Bayahibe

After work on Saturday, Robert and I took a carrito home and then finished getting ready for the trip to Bayahibe.  Silje ended up losing her wallet (thank goodness she didn't have much in it!), so we did a bit of a search for it in Gerardo's car and at the new theatre in Novo Centro where they were the night before.  On our way out of the city, we were desperate for a treat from a "manzana boy."  At every intersection the light was either too short or the manzana boy was too far away.  Finally when we were at Gomez turning onto 27, we spotted one.  Gerardo honked his horn and kind of waved at the manzana boy, and he came running.  We were a little too excited and ended up giving him too much money and not getting enough of the "freezies" for our money.  Of course, manzana boy ran away about as fast as he had come... this time with our money.  Still, it was enjoyable.

Piña skim ice

We made a quick stop on our way out of the city to grab something to eat, before really hitting the road.  The trip was quite uneventful and driving along the coast was very beautiful.  When we arrived at Bayahibe, we headed to the cabaña that Mari had stayed in when she was there a few weeks prior.  It cost us RD$800 per night per room, which, ended up costing us each about CAD$9.00.  While it was much better than what $9 could get you in Canada, it was still one of the worst places I've ever stayed in.  Anyway, once we unloaded our luggage, we got into our swimsuits and headed to the beach.  Robert, Gerardo and I had this realization of suddenly knowing where we were.  The beach we went to also happens to be the same beach that the boats to Isla Saona leave from!  We hung out at the beach until sunset and then hustled back to the cabaña as quickly as we could since the mosquitoes came out in full force once the sun went down.

Silje and Gerardo

Sunset

Beach

After a quick shower, we all went and picked up a snack (including coconut M&Ms) and some Presidente.  Mari's other friend (also named Silje - Silje 2 for my purposes here) was on her way from Punta Cana in a taxi so we were waiting for her to arrive before heading to dinner.  We wandered over to a restaurant that was right beside the ocean.  It was a lovely place for a meal; outdoors on a nicely appointed patio with the waves coming up on shore just a few meters away.  The food was good, nothing spectacular, but it hit the spot.  They also had these great seashell lamps that I really liked.  One of my favorite moments was when we saw a little mouse run along the beach and then he climbed up onto some pieces of coral near a palm tree.  He just sat there, watching the ocean.  It was cute.  (Yes, mice are cute... compared to the horrible rats...)  After dinner, we were all quite tired so we just headed straight to bed.

Coconut M&Ms

Me and Gerardo with our Presidente

At the restaurant

Seashell lamp

However, right before we were about to go to sleep (I was sharing a room with the two Silje's), Silje 1 let out a little scream.  She had found a rather large cockroach on their bed.  This was followed by the bed being taken apart and the sheets being shook out, but we still couldn't find it.  As it turns out, it had run really quickly into the bathroom.  So Silje 2 ended up trapping it in the case for Silje 1's snorkeling gear, but took off one of the cockroach's legs in the process.  Then she slid a Norwegian fashion magazine under the case and carried the cockroach as far outside as she could.  Silje 2 then did a thorough search of the room with her flashlight until it was concluded that there were no more cockroaches to be found.  Needless to say, none of us slept that well.

Mari, on the patio outside our room

The bed the cockroach was on

The bathroom

Ceiling

Bed I slept in

In the morning, Silje 1 and Gerardo went out for a run.  I wish I had known that they had planned on doing this, because I would have brought my running gear as well.  Oh well.  We all munched on some breakfast on the patio outside our cabaña before packing up our stuff.  Because of the cockroach incident (and finding another one in the bathroom that morning), the girls decided that they didn't want to stay at that place for the rest of their time there.  (Silje 1, Silje 2 and Mari were going to stay a few more days)  So they checked out the rates at Hotel Bayahibe and found that they were quite reasonable.  We all took our luggage up to their room and Robert, Gerardo and I were all a little sad that we didn't get to stay there.  It was a really cute hotel, very bright, air conditioning, hot water and ocean views.  Slightly more expensive than our cabana, but still quite cheap.

Then we headed to the beach again, this time to Dominicus beach.  It was an incredibly sunny day so we paid to have two umbrellas and some lounge chairs put out for us.  It was well worth it!  The day was a lot of fun.  Robert found some "bling" in the sand, Silje 1 found a cool fish to take photos of underwater, we saw a fake pirate ship, and I got some reading done.  We had lunch at a restaurant on the beach which, according to their menu, served pizza.  We were all pretty excited about this.  When we went to order the pizza, the waitress then informed us that they didn't have pizza, along with a whole host of other menu items.  Not impressed.  When we returned to our spot on the beach, we all decided to snooze a bit.  After a decent nap, we were awoken by a group of guys who had brought a giant cooler and a speaker system with them.  The music was pretty good overall so we didn't mind having them there.

Gerardo and Silje 1

Robert and his bling

Mari, Robert, me, Gerardo and Silje 2

Robert diving into the sea

Once again, we stayed until sunset, but this time, left before it had completely went down.  On our way back to the car we saw a guy who had gotten his SUV stuck in the sand.  His tires were bending in a way that they shouldn't be, so it seemed as though he had done a bit of damage as a result.  We headed back to the girls' hotel, had a quick shower, and then Gerardo, Robert and I headed back to the city.  We stopped in La Romana at Burger King for supper.  We decided to go through the drive through.  When we arrived, Robert and I got really excited since the picture of the wrap was on the board.  When we ordered, they informed us that they didn't have it.  Then it took, literally, over 15 minutes for us to actually get our food in the drive through,even though at the time of ordering, we were only 4 cars back from the window.  To make matters even worse, they gave Robert grape pop instead of coke.  We made it back to the city in time for Gerardo to catch the show he likes about a Mexican women's prison.

All in all, an excellent weekend!

And then, it was back to work.  Robert had to be at the client's office today so I was on my own at work.  I spent the morning trying to get some antivirus software onto J's laptop.  Anytime you go to stick in an external drive, it will make all folders into just shortcuts, so that you're no longer able to access what is in the file.  It also adds a bunch of random files.  Anyway, I finally got a good program to work and it got rid of the virus!  Yay!  Seriously, they should hire me as their tech guy... and Robert.  We do a lot of good for these computers here! 

I met up with Ozumy for lunch at Pola.  The place was packed!  My effort to save money was successful, as my entire lunch cost only 51 pesos.  That's right, less than 2 dollars.  I had a small dish of rice, some avocado salad and a bottle of water!  After eating at Pola, Ozumy and I headed over to sweet bakery.  Since I had money leftover in my budget, I had a small cheesecake and an espresso.  That didn't help my effort to be "new bikini" ready by Nov. 5.  When I returned to the office, the power was out.  It stayed that way for about 2 hours.  I didn't mind so much though, because it gave me an opportunity to do some reading in my current book, "The Logic of Life," by Tim Harford.  When the electricity did come back on, the air conditioning powered up and spat out a cockroach.  Luckily, the cockroach came flying out towards the wall, not towards me.  It fell down behind the desk, and then hit the ground running.  I let out a disgusted arrgheeew noise and lifted my feet up onto the legs of my chair.  O looked under the desk and tried to squish it.  He wasn't successful.  He kind of laughed about me not being impressed by this whole thing and asked me about it.  I told him that I'm still not used to them and they are so big!  He then asked if we had cockroaches in Canada.  I said that I guess we do, but I've never had them in my house or office.  Then he told me that I can just step on them, to which I replied, yeah no, they make that gross crunchy sound, and they are too big.  I mean who wants to scrape off cockroach from the bottom of their shoe.  Especially when they are 2 inches long, like this guy was.

After a power walk home, I arrived to find that we didn't have electricity or water.  It was closer to 7pm when the power and water came back on.  I made some pasta and had a glass of wine.  When I went to do my dishes, our water had gone out again... Oh life in the DR.