My trip

I have been slacking off, putting off talking about my recent trip to the Dominican Republic. Not that lots of exciting things happened but I did not take my laptop with me and the free Internet was not as available as I would have hoped so. I will definitely avoid leaving without a computer next time not only because it’s nice to be able to write right away about things rather than have to wait so long to do so. Also, I am still reading blog posts and e-mails that just piled up in great numbers while I was away. I still have quite a lot to go through so hopefully I will get to them soon before I decide to go ahead and delete them all without reading them.

So, as I have talked about many times in the past, my father left us some property in the Dominican Republic. We’ve had some trouble in the past few years and the lawyer who’s taking care of the cases for us, who also happens to be a cousin, kept asking for me, wondering when I was going to make the trip to check things out. When my mother came to visit us in February for my son’s baptism, she expressed the wish to go there with me and explained that the cousin was always asking for me. Thankfully, I am not the only one to go there and follow what’s going on but it’s been 4 years since the last time I went there. Not only my visit was overdue but it was also going to be a good time to get away from everything, even if it was for only a week.

When I requested time off, I was told that there was a freeze on vacations at the date I wanted to leave. It was a bummer since we had more or less decided of the dates, so my mother and I did not talk about it for a while. I was a little disappointed because even if I knew we would not be gone to party and play tourists but I was looking forward to getting back in the ambiance of the Dominican life.

Time went on and when I asked my boss one day if the freeze was still in effect, he told me there was no freeze. In fact, there was one but it was postponed because nobody was ready for the go-live and it was going to happen a month later. I contacted my mother and we scrambled to get our tickets and hotel reservations and settled on a departure on June 22nd. We had planned so we would have little time to wait at the airport and hoped for the best when we would get there.

The last time I traveled, I took US Airways and it was nice. This time, I found out that they stopped flying there, so I had to choose another airline. I settled for Spirit because of the arrival time and because it was 50% cheaper than flying with American Airlines. I had heard different horror stories about Spirit but I had also heard other stories about people pretty happy with them. So I did find out why the ticket was so cheap. If you want a particular seat, you have to pay for it. Want to register your luggage? That will cost you too. And not after the second one. No, you start paying from the first piece of luggage. Since I hate waiting for my luggage at the airport and I was gone for such a short time anyway, I only had a small suitcase that fit nicely in the overhead bin. I did not request a seat and they did give me a boarding pass without a seat assignment. I went though the inspection since I was leaving from the Ft. Lauderdale airport and there was nothing to do outside anyway. I was happy I had at least my BlackBerry because I was able to post a few entries in my blog and in Twitter and read news articles from my RSS reader to kill time. I also received a message from my mother letting me know that her flight was late. Bad way to start the trip but at least the wait time at the airport in the DR would be much shorter now and that was good news indeed.

When it was time to board, we were told that the flight was full and that they would take luggage and register them for free. I started to groan, wondering what would be my seat and being in the last group to board, wondering if I could find a space to put my suitcase. When I finally boarded the plane, I had to wait to find out where I would sit and I could see all those passengers boarding with so much that I was sure I would have to part with my suitcase. A few minutes later, I was handed a boarding pass with my seat assignment and I got an aisle seat! Exactly what I was hoping for! And I did find space to put my suitcase, so everything was going smoothly so far.

The plane was an Airbus A-319. A couple of weeks before, an Air-France Airbus had crashed killing everybody on-board. Some people did talk about that and were nervous about being on that kind of plane. Shortly after taking off, it looked like the cabin was filling up with smoke but it was condensation from the air conditioning and some people saw that and started to worry out loud to the point that one of the flight attendants had to calm people down though the loudspeakers and let them know there was no reason to worry. And sure thing, everything cleared up and everybody calmed down.

Another reason why tickets are so cheap? Spirit does not serve anything for free. They have a selection of snacks and drinks for sale and if passengers do not have a credit or debit card, they cannot purchase anything. I figured it was quite late and my lunch was digested and not sure when I was going to have dinner, so I went ahead and choose the 4-beer special and snacks for $24. With that same money, I could have bought 24 beers and more snacks, but at least it was the price to pay to fly with Spirit. Quite honestly, as long as I would land safe and sound in Santo Domingo, that’s all I could care about.

One thing I could never understand is people clapping hands when the plane would land. I mean, yes, we made it safely but the landing was not particularly smooth and it’s not like we averted anything major that saved our lives or anything else. And I was very pleased to see that the captain was a young woman. I think it’s the first time that I’ve been on a plane and have the captain not being a man. I’ve had women co-pilots but it was nice to see her getting out of her seat and get ready to get off the plane.

After having a couple of beers on the plane, I needed to go to relieve myself. Across from the booth where the tourist cards are bought, there are restrooms there and I darted inside. There was a maintenance man that was about to leave but stayed when he saw me coming in. Just as I started doing my business, another person came in and finished before I did. He washed his hands and the maintenance guy pulled out some paper towels from the dispenser and handed it to the guy and in exchanged handed him a couple of bucks. And so he got me thinking. I don’t know how much he is paid for his job but if he does that several times a day and he gets $10 for the day, by the end of the month he would have made 2,5 times his salary…

After going through immigration, I asked the officer if the plane my mother was on had arrived and he told me that no it didn’t and in fact it was late. He told me to check on the display outside and I was fuming because once again, there was no way to depend on the regional airline to be on time. I also was glad I did not fly out on the 3pm flight because I would have been waiting the whole afternoon and night before seeing my mother coming out of customs. So I spent a good 90 minutes waiting, walking around, seeing all the passengers on the flight I came on leave the airport, see the food shops close and have taxi drivers buzzing around me like flies over sh*t. It was past 11:30 pm when I saw the board announcing the flight’s arrival and shortly thereafter a call from my mother telling me that she had landed. I was trying to figure out how long it was going to take us to get to the hotel, if there was somewhere we could find to have dinner and most important if the hotel had kept the room for us since it was so late. So finally, my mother came out and we walked outside and before we made it outside, 2 taxi men were trying to get our business. When they asked us where we were going, they did not know the place! Having made my reservation on the Net, I was wondering if this was going to turn into a disaster but when I showed them a printout of my reservation, they figured out that the hotel name had changed and we soon were on our way to the hotel. Of course, being 45 minutes away from the city left us lots of time to catch up on news from the family and back home and plan our stay. We agreed to take it easy the next morning and catch the 12pm bus to Santiago and stay there until Saturday to go back to Santo Domingo and fly out the next morning. Because it was so late, there was no traffic and it was a smooth drive to the hotel. I asked my mother if she had called anybody to let them know we were coming in, even though we had decided we would stay in a hotel not to disturb anybody and she told me that she did not call anybody. I was surprised because I know that Tina would want to see us as well as her son. And the lawyer would also want to know when we had planned to travel but since she decided to keep it a secret, I did tell her that it was not really nice but I left it at that.

While I was looking for hotels on the Net, I was apprehensive about the BQ. It only had 2 reviews and one was bad and the other was good. Not enough really to make a reasonable choice but I trusted my instincts and I was not wrong. Except for the reception area, the whole place looked like a colonial house with heavy mahogany doors and beautiful wooden furniture. It was perfect. And the hotel’s restaurant was open late so we went to eat something after such a long day. The waiter took our order and I had to order a Presidente beer. There is no way I would drink anything else but a Presidente as soon as I get off the plane. Ok, it was a few hours later but I did not drink anything else before having my beer. We had a nice dinner but nothing typical because it was way too late to have a heavy meal. We would have time to indulge later.

I woke up the next morning at 5am because I had forgotten to take off my alarm. I went back to sleep but that didn’t last long since the first people were on their way to work. And one incredible thing is that most Dominican drivers have their hands on the horn all the time. Even being on the 5th floor did not help: taxis, trucks, cars, anything that has a horn would generously use it. We stayed in bed, enjoying not to have to hurry to do anything, although breakfast was served until 9. I asked my mother if she was going to call Tina and she did but she was out and we talked to her son. Of course, he was offended that we did not call or let them know that we were going to be in town, although I think it was more a formal thing because one of my sisters had told him on FaceBook that we were going to be there. Tina came in and we vaguely made plans to have lunch before going to Santiago, but nothing was confirmed. So we got ready and went down for breakfast.

One of the things beside the beer that I love in the DR is the coffee. It is real coffee and not that flavored water found almost everywhere. The taste and the aroma just holds me and I am in heaven. That is the only time I drink lots of coffee, although my consumption when I was working in Miami was not bad either. I was finding my bearings once again.

The one thing I did not see was how many “domino” couples were having breakfast in the hotel. It seems like it’s more open than it used to be before. Maybe it’s the economy, maybe it’s the dream to get married and make it to the USA or maybe it is really plain and simply love. But it was my mother’s observation and her comment that made me see that.

We checked out of the hotel after finishing our breakfast and packing. The serious part of our trip was about to begin. We took a taxi to the bus station and got there in time to take the 12pm bus to Santiago. We would be back in the city in about 2 hours and I could not wait to get there.

I did not realize I was going to be so chatty and so there is no reason to have this be a longer post so this might have one or two other parts which is not so bad because I will have time to work on the pictures I took and will be able to post them with the text.

So, to be continued!

Till then…