SAT. May 23, 2009 “You should have seen those Americans coming” (John, Tim, Chris, Brent)
Hola sailors! Well its Saturday, the day of our arrival. Pretty uneventful except for the momentary jolt as our airplane hit one patch of turbulence out of Miami and dropped 100 feet instantly. Everyone awake now?
We flew into Santiago this trip instead of Puerto Plata since the flights were cheaper. This required an hour and a half drive from the city to the coast. It was very slow at times because the Dominican roads are in poor shape, and there are no rules of the road… think Mad Max driving through the country. On our journey had to cross over the highest mountain in the Caribbean. The scenery was beautiful but the section of twisty roads and changes in speed nearly has a few of us looking for our barf bags. Along the way we passed several little impoverish villages, broken down cars, washed out road sections, a donkey tied to a fence, several stray dogs and crazy drivers all over the road in cars and motor scooters. You really put your life in the hands of the driver to judge how crazy the rest of the drivers are. We neary side-swiped several cars ond motor scooters along the drive! About 15 minutes outside of Cabarete we had to stop for what looked like armed militia running some sort of check point. We got the once over from the guy with the M-16 rifle and were allowed to co ntinue on.
We finally arrived at our hotel about 3:30 minus chris’ suitcase which was still in Miami thanks to American Airlines. We did a fire drill down to the beach to try and get some rides before the wind ended for the day. I’d say we had a few, but it was a short session as the wind had already begun to shut-off. At least we got on the water.
Speaking of, not one of us had had any water or food since we left Miami at 1:20pm. It was now nearly 6:30 pm and we were well on our way through happy hour and 2for1 drinks at the Vela bar Voy Voy. We grabbed our gear and headed down the beach to get some dinner.
We were starving! We stopped at LAX bar to check on the specials and were we in luck…Pizza or Spagetti Bolognase for $299 pesos just about $9 bucks US. We all ordered and continued with more drink specials. Somewhere along the way we crossed the line from tourist to annoying Americans with the drinks flowing the voices getting louder and the cameras going off – mostly trained on our tall, elegant Swiss Miss waitress with long blond hair…I think there is even one in there of someone getting a kiss…
Well that was about the extent of the evening. Everyone was feeling the Dominican vibe and we were in much need of sleep. By 9pm we were walking back down the beach to the El Magnifico hotel to get some rest for the next full day of sailing we tomorrow20(we hope).
