Tuesday – Funicular

Tuesday was our city day tour and a ride to the top of the mountain on the funicular. We’d read this was a real treat and not to be missed. We were holding the funicular for a clear day.  It was not a clear day but you could say it was clearing.  Sandy said it would be clear by mid-day, so we decided to go despite the dark skies. Modesto, our driver, who had also driven Kate to the supermarket earlier in the week, was a mild-mannered man with good English.  At one point we were stopped in city traffic and the window washers approached our car.  Modesto said No firmly, but they washed his windows anyway.  He pulled up a cup of coins which he seemingly kept for exactly this purpose, rolled down the window and gave them their stolen wages.  He explained as we drove off, that he never has problems when his cab is empty, but when light-skinned tourists are in the car, he always is approached and seldom is able to say no.  Often the workers demand more money because the (rich) tourists are in the car, but he says no and pays them only the few coins a window wash is worth.  We drove on into the town and drove up over the poor area of town where you could look down on the corrugated tin roofs tightly packed together. 

He named a few major league baseball players that had grown up in that area of town and now, after their first contracts, had built mansions on the hill and moved their mother and family up into the mansion.  They truly were mansions with gated entrances.  He made a point of showing us one house that had cameras throughout including the gated front entrance.  This sort of thing is more routine in the states, but to him this was impressive.  The mayor of town also had a mansion in this area.  In our brief discussion it seemed the mayor was liked.  He’d given a lot of money to the town, including a brand new baseball field. 

The next stop was the amber museum.  We wove through the busy streets of town, seemingly busier than the boulevard highway that ran the ocean front because of the city street’s narrowness.  The amber museum was the house of a German immigrant.  It was built in the early 1900’s and at that time was quite the social center of town.  Then worldwide depression hit and the man had to sell much of his holdings including his sugar mills and fields when the price of sugar plummeted from 35 pesos to 1 peso!  He held the house, but it fell into disrepair.  It was actually completely vacant in the 60’s and early 70’s and was renovated and reopened as a “museum”.  The quotes only because the purpose of the house seemed less a museum than a jewelry store.  The museum was small but fairly well done, with a guide and everything.  The guide told us that the amber is prehistoric from trees that are extinct.  The trees used to seep sweet sap that attracted bugs which would get trapped.  Their most famous piece was a small lizard trapped inside amber, and was also their logo.  Another tidbit… They’d worked in some capacity with Jurassic Park and for their work, they got the rights to use the Jurassic Park logo style in their Amber Museum sign.  Like I said, the museum seemed to mostly support the business of the air-conditioned jewelry store below, where they sold amber, an interesting light blue stone called laramar (the national stone), and some silver and gold.  My guess is the renovation of the house was actually a business plan started when the North Coast of the DR became such a tourist destination.  Kate had come with extra money intending her souvenir to be some sort of Amber trinket.  She had a simply necklace specially made.  The kids each found something here too.  Zeke and Theo found blue amber (the rarest of the 10 or so colors of amber found on the Dominican Republic)

After purchasing all that we headed downtown to the central square for a quick drive by of the Catholic church, and onto the Spanish fort.  We jumped out of the air-conditioned van to see the views from the Spanish fort without going in and spending too much time there. As soon as my foot hit the pavement a pair of men had approached me to sell me trinkets.  They were quite insistent, placing a trinket directly into the hands of my son, Theo.  I had to say No Gracias several times and just keep walking.  We walked up and around the fort to see it up close and see some of the views out to sea.  Here’s some of that view.  Look close and you’ll see our kids in front of the entry.

We headed back to the van.  After a few more ‘No Gracias’, we were back on the road.  Heading to the funicular.  And the disappointment that the sky had not yet cleared.  We went up anyway, because it would be another taxi ride to get back there and we’d really run out of days.  And besides, maybe the hill would be above the fog that seemed to be engulfing the top of the mountain.  This is about the best the view got before we were engulfed by the fog.

About 3/4 of the way up, we entered the fog.

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Unfortunately the fog didn’t clear by the top.  Ahh well, some you win and some you lose.  There was actually a nice walking path at the top through trees and botanical gardens and with the fog and elevation it made for a nice cool walk, but because of time spent at the amber museum and extra stops (though quick stops) on the city tour, the kids had become hungry and were not up for the walk.  To make matters worse, we stopped in a little souvenir shop with more aggressive salesmen.  We looked at a few things and they latched onto our semi-interest.  Kate had really wanted a purse for Maeve and I wanted a gift.  Between the 2 things we “talked them down” to $40.  So for $65 (taxi) and $60 (funicular) and $40 (souvenirs) we’d come home with a few trinkets and a few photos.  But not much else. 

Kate helped salvage the day by starting up a great round of Marco Polo with Maeve and Theo.  Soon everyone was in the pool.  A testament to the fun Kate was injecting into the game.