This is talked about elsewhere in the world but I think we all know waht it is....
My best cure is an airport..
Agreed - we all get 'worn down, short tempered.. fact of life in the 3rd (OK 2.5) world
But then, when you least expect , along comes a nice pick-me-up
I had one this afternoon
WIFE'S CAR
needed the annual oil/filter change and tire rotation... ordinary stuff
I have a man in RSJ who does mine - Javier by name... fluent English
You would have thought I was Jackie Stewart in an F1 race...
In/Out in 15-20 minutes.
Oil/Filter/Labor 1400 pesos
Tires flipped 200
Done like dinner
Not even time to fetch a beer across the street
Sometimes life's easy here
When I would get stressed in the Capital I would check into one of the All INclusives for a mid-week SPA trip-
These were particularly lovely in the rainy season and summers when there were few foreign tourists and Dominicans only on the weekend...
The rates were amazingly low.
If I could go with someone with a cedula, the rates were really - REALLY low
I never felt that a trip back to the US was much of "stress reliever" - I travelled back for about 3 months a year for the first 3 years during the beginning of my 14 years there- kept a car at my nephew's place. But then I started to figure that in those months I spent about what an entire year cost me in the DR and instead spent the money on round trip tickets for various folks to come visit me. When they came, I would get a week's "vacation" as a tourist - showing them around the Zona Colonial, up to Las Terrenas or down to Pedernales. There is SO MUCH to see in the Dominican Republic. So many places that most folks never see.
If you have never been to the high pine forest outside of Pedernales? Which is like Canada? And actually gone on the back of a MotoConcho? Well- I can not say that you have never Lived - but you have certainly missed something.
There is an adorable hotel right near the border- near Elias Pina - outside of San Juan de Maguana - which is a high plateau and the weather is beautiful. It has a great swimming pool and owned by a Haitian (or at least it was) who has an AMAZING chef..
If you get a new copy of the Lonely Planet guide to the DR - or the Moon Guide from the UK - or the French guide (I forget the name ) you will get the most recent listings of all the adorable little hotels that are always opening (and some closing)...
For those of you who can actually afford a trip back to the USA, it will be much cheaper to send a ticket to a kid, a grandchild, nephew, niece, old friend - and travel about the DR with them.