Heading Out Again

The remainder of my squirrel-free sojourn passed in a whirl. We celebrated Dan's 26th birthday on Sunday, I put together tax papers for the accountant, and I put the house on the market. Then it was up at 4:30 a.m. on Friday to head over to the airport and catch our flight to Atlanta and, thence, Santo Domingo. Our flight was delayed, our connection time too short, and arrival in the DR didn't occur until about 7 p.m.

Our room at the Aida was lovely, with a balcony over El Conde. Certainly not a place to spend a lot of time, due to general hubbub, but fun for a couple of days.

On Saturday, we did a bit of a walking tour, visiting the ruins of a 14th century monastery which had been converted to an insane asylum before it was allowed to rot away. We popped into the World Museum of Amber which was pretty cool...once we shook the self-appointed guide who wanted to scribble population statistics on a map and told us ants in amber were fossils. I had the temerity to read one of the highly informative plaques.

"Are you going to read or listen to me?" the guide asked.

"I'm going to read," I said.

"Well, there's no point for me to stay," he said, before demanding as large a tip as possible (he was out of luck there) and leaving us.

There were ants, flies, termites, a lizard, all manner of plant parts, and a tiny wasp all preserved in amber. There was yellow, red, brown, green and blue (very rare and only from the DR) amber. There were samples of amber from other amber-producing nations: Croatia, Argentina, Canada, etc.

Then we headed over to a big square where Diego (son o' Chris) Colon's stately home was located on the side of the Ozama River, opposite a collection of lovely old former-warehouses now converted to lovely new restaurants. Where we restored ourselves. Then we visited the wonderful Museo de las Casas Reales (Museum of the Royal Houses). I have many many photos, kindness of WW's mum, who lent us her camera...except we forgot to get the cable for transferring them to the 'puter. Sigh. I'll post them manana.

On Sunday, we decided to break our trip to Puerto Plata and back to Django by going up to Jarabacoa. It's sort of the Laurentians of the DR. Affluent Dominicans and capitalanos have weekend houses. Some are extremely grand.

The mountains are glorious. Two rivers flow nearby. The Yaque del Norte flows through the town but is hideously polluted there. Outside the town, great efforts have been made to keep it clean. In fact, great efforts are made almost everywhere except in the very poorest areas to keep thing neat and tidy. There's always someone pushing a broom. The other river is the Jimenoa, about which, more later.

We were greeted, as usual, by a fellow at the bus stop who helped us find our hotel and offered to take us for a horseback tour of "where the rivers kiss" (also known, less beautifully, as la confluenza). We declined but said we'd love to have him show us around the next day. Then we had a long walk through what might pass for the suburbs, admiring the houses and the attractive little verandas with the four requisite wicker rockers on each. They looked shady and cool. We ended our ramble at just about exactly rum punch o'clock at a restaurant overlooking the vibrant, active and noisy Parque Centrale. That's where we saw duelling sound systems on wheels. One was be an old pickup with two immense rectangular speakers on its bed, blaring the driver's choice. Next came a rather glam van, with about 15 speakers, several of which outlined in glowing neon purple circles of light. There were armies of these, each with its own particular style. Entire families (e.g., mum and three kids) arrived on scooters. A political rally marched by (elections in May). We thought perhaps we would dine elsewhere, but ended up coming back and enjoying the whole sensory cacophony. Surround sound made flesh.

We returned to our hotel, a very nice place especially for $30US/night, and passed out.