Since we got in late afternoon yesterday, we decided to do our power grocery shop today. We have no food except for a bag of trail mix, salt, pepper, and water. Our AirBnB hosts said the Mercado Pola in Sosua was best for fresh foods and meats so off we went to the store. It is always an experience shopping for food in foreign countries to figure out the common things we have in the states they don't have here. We usually find substitutes but no always. We spent just over 13,000 pesos for a full (small) basket of food which I thought was not bad, we charged it on our Citi card and conversion came to $228USD that is roughly 58 to 1, the online rate I found.
As for money exchange, we did stop at the airport exchange booth yesterday and purchased 9,450 pesos for $200 USD. not a great exchange rate when adding the fee. It came out to 47 pesos to 1 USD, the going rate currently is 58 to 1 USD. We plan to use the credit card when ever we can. The car rental guy gave us a good deal for $30/day but wanted cash, so for 30 days that was $900USD. We rented from a local guy that lives in the same community as our villa and was referred to us by our AirBnB host. He is also the president of the HOA here and is from the USA living here for 10+ years.
We also spent a good part of the day unpacking and organizing our stuff as we will be here a whole month from Jan. 16-Feb. 16, 31 days before moving on to Santo Domingo for 5 days to visit Yoli's cousin and family relations.
