Dominican Republic - Day 1

After a 6 hour flight from Portland to JFK, NY and a 3.5 hour flight from JFK to Puerta Plata we finally arrived in the Dominican Republic.  It was seriously so humid there.  The airport was so small.  There was a band playing to greet us - which was completely cool.  The military guards were all carrying some seriously heavy machinery.  We paid our $20 US to get into the country, got our passports stamped and were out the door to hail a cab.  All the "cabs" there were seriously people's normal cars.  It was so weird.  It was cool that everything was in Spanish too.  Our driver did not speak a lot of English, but he was very nice.  The driving is absolutely INSANE there.  Pretty much no rules.  People passing on any side of you.  Everyone on motor scooters weaving in and out of traffic.  It was crazy to see people 3 deep on a tiny motor scooter.  We even saw a mom braiding her daughter's hair while they were driven around.  People with tiny babies on there.  It was such a different environment.  I was in love with it all from the second that we landed.

We arrived at our resort about 20 minutes from the airport.  After a million phone calls back to the US and a million attempts to locate our reservation, they finally got us booked in.  It was a little scary for a second though that we would have nowhere to stay.  Our room was fine.  Nothing fancy.  At least it had A/C, although in D.R. they lose power daily anywhere from 30mins-sometimes 6 hours.  Mostly so they can control the power usage.  I can't even imagine.  We needed some food, but nowhere was open when we finally arrived for lunch, so we finally found this place and had our first, of many, plates of arroz y frijoles (rice & beans).  I've never been a huge fan of rice, or beans for that matter.  Somehow in this place I loved them.  No lie, I ended up eating them for practically every meal.  The other food was pretty suspect, so I was limited on what I was willing to risk.  The resort was of course time-share so they drove us around the resort and made us the pitch.  Seriously it actually sounded quite good and if I had an extra $10k in my pocket I would've purchased.  Driving around we got to see more of the resort.  A storm was coming in so it wasn't that clear out in the skies, but it was still BEAUTIFUL!

 

I think I could've stayed there forever!