Zona de Colonial, Santo Domingo Staycation, Sep 19th & 20th

(posted by: Doug)

We live in a beautiful city. A fact that had basically escaped us for the first month because of our hectic schedules: work, get situated, work while getting situated, etc. We'd caught glimpses of Santo Domingo in taxis and on busses out of town, but hadn't quite gotten our hands dirty in Santo Dominicanness. Therefore, we elected to stay in town this particular weekend and explore some parts of this massive city that still very much remains a mystery to us.

*note: this is way out of order, but it takes forever to fix. I've screwed this up enough times now to know how to work it, so next time should be much better. Enjoy:)

Small protected port in the middle of SD. If you look at a map ouf our city, this is the part where the water splits it in half.

From the top of a castle/fort type thing in the Zona de Colonial (Colonial Zone), SD.

Artfully, I give you some perspective on the orientation of our apt in SD.

And here's a nicer shot, minus the squiggles.


A large Catholic cathedral is in the middle of Parque Colon; the Colonial Zone at it's most colonial and the first church started in the New World (not the first finished, though. These things take time). We'd just gotten out of mass this day. Unfortunately, due to my emergent level Spanish, I caught none of it.

More parts of the cathedral.

Mas.

Muy mas.

Large complex/fort in the Zona de Colonial, where Columbus and his goons set up shop.

In the same complex. Likely the entire Dominican military force...

Different angle, same place as above, but you can see that the entire place is protected by high walls.

Me.

Us.

From the top of that big tower you can see behind us in the above picture.

Mas.

Other direction.

This part kind of reminds me of Portland. Nonetheless it's really pretty here.

From inside one of the buildings.

Stace showing her adventurous side.
Streets of the Colonial Zone.

Stace decending into the darkness.

We snuck up to the top of this building and saw the bell tower, some statues and got a great view.

Though not tourist season yet, as you can see they're beginning to encroach...

Art at the top of this building.




Midd right are a lot of cool resteraunts we frequent on the weekends.

Finally, a cargo ship with some soul.

Stace outside of the Zona de Colonial

Parque Colon, the cathedral from above is right behind this. Also, the pigeons are nasty and I hate them.

Finally out of town, Jarabacoa & Sosua

(Posted by: Doug)
Ok, so it's been a bit since we've had the time/energy to update this puppy, but none the less hope you've all been well because we certainly have. Back in the beginning of September we went to the middle of the island to a town called Jarabacoa, which is in the Santiago province of the DR and close to it's geographic center. This town is often used as a base camp for the hike to the summit of Pico Duarte, the highest peak in the Caribbean. Believe it or not, there's ice at the top of this island. Having been raised spending a lot of my time in the hills I was foaming at the mouth to see A) some elevation, not much of around the concrete jungle that is SD, where we live the high-rises and constant horn/car alarm infused traffic makes it easy to forget that you're a two or so miles from the ocean and B) something at least resembling a coniferous tree.

But before that, here's Sosua, which we visited with our friends JP and Caitlin. We've been blessed to find these two down here, and they've quickly become great travelling companions and friends. Sosua is located on the North Coast of the island, which from what I've found so far in our two trips (more on that later) offers much cleaner, and less rocky beaches. We got in some pretty good snorkel ling here, although the night life we didn't find quite so appealing... We might be back there for the diving, but certainly will not be back to stay over night. Gross.

Here's the beach we spent most of out time on. Think we were the second umbrella from the right, or thereabouts. We went on a small snorkeling trip (thanks Jason and Em!) about a mile or so right of this.

Our view from dinner, pretty sweet.

More dinner, and one of my favorite shots from the trip.

Same beach, a bit later in the day.

Stace's view for much of the day. Her and Caitlin had a pretty good time getting in some reading.

Not a bad way to have breakfast.

Gecko at hanging out at the restaurant.

Jarabacoa from the balcony in our very cheap but very sweet hotel.

Sunset over Jarabacoa. Not sure if the picture does it justice but this was pretty sweet.Trail on the way to a waterfall. If you look close, you can see some coniferous-ish trees. Not only was it gorgeous here but it was smelled awesome, too.

Pretty sweet waterfall just outside Jarabacoa. See the person at the bottom for scale. We thought we were being taken to an even larger one.
Streets of Jarabacoa. Pretty sweet shot by Stace.

What Jarabacoa's streets lack in the car traffic of SD in makes up with many many scooters coming and going with reckless abandon from all directions.

More from our brief hike

Us at the waterfall.