I was quite excited to arrive in Punta Cana as it gave me an opportunity to not understand Spanish spoken in a slightly different accent. I had a night before Jackie came so went for the bargain basement end of the booking.com list of hotels, and ended up in some woman's apartment with what seemed like her 300 kids.
 |
| Punta Cana pier. No amusements sadly. |
Still, the whole reason for the trip was to see my aunt Jackie - a lady who needs no introduction as I think she's probably the last person left actually reading this! She was very excited to get away from the Canadian winter, and moderately excited to see her only nephew as well.
 |
| How could you NOT be excited to see this face? |
Accommodation
Our apartment was perfectly serviceable although lacking such essentials as a kettle, basting trays, or towels that could absorb any moisture whatsoever. I coined the phrase "Not the Ritz, not the shitz" to describe it. What was lovely, however, was the pool directly outside the apartment.
 |
Jackie INSISTED I added this picture of her in her swimsuit
|
 |
One for the ladies (and the gay guys)
|
Due to a lack of basting trays and general laziness, Jackie point-blank refused to cook me a full turkey dinner on Christmas Dinner, so I guilt-tripped her into taking me into a posh restaurant a couple of miles away, where we had a very un-Christmassy but very delicious Christmas lunch of steaks, washed down with a pina colada. We (I) decided to walk back along the beach to our apartment which turned out to be a bit longer than it looked on my phone (yes, I know how map scales work), but we got home safe and sound.
 |
| I even wore a shirt to celebrate Christmas |
 |
We spotted a washed up turtle on the beach on the walk home
|
Road trip to Santo Domingo
I needed to get to Santo Domingo, and Jackie and I also needed to get some culture after lounging round the beach / pool / apartment for the last 10 days, so I enlisted the services of Frank, the Haitian tour guide / Uber who had given me a lift to the airport to pick up Jackie.
Frank was a very nice chap, and his English was pretty good as well - although his knowledge of the monuments and tourist attractions of the Dominican Republic was somewhat limited. He took us first to
Higüey Basílica, a massive brutalist cathedral built in the 1960s and visited by Pope John Paul II in 1992. (I learned all these facts from Wikipedia, not from Frank).
 |
| Lots of concrete |
 |
| The inside was pretty funky too |
Next up, Jackie was suffering from beach withdrawal symptoms, so we stopped off for a rather lazy lunch at a rather mediocre beach (I use the word lazy to refer to how long it took for them to deliver us - their only customers - our lunch). Then it was into the capital Santo Domingo, to drive around and see a few sights - or in reality - sit in traffic quite a lot.
Still, we did get a chance to see the Presidential Palace (closed to plebs) and the Parque Independencia, which had statues to the Dominican Republic's founding fathers (see below).
 |
| From L to R: Francisco del Rosario Sanchez (Founding Father), Jackie (Aunt), Juan Pablo Duarte (Founding Father), Ramon Matias Mella (Founding Father), Frank (Tour Guide) |
 |
Not sure why I decided to get my picture taken standing inside an impromptu pissoir.
The stench was unbearable. |
Sadly, it was time to bid farewell to Dear Auntie Jackie, whom I entrusted into the hands of Frank to take her back to Punta Cana airport. I had a couple of days to kill in Santo Domingo to see the sights. And by far the most interesting sight was my hotel room, which like the British Museum, seemed to be filled with artefacts from around the world.
 |
| My bedroom. What it lacked in an outside window it made up for in pointless curtains above the bed. |
It's crazy to think that in these countries, not only do they not have double-glazing, they sometimes don't even bother with windows, despite the fact they get the odd tropical storm. Anyway, my landlady was delightful and didn't mind repeating herself a dozen times until I could understand her.
I had a bit of time to wander around Santo Domingo. My overall thoughts were that it's like several capital cities in the region, the touristy bits are nice and generally safe (during the day). but if you wander a couple of streets off-piste and it is like you are in a different country. There was also rubbish piled up everywhere, including in the ocean and it didn't feel particularly safe (especially since I stood out like a sore thumb).
 |
| Probably one of the worst examples of this sort of sign I've witnessed on my travels |
 |
| I was fascinated by, but too scared to enter, what I presume was a children's clothes shop |
 |
| I was fascinated by, but couldn't be arsed walking to in the 32C heat, this stripy lighthouse |
By now it was New Year's Eve, so time to hop on a home back to my third home, Medellín!
Comments