Chapter 20 - Corp's 50th Birthday - Sosua and Cabarete, Dominican Republic

Good morning!  

Tammy here...this time sharing our adventures in Cabarete, Sosua, and Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.

On December 5, we left Santo Domingo by taking the Caribe Tours bus to Sosua.  Again, it cost only $10 per person to go 4.5 hours to the North Coast.  Super modern bus with WiFi and very easy to figure out where to board.  Departing the bus in Sosua was another story.  We stopped on the side of a super busy highway.  When exiting the bus there were a ton of people yelling at us.  We thought they were trying to get on the bus.  Turns out they were trying to get our attention to give us a moto or taxi ride.  Again, thanks to Google Maps for giving us great walking directions to our next AirBnb stay.

We stayed in Nick's Place for 4 nights.  I just realized I should probably share the nightly rates for our AirBnb stays.  We found the AirBnb's in the Dominican Republic are less expensive than Mexico.  Most of them are modern American style living.  Nick's Place was about $81 per night, including fees and taxes.  It was a one bedroom/one bath that was walking distance to many bars and restaurants.

Christmas decorations were going up on the patios. 

One of the beachfront units had a ton of decorations on their patio.

We had rainy and sunny beach days at Playa Sosua (Sosua Beach).

Corp made our own beach cooler....
his backpack with a bag of ice and a bottle of sangria and jumbo Presidente beer.

 

Some days are rainy at the beach.

Corp playing in the waves in Sosua Bay.

Playa Alicia (Alicia Beach) is a newer beach in Sosua.  It began forming in 2003 when, to the surprise of locals and tourists, white sand brought in by ocean currents began to accumulate and created a rather large beach in town.  We had no idea that this happens. 

Cloudy day so not many people at Playa Alicia.

Another fun Christmas tree....

It was on the top of a building and made of Presidente beer bottles.

On December 9, we left Sosua and traveled about 10 miles south to Cabarete.  When leaving, we experienced our first Uber scam in over a year of traveling.  So here it goes....we ordered an Uber and the driver contacted us through Uber and told us the price we were paying was too low and he won't take us for that price and we had to pay more....double the original amount.  He showed up at our place and demanded more money.  We told him no and started walking away with our luggage.  He followed us in his car to the regular taxi stand.  We cancel the ride through Uber and he still got paid $5 for doing nothing because we cancelled.  We should have known something was up when he was the only Uber driver in the area.  We found the taxi's to be much more expensive than they have been in past trips.  About $12 to go less than 2 miles.     

With the Uber scam behind us we made it to Cabarete and stayed at Tamara's Place.  $92 per night.

Incredible view from our patio.  Loved hearing the waves crashing too.

In Downtown Cabarete they are constructing a new condo building.  We find their construction methods so interesting.  Everything is built of concrete and they use wood sticks to support the concrete construction as they go.

 

This type of construction is so different from our construction methods.

On December 10, Corp celebrated his 50th birthday.

The day started with a walk on the beach.

Wonder what the story is on this place....so out of the ordinary for a beach place.

Corp had a little crab visitor while walking the beach.

That evening we met our friends Tim and Kathy from Ottawa, ON, who we met in Cabarete in 2018.

  We haven't seen them since 2018, but have kept in contact on Facebook
(one thing I do love about Facebook). 

We sit down and immediately start laughing and having fun.  A couple sitting at the table next to us stopped at our table and told us it was great to see long time friends having such a fun time together.  We started laughing and told them we have literally been together 3 times ever and they were amazed.  We laughed so hard our cheeks hurt!  Tim and Corp are twins - they have the same vehicle, pretty much the same boat, throw away expired condiments, and the list goes on.....

During dinner, I looked up and saw a familiar face; a YouTuber that we follow named William Taudien walking by us.  We had just watched his YouTube video on "Robbed and Crazy Bus Ride Across the Dominican Republic".  In case you are wondering his friend was robbed prior to joining him, but filing police report was part of his video.  We took a lot of his bus riding tips from the video when we made our trip.  We talked to him briefly and thanked his for his advice.  Seemed like a nice guy!

I had a run in with a crazy plant.  It's called a "heat sensitive plant".  Watch the video to see more...

On December 15, we were off to Puerto Plata with our friends Tim and Kathy.

We saw the Museo Fortaliza San Felipe.

The amphitheater by the water was beautiful.  It would be so fun to see a live performance there.

Say cheese!

The town square was beautifully decorated for Christmas.  I think it would have been really stunning at night with all the lights. 

 

We discovered the El Paseo De Dona Blana (Pink Alley), which is a unique pedestrian alleyway created to commemorate the arrival of a pioneer lady in the development of the early tourism industry in Puerto Plata at the end of the 18th century. This Victorian style alley is painted entirely in pink, including walls, flooring, decorative elements, benches and flowers; a great backdrop for photos.

 Across the street is another unique place.  We love coming across places that have hanging umbrellas.....I love the great photo opportunities. 

 

Kite Beach in Cabarete is one of our favorite places.  In the afternoon there are tons of people kite surfing.  We were surprised that there was little wind when we first arrived, but that changed towards the end of our trip. 

 

There are 25 kite surfers in this photo. 
Pics just don't capture the beauty and serenity of watching them.

One thing we noticed when we arrived in Cabarete was the large amount of sargassum grass on the beach.  We think it was because of the lack of wind.  As soon as the wind returned, the grass was almost gone and it was the beautiful beach we remembered.

 

 

I was laying by the beach and this super cute puppy just jumped up on my lap and enjoyed a few pets before taking off again.  He had a collar and tag so he was someone's puppy.

Our last day, we were enjoying a meal on Playa Cabarete and noticed a Dominican family at the table next to us celebrating a child's birthday.  They were so nice and gave us a piece of birthday cake, which was delicious! 

It had the best white vanilla frosting!!! 
I just noticed my green tinted teeth.  LOL..

 

When it was time to leave the Dominican we had no idea what we were in for when we arrived at the airport.  This is a reminder for us.  We also needed an e-ticket to leave the country, as well as entering the country.  You can only do it online so it was mad chaos getting it done.  Thanks so much for Google Translate to translate all the Spanish to English on the form. Then we find out our flight was delayed multiple times; enough times that we knew we wouldn't make the connecting flight in Miami to Minneapolis.  Instead of rebooking right away, we decided to just wait it out and not panic.  FYI....all airport announcements are in Spanish so we didn't know the flight was cancelled, but noticed people get up and start leaving.  We followed the crowd as they went to the baggage claim, but we didn't check bags so we continued to the ticket line.  Another perk of not checking bags.  We have such peace of mind when are we are in control of our bags.  It took us about 45 minutes to rebook our flight home the next day.  In the end, we got an overnight stay at the Be Live Hotels all-inclusive and transportation to and from the airport.  Lots of lessons learns with the flight cancellation experience.

 

Well, that's all for this chapter!

Stay tuned for Chapter 21 - our travels to Southern Florida in January 2023.

Corp (Crabby) and Tammy (Chipper)