Thursday – beach morning

We’d planned no excursions for Thursday.  Really just wanted a day we could go to the beach and try our hand at boogey boarding.  I took the camera out for my run in the morning.  Got this shot on the road high above our villa looking down over Ocean World and the marina.

I continued on up over the hill and back down toward highway 5.

When I arrived at the beach, I was happy to see the ocean was as angry as we’d ever seen it.  It would make for good boogie boarding. 

But still within the limits of the yellow flag that advised patrons at the Lifestyles suite.  The red flag was evidently reserved for the worst of seas.  I got back to the villa with Maeve and Jane there to greet me at the front door.

I showered and we sat down to a Nellie breakfast of Eggs, Fruit and pancakes.

After breakfast we lathered up and headed down to the beach with the exception of Kate and Maeve who stayed at the villa.  The villa has a lifestyles key chain card and is stocked with blue lifestyles towels, so it was easy for us to fit in at the lifestyles pool and setup camp there.  We dropped the majority of our baggage at the pool and headed down to the beach with our boogey boards.  Theo and Bryce started by jumping waves, while Zeke, Janie and I attempted to ride some waves with the boards.  It took about 15 minutes before we realized we needed to catch the waves much closer to shore and take the short ride into the sandy beach.  Not as much fun as Kauai, but still fun.  Bryce won the prize for collecting the most sand in his shorts.  Later taking out a handful and after Janie said ‘gross’, he went into a 5 minute dialogue on the sand in his shorts just to bug Janie.  Bryce is a bit funny that way.  I sat for awhile talking to a woman who’d was just finishing a 3 week stay.  She said the only excursion she’d taken was a zip-line, which she’d enjoyed.  I couldn’t imagine just hanging out at the beach and Lifestyle complex for 3 weeks.  Would’ve driven me crazy from boredom.  But then again, I like to be fairly active on vacation.  We were in the ocean for a good 2 hours before a young duo of girls looking official in orange pullover vests approaches us and told us that we could not boogey board on Easter weekend.  The beaches were too busy.  I tried to beg for clarification since the beaches were nearly empty on Thursday morning, but evidently this rule was set in stone and we needed to stop.  No matter, between Bryce’s sandy shorts and Zeke’s abrasive swim shirt, we were ready to head back anyway.  I reapplied sunscreen in the hopes that we’d stay at the LIfestyle pool for awhile and play some volleyball over the net, but everyone but Jane and I decided it was time to head back.  So Jane and I went as well.  We ate lunch and spent the rest of the day just hanging out at the villa’s pool, in preparation for the big dolphin swim day on Friday.

Wednesday – Paradise Island

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.

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.

.

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.

Monday – horseback riding

The big event for Monday was horseback riding, mostly as a treat for Maeve who’s been begging us to ride horses.  But also as fun for Jane, to experience some new riding. 

The scowl you see on Zeke’s face and the smile you see on Jane’s face, was pretty much par for the day.  Beyond those 2, Theo enjoyed the horses a lot, especially having his horse go fast (no surprise there).  Maeve rode with a local 12 year old boy, Jeffrey.  Jeffrey kept it fun for Maeve.  Blasting ahead of us a few times letting Maeve be in the lead, and sneaking up behind us and letting Maeve slap our horses butts so they sped up on us.  Maeve loved it too.  Bryce enjoyed it as well.  He said it was only his 2nd time riding.  We started in the city and rode out to the countryside.  We saw a lot of poverty on our ride, but everyone seemed happy and comfortable with their lives.  Our jeep safari guide, Elvis, said it best the Dominicans have all they need.  Radio for the music and TV for the baseball.  Even in the country many families have these.

 

Nathalie was our guide.  She was a tourist from Belgium 1.5 years ago, when she took a 6 day equestrian trip through the DR, and fell in love with and married a Dominican man.  She spoke English, Spanish, French, and some German and Dutch.  I spent much of my time watching Jane and Kate, trying to emulate their form.  Only to realize that they rode a lot more forward than I could afford to without getting myself hurt.  Truly enjoyed riding out of the city and seeing the city fade into countryside.  On the way back we were stymied by a bridge that was out and under reconstruction. Nathalie phoned ahead and they decided to have the car pick us up near the highway, and they would ride the horses back to the ranch. On our redirected route towards the highways, we came across this “park” which was really just an open field with lots of kids gathered playing soccer.

Further down 4 young boys were swimming or possibly bathing naked in the stream under the modern bridge we crossed on.  The horses were great and never spooked despite numerous dogs coming up to greet us.  Another fun day.  (not as fun as Jeep Safari, but fun nonetheless).  Theo also enjoyed the “taxi" ride to and from the ranch, which turned out to be 3 of the 7 of us riding in the open bed of an extended cab pickup truck.  Theo chose the outside bed of the “taxi” both directions.

Sunday – Jeep Safari

Calling it a jeep safari is a bit of an exaggeration.  There’s no off-roading speeding through the mountain-side jungle.  Just a big open-boxed truck without seat belts to haul up to 20 people at once.  Still I was not disappointed.  Elvis was our guide.  Found out later he went to college for languages, in exchange for this public education he worked for the government (tourism) for 6 months.  He’s been working the Jeep Safari for 18 years.  He carried fun with him, was very good with the children and very good english.  We drove up over our mountain to meet highway 5 on the other side.  Their main highway running north and south. There was a landslide at one point causing traffic to narrow to a single lane.  Intersting part about the landslide is that the mud and dirt on the highway had been their long enought to sstart having well-establish plants grown on it. We drove down to “InBay” a small city along the way where we departed from the highway.  The city was busy with cycles and people walking.  Kids too as it was not a school day.  School in InBay (and possibly all of the DR) is only half a day.  Partially to allow twice as many kids into the smaller schools.  Some grades run as many as four shifts.  We stopped at a local artisan shop, where we saw a cock-fight.  There are sharp spikes growing higher up off the rooster’s foot that they use to strike eachother.  This is Bryce holding onto one of the roosters and releasing him on the count of 3.

Our roosters wore “boxing gloves” to cover these weapons and protect them (and us) from the real violence.  cock-figthing is big sport in the Dominican Republic.  Felt socially embedded Like bull-fligting in spain. Elvis said betting can be as big as $80,000 american on a match.  And the most expensive rooster is worth $100,000 american. The bloodlines of champtions are sought after.  The artisans worked there with limestone, petrified wood, and volcanic rock (imported from Haiti).  Our next stop was Mama Dora’s coffee and cocoa shop.  Elvis cut open a fresh Cocoa shell for us and we tasted it.  Sweet with a hint of chocolate.  Mama Dora made us natural coffe and natural cocoa.  We all loved it.  On the way out, our vehicle was stopped on the narrow road by a man whos son had spilled his produce off the donkey he was walking with.  It was scattered all across the road.  We jumped off the truck and quickly helped the man reload his fruit.  The donkey was very calm and let us scurry about him without a worry.  Elvis said the fruit was a bitter orange that they used to make vinegar.  Further down the road we ran into another donkey walking on his own carrying a similar load.  Elvis said he would stop exactly at the door of the owner.  Smart beasts.  Next stop was lunch before we headed to the waterfall.  After a nice lunch of chicken, pork, rice, beans, plantains and papaya we were off.  The highlight of the ‘safari’ was definitely the waterfalls at the national park.  We found out later that these waterfalls were used in the filming of Jurassic Park.  We left all our belongings at the truck guarded by Elvis.  Manuel carried a camcorder and made a DVD of our adventure which we later purchased.  I can post some of those shots later.  Our guides Nelson and Frantini were brothers.  They were essential in us sliding or jumping 7 of the 28 watefalls at the park.  For many of the falls, the way we went up was the same way we went down.  Just with them guiding where we stepped and hauling us up to the next level.  Our brothers were exhausted when we reached the seventh level.  The way down took much less time.  The water had formed natural water slides and all we needed to do was cross our arms and legs and enjoy the ride.  We wore protective helmets and floating vests for extra protection.  Maeve was not old enough to go down the water slides, but was able to swim in the first pool below the falls.  She made a new friend, Olivia, from Canada and was watched by Olivia’s grandma and mother.  They were easy-going Canadians riding in the same jeep as us.  The day was a complete success and a blast for all.  I’m sure the DVD is something we’ll enjoy watching over and over again, especially in the dead of winter. 

Arrival and Day 1

Getting here was a little complicated as we booked our flights “late”.  Being Easter week, we needed to be creative to keep costs down.  Had to fly into Newark, New Jersey and overnight there.  Which meant we had to go through security again.  I checked with a United Airlines worker hoping he would say we didn’t need the full 2 hours without check-in bags, but he suggested arriving the full 2 hours early.  We had a quick breakfast at the hotel and made it through security in 30 minutes, leaving us more than an hour to kill.  We had even more time to kill at O’Hare as we hit no traffic from Madison.  Just a bunch of expensive tolls (nearing $10).  Still have to pay one of those online as we ran out of change.  Flying out of Newark we saw the statue of Liberty and the downtown New York skyline.  Downtown New York looks so tiny from the air.  Flight to Dominican Republic took less than 3 hours.  Small (smaller than Madison) airport receiving us and a quick $10 tourist card for each of us and a near non-existent customs and we were in the country.  A driver holding our name awaited us.  The drive from the airport made it clear we were no longer stateside.  Dogs and chickens roaming free, tons of 70’s style cycles with helmetless riders, and men standing in the bed of moving trucks.

The house we are staying at separates us from everyone.  Quite upper end here on the DR.  Including a cook and her helper, Nellie and Rosemary, a night watchman, Ramone, an on-site maintenance man, Willy.  Another, Sandy, that I don’t know his official title and their manager, Gabino.  Gus stopped by yesterday and set us up with a few tours… Paradise Island and Jeep Safari and horse riding.  He also drove me down to Ocean World on the back of his 70’s style cycle and got me setup for Friday tickets to swim with the dolphins.  Interesting to see how much tourism supports here!  The house itself is impressive.  It’s got to have 20 (or more) different rooms.  After the Ocean World cycle ride, I walked by a room with the door cracked open and saw Willy relaxing watching some TV.  Here’s a shot poolside.

  

The house sits hillside with a commanding view of the ocean and ocean breezes in every window.  Yet still only a quick 15 minute walk to the beach.  I bumped into an older gentleman yesterday morning when going for my run.  He approaches me and offered that he’d built the property we were renting.  His name was Leo (Allotta).  He was born in Italy, worked for and retired from IBM.  Bought his house here back in ‘76 for $23,000.  Rented it when he didn’t use it and found he could make money doing that.  In retirement he decided he could build (as the contractor) properties and sell them internationally.  He’s built and sold 17 properties at this point, and certainly is making some money, but seemed to be doing it also just to keep busy.  Quite and impressive businessman.  He knew most of our staff personally, including training Gabino years ago on MS excel and giving him his start into managing others.  Gabino now manages the staff for all Leo’s 17 properties as well as others.

Gus, who set us up with all our excursions, was well connected.  He personally phoned a taxi driver who he knew spoke English, and called in a couple of ladies to do bead the girl’s hair and do their nails.  That was interesting in and of itself, as the lady who first arrived turned out to be the boss of the lady who later arrived to do their nails.  Another middle man.  You could see the influence Gus had having access to high-end Dominican spenders in these hillside mansions (and he has access to at least 17 of them, probably others).  Much better odds of making a sale for him in coming to the clientele that rent mansions like this than hustling excursions on the beach.  His access then equates to the power to pass that money onto others he knows.  I find that a very interesting dynamic.  Gus has lived his whole life in the DR, and as I sat riding on the back of his cycle as he expertly balanced and avoided the many loose rocks on the unpaved drive up to our mansion, I thought of him as a teen riding a cycle learning the skills that would one day earn him a good living in the DR.

I was surprised to hear also that much of our help is educated, from Nellie’s husband who teaches school, our taxi driver’s wife is a professor at the university, to Sandy who teaches languages at the university.

We spent day one poolside, just relaxing and hanging out.  Kate, Jane, Bryce and Zeke went to the grocery store to buy supplies with Nellie.  Maeve, Theo and I played in the pull.  And got sunburns despite coating down with sunscreen.  For supper we walked to the beach.  The weather turned quickly and we were caught in a bt of a downpour.  We stopped at a beachside restaurant that didn’t take Visa and found out later that we ate at the most expensive restaurant in the area.  Oddly enough they were playing songs from Grease and Zeke and Bryce sang along (as they are acting in a production of Greast for Spring).

Wandered home to finish our night with a movie on DVD.  Madagascar 2.  Love those penquins.  You didn’t see a thing.

Maeve’s pre-DR birthday

 

Maeve is one lucky girl, not because she got a lot of great gifts for her birthday today, but rather… she turned 6!  And 6 is the minimum age to swim with the dolphins at the equivalent of Sea World in the Dominican Republic.  We leave tomorrow, overnight in New York, and arrive in DR Friday morn.  Dolphins here we come.