Where In The World Wednesday: Dominican Republic

 

It's time for Where in the World Wednesday again, hosted by Classy in Philadelphia.  If you want to take part, all you have to do is post a picture of someplace in the world, then visit the comments section on Classy in Philadelphia's post to see who else is participating, and leave your link so that other participants can visit your blog too. Remember to use the WITWW button in your post.

This week, I'm going to tell you about a holiday B and I went on in November 2005, to the Dominican Republic. Once ruled by Spain, the Dominican Republic is the second largest Caribbean nation (after Cuba), and shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, the country recently devastated by an earthquake.

We went at the end of the Atlantic hurricane season, that year the most active in recorded history.....a season in which hurricanes Dennis, Emily, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma struck with horrific consequences. During our stay, the Dominican Republic caught the tail end of at least two tropical storms... we had 6 days of rain out of 14, but luckily nothing on a par with the storms that hit other parts of the Caribbean, Mexico, Florida and Louisiana.

We stayed in a resort on the mountainous north side of the island, an area renowned for its lush, tropical landscape and golden sandy beaches. Most days we spent just lying on the beach, reading, soaking up the sun (when it was actually shining), partaking of a few too many rum cocktails, and swimming and snorkelling in the deliciously warm ocean.....

Every day, the "looky-looky" men and women would descend upon the beach, eager to sell their wares to the tourists. They'd call "looky-looky!" as they walked the length of the beach, trying to entice us to have a look at their jewellery and knick knacks. One man went a bit further than that, endlessly calling...."looky-looky, touchy-touchy, likey-likey, buy-buy!"

"Looky-looky!"

They did get on my nerves after a while, but by the end of the holiday I'd succumbed to buying a set of dolphins carved out of petrified wood....

One of the highlights of the holiday was a helicopter trip over the North coast...

View of the resort from the helicopter

Heading for the mountain

The best day of the holiday, though, was the one we spent at Ocean World Adventure Park, a beautiful marine park with dolphins, sea lions, sharks, stingrays, tropical birds and fish. There, we had the opportunity to swim with dolphins...apparently one of the things everyone MUST do at some time in their lives. Well, to be honest, while it was a very exciting experience (the best part was when the dolphins swam up next to us, allowing us to hold their fin and then dragged us for a high speed ride), it was also quite weird and a bit scary for me....not helped by the fact that my dolphin was a bit frisky. The trainer warned us not to touch the dolphins in certain places, as they can get excited in that way...I didn't go near mine but she definitely had a gleam in her eye, and was a bit too enthusiastic in general. She swam up to me at one point, nudged me in the ear with her nose and then suddenly flipped backwards under the water...whacking my foot hard with her flipper as she did so. Man, did it hurt! My foot was black and blue for a week after that. I must be the only human to have been injured by a dolphin....

The dolphin pools at Ocean World

Tucan at Ocean World