Wednesday’s plan… 10 minute taxi ride, to a 1.5 hour bus ride, to the north coast of the island for a 15 minute boat ride to spend 2.5 hours on “Paradise Island”. Sounds ridiculous, right? Yay, I thought so too, in retrospect. But it turned out to be worthwhile. Especially to see Maeve and Theo enjoying the fish. But I get ahead of myself. The drive was air conditioned and an interesting drive to the north coast. Where the roads were surprisingly good. There was only one stretch that was bad, but that appeared to be roadwork replacing bridges. I did question how long one of the bridge replacements had been going on, but I’m sure they’ll eventually finish it. We again passed another Major League Baseball player’s village and the mansion he’d built nearby. Someone who played for Philadelphia. I actually saw a large muscular native man running on the road later. Both Kate and I looked at each other as it was not a normal scene in the DR, casual exercise. Seems a luxury not known to the DR. I immediately thought ‘major leaguer’.
We came across more cattle in the road, and donkeys and dogs. We stopped for a quick pit stop for a bathroom break where Zeke decreed ‘no frickin way’ when he found only a “countertop” in the boys bathroom (actually a urinal). We bought a few local crackers and used them to pacify the kids on the remainder of the trip. We, as always, coated them up with sunscreen before arriving at the final stop, where we put on life jackets and jumped on a speed boat for a quick trip to the island.
Theo really enjoyed the boat ride. Theo enjoys anything fast.
We arrived at the island, which was surprisingly tiny. Just a pile of sand with about 6 or 7 shaded shacks.
Later, Theo (54 secs), Bryce (55 secs), Zeke (50 secs), Maeve (44 secs) and Dad (52 secs) raced around the Island. It was only 50 seconds around the whole island by foot! I’m sure I could’ve beat Zeke, but I’d had a few Rum and Coke ;-). Maeve was surprisingly fast, but she knew a few shortcuts.
The purpose of the trip to paradise island was the snorkeling. I swam with Theo most of the way and enjoyed having Theo point out any fish that tickled his fancy. There was a simple diversity along the reef. Maeve became concerned that she couldn’t make the full trip, but with a buoyant vest she had no problems. And the guide stayed with Maeve and fed the fish Octopus to pull them in. Maeve had a great time. We did a loop around the reef and circled back to the island where fresh Papaya, banana, and watermelon awaited us. The kids especially loved the papaya.
Kate and I had appreciated the shirt one of our paparazzi, Eddie, was wearing. We’d asked Eddie where he’d bought it so we could get one like it. Turns out it had come from his girlfriend’s daughter who was a 6’8” volleyball player for the Dominican National team. Kate jokingly asked ‘how much’. Zeke, Bryce and I went out for a 2nd trip snorkeling, but Bryce got a cramp and we did not get too far. No biggie, cuz at that point it was already time to leave the island back to the mainland.
Back at the mainland there was a feast of food awaiting us that was excellent. Unbeknownst to me, Kate had later finished her conversation with Eddie and had settled on a price.. $30. Unfortunately we no longer had $30 on us, but Eddie was trusting enough for us to pay his buddy when his buddy dropped off the DVD/CD of the day. I felt awkward leaving Eddie shirtless, so I offered to give him my nice Devil’s triathlon shirt in exchange. We loaded onto the bus with full bellies for the long drive home. One stop at a tobacco shop to see how tobacco was made and the obligatory gift shop and we were on our way. Then 2 more stops for 2 kids that had to go potty. First Theo, who got a special potty stop along the side of the road and ran down to a tree to do his business. Then Maeve who was able to stop at the house of the friend of the driver. THEN, we were back on our way. A few more local biscuits to placate the kids and we were soon back home. This time the bus took us all the way back, but being that the road in front of our villa was difficult for a bus to navigate, they dropped us on the main road below our villa and we walked up. Kate warmed up the meal Nellie had prepared for us and we talked about our day over a nice meal.
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