Cowbright: Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic

We woke early to a beautiful sunrise. Sunrise and sunset over the ocean - always a sight to behold. We had booked an excursion for today - I'll write down the description of it and then say what it was really like.

It was titled "Self Drive Jeep Adventure." The description - "Drive to the local ranch. Safety briefing. 4x4 drive to a typical Dominican house to learn about and taste local fruits, coconut, coffee and chocolate. Drive to Confluenza Museum. Visit the museum to learn about Taino culture and rum making. Off road drive to El Naranjal with a photo stop at the venue overlooking Isabel de Torre mountain. Drive back to the ranch. Transfer back to the pier."

Now here's what actually happened. We walked the long way to the end of the pier where we met up with our tour guide. There were probably 16 or so in our party. We boarded an open air truck for a 30 minute drive to the place where we climbed into the jeeps. We drove over VERY bumpy dirt roads and through 2 river streams (thankfully the water didn't come up into the jeeps). We did not see any Dominican house or taste any local fruits, coconut or chocolate. We stopped at a local business where we were offered small cups of coffee while we browsed the art, cigars and souvenirs. From there we visited the Confluenza Museum where we saw old sugar cane equipment, were offered a taste of rum (declined) and given more opportunity to shop. There was no photo stop overlooking Isabel de Torre mountain. We drove back to the pier. It was quite hot and a total waste of my time to shower before getting off the ship, much less spend time washing and drying my hair.

They were careful to let us out at the port which was packed with t-shirt, jewelry and souvenir shops, all manned by high-pressure salespeople. They let us out on one side so that we had to walk through the entire shopping area to get pointed back in the direction of the ship. It reminded me very much of the cruise ports in Mexico. I went in one only to look at silver jewelry. When a salesman spots you, he immediately gets $$ signs in his eyes! I was probably in there less than 2 minutes, just long enough to ask the price of a silver bracelet. The price went from $650 to $450 within approximately 5 seconds. I proceeded to leave and the same salesman pops out the second entrance and told me he would take $250 - just for me. It went from $650 to $250 within about 20 feet. I would have paid $30 for it, but I didn't want to offend him. So needless to say, I didn't buy anything.

We rode in a jeep with another couple (very nice) but unfortunately I wasn't positioned where I could take photos of what I would have really liked to photograph (people). So I'll just post a few random ones from the day. I did attend a photo workshop after returning to the ship to learn some of the ins and outs of Instagram. Perhaps I'll start to post some photos there now.