I´m here! Agh!

Well, I made it. I flew Dublin - Madrid, had a couple of nights in good old Dridzy, saw all my friends and dragged my severely hungover ass to the airport the next day. Bad way to start a transatlantic flight. I was sandwiched between a Spanish man who is married to a Dominican woman, and a Dominican woman going home for the first time in 2 years. They were so sweet and enthusiastic and friendly. By the time I got off the plane, 8 1/2 hours later, I felt like a whole person again. Good thing too, because Santo Domingo is crazy, especially if, like me, you´ve never been in Central or South America before.

I got through immigration and wanted to get a taxi. But I didn´t really want to get in a car with any of the people shouting "TAXI! TAXI! YOU WANT TAXI LIIINDA GUAPA???" but soon copped that I had no choice so I bargained with one guy who was trying to charge me double what my airplane friends told me to pay. It worked. Then he passed me on to another driver. Who radioed another driver. All above board, mind you. They were licensed taxi drivers. It´s just how they do it.

I got into Santo Domingo, checked into my hostel and went to explore and eat. It´s cray. It´s so dirty, and I was in the nice part, the colonial area. There are deep gutters between the road and the footpath, filled with rubbish and brown water, all manners of trash filling the footpath with street dogs rooting around for food. Traffic is insane, and there are no pedestrian crossings. I´m amazed I didn´t see someone ploughed down. Cars stopped to let me cross because I obviously wasn´t getting anywhere if they didn´t.

The men hiss and holler at you in the street, but they aren´t aggressive. There are children EVERYWHERE and most people seem to be in family groups. I arrived on a fiesta day, so families were out having drinks and dinner on terraces. In the Plaza de España little kids rode motorised toy cars and everyone flew kites. There was karaoke, and mostly fat Dominican men sang love songs. People cheered and danced and teenagers ran around from family to family. Everyone was so friendly. Even the street dogs, who looked remarkably healthy. And despite all the rubbish, it didn´t smell. Perhaps because the street dogs had cleaned out the organic matter.

Kites in the Santo Domingo sky

But, I was only stopping off in Santo Domingo for the night. And now I´m in Las Terrenas. Which my next post will be about. Oh God it´s so different from Santo Domingo.