Tuesday's Road Trip

Sorry for this next post. It’s quite long since we have not blogged for a couple of days. I will include lots of pictures though and hopefully it will not be boring.
Living in Bavaro / Punta Cana is a lot like living in Banff. This is a tourist town. 19 years ago there was an airport… 20 years ago there was desert and a beach. If you are older than 20, then you were not born here. So we thought it would be a nice adventure to see what is on the rest of the island.

We thought a trip to Santo Domingo would be a good day. Our only map was a hand drawn picture on the back of a placemat… and it looks like it was done in crayon. But no matter. How hard could it be to find our way around an island – there are only so many roads, right.Tuesday morning: We packed the car and started our new, mini adventure, changing our minds now and heading to the Samana Peninsula. It’s a longer drive, but Aaron, Doug and Hartely decide to go also and there is much more to see. They took their bikes across country back roads – we had the car/ As we left towards Macao we found an ‘80s Rock a station on the radio. A great way to start – rally driving this Saskatchewan road to loud music!

First stop: Higuey. We’d been here before, so it was nothing new. We drove through like it was Bentley, only bigger. We did go through a 6-way stop though… our first white knuckles.
Through the country we saw sugar cane and fruit and of course, a lot of garbage. We missed a sign (hard to believe, I know) and ended up in Boca de Yuma.  They had cows there.

Another nice little town, but it took about 40 minutes off our trip in backtracking. When we got on the road we made good time to La Romana (the 3rd largest city on the island). This is where we met our first checkstop. Regular police picking out white folks in cars and reminding them that police have guns. We had our papers and the conversation went well. No bribes and we were back on our way. It was a little unnerving (to say the least) so we stopped for lunch – in a Burger King. 

We didn’t mean to fall back into our old hamburger habits, but we had been driving a long way. We left the city for the Nuevo Camino para Samana and headed West. The drive by the highway was beautiful but we never did see the new highway.

We went through San Pedro de Marcoris (where the fabled toll booth was supposed to be) and made it to Boca Chica. Still no highway. We stopped at a bomba (gas station) and bought a ‘real’ map and asked directions – ZERO English here I might add. “Poco Problema” I heard quite a few times. But, we carried on.Before 

we knew it we were in Santo Domingo and seriously considering changing our destination when there it was: the toll booth, the Nuevo Camino, the sign reading “Samana”… we were in the wrong lane out of 6. Now trapped behind a concrete barrier, we not only missed the entrance, but we were heading into the city.Santo Domingo is a city of 3 or 4 million. Driving here is an experience to say the least – and not for everybody. No signs, too much traffic, too many people (we locked our doors) and another checkstop. This time Milit

ary Police. Still targeting white folks and carrying big guns. We made it through – no bribes, no gunshots. After some frustration with lawlessness traffic we made it out of the city and there it was… the toll booth to the new highway. Hooray, the trip is back on.

The new highway is about 80km in length and cuts hours off the trip around the island. We stopped in Bayaguana 

for a pee and beer. 

Very friendly. This is where Aaron, Hartley and Doug stayed the night. We didn’t hook up with them (and we were surprised to find cell service) so we pressed on.
We drove through a National Park and took a lot of pictures. The drive took us up a mountain road and through enough small towns that we decide to stay in Las Terranas. Mostly Haitians here. We spent the night in probably the most expensive place in town, but we were tired and it was dark.