Buenos días,
So I may have been snapping more pics this time, but don't worry that wasn't all I did while I was out in the caribbean. Here's some handpicked highlights.
The Weather
Maybe going to this part of the world in the middle of the rainy season isn't the most advisable thing ever. But the completely erratic way that the weather behaved is something to write home about! 9am we'd hit the blazing sunshine, then have about 3 hours of beautiful weather. About lunch it will cloud over before 30 minutes of the most insane rain this side of
India. Only for it to be gorgeous again!
This was bizarrely routine, so much you could actually plan your day around it. This slight inconvienience did make the nights interesting, I found myself often I watched the storms circulating the island enjoying the evening under an electric sky.
Mamajuana
Pronounced mama-juan-a (not the way you're thinking). The Dominican national drink contains wine, honey, rum (duh) and if you look closely at the shot, you'll see a load of what looks like sticks and twigs, indeed they
are sticks and twigs in that bottle. And what's more,
I bloody love the stuff! Lisa, by contrast hates it with a passion.
Known as a cure-all on the island, I first described the taste of mamajuana as "being smacked in the face by a thousand flavours" and would regularly become part of my night-time selection of drinks. Perhaps one of the best things about it was that the look on the locals' faces when ordering it. Bless them they got so excited, they can't get that many orders in from tourists. Once when ordering it in a restaurant, the waiter rushed off before returning with two, after trying to explain that Lisa didn't want one, he turned his back on the other staff and proceeded to knock one back with me. Then while still laughing at this "waste not want not" way of going about things, the waiter returns with two more in a matter of seconds!
And then another!
Then we left, partly because we feared for his job, mostly because I was getting smashed.
It's a definite Marmite drink, while one of the scottish girls we met was about as addicted as I was, mamajuana buddies were hard to find among the tourists. I loved the stuff so much I now have some curing in my storage cupboard as I write this. Fancy a shot?
Megatrucks
First of all, check out the
video of what it's like to be on one of these things. Granted, it's not a tenth of the full experience but hopefully it gives you some sort of idea of how awesome this trip is. Basically, if you're going to the DR, make sure you take a trip on one of these. It'll be the best day of your holiday!
Riding this ex-military beast is one thing, as you can see on the vid we were sat at the front so the ride wasn't as bumpy as I was expecting although the people sat over the rear axel tell me a different story. Me and Lisa soon realised that while our backs were saved, once we hit the road we'd be having approx 80mph straight into our faces, you literally could not feel it for about half an hour afterward!
The stuff these guys line up on the trip is second to none, there's a couple of school visits where Megatrucks actually funds them and looks round some countryside homes which were literally in the back end of nowhere (surprisingly well made to be honest). The thing I enjoyed the most was the horse riding although I have to say I was bricking it before hand! As the horses approached me I was thinking:
"I'm getting nervous"
"What if the horse knows I'm nervous?"
"Then the horse will be nervous because I'm nervous"
"Then I'm nervous of the horse being nervous of me being nervous...."
Yeah, you can see where this is going. Climbing on to the horse was something in itself for a newbie like myself and there was a tense few moments in me trying to get
Bueno (he responded to that, so hence was his new name) to move when he wouldn't budge. Once that little awkward moment had been surpassed and I caught up with everyone one, it became really good fun! Even if
Bueno didn't exactly consider my legs as we walked through gates with my knees inches away from barb wire!
And before you ask, yes my gentlemen veg ached a bit, but
nothing like that camel in
Egypt!
Quad Biking
To add some weight onto this story, I am nursing the mother of all hangovers having partied until about 3 the previous morning. This is made first by the fact I must have had about 10 mamajuanas with drinks to follow as well, needless to say I was smashed when we got back to the room, which was spinning like crazy. Fighting the urge to vomit, I stared at the ceiling and focused until the spinning stopped. After confirming that my 'mind over matter' worked, we settled in the night. Lisa reached for the light switch...
And turned fucking ceiling fan on!
Let's say it didn't end well...
Lunchtime by the pool. The rain was on-time as ever so me and Lisa grabbed our towels and hit the bar. We were looking over at the sky wondering when it was going to clear and we heard a man's voice.
"Hi guys, a couple of our friends have had to drop out of a quad biking trip today, fancy taking their place?"
Me and Lisa looked at each other and after a few seconds we accepted, reluctantly.
We were expecting a bus to pick us up, which would take us to Puerto Plata and we'd have some Little Tykes thing that can do 2mph which we'd go round a bunch of tyres for about 5 minutes.
Oh no; first of all there was no pick up, the place was within walking distance just outside the hotel area. You know, just past the security guard with the rifle, then over the most dangerous bridge I've ever seen.
Me and Lisa quickly realised that this particular trip isn't recommended by Thomas Cook, particularly that the rep warned us against these kinds of trips in the welcome meeting.
Lisa and I climbed onboard the quad bike which was only suitable for one person (according to the quad itself), with a helmet with no visor and the fun literally began. I love driving machines but getting on this thing I actually started to think "Sam, you've killed us all" and in about 20 minutes time I nearly did just that. I realised the hard way that the tracking was out to the right by colliding with a tree which luckily bounced it in the right direction. At this point Lisa, after screaming at the top of her voice fell suddenly silent. Thankfully she was unsaved but shocked!
The tracking was the start of my mechanical problems, changing gear was an ordeal as well. To change up I had to lift a small lever above my left foot, keep lifting, then break my foot before getting ready for a massive jerk as the gearbox decided to yield to my efforts. Lisa has never held me so tight in the whole of our relationship! Then there was the slight problem with the engine cutting out any time we stopped, getting it back into neutral to fire it back up again meant me and Lisa literally rocking the thing back and forth! Then starting with a massive jerk and a broken tow to add to the collection.
Then there's the journey we went on. From main roads (deemed unsuitable for quad bikes, according to the warnings on the bike itself) and through
exactly the same terrain as the Megatruck did! It was hell and such a test, I'm not exactly the most muscular of people but I was having to dig deep to wrestle the machine to keep it on its wheels and (don't take this the wrong way) but we had double the amount of weight on it as well which nearly made the thing tip over at least 6 times but despite this I started to get used to it but as I did, the going got tougher. I remember the moment as clear as day when we turned out the corner of the seemingly endless woods and found a stream, my face (now covered with flies) dropped to the floor, "you are fucking kidding me!". They weren't and told me to keep it in third and don't let the engine cut out because if you stop you're stuck. I haven't felt this scared in years as the quad took to the water, rocking and slipping over the rocks while I just kept the power on and hoped to make it, happily I guided us to the end and overtook someone who stopped, who literally took 15 minutes and 2 men to get them out!
Another 47 miles of woodland followed and to be honest, I was glad to be off with me and Lisa still alive. Part of me enjoyed it but it wasn't what I was expecting at all. But given that I've written loads about it, it can't have been that bad, even if the engine gave me head rash on my shins and I won't even describe how my gonads felt, worse than the camel let's put it that way!
The Best Part
As bad as it sounds, the best part was spending some time with each other. This holiday could not have been better timed. What with my promotion and the relentless amounts of
comedy recently plus Lisa's hectic schedule at her place we've barely seen each other over the past couple of months. Perhaps the best bit of this holiday was to slow time down for a bit and enjoy doing nothing in the sunshine by the pool. It's nice not to have conversations like "have you done the dishes" and actually remember that we love each other and are not just living together. That (and the discovery of mamajauna) was the best bit of this trip.
¡Adios!
SJB
