Santo Domingo

On Thursday we headed to Santo Domingo for two nights.  Seemed to be a good time to hit the big city!

The bus system in this country is incredible.  From Sosua, Caribe Tours runs buses to Puerto Plata, Santiago and on to Santo Domingo every hour from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. for a very reasonable $12 per person.  Here's the group waiting in the Sosua bus station...I thought we looked like we were at the police station ready to get booked.

These buses are very nice and comfortable...but cold.  They do not spare the a/c.  The scenery was beautiful.  We went up into the mountains and down through the valley where they grow tobacco and citrus.  A lot of this countryside looks very prehistoric....think Jurassic Park which was actually filmed here.

We stayed at the beautiful Hotel Conde de Panalba.  Our room was the corner balcony just above the entrance to the restaurant.  It was a great spot to have morning coffee or a glass of wine and look out into the square. But actually our favorite spot for happy hour was the beautiful roof top terrace.   We would take our wine and beer up here and just hang out.

Lot of incredible historic sites in this city which was founded in 1502.  My favorite was the home of Christopher Columbus.

We took a walking tour of the city with Angel, our friend in Santo Domingo.  He hooked Matt up with  a great place to buy cigars...so made Matt VERY happy.

One morning Matt, Louise, David and I took a long walk along the malecon.  This statue is in the harbor and it's very impressive.  It's huge and dominates the skyline in the historic district.

We left Santo Domingo to come back to home to Cabarete.  Always good to get back hone after a long trip, and Cabarete does feel very much like home.  Benni and Nona took care of Hermann and he seemed very happy.  So might try and do this again....maybe a bus to Las Terrenas next time?