Ray: Santo Domingo, Dominican Rep - New buddies
Trip Start
Dec 27, 2007
1
19
80
Trip End
Dec 28, 2008
Santo Domingo,
Dominican Republic
Thursday, February 28, 2008
The pathway through customs in DR was so much simpler than Cuba that we couldn´t quite believe it. Spending a total of 20 to 30 mins getting through was as painless as this process is likely to be as they simply wave you through to the next station and before you know it you´re through. We came out into the main terminal and were greeted by lots of smiling faces lined up on either side. I felt a bit like Hugh Grant in Love Actually as he arrives back at Heathrow to be greeted by his girlfriend who rushes at him, jumps up and plants a big sloppy kiss on him. Sarah wasn´t quite in that mood but I was feeling pretty good about arriving in a new country. Apparently this is the destination of choice for a lot of people. Over 300 000 tourists a year, the most of any Caribbean country. I met a young Canadian guy later who told me it only cost him $99 to fly there from his home town.
We sat down for a while to take in the atmosphere which seemed so different from Cuba. The airport was modern, new and seemed to have the latest airport gadgetry to let you know where you were, what time your flight left etc. Things you often take for granted until they´re not there. Sarah sorted out our accommodation by phone. I´ve been truly impressed with the way she has learnt Spanish and speaks to most people comfortably. Me, I´m still muddling my way through simple words and phrases. Oh well I´ll get there.
We got a taxi into town, some 12 kms away. Sarah wasn´t too pleased it was going to cost $35 US to get there after she read somewhere it should cost half that but we got in and motored our way towards Santo Domingo, the biggest DR: city. We could see it in the the distance and in the twilight it looked beautiful. The motorway ran alongside the coast where palm trees and the sparkling water immediately captured your attention. Picture postcard stuff. Especially with the light fading and the street lights taking over in the twilight.
It took 35 minutes to reach our new digs, a hostel run by an elderly American woman, Bettye. She´s a bit of a character too and has lived in D.R. for a long time. She looks a little like Angela Lansbury from Murder, She Wrote. Yes, I am showing my age but it´s who she looks like! With big square glasses and a real American accent when she speaks Spanish. She´s very friendly although not as endearing as some of the others we have met. Still, I like her.
We got a couple of beds in the dorm upstairs and thought we had it to ourselves but met a young American girl, Liz, who´d been there for a week with a friend. She was leaving the next day but told us a couple of interesting stories. Liz and her friend had been robbed at gunpoint earlier in the week when, as she admitted, they were silly enough to be out walking by themselves at night in a posh neighbourhood, near the malecon. Her friend had been trying to change some money at a hotel and most of her important documents with her. They were all taken when they were held up. Liz, who has been with the US Peace Corps for 2 years in Peru, and knew better than to carry lots of money and important docs, only lost a few pesos and her driver´s license. She seemed remarkably composed for someone being held up at gun point but again it just reminded us again to not get too careless or reckless.
We met two other guys here whom we formed another tight wee group with. Chi, a Hong Kong lad, and Jun, a Korean. Both were lovely guys and we had a few laughs together. Chi was sort of a naive but earnest guy living in the States and going to Uni. He asked a million questions. We invited him out for tea the next night. Jun had just arrived and put out his back with his extremely heavy pack. However, we learnt that "tea" to some literally means tea. Chi thought he was going out for a cup of tea and had made other plans to go out for "dinner". We had a lot of fun going through words and phrases commonly used in NZ but not much elsewhere. He laughed to himself when the next morning we said " coming to breakfast?" and he replied, " breakfast means breakfast, right?". We smiled.
Jun has been on the road for 4 years and is finally making his way home after a little pressure from his parents to settle down and get married. Having travelled for 4 years though, he is uncertain as to what the future He also said he doesn´t feel Korean anymore, "in here," hand to heart. He can speak 3 or 4 other languages including Spanish. He had a French girlfriend until just recently and his old job he had before travelling no longer had any appeal. He was an advertising director for a TV station and a he told me he worked 7 days a week and got a few hours sleep each night. Not the lifestyle he was looking for after 4 years on the road.
Chi looks your straight up and down type of guy and Jun a more cooler, beach bunny type. We all decided to head to La Vega together to see the carnival there commemorating their Independence day.
We were staying in Bettye´s hostel as mentioned which was fairly close to a plaza just around the corner which had a statue of Christopher Columbus and another cathedral. Columbus is famous around these parts for having landed here first when discovering the Americas. He was an Italian working for the Spanish. Apparently he left a small party of 25 soldiers here while he went back to Spain for more money, ships, crew etc. He returned a year later to find they had all been killed by the local Taino or Caribe indians. In the years that followed the Spanish wiped out the whole native population either through illness, slavery or massacre. In 30 years the numbers fell from approx 300 000 on first contact to less than 1500. I´ve learnt a lot about the brutal and ruthless nature of the Spanish during those times and didn´t realise the extent to which they ruled part of the world along with the British, French and Dutch.
Sarah and I went for a walk as we often did around the streets of Santo Domingo. Very narrow streets with concrete buildings where doorways and windows were protected by wrought iron. They were much cleaner in places but very dirty in others. We often passed what we called "dead zones" where the smell made you want to puke. We wandered along the waterfront where container ships were busy unloading. Our intention was to find a nice beach-like area to relax and enjoy. Unfortunately, while the coastline can look spectacular from a distance as waves smash into the craggy rockscape, on closer inspection we realised that there were huge areas of rubbish that lined the coast. It seemed such a tragedy that people would treat something so beautiful in this way. Empty plastic bottles, chip packets, polystyrene food containers either floating in huge areas or simply lined every nook and cranny along the coast. It made me feel sick to my stomach. The little beach we did see was covered in mounds of rubbish and a woman was rummaging through the litter for God knows what.
We left the area to find a fort that was built a few centuries ago. Something more cultural and hopefully more pleasant. We couldn´t find it at first and you´d think finding a huge fort wouldn´t be much of a problem except that directions we´re given are often very general although they sound very specific they are actually only an "over there somewhere" type of directions. Sorry, had a few problems with directions on this trip. Eventually we got there and had a good look around. The walls still had cannons lined up along two of the walls and there were a pile of cannons sitting next to them. There was a 3 storeyed fortress in side the fort were soldiers obviously fired out in relative safety because there were only little slits for you to place your gun and nothing else. Up top you could fire from behind the walls and you had a good 360 view so you could see the enemy approaching.
On the actual grounds there were more modern artillery weapons. The boy in me took over and Sarah couldn´t believe how excited I got but I just remembered all the games of war you played as a kid and the commando comic books you used to read. Haha. Anti-aircraft guns that you could actually sit on and turn the wheels to aim. It was a lot of fun, until of course the guard saw me and motioned to me to get off. He neglected to tell the local boys to get off the guns they were playing on but I guess I´m used to being treated like a foreigner these days, Oh well, good fun while it lasted.
That took up one day. Another day we had this great idea to go to the local beach area for some real RnR, We asked for directions to Boca Chica. Haha. Directions. After an hour and a half of trying to find the bus station which apparently was just around the corner we finally found it smack in the middle of Chinatown. Yes, they have a Chinatown. Why the directions didn´t include that vital piece of information I´ll never know. Anyway, we boarded a 25 seater bus and settled in for the, supposedly, 30 - 40 min ride. Well, the ride itself was an adventure. Although it is a 25 seater bus there are fold out seats at the end of the row so that you have to fit five people across. Now the backseat you could understand could fit 5 at a tight squeeze but there were 2 seats together, the aisle and another seat. the fold out seat would surely mean 4 people across but no you to squeeze another person in. In the en we had about 40 people on the bus and anytime anyone wanted to get out half the bus had to get up.
It was a nightmare with all these people being crammed into the bus and half the bus having to get up and reshuffle because you had to fill up the seats from the back to the front. Musical chairs in a bus. The music was very loud, they like loud music everywhere and anywhere, and to make things even more interesting a couple of young guys were on the bus drinking! Yep, you can get drunk on public transport! They were giving people a hard time, not too silly though. A mexican guy got on the bus, yes we can tell them now, and he joined in. Lots of laughing and spilled drinks. Not easy to drink when the driver is crazy too. They also have this guy who tries to get people on the bus and collects the money. it seems like you stop every 2 mins to pick somebody up or watch chase some people as potential passengers. The whole trip was an experience and a half and we got to do it all again on the way back. Haha.
The beach itself was beautiful but crowded as you can imagine. lots of hotel/ restaurants too that Sarah and I just walked into and helped ourselves to the buffet lunch only to find out that you had to be staying at the hotel. We had to pay the chef and the security guy under the table. Haha. Bribery! We walked along the beach but couldn´t find too many places free and the music was so loud you could probably hear it several kms away. Many people brought their $40,000 stereo systems to the beach with them. Man were they loud. Burst your eardrums loud. Well, that was our experience of the beach. Awesome!
When we weren´t seeing the sights of the city we just relaxed back at the hostel reading, talking or for me playing my PSP. I found a fellow enthusiast in Jun who had a PSP too and played it more than I did. He told me Koreans loved playing games and I ended up giving him a few more for his collection. I´m telling you this because this was his 2nd psp. In his 4 years on the road he has had everything stolen several times. he used to have a laptop but had it stolen twice so now he tries to travel without big luxury items although obviously a psp is a necessity.
We enjoyed going out to tea with Chi and Joon and Sarah became Mother Hen deciding where we were going, what we were eating and how much each of us was paying. We had fun times chatting about a lot of different things.
We moved onto La Vega as mentioned to see the parade there and it was awesome.
