Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Here we are able to present yet another enlightening and certainly entertaining DomRep Boca Chica story, this time at the expense of one of Playa Vista’s best friends from the cold North who reports with such descriptive pathos we quote him word for word.
Taxi to the bus station - Caribe Tours in Santo Domingo - was fine, arriving at 6:25. Headed to the ‘Bileteria’, asked for ticket to Sosua - "No" - "Whadya mean, no?" - " Last bus at seven" – “But it's only 6:30"! - "Bus full"!
Oh my God! Recurring visions of last year’s rescheduling. "Only bus is to Santiago at 8PM" - "OK. I'll take it" At least it would get me beyond half way. I ask at the ‘Informacion’ if by any chance there's a bus from Santiago to Sosua. The girl consults with another and says there is and that it leaves at 10:30… exactly the time the first one gets there. She assures me that it will connect! An hour and a half later, just to be sure, I ask the driver as I'm boarding the bus, if the other bus will wait for this one. He tells me there is no other bus, well not Caribe Tours, anyway. I will have to get a taxi to another bus station in Santiago for the bus to Sosua.
On the way, the air conditioning is so cold that water is condensing on the luggage rack and dripping off a joint above my head right onto my glasses. I recline the seat a bit more and soon my chest is soaking wet - can't move, the bus is jam-packed.
Arrive at Santiago and there is one taxi who tells me there is no other bus station or company! I figured it was the old trick to get me into his cab and there was no one else around to ask. "That's it," I thought, "I've missed the plane again and I'll be stuck here until morning." He says he'll take me all the way to the airport. I figured that if it cost $180US to get from the airport to Boca Chica last year, that Santiago to Sosua is going to be around $80US and I knew I hadn't got anywhere near that much on me. "Mucho dinero." I say. He pulls out a cell-phone, punches the keypad and shows me the figure RD$1600. I didn't bother to figure what that was in dollars - I just put my hand in my pocket and pulled out what I had - 1640 pesos. Whew!!! "Bueno!" I said… grabbing at the offer like a drowning man, which I pretty much was.
I still had four hours to be safe for the plane and I asked him how long the trip would take. He told me about an hour and a half. I had noticed, whilst negotiating with him, that both his eyes looked in different directions but it wasn't until we had been traveling for about ten minutes that it became fairly obvious that he couldn't see worth a damn. He never exceeded 40MPH and overtaking cars were whizzing past us by the dozens. When anything came towards us in the opposite direction, he would slow almost to a standstill and, at the last moment, swerve violently away from it, the right-hand wheels gong off the edge of the road. Of course, he had to slow down for those really bad, pot-holed patches, but he would jam on the brakes on smooth roads for potholes that weren't even there! I was convinced that we were not going to make it all the way without some terrible calamity. On top of all this, the radio was on at full volume the whole time and the window on my side wouldn't go up, so when it started to rain near Puerto Plata, I got soaked (some more). The rain reduced what little visibility he/the cross eyed chauffeur had, and with it, our speed down to around 20MPH. The whole trip took two and three quarter hours.
The saga is not finished yet, my friends. When, after the long wait with only 40 pesos in my pocket, which is insufficient to buy any refreshment at airport prices, I reached the boarding gate clutching my precious obligatoric $10US only to be told that I had first to go to another desk and pay a departure tax of an additional $10US. I told them I hadn't got it and had not been advised that I would need it. "Well, you can't get on the plane until it's paid!" Arguing the point was futile - they took away my boarding pass! Then one of the agents at the gate made an announcement to the waiting passengers asking if anyone could lend this gentleman the necessary sum. Three people instantly stepped forward with $10 bills and I was saved. Believe me, at that moment, I was on the point of breaking into tears of relief!
Everything went smoothly after that, and my wife had a $10US bill with which I was able to repay the kind lady from whom I had borrowed it. I was so glad that it was all over, that even the twenty centimeters of snow that started to fall as soon as I arrived, seemed quite welcoming.
It must be pointed out that the recurring visions of last year’s rescheduling that our indomitable traveling friend had, were due to the fact that, because of a long sequence of quite different crazy occurrences, he completely missed his plane in Puerto Plata!
Well back in the cold North we asked our comrade if his unplanned departure-adventure would put him off visiting the DomRep and good old Playa Vista again? “It would take a lot more than that episode to discourage me. Of course I'm coming back again” he stoically responded without hesitation.
So… thanks to the good old bull dog spirit we look forward to seeing him again very soon, and naturally we at Playa Vista will be waiting with open arms to again offer the kind of welcome that such a spirited and playful actor on the Boca Chica stage deserves.
Posted by Playa Vista @ 04:35 PM CST
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
The discriminating historians amongst you never commented on our blog of 19th February 2005 when we referred to the Taíno Indians as being the original inhabitants of Hispaniola… only actually true if, as most people do, you take the origin as to when Christopher Columbus first landed in 1492. The ingenuity of archeologists and of our modern ways of accessing information help to reveal, that our currently very visitor-friendly island has actually been popular with guests for upwards of 4000 years!
The very first batch is supposed to have arrived about 2600 BC! Unlike today they came exclusively from locations equally sunny and warm, thereby provoking the obvious question, “What on earth were they trying to get away from back home?” Anyway… the route’s starting point seemingly was eastern Venezuela and followed a sequence of natural with-current island-hopping bringing the true original inhabitants, the ‘Arawak’ Indians, to these shores. The trip was so popular that it was repeated and again we are at a curious loss as to know what could have possibly instigated it. The second migratory wave of other Arawak-related Indians referred to as ‘Saldoids’ occurred a couple of centuries before the time of Christ. These particular Indians, according to those curious archeologists, have left quite a trace of their sophisticated culture through remnants of their ceramic creations.
It is debatable as to where exactly the third group of visitors arrived from. Either, it is believed, along the same tried and trusted route using the equatorial currents or in successive steps up from the Peruvian-Andes. In similar fashion to the other two groups they absorbed, or eliminated, the previous migratory group and were known as the Taíno Indians. They held sway on the island for something like a thousand years and, in spite of their having eliminated the Arawak Indians, called themselves ‘Taíno’ which somewhat perversely is said to mean “friendly people” in their own language. Of course this was no different from the Spanish of the 15th and 16th centuries who probably also regarded themselves as quite friendly in spite of their similar eliminatory tendencies, as they presided over the decline of a Taíno population estimated at 400,000 dwindling down to under 3,000 in less than the first 30 years after their arrival. It was though generally recognized, even by the Spanish of the time, that the Taíno’s general passivity contributed to their rapid demise. Either the ‘friendly people’ got slack in their 1000 years of untroubled living here or perhaps those Arawak Indians were just too much of a push over right from the outset… who knows!
It is of course a relief to know that today you don’t have to muster any sizeable group together, nor furnish yourself with the latest weaponry or even paddle great distances in a canoe to get here. You can just hop on a plane even on your ownsome, and within a few relatively trouble free hours you can be enjoying something of that accommodating welcome once upon a time probably afforded by those ancestral Indians!
See you soon then!
Posted by Playa Vista @ 04:44 PM CST
Sunday, February 5, 2006
Streetlamp number 25 stands proudly, though somewhat tiltingly, in Calle Abraham Nuñez magnificently illuminating the public road and area between Playa Vista and Hotel Europa or, rather, we should say… it used to. “Interestingly enough” this lamp became profoundly inactive the week that EdeEste (the local electric utility company) decided to disconnect our service because we kept insisting we had not consumed the huge quantity of electricity they suddenly were claiming -five times the usual level, “no way Jose!”- and that we wanted the matter fully investigated. Unknown to us, at that point anyway, the routine here seems to be quite simply that you pay what the monopolistic high and mighty EdeEste request because they do not have a genuine mechanism for thoroughly and professionally investigating invoiced anomalies.
When finally, after months of what turned about to be futile correspondence, we realized that arbitration in the eyes of EdeEste means: pay up whatever the company dictates and when finally, after making good use of our brand-spanking new propane-gas driven generator and our good old inverter, we were reconnected with the traditional electricity network, sweetened only by the minor token victory that the questionable meter was removed from its former position in the public street and installed inside Playa Vista, we requested that the dear company also investigate the non-functioning streetlamp number 25.
It took two full weeks or more and numerous phone calls to identify that it is not after all EdeEste who deals with streetlamps, but the local council… who ominously do have a reputation for being somewhat slow off the mark even in a country of slow starters.
Many many phone calls and then one fortuitous visit put us in direct contact with “the” man responsible - Ramon. He said, of course, “mañana” with some conviction though, because he explained they had another streetlight that also needed looking at nearby. Mañana naturally passed without any change to the situation whatsoever, and a call to Ramon gave the explanation that they were short of a mechanical crane. The following week the secretary in Ramon’s office made up her own story and said it was because they were out of bulbs in the storehouse! A couple of weeks later and Ramon, after being chased down on the phone again, asked, “Uh hum, exactly where is this lamp then?” A couple of days later hoping to speed things along we also provided the lamp’s individual identification code, “number 25”, as all of you also know now. Some days later Ramon was able to confirm indeed that lamp number 25 was not working. He had seen it with his own eyes.
One obviously good-humored and unusually pro-active day yet further on in time Ramon dramatically announced he was sending his chief assistant the next day… which helped us recall being told in no uncertain terms earlier on in the venture, that Ramon definitely didn’t have an assistant and only he himself could handle a matter such as this. ‘The assistant’ - another ‘Ramon’ – surprisingly, did turn up! When we explained the difficulties we had had with EdeEste and the coincidence of the street lamp suddenly being inoperative the same week we had been disconnected, he said AHAAA… and nodded his head vigorously indicating that he knew exactly from previous experiences what had happened. No light bulb failure, just a simple menacing harassing disconnection by you know who! He said he would fix it the next day… oh yes, mañana again. That was on a Saturday. Tuesday we phoned the first Ramon and asked what the problem now was. He said that there was no mechanical crane available! Amazing how circular the world is, ain’t it?
Quite a performance already and now we are just waiting for the finale: ‘The Ramones and The Light Show’ to get good old streetlamp 25 back into action!
Posted by Playa Vista @ 01:24 PM CST
