Day 7: Snorkel Day

Snorkel Boat Trip

We decided to do a boat trip in Sosua DR today, to swim, snorkel, cruise, and spend some time on the water. The hardest part was getting up early enought to have coffee and walk to the main road for an 8:45am tour bus pickup. We made it with plenty of time to spare. Billy our guide and salesman showed up on a motorbike and the Van was packed so Tom decided to take the bike with Billy. It was a "Then came Bronson Moment". The boat trip included some good food and way too sweet rum punch. Cuba Libre's (rum & coke) were the drink choice, water for some. The boat had dive board on the top deck and a slide, so besides snorkeling on the reefs, we had some fun swim time. All made the jump, and Nan did the slide. The food was good and the rum was plentiful. We got back to the Vill around 1pm and napped by the pool, then retreated to the AC for better nap. We decided to take a recommendation for dinner and we headed back into Cabarete to the Beachside Italian Restaurant. We had dorado, Pizza and cesar salad, it was all excellent. We ere surprised that it was not very busy on Sunday night, only a few tables were in use. Great day, good fun, food, and friends again made for a great day on the water in the DR.

Tom decides to ride the bike

Then Came Bronson

VroomStarr's

AlanYoli

Tom the biker

Tom Flying High

Yoli making the leap

tom getting mounted

Alan getting his dance on

Nan taking the slide

Day 6: Back to the Beach

We start the day with a good cup of joe, then we do a repeat to Ojo's Beach club bar & grill. Today we had sushi and another round of Pina Colada's. Ok I had a few, Yoli had cappuccino with Nan, and a banana momma frozen drink in there somewhere. We spend the day at the beach, get our walk on and catch up on some senseless reading and youtube. It was a very relaxing day on the beach with friends and a whole lot of sunshine. We spent a good six hours at the beach before heading back to the villa for showers and dinner plans. After hanging at the pool at the villa, Tom realized that he left his favorite cup at the beach. We head back to Ojo's and bam! they had his cup! They are jamming some good beach tunes so we decide to grab a table for a drink, we check out the dinner menu and decide to stay for dinner. We are getting to be the Ojo fan club. All the food was excellent, we had sushi, salad, pizza, and fish tacos. All were excellent as for the drinks too. Great day, with great friends, on the beach in the DR @ Cabarete.

Dinner at Ojo's

@ the pool Villa

Cabarete Beach

Day 5: Back to the Airport

Today we made our first trip to the beach in Cabarete. It's about a 2 mile drive to downtown where we went to Ojo's Beach club. We got there around 10:30am and snagged a couple loungers and umbrella on the beach just as they were setting up. It was not crowded but more people continually showed up, mostly foreigners (snow birds) from places llike Canada, New York, Germany, etc. all enjoying the 80 degree winter here in the DR. We had a nice lunch on the beach and dip in the ocean. Local peddlers came buy selling the usual stuff from hats, jewelry, cigars, massage, or water excursions. We called it early and headed back to the villa around 1:30pm. We dipped in the pool and then headed back to the airport. Today Tom and Nan were flying in to visit and they landed at 3:30p from DFW/MIA. It was a 45 minute drive due to Friday traffic and man they drive crazy here. They pass on the shoulder and in on coming traffic, the motorcycles are like flies buzzing around you. Gas is 239 pesos/liter which converts to about $15/Gallon thus the reason all the motor bikes, little skinny ones not big American bikes. Funny to see a small motorbike with a family of three or four passing you on the shoulder. We got to the airport and picked up our party of two and make our first stop the grocery store to reload up on rum and a few other things. We hit the pool a bit, sip some local rum, and then make our way to dinner. We decided on a place called Yalla. "Yalla" means "Hurry up, go faster", and I don't think it described the food service, must be something else... Anyway, we had a nice meal, with the sound of the waves and beach view, but it was dark, so you could not see the beach, but you could hear it and their always seems to be a nice breeze in Cabarete. A short walk back to the car and then back to the villa, another shot of rum, then we turn in for the night. A fun day, pool, beach, dinner, & friends.

Day 4: R&R begins

The weather is absolutely perfect, sunshine and 65-85F everyday this week. We slept in this morning of course and now that we have food, it was time for coffee and breakfast, Or I should say brunch. I made egg bagel sandwich and yoli had a deli sandwich. Today we laid by the pool and just got our R&R on. About 3pm we decided to head into Cabarete to pick up a few things we missed at the grocery store in Sosua. We stopped by a couple kite shops as well to scope out the local scene. Not a lot of crowds, but a bit of traffic on the roads, not bad since it is the only road along the coastal towns.

We finished the day with a spaghetti dinner at the villa and then movie time. The TV seems to disconnect or lose audio randomly, gotta figure that out. We ended up watching on the iPad a few Netflix.

The DR also experiences power outages, and fortunately, the villa has solar and a lithium battery bank to get through the brown outs. This is nice to keep the frig and lights on as they happen weekly and at random anytime.

Day 3: Provisioning

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.

Villa Living Room

Pool side loungers

Guest Bedroom

Day 2: On to Dominican Republic

Pool Time

This morning we catch a flight (same flight, just a day later) to DR. The whole time, it is cold, rainy, bad weather and we are not wearing real warm clothing as we don't want to drag it to the DR where the weather is to be 65-85 while we are there. We get to DR around 3pm, pickup our rental car and drive 15 miles through traffic in Sosua to get to our AirBnB in Cabarete. Ernst & Beate the owners of the Villa is waiting for us. Its 84 degrees and we are in jeans and long sleeve shirts just melting. We get the tour of the house a 2B 2B villa with its own private pool. After we unload our bags, it's time to jump in the pool. We need groceries, but will put that off until tomorrow as it is now dark. We did get a bottle of rum as a house warming gift and we packed a large bag of trail mix. So Rum and Trail Mix for dinner, tomorrow we start our quest for food, drink, and maybe some beach time.

Kite art at Airport

More Pool Time

Day 1: Dallas to DR

Today did not start out too well for plane travel. the plan was to fly from Dallas to Charlotte, then to Puerto Playa Dominican Republic. Was a great plan until we woke up to 3-4 inches of snow. When we get to the airport, we are delayed at the ticket desk filling out the DR migration form online. Then, the security line was way backed up with only one TSA person checking ID's. 45 minutes later and and run to the gate, we miss our 7:00am flight by 5 minutes. We rebook on 8:45am only to not make a connection to the DR. We spend the night in Charlotte at an airport hotel.