Friday, January 18, 2013

D.R.- Day 3


The last time I visited the D.R. was in 1993 ( + or -) I swore that I would never return.
  Never is quite a long time. Almost 3 times as long as the Hollywood term “forever”
 [Forever being the average length of a Tom Cruise marriage]
Approaching the midpoint of day 3, I am feeling somewhat more positive about this trip compared to the last [ when my family spent more time in the bathroom than in the sun]
My first exposure to “all inclusives” probably dates back to my childhood and weeks spent at Butlin’s  Holiday Camps [ A slight upgrade from a minimum security prison!] 
 Ten pounds a week per person bought you seaside lodgings, "entertainment" and meals. I can still taste in my mind the grilled burgers that they offered, smothered with grilled onions and a dash of Heinz- a flavour that I have never been able to recapture after more than fifty years.
 Fast forward to today. 5 stars, all the food and booze one can possibly shove into your face, but sadly the entertainment has gone very far downhill since the days of Butlin's- or perhaps my memory is just getting a bit foggy!!
Today a somewhat lonely walk from the resort to town – alternating between beach and road for close to an hour and a half- was fraught with some fear on my part [ I don’t think I will ever fully recover my confidence after the machete attack in Nicaragua]
 The town of Las Terrenas was like any other town in the Caribbean Third World- narrow winding streets, galleries of cheap primitive oil paintings and overpriced general stores. Pringles priced at the equivalent of a mickey of rum and canned peanuts probably close to the price of a full meal at a local café.
 Black and red coral jewelry look temptingly beautiful but may not make it past Canadian customs , wood carvings though cheap will probably not survive the mishandlings of the baggage beating staff at Pearson. Susanna admires hand made jewelry and haggles for 40 minutes with a Argentinean craft vendor at a small stall and I am tempted to slip her an extra $5 for her patience.
The tip she gave us on catching a local bus did, after all, save us $6 in transportation costs.
  The driver ripped us off for $2 each- an overcharge on the local rate of $1.10, but who really cares. I am not sure just how far it  was back to the hotel but it seemed to involve a speed bump every 100 meters and I gave up counting after about 40.
 A beer, shower and lunch followed in quick succession and I find myself at 3;30pm by the pool nursing my first serious drink of the day- mojito [ extra large]
Unenthusiastic activities staff are trying to motivate equally unenthusiastic guests to do pool aerobics to really bad music- the inventor of autotune should really be put to death, very slowly, with his screams played back to him using his invention at full setting! LOL
 

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