My experiences in the Republica Dominica to date, not all but all i have time to write.. every day has been an adventure....I could write 100 pages but my adventure continues to consume me and every day I hope to catch my breath but it just doesnt happen.. no time for emails... but that is a good thing after my dreary life in Palmerton.
First off, I am in love with this place... Running into Ben Kuykendall in Key West a couple of months ago was one of the best things to ever happen to me,,, the country is mountainous and green and lush everywhere,, huge palm trees grow wild everywhere,, sides of mountains covered with them... plus other vegetation i cant even begin to describe.. if you get to a high point it is undulating green as far as you can see and then the blue of the ocean... like I said the color here is beyond description. due to infrastructure limitations, most of the population of 10 million is centered in the cities and towns, about 5 million between the major cities of santo domingo and santiago,, which leaves the back country of this huge island mostly unpopulated,, it is the most lovely place I have ever seen with my own eyes.. i might not get to the back country this trip, much to my dismay due to bugetary reasons... There are so many things to do here and see, you can go to the top of a 10000 foot high mountain if you want to be cold, go off roading (this is a huge off road adventure destination), white water rafting in the mountain rivers, diving (had at least 100 foot visibility the other day when i got wet), and mostly just chillin. Gringos as we are referred to here are held in high regard, so we are treated with mostly friendliness and respect, but at the bare minimum indifference. Very Bizarre and hard to acclimate to after being so invisible at home. The internet is everywhere and everyone has a cell phone, so it is very progressive from a communications perspective.
The populated areas of the Dominican Republic is teeming with life, it is like kicking the top off a huge anthill and looking down.. everyone moving, everyone participates in commerce, lots of color everywhere. Most dominicans at the lower classes dont speak any english,,, so you have to push through that to get around. my 4 years of high school spanish is starting to come back to me now.. i think ive tripled my spanish in the last week. Thanks to Ben, I have had the adventure of a lifetime. Ben has shown me the real DR and its people.. and will be forever grateful for that. Most of the economy in the back country and a lot of it in the main areas cannot be taxed and is black market.. you can walk into any pharmacy and buy anything you want, no prescriptions required, street vendors and peddlers are everywhere, selling everything from cell phones to viagra, the people are the most friendly i have ever met, i have never been even slightly afraid (all the resident gringos i have talked to have said the same thing) here and I have spent the night in the bario of puerto plata, walking the streets at midnight still alive with movement, and no one even took notice of the gringo in the strange hat..try that in downtown baltimore... there is a big disco here in the town we are currently staying where there is a doorman who collects guns from dominicans as they enter, makes sure the safety is on, and puts them in a cardboard box on the stairs next to him... it is very much like the old west "check your guns at the door" kind of thing. Anyone can buy and carry a gun here, even a gringo. i can write all day and not get it across,, Ben told me it was another universe and it truly is. The people here all struggle to survive, which in our culture would bring on crime and ugliness, but here it is just accepted as a way of life,, its always been this way... and it does not make them bitter or whine for government assistance.. they just do whatever they can, live whatever lifestyle they can afford, and move forward. Most people go to the DR to all inclusive resorts and never see what the DR really is.. they limit your exposure to the underbelly but thats where the life really is.
The food is wonderful and cheap.. ben and I ate at a sidewalk cafe yesterday in Iber, a little town, a full plate of rice and beans, chicken, and yukka, (i am not too big on yukka but he was out of plantains) the bill for both of us was 200 pesos,,, $5.49 usd a full meal for two.. that was out of the way small purely dominican town, the tourist towns (not all inclusives) are about 200 pesos for one meal... still a bargain as that is a really filling, good meal. mostly rice, chicken, beans, plantains, fish, basic foods, you can find any kind of food you want in the tourist towns but not in the back country.
Yesterday we went to luperon whose claim to fame is one of the prettiest harbors you have ever seen in your life.. when you look at this picture you will immediately conjure up images of annapolis but throw that away and imagine dirt roads, dust, noise, dissarray, shambles, etc... but in a way that somehow makes sense after you have been here for a while. We ate at sybils cafe, a friend of Bens from when he spent 3 months in the harbor. Sybil is a german expat who has been there for 6 years. and met Shaggy (if you saw him you would be looking for scooby doo)... who owns a gringo bar in town (www.shaggys.talkspot.com) this is a huricane hole for boaters who want to dissapear for a while or ride out bad weater, which has brought services here of sorts, and gringo money. there is a small gringo population im not sure of the number. the dominicans and the gringos get along perfectly well, separate yet together... dominican lifestyle and world outlook is just too different for us to blend into their world.. you wont find dreams and hopes and aspirations there... it is mostly survival and commerce that runs everything. Any star trek fans would recognize the Ferengi,, those profiteers with the big ears, who will lie to you with a smile for a few extra pennies of profit.. it is good natured business though, but everyone is a capitalist here. Basically here in Luperone most everyone Dominican lives in a shack.. by our standards,, periodic electric, and water.. they dont register the need to be orderly by our standards,, a cultural thing. like i said you dont go there thinking this is such a messed up place why dont they clean it up.. because it is cultural... different, not worse,, than ours. On the way out of town Ben wanted to introduce me to Santiago, a Dominican private language teacher,, we got to Santiagos little wooden shack on the main street painted every shade of pink and blue on the inside, just in time for a class of 14 year olds in an english class. many of the parents here will struggle to send their children to private lessons in english to help them get ahead. he asked us to sit in on the class and it was so strange to be in that position,, we asked them some questions and they asked us a lot of questions in surprisingly good english, bright, friendly kids laughing at eachothers mistakes. It really made my day and will not be something I will soon forget. I wish I could describe the school.. the doors open to the incredibly noisy dirt street with everyone racing by and people talking, and no one yells shut up or gets upset like they would here,, the class goes on and they are oblivious to it all..its just part of everyday life. I was very impressed by these kids, especially the girls who were clearly working harder than the boys.
this is not a place for anyone who demands order, lots of mess and trash everywhere in the urban areas of the north coast where I am, but I hear that the big cities like santo domingo and santiago are more like what we are used to.. there is little money here for the government to spend on niceties like cleaning things up and worry about dilapidated buildings.. they are everywhere. the public transportation system is a network of informal links that will get you across the entire country in a flash,, as long as you dont have any personal space issues.. the guagua bus (guaguabus en espaniol).... there are also autoguaguas. most everything here is a toyota and they all have hundreds of thoundands of miles on them.. this particular bus had 345k on it if i remember correctly... but it ran and it got us there.. by the condition of some of the back roads its a miracle they get so many miles out of them.. you can see Ben on the right.. there might be 12 or 15 people jammed into one of these, and there is a conductor who sits at the door, opens it, takes money, and tells everyone where to sit. He is pivotal in the whole ballet which is a wonderful thing to watch, no one complains, everyone pays, just a quiet ride of people getting off and on people jammed into one of these things like sardines. Coming back from puerto plata a few days ago at midnight, I lost my good camera because i was sandwiched in the back seat of a toyota corolla with 4 beautiful girls (yes 5 across in a toyota corolla) and there were legs and arms everywhere and i lost complete track of things (needless to say)... it slid out of my safari short pocket never to be seen again. A thorn between some roses in the best sense of the word.(pisses me off as it was a gift from some very good friends, and it was the beginning of my trip, thankfully I had a backup).. . Then there are the always present motoconchos.. 2 stroke motorcycles that are everywhere and for 30 t0 50 pesos they will take you just about anywhere if you have the heart for it. I have see 4 people on one 100cc bike, 50 gallon propane tanks, etc,, no one here will walk anywhere,, they just jump on a motoconcho and go,, thus flows the economy,, a woman makes 300 pesos for cleaning an apartment, but the motoconcho guy got 35 to get her there and another 35 to get her home.. there is no sense of savings among lower class dominicans... in and out like the tide is how the money flows, and somehow it works. There is always a moto concho somewhere near, no matter where you are, just look around, wave to him, and he will come up and stop and away you go.. Ben and I rode a motoconcho together, with a big dominican driver, and ben is no small guy.. 3 of us on a 100 cc bike, all pushed together in ways that men just are not supposed to be... if you catch my drift.. but it happens all the time here.. its a non issue here, in the states everyone would point and laugh.... this is better, believe me. Traffic here is mind boggling and again not for the faint of heart.. there are no speed limit signs anywhere i could find, a few stop signs and crosswalks but i have no idea why. centerlines are meaningless. most two lane roads are always 4 lanes of traffic,, constant passing.. motoconchos on the sides, regular traffic and guaguas in the main lanes.... another thing that you cannot describe. AND!!!! no one gets upset, gets road rage, gives the finger, pulls a gun, like in the states.... on the way to luperone there was a small herd of cows in the road and everyone weaved in and out of them, no bullshit it just was what it was,,,,, just into the herd of bovine beauties we went with the guagua bus and moto conchos on the left and right,,,, crazy thing im telling you..... and everyone lived to tell the tale. An afterthought, I was in the middle of an auto guagua yesterday, ben on the left me in the middle, and a sizeable woman got in the right with a baby, said a few words to me in stacatto spanish, handed me this cute little 1 year old, and proceeded to talk on her phone until her stop, while this chubby little child looked at me like i was a space man..it was wonderful and a welcome addition to my adventure... would that ever happen in the states?? child protective services would be at that womans door in a few hours to scoop up the kid, tell me im wrong.. but here it all flows, in the states we are so over regulated, uncle sam so far up our arses,,, here if it works, do it....
Dominican women are some of most beautiful I have ever experienced, not all mind you, but there is a top 10 percent. This is a mans world and everything is turned completely around from the states. Age here is meaningless... older men, younger women, no big deal, no thoughts given to it. I spent some time with a woman half my age and I brought that up to her, she has no reaction because it is not programmed about this culturally, she kind of wondered what I was talking about... looked at me like I had a penis growing out of my forehead, to quote Ben.. In the states it would be a huge deal.. This place really slaps you in the face with how a culture can program people into believing in right and wrong.. but its all cultural, there is no right and wrong, just whatever your culture has programmed into you. Women here will spend their last cent to go to the "salon" to get their hair, fingernails, everything sculpted. It is cultural.. you drive through small towns with dirt roads and cows in the street and the women you pass would turn any mans head anywhere in the world. This is a sexy and flamboyant culture and not sexually repressed like the states,, if a woman has it she will flaunt it and boy, its just so refreshing, what is considered slutty in the states is standard fare here.. after all it is a latin culture, puerto ricans are similar, I can personally attest to that. I have seen more cleavage in the last week than i have in the past 5 years... Friendly, outgoing, full of laughter and good nature, their beauty does them absolutely no good here other than to possibly attract a rich gringo (to them we are all rich), so it hasnt gone to their heads and made them full of themselves.... Most women have given up on the dominican men, because a man here is expected to have a wife, a mistress, and a girlfriend, or he is not much of a man.. this leaves a lot of unsupported women and children... of all ages. I have spent time here with women who would give Halle Berry a run for her money and they are just as sweet and nice as can be, but they do want something in return and that is to raise their status and have a stable life in the culture by being associated with a gringo. I cant wait to become fluent in Spanish because then the flood gates will open. If I die here someday I think it will be with a smile on my face and an empty bank account, at least that is my hope.
Communication back home is a hassle,,i used skype until my credit card put a hold on my account because of the DR and i cant seem to straighten that out from here, my cell doesnt work here, the local cell i bought when i got here for local communication is to pricey to call home with.... And money is another hassle.. pesos here and dollars there.. 3000 pesos is about 82 us dollars,, very confusing,,, how about some round numbers here??? a bunch of different banks and some will take your card and some will not...but atm machines are everywhere,,, like i keep saying its a progressing culture and economy and a good place to be for growth, plus I lost my debit card mid week, left it in an atm probably, tired and in a rush to get pesos for a dive trip, going from atm to atm trying to get one to accept it.. shit! so much to learn... if it werent for Ben I wouldn't have experienced a fraction of this stuff... most gringos who come here never do, hell im sure I wouldnt have, so I hope i can do the same thing for others in time, but I am far from comfortable here.. I am going to come back with better spanish, and have another go at it but for a couple of months this time so i can settle in, I can rent an ocean view apartment on a hill in Luperone for 300 usd a month, get a little motorcycle or a cheap car, hang out at shaggys, bone up on my guitar playing, find a few friendly senoritas, and start to explore. There seems to be a need for gringo management... one thing our culture does do better is to to instill dependability and the ability to trust and deliver what we promise, which you wont find here in mass quantities. Lots to learn.
Closing now, almost 5 pm sunday.. last night was another adventure but not to be related here, dragged myself back from Cabarete here to the hotel around 2 today and im out of rest and hungry... tonite is my last night at the shit hole hotel where i am staying with tears in the screens that the mosquitoes and noseeums come through at night,,, but the constant ocean breeze makes it bearable... hopefully tomorrow night will be better. One week gone, one week to go, and every day is an adventure.. as one of my best friends and I say "you cant make this stuff up".
Hasta Luego mis amigos!!
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