Sarah: Santo Domingo, Dominican Rep - art bonanza
Trip Start
Dec 27, 2007
1
20
80
Trip End
Dec 28, 2008
Santo Domingo,
Dominican Republic
Thursday, February 28, 2008
The Dominican Republic (DR) has a very Caribbean feel to it - there is always loud music playing somewhere - their specialty is merengue (donīt really know what it is though). The people are black or hispanic, many very attractive (but the clothes arenīt quite as skimpy as in Cuba, much to Rayīs disappointment!) There are tons of stray dogs everywhere and of course tourist areas are their favourite. One night we were having dinner in an outside restaurant, and a pack of seven grown dogs started having a brawl only a few metres from us! Then thereīs another one I see regularly. Heīs nothing but bones covered in skin. Most days at some stage I see him lying on the pavement and I have to stare each time to make sure heīs still alive. Ray frequently gives away a good portion of his meal to them - heīs such a softy.
People often ask if ray is Dominican - so far heīs been called mexican, cuban, italian, peruvian, dominican and tongan - well at least thatīs close. He doesnīt look anything like the above, but I guess they donīt get many brown tourists!
We spent a week in the capital, Santo Domingo, at a gorgeous hostel-art gallery. I bought 5 paintings one breakfast! There is artwork EVERYWHERE! Never seen so much in one place, itīs incredible - sandra you would LOVE it! We went to the first fortress in the Americas, pretty cool. The city also has the first hospital and church in the Americas. We saw Casa Colon, an impressive colonial building/castle where the Columbus family lived for four generations (Christopher Columbusī brother, Diego, governed the country for many years.) While I was visiting Casa Colon, a young boy about 10 started hassling me for money (he was well-dressed and did not look hungry). I said no a few times, but he kept persisting - "senora! senora! SENORA!" Then I started telling him to go away, in those words, and waving him off, but he was following me and was right in my face. I said "go away!" forcefully at least three times before he left me alone. Five minutes later I saw he had been grabbed by the Tourist police and was being held by the wrist, Dickensian-styte, while indignantly pleading his innocence.
Iīve had my hair braided again, this time professionally, and with extensions. It looks heaps better than last time. It took four people four hours to do. Four hours of pain that is! Pull yank, rip, break pull yank yank yank. All the while talking very loudly in my ear. At one stage one of the other customers got tired of waiting and pitched in too. That made 5! It cost about $150 which is ok cos in NZ it costs several hundred.
Wednesday was Independence Day here, and we went inland to the town that has the best carnaval (Spanish spelling) in the country. We had met a Korean guy and a guy from Hong Kong at the hostel, and we decided to go as a group. They were great guys. The carnaval parade was pretty amazing - first there were schools from all over the country going past doing a dance/cheerleading routine - girls, with boys making up the percussion band that accompanied them. Then there were a coupleof religious groups, and lastly, people in full dragon/monster costume with masks, roaming around very energetically and whacking people on the but-tocks (as Forrest Gump would say).
One of the more frustrating experiences weīve had so far was trying to go to the beach in Santo Domingo. Itīs a little town called Boca Chica about 30 kms east of SD. It took us about an hour of walking around to find the bus stop (weīve been given so much misinformation and so many poor directions weīre too scared to ask anymore!) We were one of the first on the bus so sat in the back seat, fortunately as it turned out. The bus stopped every 30 secs or so to let more people on. Even if there was no one waiting, the cash man would jump out and walk up and down the street trying to round up business. People were directed to sit two to a seat, so as to fit as many people as possible on. There were two seats down one side, an aisle, and one seat on the other side. However, there was a fold-down seat that filled up the aisle. So weīve got five or six rows of 8 people sitting on 4 seats and whenever someone wants to get out, nearly everyone has to get up, fold up their seats and suck their tummies in to let the disembarker off! It was such a comedy of errors, and we did manage a laugh, despite the fact it was about 40 degrees inside the bus, 90% humidity and we had to go through this for over an hour! mmmm.
Once we got to the beach, it was really crowded - being a sunday - stank of fish because there were dozens of stalls deep frying fresh, whole fish, and you couldnīt hear yourself think because nearly every car had a set of Jonah Lomu speakers in its boot blasting out merengue so loud it made your rib cage hum.
Itīs a busy, noisy place Santo Domingo, and definitely has that quintessential Caribbean feel to it.
