We made it to Puerto Rico! In order to cross from the DR to Puerto Rico, we had to sail through the Mona Passage. The Mona Passage is where the Caribbean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean and it has a reputation for being very rough at times. Therefore, we had to time our crossing well so that we would not get beat up on the way across. We headed out early Saturday morning and made our way across to Mona Island. The day sail was pleasant and we did not have any worries. We anchored off of Mona Island to wait for a night crossing which would put us into Puerto Rico in the morning after the marina opened. Mona Island is basically a deserted island, especially during these times of the Stupid. It was a beautiful spot but the anchorage was very rolly with waves so it was not a comfortable sit for us. Around 10pm, we headed out toward Puerto Rico. It was a much rougher ride than the first leg of the trip with the seas being disorganized and irritating. Disorganized waves mean that the waves come from all directions and the boat never gets into a good rhythm. Thus, an uncomfortable ride. And an uncomfortable ride with no sleep so No Sleep Sally was once again a grumpy one. Bill pulled us flawlessly into the marina the next morning and within 5 minutes, we were all checked into the country. Only one man with one phone and he did not even ask for the golden despacho from the DR! It is either just that easy since we are US citizens or he took one look at No Sleep Sally and decided not to push his luck….
One plus of Puerto Rico is that it has all of the modern conveniences of the States….Walmart, Home Depot, Banks. One minus of Puerto Rico is that it has all of the modern conveniences….Walmart, Home Depot, Banks. If you recall, in the Dominican, I managed to have a root canal that only took 2 hours and my name on a scrap of paper. In Puerto Rico, I needed to change out Dominican pesos for dollars so I went to the bank. Three forms, two slips, a passport and 30 minutes later, I walked out with my hard earned $48.18. It amazed us that it was easier to check into the country than it was to change out a few pesos! On Tuesday and Wednesday, we went on a major tourist spree to see the west coast of the PR. The first day, we visited Cabo Roja lighthouse. The lighthouse was closed (we all know why) but we were able to walk around the outside and there was an amazing path that overlooked the cliffs in the area. We then began our afternoon of food hunting. We stopped by the town of Boqueron which is a beach town that reportedly has some great restaurants. Once we arrived, we found that the town is open only on weekends due to no tourists. So, we ventured on expecting to pass a restaurant on the way to our Airbnb. None of the restaurants were open so we finally gave up and grabbed an empanada from a street vendor for lunch. Once we arrived in Aquadilla, we went in search of dinner. After four more dead end restaurant stops, we finally found a pizza place that was open so we graciously inhaled a pizza and a few beers. They do seem to love pizza here in the PR. So far we have counted dozens of pizza restaurants. They also seem to have a major penchant for Church’s Fried Chicken so we are guessing that the Puerto Rican diet has definitely been negatively influenced by the USA! The next day, we headed over to La Poza Del Obizpo. We had to arrive at 10am for high tide according to all of the reviews I had read. Once we arrived, we knew why! We had an amazing show of brutal strength as the ocean waves crashed to the shore among the rocks spewing white foam thirty to forty feet in the air. It was a mesmerizing sight and I wore out the camera taking pictures. We then jumped back into the car to head into the mountains to see the Arecibo Observatory. The observatory was made famous by the movies Contact and James Bond Golden Eye. It is a huge radio telescope that is shaped like a large dish. Or at least it was. The telescope fell into disrepair over the years and literally fell last Fall. We were hoping to be able to at least go to the museum but the guard told us that the site was closed so they could “clean up the mess”. We expect the mess will probably never be cleaned but will be swallowed up by the underbrush. Disappointed, we left Arecibo and stopped by Walmart on the way to our next Airbnb in Rincon. After an hour in Walmart, we packed the trunk full of goodies and went on the usual adventure of finding an Airbnb that has no address. This Airbnb came with the directions “Get to the location of km 2.9. There is a 3 level house on the corner and a road on your left hand side heading toward the beach. Take that road. From that point, you are seconds away from the house that will be on your right hand side”. Hmmm. Given that the ocean was on our left hand side, ALL of the houses on the road were “seconds away” and on the right hand side! Luckily, the Airbnb hostess spoke perfect English and answered her phone to give us the next stellar directions of “the two story peach house with the garage”. I do have to admit that I miss addresses a bit! Rincon was a cool little beach town that reminded me a bit of Mendicino, CA. A bit of time forgotten. It is a surfer haven and had a good vibe with several restaurants. We voted against the one restaurant that wanted us to wear our masks the entire time we were there (even when sitting at the table eating) and went instead to one called the Beach House which had a beautiful view of the Rincon Lighthouse and the ocean. When our waitress approached, we started out in our usual pigeon Spanish and she answered in perfect English without an accent. As she walked away, I told Bill that she was no more Puerto Rican than we were. She was actually from Missouri and had moved to Puerto Rico last year to get away from the snow. One thing we have noticed about the younger Puerto Ricans is that they all speak better English than we do and much prefer not to suffer through our sad Spanish attempts. I have noted a couple of humorous things in Puerto Rico already…..One of the guys begging for money at the red light was super diligent and had attached his money cup to the end of a long stick. That way, he could hold his cup up to your car window while still maintaining a safe social distance of six feet! I figured if he was that ingenious, he probably needed to be applying for jobs! The other funny is the tsunami warning signs. I am guessing that if you live on an island, anywhere within sight of water is a tsunami zone so do you really need a sign stating you are in a zone? The humorous part is the signs themselves. Most of the signs have a man running from a huge wave (I am guessing he is just out of luck given how close the wave is) but one of the signs had a man running away from the wave up a hill. On the top of the hill were two little stick figures holding hands….I have interpreted this sign as “run up the hill, grab onto other people and pray because that wave behind you is going to kick your ass!” We will spend this next week doing some errands and a few small projects on the boat while waiting on the weather to calm. So, this time next week we could be moving down the coast or still hanging out getting to know this area. Until then, I hope your weather report does not include any tsunami warnings….but it if does, I would follow the signs with the little stick people to hang onto! ****More pictures on the Pictures tab
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It is our last day in the Dominican Republic before we move on to Puerto Rico! Our time in the DR has been filled with new friends, beautiful sites and a lot of relaxing. We spent our last week in the DR in Cap Cana trying to fit in some last minute sites that we wanted to see before leaving. Trying being the key word! We made our way over to the Hard Rock Casino since it was the only one that was open in the area. We were the only ones in the casino and sitting amongst all of the plexiglass definitely took away a lot of the fun. Bill asked the dealer if he felt like a lab rat all day and that entertained all the pit. Since we were the only ones there, we had a dealer, a pit boss, a manager and a guy hovering around with anti-bacterial spray and a rag and another dealer at the next table looking downtrodden because we didn’t pick her table. The dealer said it usually livened up at night but we told him we could not come at night due to the 5pm curfew. He explained that the curfew “didn’t really matter too much” and if we took a cab to the casino (instead of driving the rental car), we could come to and from the casino after curfew. So now, the Stupid seems to only lurk about in rental cars after 5pm. Next, we tried to find somewhere for lunch so we drove through Punta Cana and were not impressed. Of all the cities and towns we have been in over the past 6 months, Punta Cana had the least personality. There were very few local businesses and it was definitely designed for you to stay in your resort all day and all night. So, if you do an all-inclusive resort in Punta Cana…..you can say you have been to Punta Cana but you can not say you have been to the Dominican Republic! The next day, we ventured over toward La Romana to see if Altos de Chavon was open. Altos de Chavon is an exact replica of an Italian town that was built in the 1970s and it is supposed to be really cool. Unfortunately, it had not reopened yet so we had to miss that DR highlight. Since we could not see Altos de Chavon, we spent a few hours in Bayahibe which was a beautiful beach town. After lunch, we decided to take a few roads less traveled in our Covid carrying rental car. At one point, we had to give up because the road was so less traveled that it became a sand trap and we did not want to hike our way back to the nearest town for a motorcycle to drag us out. It was a fun adventure that could only be had in a Volkswagon Crossfox (a little larger than a Smart Car but drove about as well!). Many things were closed on Thursday due to yet another Dominican Holiday….Lady of Altogracia Day. This particular holiday is evidently based on a painting of the Virgin Mary that was brought back from Spain to a small town named Higuey and is now a major thing in the Catholic Church here. That’s all I’ve got on that one….not sure why it was considered Federal Holiday worthy but it must be a really great painting! On our way back to Cap Cana, we passed by fields and fields of sugar cane. Since we have been in the DR, we have often wondered why so many men walk the streets with a machete in hand. In this part of the DR, it is to cut the sugar cane. I am not sure how the dozen men and one ox we saw were going to cut the thousands of acres of sugar cane but they were giving it a heck of a try! We also passed by the equivalent of the Dominican chain gang…they were cutting the brush on the highway using….you guessed it….machetes! Bill pointed out that the local sheriff deputies must be very brave guys. At least in the States, the prisoners don’t stand much of a shot with a weed whacker but a machete is different story!
We will leave the DR early in the morning after the navy brings the golden despacho and I fill out the same pink custom form for the ninth time. We will day sail over to Mona Island where we will anchor for a few hours before continuing our final leg overnight to Puerto Rico. I have been researching our next stops and sites and we are looking forward to discovering another wonderful country! Next post will hopefully be from Puerto Rico! Cock-a-doodle-root canal! The week started off with a trip to the endodontist in Samana for my root canal. I was very nervous when I arrived but the doctor showed me the steps she would be taking and it looked like the root canals I have had in the States, minus the paperwork, so that relaxed me a bit. She started out with the Novocaine shot so that was a good start. While she prepared her tools, I laid back and that was when the rooster started crowing. There was a rooster that evidently was standing directly outside the window and he crowed every minute, on the minute. As she began to drill, I used the rooster as my mantra…cockadoodledoo, drill, drill, drill, cockadoodledoo, drill, drill, drill. I began to ponder the word problems we used to have in fifth grade math… “If Sally goes to the dentist at 9:00am and the rooster crows once every sixty seconds, how many crows will the rooster have if the root canal takes exactly 2 hours and 19 minutes?” I’ll leave you to the math! After a while, the doctor began to sing. I can honestly say that I have never had a singing dentist before but it was quite a nice touch! Luckily for her, my Spanish is so bad she could have been singing the same song over and over again and she did not have to worry about forgetting the lyrics. At about the two hour mark, she started to drill and I about came out of the seat! She stopped and stated, “Anesthesia time out”. If I could have spoken Spanish well enough, I would have responded with a very sarcastic “No sh*# Sherlock!” but since that was not an option, I simply nodded my head and made the hand gesture of giving myself another shot. She shook her head and said, “No necessito. Almost done”. I shook my head with a “yes, necessito” and another shot gesture. “No necessito. Almost done”, she responded. “Yes, necessito” and another shot gesture. At this point, she figured out that the gringo was not going to lay back in the chair again without anesthesia. So, after another shot of Novocaine, I laid back down and she continued. Her idea of almost done and mine were two totally different things as she continued to work for another 15 minutes….that would have been a really long time for “anesthesia time out” in my book! Once the work was done, she snapped a quick x-ray to show me that the root canal was complete. When we walked out to pay the receptionist, instead of a receipt, she handed me an envelope with my x-ray in it. I think that is probably the most secure receipt I have ever gotten from a medical office! All in all, the entire procedure cost $220.00 US dollars. For those of you who have never had a root canal put toward your deductible, my last one cost at least $3500.00. I’ll take the singing dentist and my rooster mantra!
The middle of the week became the weather watch adventure. Before we leave port, we start to chart out the weather from several different sources to try to pick the best “weather window” for travel. We were ready to move onto the Punta Cana area as our last stop in the DR before tackling our next country, Puerto Rico. The next best weather window was going to be Thursday through Sunday so we killed time the next couple of days by doing laundry and lounging in the pool. While at the pool, I observed another “life-ism” that appears to be universal. The infamous “you have 10 more minutes” statement made by mothers seems to not be just an American thing! How do mothers learn these things? Who was the first mother to say, “you have 10 more minutes” and who was the first kid that figured out when those words were spoken, every activity that could possibly be completed in life must be condensed into those 10 minutes? We watched as the kid proceeded to jump like a whale, run the distance of the pool, swim in circles, count under water and play a complete concert on the water drums while singing at the top of his lungs. Of course, he finished with the also universal, “just one more minute” whine while his mother stomped on the pavement. So nice to know that my kids were not the only ones! When our boat part finally arrived on Thursday (only a day late!), we began preparing to leave to Cap Cana. As you all know by now, that involved a trip to the navy office for our golden despacho and this time, I also had to fill out another pink form at the customs office for no apparent reason. We set sail at 6:00am on Friday for a long 10 hour trip to Punta Macau where we would anchor for the night. The weather window was glorious and the seas were like glass so it was a wonderful day on the water. We had just dropped anchor in Macau when we look up to see, who else….the navy coming out to the boat. I grabbed the golden despacho as the navy commandant climbed onto the back swim platform. He perused our despacho, asked the usual questions and then announced that we were good to spend the night. It wasn’t until he climbed back into their boat that I noticed that he was barefoot with his uniform pants rolled up like Huckleberry Finn. I am really going to miss the navy characters of the DR when we leave! The night at Macau was quite peaceful after the locals on the beach stopped blaring the music and went home. We had a few rolly hours while trying to sleep but nothing too horrible. At 5:00am, we set out for our final 5 hour leg to Cap Cana. The waves were a little choppier than we like, but we passed the time hunting for humpback whales that come to this area from January to March each year. After four hours, we finally accepted that we were not going to see a whale. Just as we prepared to round the last cape, I saw a geyser in front of us. It took me a few seconds to register that it was a whale spouting and I yelled, “We got whales” which sent us both into an excited whale dance. The next few minutes, we were enthralled with watching the whale jump from the water and splash down as if he knew we had been waiting on him for two days. It was an amazing spectacle and we are hoping to have more visits when we cross over to Puerto Rico. We arrived in Cap Cana (which is a marina just down the road from Punta Cana) and I announced that I may never leave! This place is beautiful and everything you imagine when you think of Punta Cana. Beaches, pools, golf carts and overpriced restaurants. We look forward to our week here while we begin mapping out our next weather window to hopefully cross over to Puerto Rico. May you have a wonderful week full of funny life-isms and unexpected whale visits! It was a very peaceful week in the DR with more beautiful surroundings and perfect weather. The week started off a little challenging because we went into town on Monday to get money and groceries without realizing that it was a Dominican holiday (though the official holiday is on January 6th). Here in the DR, they celebrate the Epiphany, also known as Three Kings Day. Instead of getting gifts from Santa Claus on Christmas, the three wise men deliver the gifts on Three Kings Day. So, when we arrived in town, all of the stores had all of the toys spread out on the sidewalks so that the Three Wise Men could pick them up in preparation for the official holiday and people were everywhere! After the long weekend, we were short on pesos so we headed straight to the ATM to get money. At least that was the plan. First ATM, no money. Second ATM, no money. Third ATM, no money….by the sixth and last ATM, we realized that getting enough money to grocery shop was not going to happen….so we gave up, joined the festive spirit and went to lunch with our friends! Our cab driver that picked us up that day, told us that he offered side trips to Playa Rincon and Las Galeras if we were interested. Playa Rincon has been voted one of the world’s top ten most beautiful beaches so it was definitely on our to-do list. It was nice to have a chauffeur for the day who knew exactly where to go and what to see and we enjoyed a full day of playing tourist. Playa Rincon definitely lived up to the hype and there is a river named Cano Frio (Cold River) that runs into the ocean at one end of the beach. The water was so clear that in places, it was difficult to tell there was water at all! Following a disappointing snorkeling adventure (very few fish to see), we loaded back into the van and headed to Las Galeras for lunch. Las Galeras is known for its’ large French immigrant population so we looked forward to some good food. Ah, another disappointment….all of the restaurants were either closed or doing delivery only due to The Stupid. We weren’t quite sure why this town was so strict because it was in the middle of nowhere and literally had only about a dozen buildings in the downtown area. We did find a French bakery that was open so I was able to support my pastry and bread addiction for the week but they were not allowed to serve us lunch (once again…why not?). So, we found one local restaurant that was obviously the rebel of the town and was open for lunch…not the best meal we have had in the DR but we were starving by this time so we took what we could get.
The next day, Bill noticed that the boat parked next to us was going out deep sea fishing (“boat” is a stretch as it is a huge sport fishing boat that dwarfs poor Galt). Bill casually mentioned to one of the guys that he should bring us a fish….later that night, the guy showed up with a five to eight pound Mahi for us! Bill paid him with a bottle of rum and all men were happy! Bill had his fish and the fisherman had his rum. He was even sweet enough to have gutted it prior to delivery so all Bill had to do was cut it into fillets and stick it in the freezer. We thoroughly enjoyed our fresh fish for dinner that night and determined that we would have paid a case of rum for it! The week ended with a trip to the local dentist. For the past couple of weeks, I have had a tooth that was bothering me and I knew it was going to need a root canal. However, I procrastinated and tried to cure it myself with some antibiotics because having a root canal is never fun…..but having a root canal in a new country without your regular dentist is not an appealing idea at all! Alas, at lunch on Friday, it began to throb again so we walked down the street to the dentist in town that reportedly spoke some English. There were several people in the waiting room and the receptionist asked if I had an appointment. When I said “no”, I expected to be sent packing until Monday morning. Instead, the receptionist motioned for me to have a seat and within thirty minutes, I was in to see the dentist! The only paperwork required was for me to write my name on a piece of paper which was handed to the dentist. Period. That was it! Just my name! She put me in the chair and checked my tooth. For the x-ray, she handed me the x-ray card and told me to hold it by my tooth. She put the lead apron on me and then clicked one x-ray. She took the card and put it into her developing machine. We waited a couple of minutes and she pulled it out, showed it to me and declared that I needed to walk down the street to her friend the oral surgeon. She refused to take any payment for my visit and personally escorted me out the door and gave Bill directions to the other doctor’s office. It was so simple! I imagine it was like what doctor appointments were like in the States before all of the lawyers got involved in medicine. We walked down the street to the endodontist’s office. I again wrote my name down on a piece of paper. The doctor came out and asked when I would like to have my root canal done. I asked if she needed to examine the tooth and she shrugged and said, “You say it hurts? Cold and hot?” to which I responded, “yes” and then she waved me into her office. She looked at the tooth and took another x-ray (I think just to make me feel better) and then she scheduled the root canal for this coming week. That simple. No forms, no referrals, no insurance. She just listened to my symptoms and voila….here we go! I am sure she was laughing at my insistence that she look at the tooth because who in their right mind would make up needing a root canal? Anyway, I must admit I am still very nervous about the entire thing but the alternative of having my tooth pain be out of control when we are not on land is a really good motivator to give it a try! One final funny for this week….so far in the DR, we have seen people carry just about everything on a motorcycle….large pieces of wood, babies, a 40 inch television, sewer pipe….well, this week, our friends Lori and Matt finally saw someone carrying a kitchen sink! So now, we can no longer say, “everything but the kitchen sink!” Have a wonderful week and enjoy your treats from the Wise Men! |
AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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