dominican journal

Last week I was kindly invited to Las Terrenas by Philippe and Marie-France to join them and their girls for the weekend .  Las Terrenas is a small town on the north coast of the D.R. about 250km east of Puerto Plata and 100km or so north of the capital. The north of the D.R. borders with the Atlantic Ocean and not the Caribbean Sea, as in the south.

We set off on Thursday after school and made a long weekend of it. The original plan was to leave on Friday but it’s a long drive so we left a day earlier. I was a bit surpised that they gave me Friday off school but didn’t complain, of course. Don’t think my pupils were that bothered either.

As it was already late afternoon/early evening by the time we left, we made the trip in two stages. It is a couple hours drive to the capital where we spent the night in a five-star hotel (very swanky!!). The hotel was very spacious and luxurious, and I spent the night with Christelle and Pauline playing video games in my room. Mostly we played Mario Karts (one of the greatest games ever invented, IMHO) but I lost interest and nearly commited suicide when the girls started playing the most pointless game ever invented. First off, it was a Pokemon game… You’d think that’s reason enough to jump off the balcony, right? Wait until you here what the point of the game is. You essentially just float around a 3-D environment with a virtual camera taking snaps of other pokemons. This must be done with speed and accuracy due to how fast things fly past the camera. At the end, you have a look through your photos and delete the ones you don’t like. Yep, that’s all there is to it. Whoever designed and took the time to write this so-called “game” obviously needs urgent psychiatric assistance – and a quick look at the definition of the word game in the dictionary. To my astonishment, the girls seemed to be having the time of their lives. I seem to have gone off on a bit of a tangent but felt it necessary given the utter crapness of the game. I also promised myself I’d mention it on the blog (in fact, there is a photo of Christelle playing it on my Flickr page – well, there will be when I get round to it).

Back to reality. We woke up early on Friday morning, had breakfast and set off to Las Terrenas. It was a very long and uncomfortable drive through fields, mountains and dirt tracks (thankfully, the Warots have a 4×4). The impressive scenerey took my mind off just how terrible the roads were and I was able to soak up views of sugar cane fields, awesome mountain ranges and the Atlantic Ocean, though only with my eyes and not the camera. I’m not very good with the whole taking photos at opportune moments thing.

We arrived in time for a late but delicious lunch in a restaurant owned by a French guy. By the looks of it their chef was also French, which probably explains why the food was so good. As a matter of fact, all the food over there was excellent. I haven’t eaten as well as I did this weekend for a while. We went out for every meal except breakfast and I enjoyed every morsel. Las Terrenas is home to a relatively large French-speaking community (I’m convinced that there’s a correlation between that and the delicious food).

We stayed in a cosey apartment across the road from the beach, in which I was spoiled with a double bed and my very own bathroom. The whole complex had the air of a hotel but was in fact a bunch of self-catering apartments with a reception, swimming pool and restaurant.

Aside from stuffing my face and enjoying the comfort of the apartment, I played a lot of cards with Christelle and Pauline, swam in the pool, swam in the ocean (which made a nice change from the Caribbean Sea), went snorkelling briefly (very cool!), played pool, went to bed late (Christelle’s fault for keeping me up all night chatting). In a nutshell, I had a wonderful and relaxing time. It was great to visit somewhere new, get to know my hosts a little better and have a long weekend. They really do spoil me.

This morning we left at 7am. I was knackered and slept a couple of hours in the car. This shaved a little time off the journey and the rest of the trip back seemed to fly by much faster than it did on the way there. We got back just after 1pm – at which point I should have had lunch – and I came here straight away to tell you lot about it. It’s now 4.30pm and I’m famished.

I have some photos but I’ll post them another day. Hasta la vista!