On Thursday, I was at the office by myself since Robert had gone to Isla Saona with his dad and Trond. I ended up being quite busy and even had to work through lunch (not that I minded since that meant a free lunch from Emparedado). I spent the evening doing more painting and organizing.
On Friday, we had another busy day at the office. At lunch, Robert and I went to Pizza Hut. We took a carrito there, since the walk is about 15 min long, and I was so excited when we got into the carrito and discovered it was a female driver! But not the female driver that I had seen before, a new one!
When it was time to leave, it started pouring rain. We decided to wander around the building that the Pizza Hut was in, and came across another "super" business.
I was hoping to pick up some rum at Nacional, but when we arrived, I was quite disappointed to find that they didn't have any of the brands I wanted. Normally they carry what I was looking for. Now I will just have to see what is available at the airport. (This may be a good thing though since it will mean my bags will be a few pounds lighter since they will be weighed and tagged before the duty free gets stuck into them!) Anyway, so we decided to go over to the bookstore since I've been wanting to get something for JCL in the line of a phrase book or dictionary. I settled on a nice English dictionary. I remember my French tutor forcing me to look up words in a French dictionary (not an English-French dictionary) since it would help me learn more, so I figured the same would be true for English. Maria was kind enough to help me write up something nice for the inside in Spanish. I also bought the Little Mermaid, on DVD in Spanish.
After work, I went home for a bit, changed and headed over to one of our coworker's house for a goodbye party for Oscar. I had a sneaky feeling that it was also for me, since people kept confirming that I would be there. It was a nice evening, there was good food and drinks, and Oscar and I were presented with some gifts! Very thoughtful!
I was up early on Saturday to head over to Robert and Mari's at 7:15 am. I got to meet Mari's parents and then we headed off to Caribe Tours to take a bus to Sanchez. When we arrived, we met up with Trond, and two of Mari's coworkers, Silvia and Claudia. The trip to Sanchez was uneventful. I slept the entire way. When we arrived in Sanchez, we were greeted by many taxi drivers, wondering where we were headed to. One guy had a mini-bus (there was 8 people in our group) and wanted RD$1500 to take us to the hotel in Las Terrenas. I thought this was reasonable, since we were a large group and the trip was a bit long. Others in our group didn't agree and wanted less, so we ended up standing around with no one making an executive decision for a while. I found this to be kind of frustrating. Per person, it was less than RD$200. I can deal with that. Anyway, we ended up going with him. He went over a rather nasty bump and totally scraped the bottom of the mini-bus and then it seemed like something happened to his front left wheel. He proceeded to stop every few minutes at first to check on it. The road to Las Terrenas was steep, curvy and in not so great condition, but the view was fantastic!
We arrived at our hotel, Las Palmas, and got checked in. We had 3 apartments between the 10 of us (Lars and Line met us there) and the grounds were quite beautiful.
Once we got settled, we all went out to grab some lunch. I ate a giant pizza and it was very tasty.
After lunch, we all went to hang out at the beach, except Mari's parents who went back to the hotel to chill and do some reading. While the beach was not the greatest, it was still nice to just hang out in the sun. We did have a bit of an adventure watching Robert climb up a palm tree and toss down two coconuts, after which, him and Lars worked hard at getting them open (eventually they did!).
After our beach time, we all showered up, some of us had a quick nap, and then we were off to find groceries to have a BBQ. Unfortunately, as we were about to leave, it started pouring rain. So we ended up just hanging out by the reception area until it stopped. We walked into town and ended up finding out that the main grocery store had already closed and the only one open was a small colmado type store. We checked it out inside and it didn't have enough for the dinner but we were able to get some food delivered for breakfast and snacks. Lars was kind enough to walk back to meet the delivery at the hotel, while the rest of us went in search of a restaurant for dinner. On our way, Trond had seen a place that served crocodile so the plan was to go there. I was a bit worried since the menu they showed at the entrance had no idshes without meat. Once we were seated, I was happy to find that the full menu had some vegetarian dishes. I setlled on a plate of 4 cheese gnocchi. All of the guys tried the crocodile and said that they liked it. There was one not so fun part about dinner, and that was the insanely high pitched and constant noise coming from, what we believe, was a lone cricket, strategically placed to make his sound much bigger and much more annoying than it should have been. Literally, when he would pause, all of us would bolt to attention and get excited over the mere seconds of relief from this annoying sound.
When we returned, the hotel's watchiman wouldn't let us into the hotel. I guess we confused him because there were 10 of us. We even showed him that we had 3 keys. It took a lot of convincing for him to let us in. Then, once we were inside and thought we had settled things with him, we were all going to walk over to the apartment that had our groceries that were delivered earlier. But then the watchiman was more confused and so we just went to our apartment so he wouldn't cause any more issues. He also kept trying to talk to Lars (since Lars had been by earlier to receive the groceries) even though he didn't speak any Spanish. They ended up having to say to him, "Alright, there are 4 beds in each apartment right? Right. Okay and we have 3 apartments, which makes 12 beds, and we are 10 people..." Finally he understood. I was just too tired to stay up and hang out, plus we had a taxi scheduled to pick us up at 7:20 am, so Silvia and I decided to go straight to bed. The others followed shortly after. The next morning we were up early and I was sure to take a few pictures of the hotel.
The taxi driver took us to Samana. The majority of the trip had us passing through small villages. There was something so beautiful about watching the locals, adults and kids alike, out just going about their day. Little girls helping their mom wash clothes, boys practicing baseball, women singing, men waiting for rides to construction sites, etc. When we arrived, we found out that the whale watching tour actually left at 10 am, not at 9 am like they had told us on the phone. So we took the time to find a bite to eat and to take some photos.
At 10:00, we all boarded the boat. It was a nice size, with two decks. Kim, the lady who runs Whale Samana, is a Canadian marine biologist who has been extremely influential in ensuring the protection of the humpback whales and the area they mate and give birth in, near Samana. She essentially started the whale watching industry in the Dominican. The trip was quite informative as she was sure to tell us lots and had her staff hand around pictures and models so that everyone knew what they were looking for. I believe I was the first one to spot a spout, but I was kind of unsure of myself so didn't yell it out, and instead just told Robert and Silvia. Sure enough, the spouts I saw were the first two whales we ended up approaching and viewing! They weren't that exciting though so we went in another direction and came across a female and her male escort. In addition to the two of them, there were two challenger males who were trying to become her escort. It was very interesting to see the escort showing how macho he was by doing things like making long bubble trails. She seemed to be enjoying herself and we watched her breaching, flapping her fins in the air and slapping them on the water, and at one point, she was on her back with both fins in the air. It was an amazing sight!
After watching the female for a while, we ended up seeing a few more whales before it was time to head back in. By this point, we had been out for over 3 hours and most of us were really tired. When we arrived back on shore, Claudia, Silvia and I said goodbye to the rest of the group since they were heading back to Las Terrenas and we were heading back to Santo Domingo. The three of us went in search of some lunch. We ended up at a cute restaurant but the food took forever. We ended up having to scarf down the food quickly and run out the door and onto the bus. The bus we had for the trip home was quite luxurious. Only 3 seats per row (two on one side, one on the other) that reclined fully with foot rests. I had a good sleep on the way home!
When we arrived in the city, I shared a taxi with the girls and headed home. I was really tired but ended up doing quite a bit of packing before bed.
We arrived at our hotel, Las Palmas, and got checked in. We had 3 apartments between the 10 of us (Lars and Line met us there) and the grounds were quite beautiful.
Once we got settled, we all went out to grab some lunch. I ate a giant pizza and it was very tasty.
After lunch, we all went to hang out at the beach, except Mari's parents who went back to the hotel to chill and do some reading. While the beach was not the greatest, it was still nice to just hang out in the sun. We did have a bit of an adventure watching Robert climb up a palm tree and toss down two coconuts, after which, him and Lars worked hard at getting them open (eventually they did!).
After our beach time, we all showered up, some of us had a quick nap, and then we were off to find groceries to have a BBQ. Unfortunately, as we were about to leave, it started pouring rain. So we ended up just hanging out by the reception area until it stopped. We walked into town and ended up finding out that the main grocery store had already closed and the only one open was a small colmado type store. We checked it out inside and it didn't have enough for the dinner but we were able to get some food delivered for breakfast and snacks. Lars was kind enough to walk back to meet the delivery at the hotel, while the rest of us went in search of a restaurant for dinner. On our way, Trond had seen a place that served crocodile so the plan was to go there. I was a bit worried since the menu they showed at the entrance had no idshes without meat. Once we were seated, I was happy to find that the full menu had some vegetarian dishes. I setlled on a plate of 4 cheese gnocchi. All of the guys tried the crocodile and said that they liked it. There was one not so fun part about dinner, and that was the insanely high pitched and constant noise coming from, what we believe, was a lone cricket, strategically placed to make his sound much bigger and much more annoying than it should have been. Literally, when he would pause, all of us would bolt to attention and get excited over the mere seconds of relief from this annoying sound.
When we returned, the hotel's watchiman wouldn't let us into the hotel. I guess we confused him because there were 10 of us. We even showed him that we had 3 keys. It took a lot of convincing for him to let us in. Then, once we were inside and thought we had settled things with him, we were all going to walk over to the apartment that had our groceries that were delivered earlier. But then the watchiman was more confused and so we just went to our apartment so he wouldn't cause any more issues. He also kept trying to talk to Lars (since Lars had been by earlier to receive the groceries) even though he didn't speak any Spanish. They ended up having to say to him, "Alright, there are 4 beds in each apartment right? Right. Okay and we have 3 apartments, which makes 12 beds, and we are 10 people..." Finally he understood. I was just too tired to stay up and hang out, plus we had a taxi scheduled to pick us up at 7:20 am, so Silvia and I decided to go straight to bed. The others followed shortly after. The next morning we were up early and I was sure to take a few pictures of the hotel.
The taxi driver took us to Samana. The majority of the trip had us passing through small villages. There was something so beautiful about watching the locals, adults and kids alike, out just going about their day. Little girls helping their mom wash clothes, boys practicing baseball, women singing, men waiting for rides to construction sites, etc. When we arrived, we found out that the whale watching tour actually left at 10 am, not at 9 am like they had told us on the phone. So we took the time to find a bite to eat and to take some photos.
At 10:00, we all boarded the boat. It was a nice size, with two decks. Kim, the lady who runs Whale Samana, is a Canadian marine biologist who has been extremely influential in ensuring the protection of the humpback whales and the area they mate and give birth in, near Samana. She essentially started the whale watching industry in the Dominican. The trip was quite informative as she was sure to tell us lots and had her staff hand around pictures and models so that everyone knew what they were looking for. I believe I was the first one to spot a spout, but I was kind of unsure of myself so didn't yell it out, and instead just told Robert and Silvia. Sure enough, the spouts I saw were the first two whales we ended up approaching and viewing! They weren't that exciting though so we went in another direction and came across a female and her male escort. In addition to the two of them, there were two challenger males who were trying to become her escort. It was very interesting to see the escort showing how macho he was by doing things like making long bubble trails. She seemed to be enjoying herself and we watched her breaching, flapping her fins in the air and slapping them on the water, and at one point, she was on her back with both fins in the air. It was an amazing sight!
After watching the female for a while, we ended up seeing a few more whales before it was time to head back in. By this point, we had been out for over 3 hours and most of us were really tired. When we arrived back on shore, Claudia, Silvia and I said goodbye to the rest of the group since they were heading back to Las Terrenas and we were heading back to Santo Domingo. The three of us went in search of some lunch. We ended up at a cute restaurant but the food took forever. We ended up having to scarf down the food quickly and run out the door and onto the bus. The bus we had for the trip home was quite luxurious. Only 3 seats per row (two on one side, one on the other) that reclined fully with foot rests. I had a good sleep on the way home!
When we arrived in the city, I shared a taxi with the girls and headed home. I was really tired but ended up doing quite a bit of packing before bed.
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