República Dominicana y mi pobre Español

When I took Spanish nearly 40 YEARS AGO I never expected to remember any of it let alone actually need it. Ms. Sprayberry never prepared me to explain that “our clutch cone is slipping on our port-side Yanmar Saildrive” en Español! However, I am blessed with enough Spanish to tell Dominicans how much “I like football” , “My name is Steve” and “I don’t like to wash dishes” so I’m ready when those topics come up.

Fortunately, the beauty of the Dominican Republic transcends language. Here’s just one of the photos Kendall took at 27 Waterfalls this week. I mean WOW!

One of our saildrives (transmissions) really is slipping so we’re waiting for parts to be shipped from Miami so we can resume our way south to Grenada. We’ve really got to get a move on before the weather starts to get sketchy! The good news is we get to explore more of the Dominican Republic before we get to Puerto Rico.

We spend our nights in a cushy Marina that’s reasonably protected from the seas, has a great restaurant and free parking for our rental car.

During the day, we can take our $40 a day rental car and explore the island! We’re on the north side of Hispaniola and most people use motorcycles as their primary transportation or you can take a Taxi.

Unlike the Bahamas, the island has actual mountains and rain forests that you can explore on foot, by car, ATV or cable car. Masks are pretty much required here for most things but the enforcement is not consistent.

Isabel De Torres National Park has a cable car that we took to the top of a 2,625ft peak. About 2 1/2 times as tall as Stone Mountain and tall enough to put us in the clouds.

There are some differences in daily life for sure. We’re thankful to be able to shop in a large store again and to pick up fresh fruits and vegetables. We weren’t expecting to see the Navy guarding the in-store bank with a rifle. But I guess we’re happy he’s there?

Masks are very common here so we carry ours around when we travel in populated areas, but there’s so much to see in the countryside.

There are smaller cities scattered around the country and those too simply drip with culture and history.

Did we mention the motorcycles?

The food is great in the Dominican Republic and we can usually get dinner and drinks for under $20. In Luperon, it was about half as much as it is in Puerto Plato with meals costing us less than $10 total!

We hope to have our parts here and back in running condition on June 2 or so. Until then, we’ll just have to make do in this island paradise!

Kendall will post more photos of tour excursions on Facebook but I wanted to jot down some of our adventures before I forgot the details.