marvelous trip to DR

first i'd like to say thank you to all on this forum for your help and insight on even the most trivial of questions. you make traveling in the DR most enjoyable and your obvious love for the country and people in DR is most appreciated just got back from eight glorious and exhausting days in the country and other than the chiggers/redbugs i am still suffering from:surprised and wife's gringo gut(i think she got it from airport food) all went off much better than anticipated or imagined. we put over 1600kms on our rental car so needless to say we saw more of the country than most who live there... and what a beautiful country it is! our journey got off to a rocky start( the large van we rented through dollar rentacar was nowhere to be seen and we were told they were out of business even though we received confirmation week before leaving) but rafael at budget in punta cana was extremely helpful and got us a car(after hours on sunday) and made our welcome to the country a most pleasant one. took good advise from members here and got a room in bavaro the first night(golf suites resort) and had a relaxing dinner at jellyfish restaurant..yum yum gabriel at jellyfish was most helpful as well and got us set up at the hotel and showed us the way.

a nice fellow at the hotel offered to take the next day off from work and drove us to santo domingo the next morning to our resort(acuarium suite) and showed us some of the colonial zone and we ate dinner with his family. the people of the DR are so helpful and kind! nothing against santo domingo or our resort but we decided we'd had enough(i hate ALL big cities) and we decided to go to jarabacoa. our guide and friend from the previous year got out of rehab clinic(i argued with my fellow travelers not to call him but they did and it all turned out good.. i told him i would personally break his arm if i saw him doing anything bad and i guess he needed a vacation too and hoped he would have fun and continue his rehab with us and he was, as last year very very helpful and we got to see many beautiful things with him as our guide) his name is cesar and if you live in punta cana area and he applies for a job with you he definately has our reccommendation as a reference.

jarabacoa was beautiful and just what we needed! we rented a huge house for $150us per night. the whitewater rafting at baguite ranch was one of the highlights of our trip and i encourage anyone visiting or living in the country who has not been to do it.. you will have the thrill of your life! will post more later and some pics but my time this morning is up:ermm:..

i wouldn't dare to drive in SD... the driving was awful and was definately the low point of the trip. i took over as soon as we were past SD on the return to PC just to give all our nerves a break..lol our cesar drove like a maniac and i saw no point in it and i even am glad i was driving through higuey on the ride back! we also went to constanza from jarabacoa on the mountain road and stopped and at a mountaintop home and had coffee. the people even offered to cook us one of their chickens for our return trip but we were not sure if we would come back that way. what a beautiful and challenging drive! i even tried the guinnea pig in constanza at lorenzo's restaurant. the following day we went to puerta plata to see the north coast(we wanted to visit samana but thought it would be too much drive for so little time and hope to do that area next visit). we ate at chris and mady's in puerta plata and for sure the day i decided to take drunk we ran into english speaking folks and they were all huge and looked like professional wrestlers so i couldn't even talk trash..lol bought them a mamajuana instead.

while in jarabacoa we stayed at the racket club in buena vista and looked forward to coffee and dominoes with the local caretaker emillio. once again the people were all so friendly all in all i'd say it was an adventure and not a vacation... but just what i needed. fortunately for me i live at a beautiful beach myself and really went to see the country, mountains and people. thanks again to you all and will post a few pics later as i'm not so techno savy