The Dominican Republic – The rules are .. there are no rules

Torrential rain greeted us on our arrival in Santo Domingo, I had been led to believe the Caribbean was sunny and watching forked lightening light up the Caribbean sea when Hurricane Katrina had just destroyed large parts of the USA did little to ease my anxieties concerning hurricanes hitting the island at any moment. This was even more the case when on arrival at Joan’s beach house we encountered a shipwrecked boat at the end of the garden – the result of a recent hurricane.

My first impressions of the country were varied – on one hand there is an enormous amount of wealth, driving around the roads there are no end of hugely expensive cars, Hummers, Jags, Porsches – however this money is held by an extremely small percentage of the population while the rest (mainly black) survive on next to nothing using the carros publicos and ‘bus’ services to travel to and from their employees each day. Every place we visited had servants to cook, clean.. and I was not entirely comfortable with a situation in which the black people are viewed as a lower class mainly there to serve the obese rich white people.

Going to a local TV station to pick something up we climbed the stairs as the lift was hanging from a cable and there appeared to be no doors.. like a scene from candyman.. however walking through the doors of the company we then found ourselves in a luxurious reception.. Another thing that amazed me were the carros publicos (public cars), at first we were under the impression that they were taxis (very dodgy taxis but still..) until it was explained to us their true purpose.. cars that are completely unroadworthy in the UK (imagine the advert set in India where they use an elephant to bash up a car in the shape of a Peugeot – in the end the car is covered in dents.. like that) are driven around the city picking up passengers along the way.. sort of like a taxi but shared with other people.. the amazing thing about these cars is not the fact they look like scrap metal but more the numbers of people, chickens, goats they can actually fit inside them.. it’s not uncommon to see 8 or 9 people in one carro.

Our host Joan wanted to make sure that we saw typical Dominican life so we were taken to many bars and clubs where we once again heard the immortal lines uttered by all Dominican men ‘ Do you dance merengue?’ now we can at least say yes! Dominican men are a breed of weasel all to their own.. never have I been so sure of what a guy is going to say before he has said it.. You have such beautiful eyes, You’re the most beautiful girl in the whole place, even.. I’ve fallen in love.

Joan also decided to take us around the island to see some of the beautiful beaches in the north and east of the island.. when discussing plans with his friends one of them felt the need to take some time off work to join us as he didn’t think we’d arrive back alive.. one of the had also advised him to definitely without a doubt acquire a 4x4 for the journey, Joan decided against heeding his friend’s advice and off we set on our road trip in a Peugeot saloon car.. I am not sure if some one cursed our journey but it was possibly the most stressful trip of my life. Having set off four hours late we finally set off and half an hour into the trip a tyre burst.. having a tyre burst in normal circumstances is bad enough.. having a tyre burst on a Dominican motorway is the worst.. we first of all changed the tyre in the 37 degree heat being beeped at every 2 minutes by Dominican lorry drivers. The emergency tyre was not worth the rubber it was made of and we knew we had to find a replacement asap. Miraculously there was a tyre replacement place just on the other side of the motorway which we reached by crossing the six lanes of traffic. A tyre replacement centre in the Dominican republic is not like one in Europe..

The route across the island was fascinating we passed through coconut plantations, banana plantations, through tiny hamlets and shanty towns and over and across the mountains to see the most spectacular view over the coast line of the North-East Coast of the Island known as Las Terrenas. As we drove Joan regaled me with interesting facts about the different things we were seeing – Banana plants for example only give one harvest , and so every year all of the plants must be uprooted and new ones planted. This is the same with sugar cane – after the harvest they uproot what they can and set fire to the fields giving off a smell like burnt caramel. We also passed Hugh Hefner’s Dominican Estate,

When we arrived at the beach that had been recommended to us we found that it had been wrecked by the hurricane that had blown by the north side of the island so we went on a mission to find a new place . It was already 3pm and the sun sets at 6 so we had precious little time, not to be deterred we set off along the coastline looking for an alternative beach. Stopping at a junction we came across a chap on a moped, Joan asked him to recommend a beach nearby and the guy said he would take us to one.. we just had to follow him. Off we went behind moped man in search of a beach within a few minutes we had encountered our first obstacle – a funeral procession.. not just any funeral procession,, a typical Dominican procession with the body being drawn by horse and the whole village walking slowly behind. We eventually passed, having been following for around 25 minutes and carried on. Moped guy had told us that the journey would take 15 minutes.. yet, not including the hold-up, we had been following him for a good 30 minutes. He eventually turned off down a dirt track and we followed behind.. this is when we began to understood why we needed a 4x4. The track was a best a dirt road and a worst a potholed, rocky, ditch ridden ridiculous excuse for a track which Joan’s car was having extreme difficulty getting down. Every time rocks scraped along the bottom of the car Joan’s face would screw up in horror. Yet we carried on.

We then encountered our second obstacle. Turning a corner we found ourselves face to face with a herd of particularly sorry looking cows. Our guide had zoomed on ahead on his little moto while we sat and watched as one by one the cows slowly sauntered by with their herder and we watched the sun get lower in the sky as the rest of our sunlight and chance to tan ourselves slipped slowly from sight…

We carry on and see in the distance a peculiar sight, over the brow of a small hill in the road we see our guide has dismounted his moto and is throwing rocks over his head trying to clear the road. At this point our guide reappears and Joan tells him that the track is a no go and we are turning around. Not to fret, our guide knows another shorter, and easier, not to mention better for the car route. Why he didn’t tell us this earlier… anyway we turn around and make our way back down the track scraping the car as we go.

We reach the main road drive down a little way and follow our guide down another little track.. a few drops start to hit the windshield, rain. Great. All we need. We carry on regardless even though this track does not seem any better than the last and is, if possible, worse. A little way down we pass some people on quad bikes, the rain is now starting to fall quite heavily, the road is fast becoming a quagmire, we stop the quads and ask what the the road is like further on.

“In that car… impossible”

We call it a day and head back to the hotel.

To Be Continued .....