Santo Domingo

Wednesday and Thursday saw me getting a chance to play at being a tourist in Santo Domingo (The Capital city of the Dominican Republic), in order for Pauline to renew her residency.

It's four hours from Sosua by bus, which I was originally envisaging to be one of the poky little minibus things I keep seeing around, with about 50 people crammed inside, 6 on the roof and a goat or chicken wedged in for good measure. Thankfully it wasn't, and I spent four hours in a gloriously air conditioned coach.

We arrived at the bus station to the usual chaos, people trying to sell you stuff, taxi drivers getting you to pick them, and more people trying to sell you stuff.

We picked our taxi driver, and didn't buy anything.

So after a whistlestop tour of the city, our cab driver dropped us off in the colonial zone where our hotel was. (Oh, the hotel. It was lovely.)

The colonial zone is kind of the 'old town' of Santo Domingo, full of history, gorgeous architecture, character and people trying to sell you stuff (anyone see a pattern here?)

A lot of the buildings looked a lot like this.

It's crammed full of all these beautiful old buildings, some that have been preserved, some that are being left to decay. But somehow that just adds to the feel of the place.

Shabby Chic, I'd say.

Anywho, we spent sometime exploring all the history and culture and whatnot, and sure enough we found ourselves attached to a very persistent tour guide, who despite our polite protests, and our determined evasion, wouldn't go away.
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Wouldn't stop talking either.

There's only so much information a person can take in at one time. Eventually we tipped him to make him leave.

But nevermind. I took some bad pictures of places that looked interesting to me, but are probably those 'had to be there' type images. You're here, and you can see them anyway.




This is one of the gatehouses at the first fort in the D.R. The statue is the patron saint of soldiers or something.

One of the views from the aforementioned fort.



Another view. The wall is where the land used to stop, in Columbus' time.

See the clouds?

Yeah?

It was still roasting hot.

I just liked the look of this place. It had bells.

This might be a colonial palace of some kind. I think it was.

According to our chatty tour guide, this was the first sundial in the D.R. I prefer to think of it as a homage to citrus fruits.

No idea what this place was. But it looked cool.

And that, dear readers, is all of the real cultural information I can provide on the colonial zone of Santo Domingo. Oh, and it had a Hard Rock Cafe, and a tiny Cathedral. And the hotel cafe/restaurant was great.

I hope you feel educated.

The next day saw two hours spent in Immigration whilst Pauline dealt with her residency, and then because we had time to spare, she took me to 'Los Tres Ojos' - 'The Three eyes', which are three underground lakes just outside of the city.

To illustrate, here are some blurry pictures:

Cave. Lake in a Cave.

You can't see from the picture, but those things were deep.

Now, I might have mentioned before the careless way in which many people appear to regard their lives here, but seriously.

There was a man in these caves, approximately 70 years old, wandering around in a pair of speedos.

Hm, I thought, perhaps he likes to take a dip at opportune moments.

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But noooo, he liked to dive.

And not just dive. I, and a crowd of gawking onlookers, watched as he shimmied and leapt and clung across the walls of one cave, 'til he was about 20 feet of the ground, and 20 metres in and away from everyone.

He saluted said crowd, and dived right in.

I apologise profusely for taking a load of bad pictures, and not getting one of this, but I was too busy clutching the camera to my chest and praying he didn't fall to his death.

But he didn't. He came up to the surface, waved at us all, pulled himself out of the water, and posed like a strongman.

I was too busy gawping to have the presence of mind then either.

Sorry.

I'll just have to leave you all with the mental images.

That was pretty much the end of the trip, apart from seeing the Christopher Columbus lighthouse on the way back to the Bus Station. It didn't look like a lighthouse, it looked like a nuclear missile bunker, but who am I to judge? It was big anyway, and it wasn't covered in white and blue stripes like I believe all the good lighthouses are.

Another four hours on the bus, which involved sleeping and eating fried yukka, then a triumphant return to the Project.

I eat a lot of stuff I've never heard of here.

That's it for now! Love you all

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