Carnaval!!

The flight to Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) was long but uneventful. We left at 12:30 am, arriving at 3pm in the afternoon (long layover in Atlanta). The movie Enchanted was showing between SLC and ATL - it was a good movie and it kept me up all night. Leaving Atlanta we were offered champage upon boarding the aircraft. Yummy. Did I mention I'd been upgraded to 1st class for three of four trip legs? And that champagne was the beverage of choice out and into Atlanta? And caviar on the breakfast bar. Poor me.

The waters heading into the Carribean were turquoise blue - the most beautiful color I've ever seen. There were some puffs of clouds here and there. Imagine looking up and seeing a few cloud puffs with the most gorgeous blue sky you've ever seen on to of it. That's what it was like looking down.

The last few minutes of lying over the Dominican Republic into Santo Domingo showed some interesting landscapes. Lush greens, dense clusters of communities which included large haciendas and properties butted up against apparent shacks and lean-tos butted up against former and broken brick/stone foundations. The broken foundations were common. It seemed as if once done with a home, it was simply knocked over and abandoned. Perhaps there had been a natural disaster at some time and it was just easier to start over somewhere else.

When going to our hotel in Santo Domingo the crowds on the roads were horrendous - pickup trucks and buses loaded to gills with people! We started noticing masks and vibrant costumes. Carnaval!

We dropped our stuff off and in 15 minutes we were out on the road walking within the throngs of people. Dominicans LOVE to have their picture taken so the sight of N's zoom lens had them all focused on us. The costumes and the rowdies were fabulous.

Many people had balloon type object on a rope or string. The tradition seemed to be to pop an unsuspecting person on the butt with the thing. It made a very loud pop. It just felt like someone had slapped you. I was a recipient. Found out later that this was an animal organ - no one would confess as to "which one". I'll keep working on that.

The DR people are also very touchy. They had no reservation about putting their hand or arm on me as they were passing. We were really squished in the crowds while trying to get close enough to see the parade first hand. Everyone smiled and made sure there was room for the little ones to get by or see. At one point N went to take a family's picture and the papa grabbed me and pulled me into the picture. Someone pressed a DR flag into my hand. A nice souvenir.

I bought an insland made cowboy had with a flower on it. 40 pesos (about $1.10) and a stalk of sugar cane (about $.03). To "eat" sugar cane you bite a chunk off the stalk and suck on it. Eating it would be like trying to eat dry straw. It does have potential as dental floss though.

I've never seen traffic as I did in Santo Domingo. Cars just went until there was no futher to go and then slipped through in unimaginable spaces and speeds. I saw Bronco sized vehicles move off the street onto the sidewalk keep moving forward. Scooters and motorcycles wove in and out of spaces sometimes with 3-4 people on them. The most interesting "three-some" was a man, a woman, and a baby plastered between the two of them.

Dinner tonight was an adventure in and of itself. We went to the hotel's buffet. I ate something green that I thought might taste slightly cilantro-ey. No, it tasted like what I would think of just cut grass tasting like. The papaya was good. So was the flan. They had lots of vegatable salads and they were good tasting too. It also offered lamb.

The evening after we left Conuco's, (the place with the bottle dancer, the driver pointed out a cocoa tree, a mango tree and a banana tree. While there, we thoroughly enjoyed the local food offerings. Many places offered buffets. While the buffets are not good for one's middle, the opportunity to sample the local fare is fabulous! A bite of this, a bite of that.

We visited the colonial area in downtown Santo Domingo. The area included the first church in the "Americas", Catholic of course, a statue of Columbus replete with an ever-present pigeon on his head and a host of tourist shops and carts offering souvinirs, ladies for "hire" and more food.

We also visted the "Light House", a memorial to Columbus. While Columbus did not originally land his boats in Santo Domingo or on the Dominican Republic island in 1492, he did make it his home. The Light House was a memorial to him and displayed his tomb. The memorial offere a long row of rooms with displays from many countries in the world their country. The United States' was photographs of all the peoples we have that make us the wonderful country we are...Alaskan natives, farmers, iron workers, Native Americans, a diner waitress, blacks, caucasions, hispanics, etc. Almost a quilt of the fabric of which we are woven.

Santo Domingo's "base" is coral. Many of the buildings, "stone" walls, etc. are made of coral.

We went to a cigar shop to pick up cigars for some of my friends. We watched a local man make cigars in the front window and the shop's "tour guide" explained to us that we couldn't buy the ones he was making. The ones he was rolling had tobacco that took several months to dry before being rolled. Then they needed to be pressed for a few more months with one last "coat" added before being sold. The kicker to this is the tobacco Santo Domingo uses in their cigars is imported from Connecticut. Yes, I typed that correctly, Connecticut.

The nicest custom that I encountered in Santo Domingo is that the taxi drivers waited for you. When going to dinner, they were there when you were done. When seeing the sites, they stayed with you the whole time, takeing you from one place to the next. They were also very informative about the history, flora, fauna and loved to engage you in conversation about their homeland. Senor Brito transported us around Tuesday evening and was waiting for me Wednesday morning to take me to the Airport.

At the aiport on the way home, I asked the waitress (with the same name as my youngest daughter and to me, not at all Latino), what she recommended I eat. I managed to eek this out in Spanish. Her recommendation was a salmon salad. The slab of salmon was buried in mushrooms and somehthing else that looked like capers, but did not have a caper taste or texture. The "dressing" was a olive oil and vinegar combination (not really a mellow basalmic either). It was light and tasty and plentiful. As I made my way through the duty free stores (gotta LOVE duty free shopping!), I stopped at a coffee stand. Another "romance" for me with traveling is that last cup of coffee before I leave my current land of wonder. I savor the time, the taste, the locale it represents. (When revisiting a place, the first cup is equally as enjoyable - like a reunion). `
There's nothing I notice and "snuggle down" into more than the underwater-bubbling-like sounds of foreign languages being spoken around me. It is lyrical to me. I can pick up on a few little things here and there and more and more in Spanish now. It used to intimidate me and make me feel "lost". Anymore, the more I travel, the more I like it, the more I feel comforted. For me, it isn't limited to foreign languages. It can be even regional dialects. The more I travel the less prejudices I harbor. It's all about people. Poeple all want the same things out of life...happiness, family, a reasonable wage and domain.

I left Utah in cold, snowy, blustery weather. I tell you, the tropics did me just fine.