Dominican Republic - February 2019

We had an absolutely picture perfect vacation to the DR in February.
The weather was great, 84 for a high, 74 for a low.
The beach is gorgeous and the people were very nice.
We had a great travel expert, Houston, provided by Travelocity.
We love it and would go back again.
I captured a few random memories and funny moments below.

I invented a smoking gun cocktail after I realized the Johnny Walker red
was not really scotch but some sort of filler. After that, I learned to drink a
Napoleon, champagne, and the port. The Spanish wines were not too bad.  
The pina colada was awesome though, especially at the beach.
Our waiters, Hector and Angel were very attentive once they found
we gave $2 tips. Angel said we were his family.

The bartender certainly got a big laugh from the smoking gun cocktail a
nd every time he saw us he did the gun hand action.

We really didn’t get to know anyone except a brief interaction with a group from Sweden.
They have been coming for 19 years. The one gal had a much older husband
and from the way she sat with her best friend, it was hard to tell exactly what was going on.  
The result was definitely very multicultural and there were a lot of French speaking
Quebec visitors.

The food was extraordinary. The cleaning staff which was mostly women did towel animals
like they do on cruises. The place was very clean. They had an activities group that even
got people up to dance. There were pool parties which we skipped and live music
in the evenings.

On the beach, there was a group that walked around with a monkey, an iguana, and a parrot.
If you let them talk you into a photo, they expected at least 10 bucks.
There were folks selling tourist things and walked on the beach with heavy loads,
long pants and shirts which puzzled me.

We did not see much nature except the beautiful full moon. We did see a lot of pigeons.

The most disturbing thing that happened was one not at dinner, an older man
got up to play his harmonica. He did a rendition of the Battle Hymn of the Republic
and than a group began to chant USA.

I saw a T-shirt that said “I will not apologize for being an American.”
On the positive side, I also saw feminist and Nevertheless, she persisted in the airport.

On Tuesday, we took a big tour. We saw a school where the kids were uniforms.
We went up to the higher elevations and saw coffee and chocolate being made.
We went horseback riding and at that ranch, they cut open coconuts for everyone
so we could drink the milk and have a bite. We also had an authentic Dominican lunch.
We drove through the town of Higuey and did a church tour in that town.
We saw lots of stray dogs and they all looked like Mika.
Our tour guide spoke English, French and Spanish. Our driver was named Eddie.

The only negatives of the trip were around the travel.
Our plane was delayed taking off from St. Louis due to a mechanical issue
and we had to run to make our flight to the DR.

Coming back through Miami, the immigration and second round
of TSA screenings were not fun and again, we just barely made
our connecting flight home. Our luggage did not make until the following day.
But it arrived and we had a safe trip so ultimately, that is all you can ask.