the adventures of tom & marissa: Puerto Plata, Republica Dominica

Our trip to Puerto Plata was absolutely amazing! The resort was wonderful, the scenery spectacular, and the people were sweethearts. We ventured off the resort one of the last days we were in the DR and went to a local beach in Sosua, a town about 30 minutes from Puerto Plata. The sand was extremely soft, it was impossible to keep from running my hands through the sand all day.

I even ventured into the water, which is a feat for me! The water was so clear, I could see the sand on the floor the entire time I was in the ocean. It was so beautiful.

The resort has a huge Welcome Party each Sunday for the guests. There was a live band playing all different genres of music, a little bit of something for everyone. They had all types of dancers too, so of course, we had to get our picture taken with these guys. It was pretty warm that night, could you imagine being in that mask & getup all night? I would have had a heat stroke!

Poor Bradyn did NOT like all the noise. There was a saxophone player who was way too loud for my liking, so you can imagine what it was like for this poor little guy!

We went on a city tour to explore the "real" Puerto Plata. It was eye opening, and a lot of fun! We were so amazed with the overall moral of the Dominican people. Everyone we saw was smiling from ear to ear, whether they were walking down the street, relaxing under trees, working, or playing. We saw a bunch of kids, who most didn't have shoes on their feet, and they were still as happy as could be! It was amazing.

Our taxi driver (left) spoke Spanish the first hour of our trip, then out of nowhere, when we were talking about where we were from, out came the perfect English...he said, "oh Seattle, where the Mariners are!" And that was the end of our quiet non-English speaking taxi driver, and the beginning of our loud English speaking, baseball loving, karaoke dj on the side, taxi driver. Our tour guide, Edwin (on the right) was pretty fun too, but ended up being quieter than the driver. :)

Our city tour ended with a cable car ride to the top of the mountain/hill in the city. Tom was pretty nervous about the ride, and whined about it all the way up. On the way back down, we were waiting for the cable car to take off, and I said to him, "They run these all day long, nothing is going to happen." Of course since I said nothing would happen, something did. We were cruisin' down the hill in this cable car when it came to an abrupt stop, we all lost our footing and flew forward. The car was swinging in the air for about 5 minutes, until finally it started going again. I thought Tom was going to die! The car-controller guy made us feel real safe when he said, "Don't worry, we'll be fine!" Yeah right. After we started going again he took out a roll of toilet paper and held it up for Tom and said, "Just in case."

View of the mountain when we were heading up, you can see why Tom was freaked out about the cable car...it would have been a long fall to the ground!

Bradyn fell asleep with his blanket over his head one night. It was so cute, I had to take a picture!

Mike, Heidi, & Bradyn

They are such a cute family!

One of the days we went to Ocean World, which was similar to Sea World (on a much smaller scale). They had a tiger exhibit where you could actually wade in the water and stand right next to the tiger. The only thing separating you from Mr. Tiger, was the glass window, you can see it behind Tom & Bradyn. It was pretty freaky to stand that close to an actual tiger, but exciting at the same time!

So this picture was taken with no zoom...I was literally a foot away from the glass.

Cool, right?

So, the scariest part about the whole tiger area is that when we walked in, he immediately spotted Brady. His eyes followed him all down the walkway, and he was walking back and forth in front of the glass when Tom was holding B. Then when Tom set him down, out of the water, the tiger looked up and stared at him. It creeped everyone out. Even worse was the 16 year old attendant, sitting on the bench, not paying attention to anything. It was obvious if anything were to happen, he would have been the first one out of there! :)