<a href=’http://glennkauffman.com/2008/01/27/the-first-few-days/vip-resort-in-the-dr/’ rel=’attachment wp-att-81′ title=’VIP Resort in the DR‘><img src=’http://glennkauffman.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/image76.jpg’ alt=’VIP Resort in the DR‘ />Well, we made it. While our first flight was fine, despite having to to drive to Chicago from Milwaukee and the guy in the aisle next to us who order three Budweisers right off of the bat and then had to yell to hear himself over his own iPod. No, it was our second flight that really was the issue.
It turns out that the Miami airport is a complete shit-hole. Most of it is under construction and there are almost no worthwhile restaurants available. Getting from gateway to another was a trek. After wandering around, we ate at the only restaurant on our gateway, which while good, was nothing more than a sandwich.
With two hours to kill before our flight to the Dominican Republic, I wandered around until the boarding time. Each time we came back to the gate, the departure time was pushed back by ten more minutes. An hour late, we got to board and the locals were getting restless.
Just as the plane was leaving the gate, a passenger in the front started a drunken confrontation with several other passengers and a crew member. After given several chances to calm down, the rowdy passenger had to be removed from the plane, which meant re-connecting to a gate. Then, we were informed, they had to remove his baggage from the hold. This was done by removing all of the stowed luggage and sorting through it to find his bags and then returning all of the others back to the plane.
Apparently this happens more often than you’d think and one of our stewards regaled us with a story of having to physically incapacitate (i.e. beat the shit out of…) an unruly passenger.
Now two hours late, we were finally able to take off for the Dominican.
Even though we were able to sleep on the plane, we weren’t in the best of mental states as we were standing in line for customs at the Santiago airport. Papers signed, passports stamped and tourist cards paid for we collected our checked bag and breezed past the x-ray for incoming baggage. We didn’t seem to interest them as much as the Dominican mother of two with a stack of baggage taller than herself.
Outside of the terminal, we were immediately approached by a taxi driver and a short conversation in various broken languages we were on our way north to Costambar in Puerto Plata which is coincidentally near Puerto Plata (one is a province, the other is a city in said province).
The following hour and a half taxi ride was one most harrowing experiences of my life. It was a roller coaster well worth the price of admission.
As far as we can tell, the Dominican Republic has no traffic laws. They also don’t seem to have any road crews either. Nor any fear of death at the hands of oncoming traffic. Our taxi was an old diesel Nissan passenger van driven by a nice young man who barely spoke any English. Between adjusting the volume or track of his Spanish Pop CD that he was singing along with and texting on one of several cell phones he managed to find time to dodge massive potholes and mudslides that would cause him to bring us to a near halt or throw us into the opposite late to avoid. In the dark, people and other vehicles would appear just it front of the van as if by magic. The ride was excitement and I found myself leaning forward in anticipation with a maniacal grin.
On a somber note, within the first 15 minutes of our drive, we came across two auto accidents. The first, a head on collision, seemed bad but it was the second that was the worst. As we approach yet another bar or club that seemed to open right onto the street, we see a large crowd of people gathered on the median. It seems that in the oncoming lane a motorcyclist was hit by car and was lying dying or dead in the middle of the road. The crowd was standing around him and it seemed to me that it was more out of curiosity than concern. The car in front of us made an abrupt stop and the driver jumped out of the car and dove into the crowd for a look. A few seconds later, he came back and drove right off.
As our taxi driver is trying to explain to us how dangerous the Dominican roads are through sign language I said, “muerte”. To which he replied, “problemicente…”
In preparing for the trip, I was reading from the resort’s website. In the travel section, they quoted a statistic that 70% of all deaths are traffic incidents.
Once we reach Costambar, a gated town with armed guards our driver wanders around looking for the resort. Even with directions given by locals, he has a hard time finding it.
Finally, 15 hours later (18 with the time shift), we are at the resort and having a few Cuba Libres with Alicia and Spencer. We get to bed at three and I have the best four hours of sleep that I’ve had in months.
Woken up early the next day, we’re given a light breakfast and herded off to a second breakfast at another resort in the area. It turns out that this was the resort that we were originally slated to stay at, but opted out of for price reasons. After a pleasant breakfast in a relatively fancy private pool area, we were treated to a hard sell for a package upgrade. The salesman was so aggressive that he actually resorted to trash talking the place we were staying when it was them who sent us over here. After refusing his offer, we were barely able to finish the drinks he had got for us.
Once back in the arms of our chosen resort, we went to the local grocery to pick up some lunch items.
<a href=’http://glennkauffman.com/2008/01/27/the-first-few-days/vip-fireworks/’ rel=’attachment wp-att-80′ title=’VIP Fireworks’><img src=’http://glennkauffman.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/image7.jpg’ alt=’VIP Fireworks’ />At seven, we went back to the fancy resort where we were to attend a VIP party, which was the last hard cell for their packages. A very large buffet and a stream of drinks were accompanied by a strange mix of live music with lights, video production dancers and fireworks. We got the food and drink out of the deal, but we were that much more resolved in our decision in choosing out resort.
To end the night, after having returned from the party, I set about pulling photos from various cameras. Spencer had started flipping through channels of local cable and landed on a English language movie with Spanish subtitles (most are usually dubbed). So, we ended watching the venerable Doom movie, based on the video game of the same name. I hadn’t seen it when it came out and now I know why my instincts were right. It was a useful bit of snacktion to finish out the day.