Santo Domingo 2.-7. day more and photos

Our intention for this trip was to have a real vacation, but it would be foolish not to use at least one day just for sightseeing.
We used our last day here to visit 30 km away Santo Domingo. We felt uncomfortable and had the impression that at any moment we could be robed or exposed some kind of trouble.

Catholicism has deep roots here since the first cathedral in America, the first university, the first military fort etc. were built here. Since some parts of the city are extremely insecure tours can't be done without a local guide or the police who are charge for the tourist security.
Street vendors stopped us trying to sell us jewelry of dubious quality. If you want to buy something you have to be willing to bargain. Bargaining is a part of the game, some kind of ritual.

You can however still find specialty stores with high-quality jewelry made of Amber and turquoise blue stone Larimar that can only be found in Dominican Republic. You can buy very nice paintings typical for this area full of beautiful colors and symbols of their ancestors.
At the end what's there to say when the feelings are so terribly divided. We were astonished by the natural beauty, and if you're willing to live in the tourist reservation you'll probably have a wonderful time. However, if you're free, sociable person and have no prejudices then this great division between people (racial, financial and every other) will hit you hard and cast a shadow on everything a nice you had experienced because it's impossible to pretend that you hadn't seen all that misfortune around you. That is something that leaves heavy and sad impression on you.
The trip back home was a long and arduous again, but that is not an obstacle for the next travel.
See you somewhere else!

President's palace

Street art

School

Columbus Statue

Columbus House

Santo Domingo 2.-7.day

The idylic scenery stopped the moment when we reached the first settlement of the old dilapidated dwellings composed of various materials made in a way kids make houses when they play . Almost inconceivable that someone can live in them. In front of such houses abandoned children, the occasional stray dog, and teenagers in some old motorcycles could be seen. In the middle of all that dust was a butcher shop. But what a butcher shop, several pieces of meat hanging out at about 40°C without any protection from the dust coming from the dirty road. A sight that really makes you wanna become vegetarian.

After that horrible sight beautiful nature calmed us again. The same kind of villages could no longer surprise us.
What did surprise us were the emerges of luxury buildings among all that  that looked completely different or better say they were intended for a different world. As we were closer to our goal the impression was getting better and better. Finally we arrived to our hotel composed of 20 houses with 7-8 rooms that were very comfortable, air-conditioned and most important of all they had two huge double beds. Haven!

Surprise! At the entrance door we all got a bracelet. We became marked, but it was actually intended to give us access to the entire complex which includes free food and drink and all other services of the complex. We went to the beach in front of the hotel every day, a place that is inaccessible to local people. The sea was so warm that it felt a bit uncomfortable, and we couldn't find any refreshment except in our air-conditioned room or by drinking cocktails or beer.

Santo Domingo, day 1.

Finally we were at the end of a long journey, on a monitor we could see that we were going to land very soon but still there wasn't anything that resembled an airport. A moment later the runway appeared below us. When we touched the ground a few sighs of relief and applause could be heard. While we were getting off the airplane we experienced a real heat shock. It was a feeling like someone pointed a hair dryer into your face. We couldn't breath and it took some time to adapt to this change of climate. Then we moved to something that was supposed to be the airport building but in fact was a large dwelling with no exterior walls and  imposing roof made of a local dried vegetation carefully piled,absolutely no doubt an attractive and low cost air conditioning, completely natural.
We did a customs procedure very quickly. Local musicians and girls in colorful costumes wished us welcome. Then we paid $ 10, nobody knew why, took our luggage, and met with a representative of the agency that sent us into a van that was supposed to take us to the hotel. Another unpleasant surprise followed next, we were told it took 4 hour drive to the hotel, but what could we do? We had to adapt to the situation and let ourselves enjoy truly beautiful landscape of lush tropical vegetation.