Same as usual, breakfast, sun screen, and hit the road. This time a short walk out our back gate down the hill to Ocean World. 
The weather for Ocean World was hotter than any of us would’ve liked. We required sun shirts and hats to protect from the day’s worth of sun that we’d be exposed to.
After getting our assigned dolphin swim time of 3 pm, we swung by the shark tank and the manta rays then stopped in at the bird houses. Check out Theo’s face of awe as he sees the birds being fed. Maeve has bird seed on her head.
We saw some parrots and some toucans, stopped at the strange combination of a swimming area that allowed you to swim up to the plate glass of a tiger’s cage. We headed back towards the gift shop to see the baby sea lion, who was about a year and a half old. They had us sit on the top row to alleviate the anxiety the sea lion felt being near humans. Followed immediately by the sea lion show.
They did many clever tricks including one skit where the sea lion was told not to eat the fish, but once his trainer left the stage he immediately at the fish but went into the cooler of fish and placed a new fish on the spot the eaten fish had lied. Pretty clever animals. This is one of the sea lions dancing the maramba with his trainer.
We ate a quick buffet lunch (included in the price), watched the bird show, then headed over to the coral swim. Got this photo of some strange fish in the tank. Look oddly familiar!
From there we saw the dolphin show, and then it was time for our dolphin swim. The swim turned out to be more of a photo op, but we did get to touch them and ride on their noses and have them launch over the top of us. Very memorable. I’ll add some of those shots later.
The kids enjoyed playing at the water slide after the dolphin swim. The boys were playing king of the mountain and then started getting pushed off by some older boys, which they were completely game for. We all climbed the slide and launched down the other side. Kate helped Janie climb to the top.
We had to pick out our photos from the dolphin swim. I’ll tell you, they lose a LOT of customers with their poor user experience. First off, they didn’t tell us it would take 20 to 40 minutes to pick the photos, and they didn’t tell us it would take another 30 to 40 minutes to create the CD and DVD. Had we known the long procedure, we certainly would’ve come to the shop immediately after our swim. One woman next to us was almost brought to tears when she overheard the 30 minute wait on the CD. Her bus was leaving in 12 minutes. She stormed off like a child who’d been scolded, so upset because she’d really wanted to buy a photo. The computers were running windows, and were not locked down. I was able to bring up Task Manager, and it would’ve been a simple (and FASTER!) task to simply pop in a thumb drive and copy all the images. But no thumb drive on me. We did finally find the photos we wanted while the kids waited near the dolphin pens. Theo and Jane tried being trainers to make the dolphins do tricks. No luck.
The counter to pickup our CD/DVD was right next to the gift shop, so we killed our wait there. Alright, I’ll admit that’s a good idea on their part, requiring a half hour wait near the gift shop. Still would’ve been nice to know the wait time earlier.
Bryce had been wanting to get some Dominican Pesos to bring home to his brother. We hadn’t seen any coins in the Dominican, so planned to stop by the ATM I’d visited earlier in our trip at Ocean World and get some Pesos. Unfortunately my card was ‘not authorized’. Not sure what happened to it since the first time I’d used it successfully at the same ATM just a few days prior. Perhaps the bank put a stop on it when they saw the large withdrawal from a location outside the states?
With Bryce’s US dollars backing up what remained of ours, we still had enough money to go to a restaurant. And chose to go past Chris and Mady’s, past Ohoro, to Los Charros, a Mexican themed restaurant. We were greeted by our waitress, Eunice, whom we found out later was the owner’s daughter. She spoke excellent english, but what really stood out was her hospitality. Offering us her mosquito repellent when Kate mentioned she was unable to find hers, and suggesting that we split one of the meals for the kids. She introduced us to her littlest baby, Pucci, a chihuaha who was patrolling the restaurant, and her bigger baby, her 13 year old daughter. Kate and I both noticed how impressive the 13 year old girl was for coming out to a table of strangers and making cordial conversation. She seemed almost happy to be in what was certainly a somewhat awkward situation being beckoned out to a table of strangers to say hello. She spoke excellent English as well, the secret (besides having a mom and grandpa who spoke) was that she went to a private international school. Later an older gentleman visited our table again with great hospitality and conversation. As we spoke further, we learned that he was Eunice’s dad, Tim Tousenilli. He was born and raised in New Guinea, met his wife from Ecuador, and opened this restaurant with his wife. He brought out some house sauces to try with our chips, and later remarked at how Bryce and I had finished the hot sauces. He mentioned that they had some fresh habanero in the back that he’d like to bring out, but when he found out that I’d ordered the chicken Mole’, brought a different spice that better complemented my meal. It was terrific. Best meal I had on the island. The family agreed all around the restaurant was the best. Only Theo and Bryce were slightly disappointed having originally ordered hamburgers only to find out that because of the Easter weekend they had run out of meat for the burgers. Still they liked their backup meals, just had had their minds set on American fare. By the end of the meal, Maeve had completely fallen asleep under her napkin. Theo was fading too, but found new energy when he saw 3 kids playing freeze tag outside the restaurant. He, of course, simply joined in. They played for 20 minutes or so. As we were wrapping up to leave, Tim surprised us when he walked out with keys and said, please let me drive you to your villa. We declined but thoroughly appreciated the sincere offer. We talked a little more and found out that Herman Spencer was a good friend of his, working with him in a charity group called CitiHope http://www.citihope.org. It was inspirational to see this quiet, humble network of Americans giving back to a country and culture they so appreciated.
Los Charros – 829-962-4343
Had to include this story from the back of their menu… (uncertain on its authenticity but there is a wikipedia page on him! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Cofresi)
In the year 1818, the galleon, “El Mosquito”, laden with stolen Spanish treasure, billowed into a small cover on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The Caribbean’s most notorious pirate, “El Pirata Cofresi”, had just pillaged his second Spanish galleon on the high seas. Now head had cunning plans to bury his new treasure near Fort San Felipe, which protected the port city of Puerto Plata. The Spaniards would never look so close to their own fortress. Pirate Cofresi, with his notorious “boarding” hatchet in hand, led the way ashore and buried the treasure in the center of a reef-sheltered bay, a mere 5 nautical miles west of the fort. Legend has it that after burying the treasure, Pirate Cofresi “rewarded” his landing crew with a fabulous, siesta-inducing feast of Tacos al Pastor and a bottle of 100% Agave Tequilla… before slaying them all. This reef-sheltered bay still bears the pirate’s name Cofresi. It is believed that the treasure was never found.
The kitchen is supervised by Juanita Vazquez who grew up in Acupulco and lived in Mexico City and Cancun and danced ballet professionally for 16 years starting in 1976.
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