The strike and how it affected my vacation
The government sets the price of fuel (propane, cooking gas, gasoline, etc.) so that it does not fluctuate with the market. With the rising global market price and the government debt, fuel prices were discussed and finally raised this weekend.
I was inside the city of Santo Domingo on Sunday evening and returned from the Dominican Republic on Tuesday evening out of Santo Domingo Las Americas Airport.
On Sunday, I made the drive from Sosua to Boca Chica (Sosua->Puerto Plata->Santiago->Santo Domingo->Boca Chica). The drive took 7 hours including a stop at Camp David in Santiago for lunch, much longer than planned. It took 2 hours just to cross from one side of Santo Domingo to the other, and we had taken an outer route to avoid the major rush hour congestion of the city. It didn’t matter. Between the rain, ongoing road construction, and heavy traffic, it was major gridlock. Lately, the trip from the center of Santo Domingo to Boca Chica, which can be as little as 45 minutes on a perfect day with no traffic problems, is typically closer to a 90 minute ride or more.
The hike in fuel prices (gas, gasoline, etc.) was anticipated and started causing me problems as early as last Thursday. The gas stations did not want to sell their gasoline because they wanted to wait until the price increase so they could collect the higher price for the gas they had on hand.
Then, with the pending strike, one could not buy gas by the gallon because they were afraid it would be used to start fires and burn tires during the strike. So, one could not buy gasoline for generators or water skiing. We resorted to filling the car gas tank, siphoning it off into jugs for friends and neighbors, then refilling the car gas tank.
There is a shortage of cooking gas in some areas. There was none at all to be found in Boca Chica or Andrés. In Santo Domingo, I saw a line of perhaps a thousand or more people waiting with their tanks in tow in pouring rain to purchase cooking gas. A friend of mine paid a neighbor to go to Santo Domingo to refill his tank. The neighbor said he waited 7 hours in line, much of the time in the rain.
The below information is a couple days old and may no longer apply as the strike has been officially ended:
On Tuesday morning, in Boca Chica, the highway leading to the airport and Santo Domingo which is usually bustling with traffic, was practically empty. I’m told that students at one school have been told that classes are cancelled until Monday. Guaguas were not running and when they don’t run, people don’t show up for work. In the distance, I could see black smoke from small fires. Despite, I had no problem getting to the airport and departing. The people in general use the strike as an excuse for a vacation day or two. As a tourist, you could not even tell that there was a strike in progress and even for most locals, a strike just means a couple days at home and no guagua service.
The political word that I was hearing was that when the global prices dropped, the fuel prices in the DR were not lowered. Now that global prices have risen, the DR prices similarly should not be raised. Most guagua drivers observe the strike not because they believe in the cause, but because they don’t want to have their vans damaged by people throwing rocks.
Jim Hinsch JimHinsch@CSI.COM
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