Dominican Republic – Day 4

We finally connected to an AIESEC friend and moved across the city from West to East to stay at her parents´ house in Caterena Mella, El Brisal. Our previous host, M., gave us a dead-on precise direction that we were able to find the house after two publico connections. By now, we have become quite a pro in term of finding ourselves around the street on publico, Jan´s favorite public transportation. We could have cared less about the lack of space, air and abundant amount of sweat around us as the fixed prices, 20 pesos per trip and the crazy fun of the experience, already win us over.

Most of the day was spent to find the Aquarium and the Modern Art Museum. The Aquarium (fee: 30 pesos) was closed because of the hurricane season. I don´t recommend the Modern Art Museum because there was almost nothing special there except for one floor displaying photos of life in Dominican Republic. For some reason, we continued to get lost finding this museum. However because of this, we met an illegal Haitian young men who sold fruit (bananas, avocado and pinaples) on the street and ended up chatting with him for half an hour.  He seemed like a decent young guy who spoke okay English beside Haitian-Creoles, French and Spanish. In the beginning, we wanted to only buy coconut from his friend, but his nice demeanor and eagerness to talk dragged us to his fruit tricycle. I took a few photos of him and his “business.”  We exchanged email addressed as I promised I will send him photos once I returned home.

(…More later..)

We had a nice time later at the friend´s home with mom fixing us quick dinner and juice in addition to hanging our laundry. I was told that Dominicans ate light dinner so I was not surprised that we were served baked dough and a plate of salad.  Here we had a chance to observe a typical Dominican life, people stood outside by the fence or on the street talking to one another. Street vendors roamed the street selling plantanos and avocado.