Miscellaneous Items from Puert Plata

The views from the top of the mountain were really pretty spectacular.  There is actually quite a bit of farmland outside the city.

Here is a picture of a baseball diamond that also gives you an idea of the housing.

I am not sure what this boat was doing but the men on it do not look like they were up to any good.  I had to use my telephoto lens on the camera to get this picture.

There are a lot of cattle on the island.  In this picture they are behind a fence but this is not always the case.  Our tour driver had to stop for a cow on the road...a little like deer around here.

The construction sites in the Dominican Republic are not like they are here.  Every thing is done by hand.  If they want something on the third floor, they manually haul it or shovel it up there.  Things do not get done quickly or are they rarely, from what I saw, up to the codes we have here.

The price of gasoline is about $4.30 a gallon.  In town they have regular gas stations but they also have stops along the roads where they have taken pop bottles and filled them with gas and then sell it to the motorcyclists by the liter.  

Life is good.

Puerta Plata City

After coming down from the mountain (sounds like Moses) we toured more of the city.  This country loves baseball and this city has a lot of baseball fields.  In fact, they are building a baseball school that is funded by several of the ball players who have come to America and made a lot of money playing ball here.

We saw a place where they made Larimar jewelry.  And, of course, were given the opportunity to buy some jewelry right from the factory.

We also went to aa Amber museum.  We saw how this is actually wax from a tree that is now distinct because it was destroyed by volcanoes.  They can still find the wax in some places however and they make jewelry from it because it has hardened over hundreds of years.  Many of the pieces will have insects and leaves, etc, inside of them.

We then went to the town square with all of it's color and history.

Of course we were given the opportunity to buy many things here also.

 There was also a beautiful Catholic cathedral on the square.

Puerta Plata City cont.

After we left the square we went to a factory that makes chocolate......all kinds.  They showed us the trees that have the pods that have the coffee beans in them.  (That is Gail in the background drinking hot chocolate tea.)

They go through multiple phases to process the beans into various products.

They not only had chocolate candy but they had just about anything else you could think of that was made out of chocolate including the tea and a wonderful chocolate wine.
Next on our list was the city fort that was erected in 1577 to protect the island from pirates.  Today it is a museum.

Of course they had many ways for you to buy souvenirs and spend your money there also.

On our way home we passed a large number of sugar cane fields

and we were scheduled to stop at a rum factory but everybody was too tired.  (We think this was just a bottling plant and they didn't really make the rum there.)  Besides, most of us were out of money by this time anyway.

Puerta Plata Mountain

Our last day in the Dominican Republic was spent with friends touring the city of Puerta Plata.  This is the largest city in the district of Puerta Plata that includes Sosua and Cabarete also.  The population of Puerta Plata is about 120,000 people and Sosua is about 50,000 and Cabarete is about 15,000 people.
One of the attractions of Puerta Plata is a mountain that you can go to the top of via a cable car.

There are two cable cars that hold twenty people and go up every ten minutes.

At the top of the mountain are beautiful gardens and statue of Christ.

The gardens are a jungle type atmosphere and are full of beautiful flowers.

There were some very unique flowers.

 

From the top of the mountain you could see the entire city as well as miles of coast line.

Breakfast

There are many restaurants... too many to try them all.  Many of them serve a very good breakfast.  This one is called "New" and it serves an American style breakfast with eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes and the like.  The cost is about 250 pesos or about $5.  Many of the places that serve breakfast only give you one cup of coffee but here it comes with two cups of coffee and a glass of juice.

Another restaurant has a menu for multiple countries and has several items from each country.  There is an entire page for a French breakfast.  You get one cup of coffee for every 100 pesos ($2) that you spend.



There is another restaurant right next door to our condo called Sosua By The Sea that serves a buffet breakfast.

They will make you an omelet with whatever you want.  It has lots of fresh fruit and juices.  There is are a lot of different kinds of sweet breads and pastry.  There is ham and sausage and most times bacon.  There are real scrambled eggs and potatoes and toast.  You also get unlimited coffee.  The cost is 340 pesos or $680.
A really good part of this breakfast is that the restaurant is right on the water.

The restaurant is located right in front of the rocks in the foreground.

You can look out over the bay and see the town of Puerto Plata in the distance.

We have also seen a cruise ship go by.

You can always see the fishing boats and party boats coming and going. 

 

It is always a quiet, relaxing breakfast and my favorite place.

Almonds

There are almond trees in our condo complex and on the street right outside the gate.  Actually, you can find them all over town.  They are a pretty tree.

The trees have small almonds that are in a soft shell that covers a hard shell--like a walnut. 

You can use a couple stones to take off the soft shell.  It has a very pretty red color.

When you get the soft outer shell off, you can crack the inner shell exposing the nut.

 

The actual edible nut is not very big and does not have a lot of flavor.  I guess there must be some professionally grown nuts that are more like the ones we get in the stores.

After Dark

After dark in Sosua is a totally different environment than during the sun shinny days. 

Keep in mind that prostitution is a major activity in many of the third world countries.  It is flourishing in Sosua.  Men from all around the world, especially North America, come here for that specific purpose.  They relax around the pool and on the beach all day and then at night they go uptown.

The men sit at tables the restaurants have that face the sidewalks.  They sit there and have drinks and smokes and observe the girls as they walk by.

Not all of the men are from outside the country.  Many locals are involved in this activity as well.

(Keep in mind that these pictures were taken early in the evening so there was not much "activity" going on yet.)
All of the girls are young, very pretty, have long dark hair, and are always dressed up.  The tighter the dress, the shorter the dress, and the more cleavage that is shown...the better the dress.  Spandex and push up bras are two essential elements of fashion here.
Not all of this activity takes place along this strip of restaurants and sidewalk seats.  It goes on everywhere.

All of this is why we are going to a different town next year.  Cabarete is a town about fifteen minutes down the road and is much more "family oriented".  It has a much, much nicer beach and a better variety of night time activity.

Trees

There is a huge variety of trees here many of which are typical of a tropical climate.  However, there are a few that are different than any we have encountered before.  For example, I am not sure what this one is.

And this one was full of beautiful flowers.

And the flowers, to me, looked a lot like orchids.

We have seen palms before of all kinds, even these beautiful fan palms.

But this is a palm tree like we had never seen before.  The whole yard was full of them and they were a beautiful icy green color.

I did finally realize that some of the large trees that I thought were flowering were really just plain trees with vines that had grown all the way through them and were flowering out the top.

And there are lots of trees with fruit on them.  Some I have not seen before, like this Chinola fruit tree (another name is passion fruit).

In this climate, the beauty of nature is everywhere.