place comes alive with street vendors and local visitors on the weekend.
Fortunately for us, we found a poster for Jhonny Jon, a local merenguero who happens to be an acquaintance of ours...we returned two nights later to take in his concert at a graduation party for IPONA class of 2007. What an adventure!
It was a Friday night, so we were looking forward to our first full night out considering the curfew ends at 2:00 AM. We took the guagua to San Pedro and we couldn't find anyone who knew where the concert was. Luckily a motoconcho driver dropped us at a campus of IPONA where after a stream of qualifying questions like "how do you know Jhonny Jon and where do you come from" etc, an employee actually offered to drive us to the venue.
We paid our entrance and sat by the stage. The DJ started the evening off with a few good tunes while the sound people set up the stage. Suddenly we noticed that the Guarda had come in and was demanding cedulas from everyone. They were arresting anyone who was underage. Fortunately none of us are, although one person in our group did not have any ID with them and almost got taken away!
First, there was an announcement at that only anyone who was under the age of 17 had to leave. A few minutes later someone made an announcement saying the club was to be closed and everyone was to go outside. People moved quite slowly...maybe too slowly for La Guarda so they shut ALL the lights off. Thankfully in this day and age we all guided ourselves out by the light of our cellphones and cameras.
The youngsters (about 50% of the crowd) were escorted off in handcuffs in the truck. Everyone else remained calm, some people left while others started wondering what the club was going to do with our cover charge.
After about a half hour the club opened up again and we went inside to try and enjoy the music, although the sound check was never properly completed. We couldn't really hear the singers although the band was nice! Jhonny was surprised to see us - it was a good laugh...
Back to Juan Dolio...our last night was Sunday as the plane was leaving late Monday evening.
We spent most of the day at the beach which was full of Dominicans and street vendors. We enjoyed pi?a coladas at Don Pedro, chicken and pork skewers from the Japanese owners of Colmado Naito and Jhonny queques from the vendor outside El Bambu?
Sunday night, Fior di Loto had a pyjama party. It was funny to watch some of the chicas dancing with the resident "tigureon" a retired New Yorker who was staying there. We enjoyed ourselves very much although there was an undertone of sadness as we knew we'd soon leave our new "home".
The next day we checked out late, spent a few hours in Santo Domingo to say goodbye to our friends and went straight to la Romana airport.
Arriving quite early, we were disappointed to find that our flight was somewhat delayed due to bad weather in Toronto. We weren't sure what we'd do for the rest of the evening, but things changed quickly. My travel buddy was stopped at the medal detector by some sort of captain of the national drug enforcement agency for what they called a "routine" inspection, while myself and what seemed like all of the other passengers on our flight glided on through...
One officer was particularly abrupt with her, so she started to complain quite loudly. This afforded us an opportunity to be taken to the back offices for more questioning and the threat of an x-ray. We had nothing to hide except for the fact that we were thoroughly annoyed at the pace of the questioning...
We each had to sign a paper acknowledging that we'd been questioned and we made our way off to the waiting area, where we were then free to have a good laugh at ourselves (although we weren't laughing when we were being questioned).
Here ends my trip report. There are some miscellaneous pictures posted here mostly of our unique hotel in Juan Dolio and some of the sites...My group didn?t want any personal pics shared, so I had to leave the majority of them out.
Juan Dolio and Santo Domingo - I will definitely be back!
I hope you can see the pictures posted here:
Yahoo! Photos - nanissar's Photos - Juan Dolio-Santo Domingo Feb 2007