In late December 2017, we decided to go spend New Year’s eve celebrating a friends’ birthday in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.
So after finishing up the Colombia Cartagena trip, we came back to Dallas, and then took off to Punta Cana via Miami. We had booked the Four Points Sheraton hotel near the Punta Cana airport from the 31st for a few days, but wanted to get to Punta Cana on the 30th to get some extra sun and sand; but we could not get a hotel room (Four Points Sheraton was full). So we booked a rental car on the 30th and decide we would take the car and wander around and find a place to stay at for 1 night on the 30th.
We arrived at Punta Cana, DR, on a wonderful sunny day, and after clearing Immigration & Customs; headed to the car rental place. Found the place, but all the rental company counters were empty of staff except 1. Asked the guy at this 1 manned counter where we could find the Thrifty rep; and he called the rep; and asked us to wait. When the Thrifty Car Rental rep arrived, he informed us that they and all the other car rental companies had no cars available that day.
Interesting position to be in; no hotel that night, no car available that day to go look for hotels, all online chain hotels are fully booked; all probably because this was Dec 30th, just 1 day before New Years day. Where to stay for the night and how to get there?
After some arguing with the Thrifty Car rental guy, we realized that nothing was going to change, so we took the shuttle over to the Four Points Sheraton, and after explaining our dilemma, asked to use the internet to find a place for that night.
We found an interesting boutique hotel nearby, called the Hotel Las Flores; so called the owner (Sandy) and she gave directions and told us she would cover the cab fare. Good start :). So we took a cab and arrived at this new boutique hotel, which was in a residential area, but fully and wonderfully equipped.
The amenities and facilities were first class, and Sandy and Jan, the Dutch owners, took wonderful care of us; everything was first class (Bulgari toiletries, excellent beds, furniture etc etc); and the chef there made some of the best dishes we have ever eaten. Hats off to Sandy & Jan for being wonderful hosts; they even tracked down the shoes Dilshad had left in the taxi when we arrived.
Next day, Sandy helped us find an arrange a short tour with a taxi driver (no rental cars still available ); so off we went for the day; plan was to drive to a local beach, and then off to several small towns and onto Higuey, a city in the interior, before going back to the Four Points, checking in, and then onto the Barcelo Bavaro resort for New Year’s Eve with our friends.
So off we went to the nearest local beach; the Playa Macao
After a couple of stops on the way at a natural cavern / Swimming hole and fruit stands for coconut water (it was getting hot),
we stopped at Higuey at its most famous monument, the Basilica (Catedral Nuestra Senora de la Altagracia) which was an impressively “modern’ Basilica built on a hilltop overlooking Higuey; quite nice and different. This Basilica has been visited by 2 Popes no less.
By this time, it was lunch, so we headed to a local eatery, where we had the comida tipica of rice, beans, yuca, plantain and salad/soup
After this, we drove around Higuey, visiting its oldest church (not much visited due to the Basicila), the local town square, and then the local fruit & vegetable market 🙂 of course
We continued back to Punta Cana, checked into our hotel, got changed and freshened up and headed out to Barcelo Bavaro resort for the New Year festivities; where our driver for the day dropped us off as the last stop. After settling with the driver, we registered at the resort, and after a few drinks, had some great seafood (Fish, shrimps, lobster etc) at one of their nice restaurants near the beach
The Resort put on quite a spectacular and extravagant show for New Years Eve. Well worth it and recommended
After we had a post-midnight, post-party snack at about 2:30 AM, as the activities were winding down, we took a taxi back to our hotel.
The Four Points Sheraton, though not on the beach, was quite decent, and had arrangements with a local beach resort to allow us to use the beach facilities. So we spent the next 2 days chilling at the beach facility, which was actually very nice
Dinner was at a nice large open air plaza of shops and eateries right opposite the Four Points Sheraton
After 2 days of R&R and lots of coconut water, we checked flights back to the US, and since we travel standby, we discovered that all flights from Punta Cana to the US were busy, but the flights from Santo Domingo, the Capital of Dominican Republic, were reasonably good. So we rented a car (again) at the airport, and this time, we were lucky and actually found a car to rent.
So we started driving from Punta Cana to Santo Domingo on Hwy 3, which was a well paved and very smooth highway. On the way, we stopped first at a small village and had lunch at La Mama; a local eatery
Next stop was La Romana town which appeared to be basically an industrial place (so no stopping) and then stopped at Boca Chica, which we had read had a decent beach.
Boca Chica was a real local place, and had a decent beach with lots of local bars and restaurants right on the beach; which meant little beach space to walk on
We continued driving and soon ended at Santo Domingo, which was a large and very busy city. I put into Waze the Intercontinental Hotel where we had got a fantastic rate, but somehow I had picked International Hotel from Waze’s choice of destinations; so we ended up in the wrong part of town (very busy and industrial, but not scary). However by this time, my mobile phone battery had gone down, so we stopped at a local car wash place, and I sweet talked the lady there into letting me use power to charge up my battery a little. Chatted to her (me in broken Spanish) about how we had ended up here much to her amusement 🙂
After getting the phone charged a little, we drove to the hotel; which turned out to be a very nice place.
Thoughts on Punta Cana. Punta Cana has both an old town where the locals live, a little inland from the ocean, and the oceanfront which is of course, fully taken up by large resorts catering to tourists from all over the world. The beaches are very nice with powdery white sand and turquoise blue clear waters. But this is a pure tourist location and you dont get any cultural experience at these resorts. Tours can be had into the interior for fun (Go cart off road type “adventure”) and to natural cenotes or swimming holes, and to the smaller towns. We did find that the local villages had a large number of Haitian migrants living there; which our taxi driver explained had come over after the disasters in Haiti. The Haitians were generally living poorer than the Dominicans, in dirtier barrios; and had poor education etc. Apparently , several millions of Haitians had crossed over illegally into the DR from Haiti, which has put a lot of strain on the local services like education, health care, housing, etc. Sad to see that but a reality.
Santo Domingo next
This entry was posted in Caribbean, Dominican Republic, Dominican Republic Dec 2017/Jan 2018, North America, Punta Cana
Thx Ali..I already looked at your more recent trip due to an earlier email. Thx again!
amiT
Thanks Amir
Ali, you do such a great job on your travel blogs I enjoy reading all your detailed ventures and will definitely follow them when I travel. Was just reading your Israel trip and got a lot of information which I am going to use. Thanks for posting it We are planning on doing it this summer though I know it is going to be a little hot but since we are heading to Portugal I thought we could combine that too
I have one question for you I was reading about these beautiful camps that they have in Wadi Ram in Jorden where you can spend a night. Have you done this.? Can you please let me know so I can plan accordingly. Again thank you so much for taking time to write all these travel blogs I am going to forward you this article on these desert camps.
Regards,
Anar
Thanks Anar for the nice complements on my blog; really appreciate that.
I have PM’d you the response on Wadi Rum.
Very interesting 😃
Thanks Jamila
Nice story and pics…. food looks good
Thanks Nasir; you always appreciate my blogs and I thank you for that
Love it.
Reminded me of my Brazil trip to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo with my daughter Farrah when I saw the fruits in the market.
Nice blog. Keep on trucking and keep posting.
Thanks Aziz; we did similar trips to Rio and Sao Paulo; check out our trips to Brazil in 2015 and 2016 at https://alikarimtravelog.com/category/south-america/brazil/
Thanks again for the encouragement; really appreciate that
Hello Ali and Dilshad,
How brave of you to travel non-rev and that too around the busiest time to head for Mexico…BRAVE couple you are.
Your journeys are exciting and you always manage to find ways of getting accommodation and mouth watering meals.
I enjoyed remotely traveling with you!
Take care , Zubeda 👍
Thanks Zubeda, for always encouraging us in our trips. I really appreciate that
Thank you for sharing. Excited to read what you discovered.
Thanks Sabira, for following my blogs
Hi Ali Karim,
It is always a pleasure to hear from you and to hear about your trips. Actually, we just came back from Puerto Plata on Friday. We wanted to go to Panama, but could not get flights to Panama. We ended going to Puerto Plata.
Many years ago, we had been to Punta Cana. We took a side trip to Santo Domingo and stopped at a small town Hiquey. Inshallah, I am looking into Taiwan and Vietnam for October….or maybe Israel and Jordan……??? who knows what is in store for us.
Thanks Ali Karim, regards to Dilshad. Please do keep in touch.
Hi Gulnar, so glad you are enjoying my blogs, looks like you are traveling a lot too. Enjoy
Thanks. Hope you all is well.
Thanks Ashraf & Parviz; we are all well here; hope same is true of you
Hi Ali… Glad to catch-up on your travel log.
Sharifa
Hi Sharifa, thanks for reading the blogs; hope you find them interesting and useful
Beautiful!
Always so impressed with the level of detail you put into your blogs. The beach looks amazing.
Thanks Rob; for the nice feedback. Glad you like the blogs. Keep trucking 🙂
Thanks Ali,
I will certainly check it out. We haven’t visited the Dominican Republic so I’m interested to read your impressions.
Many thanks; hope you found th eblog post useful for the DR. It is definitely worth visiting especially if you get off the beaten path like I know you do.
Great as usual Ali. Did you get any shoes from that pick up? Looked like there were deals to be had. Interesting how you got lost in Santo Domingo.
The Dominicans are already poor.so if Haitians are poorer I can just imagine.
That little town called la Romano where u did not stop we sponsor weekly food at the local church. It is actually a neat little town.
Thanks Mohammed; always appreciate your feedback and encouragement. Need to get synched up with you about La Romana