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Our resort was beautiful (pictures of that later in this story), but except for the gorgeous white sand beach and tall palm trees, it's just a manmade area for the enjoyment of visitors (and the benefit of the Dominican tourist industry).... soooo.... Midway through the week, it was time to see some of the "real" Dominican Republic that lay inland from the beach. We were picked up at our resort at 8am. By the time we made two more stops to pick up more passengers, there were a dozen tourists from the United States in the back of a Jeep truck, ready for an interesting all-day trip into the countryside with our Dominican driver, who spoke almost no English, and Dominican guide, who did his best to introduce us (and French tourists in another truck) to his country.
Our first stop was in the middle of a very large, American-owned sugar plantation. (Haitians are the largest foreign minority group in the Dominican Republic, and do most of the labor in the sugar cane fields.)
Young boys were waiting for the trucks there, and they cut fresh sugar cane into snack-size pieces for us to sample.
Paved roads were rare. Most were dirt or a combination of dirt and rocks, and poorly maintained, with many potholes and some large, muddy puddles. Some of the "roads" we traveled on were not much more than rutted paths, and there were almost no road signs. This would not be a place to explore on your own! We didn't see very many automobiles -- and saw only one gas station -- all day. Some people have motor bikes, but many use horses or donkeys for transportation.
**Please
excuse the quality of some of these photos. They were |
