Today we visited Dominican Republic. I was here in 2019 and had an enjoyable day but decided I didn’t need to return for an extended stay. Today was similar. Of course, when traveling just about any day spent with friends is a great day, and today was spent with Wendy (Roy’s wife) and Dave Lyon along with a dozen or so other passengers from our cruise.
I was on an excursion to kayak and see manatees. We (sort of) did the former but did not achieve the latter. We also spent over 4 of the 6 hours of the excursion on what can best be described as an extended minivan. And did I mention that the Dominican Republic’s roads bear no resemblance to interstate highways, and only modest resemblance to residential areas. That said, it was wonderful to get off the beaten path and see parts of the Dominican Republic that most tourists don’t see including lots of banana plantations, farms with cows and goats, fruit trees, cacti, etc. Nearly all of the buildings are extremely modest, and our wonderful guide Floricel (“but everyone calls me Flower”) spoke about growing up without electricity or running water.
In the van on the way to the manatee reserve that turned out to be rather close to the Haiti border, the three of us played “horse horse” after introducing Wendy to the game. There are two rules: if you see a horse (not a burro) you say “horse horse” and the first person to say “horse horse” gets to count the horse(s) at that location. If you see a cemetery (not a funeral home) you say “bury your horses” which means that everyone else resets their horse count to zero. The last time I played this mundane game was in Romania. It is a fine game to keep children occupied and annoy the adults in the crowd.
The water was beautifully tropical: fairly aqua-ish in shallow areas, and bright blue and green in other areas. It was also quite warm and pleasant. The air was very warm and reasonably humid. Dave and Wendy kayaked together, by design, since Dave (who I shared a kayak with in both Panama and Serbia) is an expert and it was Wendy’s first time. I ended up sharing a kayak with Doug, a nice guy from Ottawa. Although we didn’t see manatees, we did get to watch lots of birds, insects and even a land crab. Watching a pelican fly and dive almost straight down into the water is a powerful reminder about the cycle of life, though beautiful to watch, especially when one doesn’t have to smell the pelican. We saw lots of egrets (I assume) and others. I was fortunate to see a dozen or so yellow butterflies the color of butter including one surprisingly far from land on the river we kayaked. There was an impressively large bee, and a nice termite mound.
Not the day we expected, and one with numerous logistical process improvement opportunities for the ship and tourist companies, but a very nice one indeed.
No comments:
Post a Comment