Dominican Rpb: ¡Bienvenido a la República Dominicana! or crossing the Atlantic Ocean

[04/02/18] Having arrived to Siberia I had a strong impression that I'm not gonna make it across the Atlantic again, however, as the chance would have it, I stumbled across a charter ticket from Moscow to the Dominican Republic for a laughable price of about 120$.

The flight to Moscow would cost me almost as much money, but I was too good an opportunity to not take it.

From the moment I bought the tickets I had a nasty feeling that something is going to go wrong. It was just too good to be true.

Luckily, the biggest problem was a flight delay for 2.5 hours and all that time the passengers were stuck in the airplane. The (probably incompetent) personnel of the airport could not prepare the aircraft for taking flight in time and then the runway got covered with snow and ice and it went on and on...

It is remarkable that I wasn't even harassed by passport control as it usually happens.
In the end it was 15 hours of sitting (and aimless wandering around) in the airplane. Not the most pleasant time of my life but I've seen worse.

The plane landed in the twilight, after a short run along the runway of the Punta Cana airport. Having stopped, the enormous Boeing 747 spewed out hundreds of tourists, that were immediately stuffed into their tour busses. But I had no tour, of course, and noone was waiting for me so I had to use a taxi as the public transportation was not available at that hour.

The strongest first impression was concerning the prices. Everything is ridiculously expensive and rarely worth the money. That's one of the reasons why I left this city soon, the second one being plain old boredom. All of those excursions, dolphinariums, beaches and all other touristic entertainments are not attractive for me.

So I soon found myself on the road with a thumb up and hitchhiked to the capital, Santo Domingo. It is the first city in the Caribbean, founded by Bartholomew Columbus (a brother of that Columbus who "discovered" America) in the end of XV century. Its historical center, Zona Colonial, boasts a multitude of old colonial buildings and has it's own unique flavor and aesthetics.

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It is not as expensive as Punta Cana, but still expensive. And it looks like the city has high rates of criminal activity, I was often approached by cops who warned me not to hang around this place or that and such. Personally I have not yet run into any trouble even having ignored their warnings.

Also, an attempt to acquire gas for my camping gas stove was unsuccessful so I probably won't find it in all Caribbean, which places all kinds of restrictions on me and sucks in general.

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Be it as it may, I still made it across the Ocean for cheap and now I'm ready to explore this part of the world.

More photos:

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^{Faro o Colon, a memorial for Columbus}

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^{The National Botanical Garden in Santo Domingo}

To be continued...

Previous post: Turkey: the New Year in Istanbul and the return of wayward son

Check out my travel blog:
Turkey: 21, 22, 23, 24, 25
Iran: 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
Tajikistan: 7, 8, 9, 10
Kyrgyzstan: 4, 5, 6
Kazakhstan: 1, 2, 3