Monkeys, Coconuts, And Relaxing, Oh My!

Today I'm taking you back to the Dominican Republic to tell you about the rest of our March Break trip. We had two days of relaxing and then decided to do an excursion. We chose to do an all day visit of Puerto Plata. The interesting thing about this tour is that most of the other people were from Quebec so the tour was conducted in both French and English. It was a good challenge for me to see how much French I understood, which was a surprising amount!

We stopped at a store first and learned about how to tell real amber from fake amber (real amber floats) and we were also introduced to Larimar, a mineral found only in one part of the Domincan Republic. We did buy a piece to get framed for our travel wall as we thought it was so interesting!

Then we went to a cigar making factory. While the process of seeing them make a cigar was very interesting, all the workers were smoking cigars and it was very smelly. Also, all I could wonder is how many of the employees might end up with cancer :(

I was very excited to see Calle de las Sombrillas (Rue de Parapluies in French). I snuck away from the cigar factory to walk down the block and capture this picture.

We ended up on the town square and it was surrounded with Victorian wooden homes which were so pretty. After this, we had about an hour to walk around and explore.

We visited Paseo de Doña Blanca (known as Pink Street). While we were there Rachel got the opportunity to hold this monkey. She had one briefly on her shoulder a few days previously on the beach but the owner wanted $20 if you wanted to take a picture with it. This owner only charged $5 so Rachel got her photo shoot. It was so adorable because at one point the monkey reached out and grabbed onto a piece of Rachel's hair. Awwwww. Adorable.

 

We also headed back to Umbrella Alley for some pictures. Rachel and Sam really wanted to try a coconut so we bought one for us all to taste. 

 

I enjoyed seeing all the murals and we also explored this cathedral on the square which was so pretty.

After this we headed to a place where we walked through a beautiful garden and ended up at a rum factory. We were walked through the process of how they used to make rum (on the right is a picture of an old still) and then we had a rum tasting. I didn't taste all of them but the pineapple rum was especially good. And I'm not a big rum fan.

 

We then ended up at a restaurant for lunch. I don't know what it was about this meal but we all agreed it was the best one we ate all week. It was so good! We also enjoyed the grounds of the restaurant.

 

I also really liked the various art installations they had on the grounds of the restaurant. (The photo on the left is flowers made out of plastic bottles.) We also got to walk through a cocoa grove and learn how chocolate is made. It was very interesting. After that we explored some grounds near a fort in Puerto Plata, where I clearly took no pictures, and then we headed back to the resort. I think we spent more time on the beach for the rest of that day.

The next day was our last day at our resort. In the morning, the groundskeepers were pruning the palm trees. I asked if I could lift a palm branch. They were surprisingly heavy. Later that morning, I was hanging out on our patio reading, and a groundskeeper offered me a fresh coconut! He cut the top off and then handed it to me. How often does that happen?!?!?!

 

This was the patio off of our room and I loved to sit here and read and watch the woodpecker pecking a hole in the palm tree. (That's what the picture on the right is!) This offered a nice change of pace from the beach.

 

One thing we loved was watching the cruise ships sailing out of port every day. They became a good back drop for photos!

We did wish we were sailing away on them though. We tried an all inclusive this trip because we needed time to relax and we had never done one as a family. While this vacation was very relaxing, we all agreed that we much prefer cruises so that was good to find out.

Rachel being silly with a lime on the beach!

You could walk past the other resort and follow a short path to a look out. From there you could see one of the two places where the cruise ships dock in Puerto Plata. This was the view from the lookout to our beach.

One last view of the pool, with palm trees, with the beach in the background, and a picture of our resort at night. It really was a lovely place to stay.

On the last morning, after we had checked out, but before our airport transportation arrived, we took one last walk to the lookout point to enjoy the view, and the warm weather. And then we flew home.

So that was our March Break getaway. Like I said, it was just the relaxing vacation we needed after a winter of renovations, and I'm so thankful that we did it.