From the land of the Bluenose.....a smooth flight and in a mere 3 hours plus Marie and I had once again landed in the Dominican Republic for our long awaited vacation. The ground transportation was right on the ball and we were loaded and on our way to the resort...............we just drove by it. Shocked we found out that we had been re booked into another resort as the one we had thought we were going to was closed for renovations.
Place looked okay and was of the same "quality" and resort chain.
Um! A bed, bar and a wave pool
plus a regular one. What more could a bouy ask for?
Must admit I was aghast the next morning. A few years ago at a resort our wake up call was a rooster while last year it was one very verbose peacock with this resort having a very novel alarm clock....a woodpecker who throughout our 2 week stay did the dew promptly at 0615 on the roof. Only in the Dominican.
Within the third day the routine was set; woodpecker at 0615, breakfast at 0730, dig till 1200hrs then do whatever the better half wanted to do. And do we did taking a safari to a falls with the roads so bad that a mountain goat would detour and with a horde of children coming out of the woods screaming like banshees for candy. The drive was as peaceful as riding a bucking bronco with a hangover! The falls however were very pretty with some nice clear pools to beat the heat.
Marie taking full advantage.....not exactly swimming with the dolphins but the pool was full of fluttering fish.
One of the stops on this tour was to watch a rooster (cock) fight. Neat watching the handlers put "boxing gloves" over the rooster spurs so that they wouldn't injure themselves and be ready for the next batch of gringos with pockets full of pesos that drove by . A few of the young fellows on the tour get the battle rolling!
The drive back was also along some rough and pretty terrain. Just wondered what in the halibut folks did there....besides having off springs!
Had a fair amount of beach to cover which I did due to the fact that I was limited to the number of swishes as the waves made water digs near impossible. Making matters even worse was the new dance I had learned and was constantly practising..."The Dominican Diarrhea Dash." There was one saving grace on the resort as far as food and that was the "Lotus" where one waiter kept on saying, "I love my job!" while the other in his kungfu Kamikaze outfit jumped out at you with one chop stick hanging out each side of his mouth taking a "preying lotus stance." Man that is the thing that nightmares are made of. Praise the Lord for the bar and frequent encounters with "El Presidente" (good beer) and blue lagoons (pretty smoooooooooth) with no creatures coming out of them.
Got into a conversation with one of the ladies at the front desk whose husband Joseph had just received his Garrett Ace 250 so on a Thursday he picked me up and we did the dew at Sousa Beach which turned out to be his first use of the machine. Gave him some pointers as well as a hat and we spent a productive 3 hours combing the beach. For his first time ever Joseph did exceptionally well as shown by the big smile!
One day blended into another and before we knew it our vacation was at an end. Take for the vacation was 291 coins,6 keys, 2 dinkies, 2 kids rings, 5 silver rings, 4 silver earrings and a sinker.
At the airport in Puerto Plata Marie and I both had to go and open a piece of luggage which I didn't mind as their CTX operators I'm sure are not as well trained as ours. Why I point this out is that our only other piece of luggage that was not asked to be open ironically contained Marie's jewelry. Just before hitting the airport Marie had put her rings and things in a bag (one not asked to be opened at the airport) and then deposited into the luggage locking same. When we examined the bags at home.........the lock had been broken off, the good pieces of jewelry taken with the earrings and a bracelet strewn inside the luggage. Draw your own conclusion but a very nasty letter is being forwarded to the Dominican Airport Security and Dept of Tourism. The CTX scan would have shown the jewelry in the bag as it was the only metal in same. Marie's anniversary ring from work I'll replace as for the others.... I'll find more to replace them. This was my 6th trip to this country and the first real negative thing that happened to us.
Posted 05/08/2010 02:28 am
