26 – 30 JANUARY 2018 DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
“Lets have a break from the Marina, we’ll go and explore the Mountains, it’ll be fun” he said.
We’ve been at Marina Zarpar, Andres since before Christmas, we’ve checked out all there is to see in the surrounding vicinity and as the forecast is still not good to make for Puerto Rico we decided to hire a car, book a hotel and explore the mountainous part of Dominican Republic. We hired a car online through Firefly, good deal only US$165.62 for 4 days and the hotel, Parador El Cachimbo De Mama near La Vega was US$129.20 for three nights. Car hire was the classic case of “if something’s too good to be true, it usually is” The nice Firefly/Thrifty car hire gentleman informed us we would need to pay US$150 car insurance on top of the car hire, what?! Be warned and learn from our experience. When Americans hire cars they have car insurance cover on their credit cards, we didn’t and when booking on line there was no mention of the price not including car insurance. In fact the on line booking form advertised the car hire cost as complete, nothing more to pay. You get hit with the extra and substantial charge when you collect the car…… We were not impressed. Checking over the car prior to our driving it off raised a smile though, there were so many scratches and dents on the bodywork. The car hire chap walked around the vehicle marking all the damage on his car hire form before we’d even left the car park! Driving here, certainly from we’ve seen is insane. We call the local vehicles “zombie or Frankenstein cars”. They are absolute wrecks and one vehicle is often created from several other wrecks. Bumpers are rarely seen, usually they have been ripped off revealing the framework. Headlights and rear lights are like zombie eyes, the bulbs dangling from their wires out of the light sockets. Doors and general bodywork is crumpled and bashed. Windscreens are cracked and frequently held together with duck tape, in a lot of cases, the side windows are long gone and t shirts are duck taped to the outside of the door, filthy and flapping in the wind as they roar down the motorways. Replacement bodywork parts naturally don’t match, it’s whatever the driver could get at the time. Vehicle interiors look like a pack of rabied dogs have been let loose inside, the seats shredded exposing the metal frame with just enough “pleather” fabric left to sit on. We’ve seen better cars at our local car scrap dealers! The dashboards fare no better, large chunks of plastic are missing and you can almost see into the engine works. Taxi’s and mini buses are no better! It became clear why folks don’t try to repair their cars, they drive with total abandon and if you’re in their way, it doesn’t matter if they come off worst, their vehicle can’t really be more wrecked than it already is, this gives the local driver a clear advantage as we negotiated our way through the towns and motorways, we had to return our vehicle in as much the same state as we hired it. If our car was in the way, they simply drove at us, we frequently found there was just nowhere for us to go! In amongst this free for all were little 125 motorbikes and scooters zipping into the one inch gap between cars which were two or three abreast all aiming for that single line of road whether it be in town or on the motorway. I say road, it’s pot holes with bits of road in between. Deceptively deep and wide, we would hit one, unable to avoid it as we were forced towards the pothole cliff edge, our teeth rattling, as the suspension jarred from the impact. I gripped the seat, “Jeeeesuz Christ!” or worse, would escape between my clenched teeth as cars, buses and lorries veered towards and around us, bikes laden with people, livestock, building materials and big gas bottles filled in the gaps, there was little easing up. Terry used to rally at international level, through forests and all types of terrain, even he found this crazier than rallying! He rollocked me. “Stop screaming, I can’t concentrate if you keep making that noise!” “I’m not bloody screaming, I can scream and this isn’t bloody screaming, I can’t help it!” It’s fair to say this was no bimble in the countryside. My jaws still ache. An unusual feature of these motorways is the “Returno”. We don’t have them in the UK. For a good reason, let me explain. Slip roads onto the motorway place you further ahead or on the opposite side of where you wish to be going. So, you get onto the motorway, and some hundred yards or so is the Returno. A gap in the central concrete reservation wall of both sides of the motorway. This is where you execute a U turn so you are going in the direction you want to. This U turn is alongside the fast lane. So, you have to bulldoze your way across two or three lanes of traffic, into the fast lane, oh and for extra good fun, motorbikes use the narrow gap between the reservation wall and the outside of the outside lane. We nearly took out a couple on a motorbike as we indicated to use a Returno, as they were hidden behind the car behind us. Terrifying. Indicators are considered for wimps so nobody uses them, at best drivers put their hazard lights on when it rains, well at least you knew it was raining when you could eventually see them through the spray!!!
We also go lost. Many times. There is bugger all road signage to help you thread your way out of the rabbit warren of city roads. Which way is East, West, North or South, you guess. You’re a tourist and want to go somewhere, tough, local knowledge is what counts here! We ended up using the Sun and which way the bloody wind was blowing through trees to navigate our way out of towns and cities. Round and round we went, criss crossing streets, going up ramps, going underneath the same ramps in a different direction. Occasionally a road sign would be seen, but in the opposite direction, we’ve never come across anything like it. I’ve cycled through Siem Reap and Ho Chi Min cities with more ease and less fear!!! Bear in mind we haven’t even got to the hotel yet dear reader. Then it began to rain….. torrential tropical rain. That’s why there are “rain” forests here. No one eased off the pedals, spray from lorries obliterated our view, as if my nerves weren’t frazzled enough…. Dusk came and still it poured down, most of the vehicles and bikes had lights on, some didn’t rendering cars and bikes invisible through the sheeting rain. We eventually found our hotel and I have never, ever been so relieved to get out of the car. Terry looked buzzing, I was a damp rag, my legs almost unable to support me to the bar, which thankfully was open. My god, that first beer was nectar! Of course to go anywhere we would have to drive into the Gladiators arena once more.
The Hotel was clean and basic. Carmen and her husband who run the hotel were very friendly, Carmen’s English good. Their food was excellent, the speciality of the hotel was the large bbq which would be fired up in the morning, big ribs of meat and pieces of chicken would cook slowly all day. The ribs were big, meaty and covered in a delicious bbq sauce. We also ate Mofongo, a sandcastle bucket sized mound of fried and mashed plantain, over which would be dribbled sliced red onions in a light sweet vinegar dressing. And the desserts! I’m a dessert person, and will read the dessert menu before the main menu. Carmen’s Mother made a lemon cheesecake, so we had to have that, divine! Over the time we stayed there, we didn’t starve! Each evening as we worked our way through the menu, the torrential rain poured off the palm leaf roof of the restaurant.
The rain didn’t cease. Next day we rallied our way to Constanza, a rural farm town in the top middle part of the island. As we climbed up the mountain roads, we could see the scenery change to wide, vast fields of vegetables, lettuce, maize, paddy fields of rice, root vegetables, fruit and cows, this area is the food source for the island. The scenery and buildings looked almost Swiss, as the fields lay in a flat basin, the mountains rose up all around the agricultural area, perfect for growing crops and feeding livestock. Constanza had a real rural feel to it, the locals were farmers and the town had a different beat to it, more placid and steady, tractors parked alongside cars. Lots of hardware and tyre repair businesses, less tat shops. We would be glad of the tyre repair place later on.
The tourist map showed us there was a waterfall and some kind of pyramid nearby. We found the sign, there actually was one, and followed the arrow. The arrow took us up an increasingly narrow, boulder strewn, deep rutted “road” which rose upwards, rough corrugated iron dwellings leant against each other for support on either side of this “road”. “You can’t take a car up here!” I said as Terry had that gleam in his eye that I recognised all too well. “You can take a car anywhere!” he said, coaxing our little Kia Picante out of a particularly deep trough in the rain. Children watched wide eyed as these gringos and their shiny car bumped up and down past their homes. It got worse and so did my patience. The road was one track, yet trucks carrying six or seven farmworkers or fully laden lorries would come down the narrow road we were coming up. Somehow, we squeezed past each other, I think we drove over the front step of some dwellings, I could clearly see the little tables with two chairs, inside what looked like a single room, a vase with plastic flowers in the middle of the table. They were rough by our standards, but people were sweeping and keeping their homes decent.
We carried on and the road widened, though still deeply pitted with rain filled hollows. Another sign, oh yes, plenty of the damn things now, told us the waterfall was 2 km away. We couldn’t drive any further and got out of the car. Hissssssss! Came from the rear drivers tyre, great……. We could see the bubbles of air escaping from the tyre as it sat deflating in a large puddle. Luckily Terry is a dab hand at changing tyres. It’s all part of the adventure I reminded myself. We suspected the puncture came from hitting one of the numerous potholes on the way to the hotel. Terry changed it, and we drove back down the long windy road, squeezing past the now empty vegetable lorries and trucks full of workers on their way back up to the fields. I think some may have recognised us….. We didn’t see the waterfall! We called in at a local Tyre repair shop. The young guy who dealt with us went out of his way to help, using his own mobile phone to sort out the car hire agency who were being difficult. To remove the tyre patch it and refit it cost 200 Pesos about $4.5 US that is when we really knew we were out of the tourist area. We then had another white knuckle ride back to the hotel!
The following day, we drove and I use the term loosely, for two hours to Puerto Plata on the North coast through torrential rain, get the theme here?! I’m sure Puerto Plata is lovely when it’s not pouring with stair rod rain. We found the sea front, looked at the Atlantic rollers breaking over the sea wall, parked up next to a pizza place, ate pizza and watched the rain and wind build up in ferocity whilst getting a weather forecast on WiFi. The return journey was eventful. We saw a guy on a motorbike, with plastic boxes covered with tarpaulin, his load was as wide as the road he was on! As we drove over bridges, the rivers were like split pea yellow soup, and swollen, trees and vegetation being carried down stream, breaking the banks in some places. We drove around large sections of mud slides, where the steep banks had sheared off, dragging trees and rocks with it as the mud slid onto the road. We were impressed by the no nonsense attitude, no road closures here. Several men would tackle a fallen tree, hacking it with their machetes and hauling it to one side, taking no notice of the cars grazing their trousers as they worked.
That evening, we decided to cut our trip short and head home the next day, there’s only so much fun you can have, and the forecast looked favourable to sail the following day. We were lying on the bed discussing our plans when I said “Crikey, the weather’s got worse, I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a power cut”. The main light, the only light in the room went out. We had a power cut. Dusk still allowed a bit of light into the room. “Whooooo, I’m a ghost”. I said waving my hands at him. “Idiot” said Terry.
Carmen wasn’t fazed, power cuts are common here as they are at home with us. We were the only guests that night, it was the quiet season, so by candlelight, we had a big plate of ribs and chips fried using the gas cooker. They have a generator and with a bit of repair work and two men with spanners power was restored.
Next day it was still raining, though clear sky could be seen where the Marina was. This helped with navigating through the towns with no bloody signage, we just kept aiming for the blue sky. It’s all part of the adventure and in a weird way we enjoyed our little excursion!
sisu journey 