My adventures in Dominican Republic

2005-01-03T03:41:00.000-08:00

Dominican Republic is our third Caribbean vacation after Guadeloupe and Martinique. We expected a warm and relax vacation as before. But it turns out to be an adventure.

The whole trip is not smooth. Before departure, its embassy in Ottawa was irresponsible for my passport. I got it only a couple of hours before my departure. My conference in Italy was fine. I joined ch in Paris. We flied to DR on Dec. 22 from Paris. Unusually, Air France used 2 hours to board the passengers on the 747. After, a passenger was sick. We waited another half hour to remove herself and her luggage from the plane. We arrived in Santo Domingo 2 hours late.

Our visit of Santo Domingo was fine. It was the first European city in the new world. Columbus had a forte and a family palace on its coast. The old colonial city has a cathedral and many old colonial time houses. We could see its people are poor. From our Rough Guide, 90% of the population lives a life under poverty line, which means less than $1 dollar per day for living.

We drove to Jarabacoa in the centre of the Island. It is a city in the mountain for escaping the heat in the summer and the nearest city from the volcano peak, Pico Durate, of over 3,175m. Think about you have to climb from all most the sea level, it is very high indeed. It has 4 trails to the top. The shortest one takes about 2 days. We did not prepare for this. We looked for other trails that we can walk for a couple of hours. But we did not find anyone described in the Rough Guide. We visited some waterfalls near our hotel Rancho Baiguate. It was very easy walk. We thought this vacation would be a very easy one.

We stayed in Jarabacoa for 2 days and then left for Las Galeras on the Samana Peninsula. It was a small and quiet village. Our agency made a mistake with the hotel. When we arrived on the beach hotel at 7pm, the hotel wanted us to stay in a shabby bungalow 2 km away. I refused. We were lucky to find another very good hotel on the same beach by the first try. The next two days we had a real vacation, visiting beaches and swimming everywhere.

The Richon Beach is the most beautiful beach we ever visited. The wild white sand beach is accessible through an unpaved road. It was surrounded by a mile wide coconut trees. We parked our car under the coconut tree. We walked along the 3 km long beach and swam for time to time. We came back to our car at about 3pm. When we were changing clothes, two local boys approach us and pointed us our flat tire. Ch is not a man to do the bricolage. The two boys seemed to know what to do. They began to help us changing the tire. I immediately suspected that the two boys counted for the flat tire. Our rental 4*4 was a 1998 year Honda, too old for a rental car. In addition, the tool to change the tire did not work very well. We tried more than two hours to loose 4 screws. The older boy left for some tool which we did not understand in his village. We stopped another car for help. The man is very helpful. He had a better screw driver and knew better how to do the work. Finally we succeeded. When we drove our car to meet the boy who went to the village, we saw he arrived with an air pump for bicycle. If our flat tire was caused by them, they were sure not to consider if they could handle the situation. Finally we gave them RD$300 for the help, which about UD$10. Later we found out in a garage, it costs RD$150.

Our last stop was Las Terrenas for 4 days. We read on the Boucher that this hotel had Internet connection. But we found out this hotel has one phone line at its office for phone and Internet and it is not for the clients to use. The bungalow was designed stupid. Its downstairs has a bar and chest, without chairs to sit. The upstairs is low to stand up. It has a bed, a desk and a chest, still no chairs. We looked at a fan if we lay in bed. Laugh, we had to sit outside as the local people all the time. The difference is that the local people watching the street all the time, while we could read. The manager of the hotel was just not trustable as the people in its embassy. He just could say anything for his own convenience.

We visited Parque Nacional Los Haitises. We saw many birds, mangroves and relics of Indians. The park is facing the Smana Bay. Every January and February, thousands of whales come to the bay to mate and have babies. We are a half month too early to watch whales.

Our adventure was summarized on the last day when we drove from Las Terrenas to Santo Domingo which is about 180km away. We found our muffle was broken in the morning. We broken a tire after 20 km. We used 1 hour to change the tire. The spare tire is not so good. So we decided to go to a garage to repair the tire. Finally we bought a new tire for about $45. The technician assured us that the muffle is not a problem. So we drove this loud car to continue our journey. Not after we drove another 20 km, we found the bridge was broken by the rain of last night. Ch discussed the map with the local boys. I was worried to see he was surrounded by the boys unable to read the map. Finally we picked one boy to lead the road for us. We detoured on a road not labeled on the map for 1 hour to pass the river. Four hour past, we did not go very far. We began to worry about not able to catch the flight. Since there was no flight on the next day, we would be obligated to stay two more days. Obviously we both were tired of this island. Ch drove the car like crazy. We waited impatiently when we were stuck in the crowded villages. Finally we arrived at the airport just at 6pm, the time for returning the car, after leaving hotel for 8 hours. We felt we were safe. I was so panic that I insisted on passing the costumer to wait before the gate. Our flight was delayed by a sick passenger again. Just unbelievable coincidence. It was new year’s eve. Air France had no special preparation for the food. I slept most of the time. Once I saw the attendants were gathering behind us and checking the name list. In the morning, we were told that a passenger died last night.

Things just went wrong like crazy. My unbelievable vacation was finished.

My trips

My adventures in Dominican Republic