(Puerta Plata, Dominican Republic)
A week or two ago, we spent one full day sight-seeing on the “Amber Coast” of the Dominican Republic. Puerta Plata, as it’s more commonly known, is home to the Brugal Company Rum Factory and the Museo del Ambar.
Our second stop of the day (after first checking out the >>Christ statue<< at the top of Mount Isabel de Torres) was at the Brugal Company for a factory tour and rum sampling…at 10:00AM. Lol. It’s always 5 o’clock somewhere, right? ;))
Nothing is more Dominican than street dogs, baseball, and sugar cane. Except maybe rum! So we of course wanted to check out the local rum while in the DR.
Unfortunately for us, Brugal does not allow any photography whatsoever inside the factory. That was like a massive slap in the face for me. No photos? Seriously? Talk about a major bummer. (I would’ve maybe tried to sneak a few anyway if the tour guide hadn’t told us he’d get fired if I took photos. And I do not need that on my conscience!)
You’ll have to take our word for the factory tour, since there are no photos to prove it. Turns out, this location is really just a bottling location and the actual distillery is at a different spot. The tour was free and somewhat brief since you’re only really viewing the factory floor from a mezzanine above as workers bottle and label the rum.
Regardless, it was definitely still neat to see, but again, no photos to show how cool the factory was. And clean! Spotless in fact.
The good news is that we were able to snap as many photos as my little heart desired in the Brugal rum shop and taste testing area, where we may or may not have purchased several bottles of the local favorite! We spent some quality time in the shop checking out all the different kinds of rum available for sale and tasting each one! To be honest, I can’t really tell the difference between the different ages/types of rum. Can you?
After our little morning of rum tasting, we headed further into the city to check out the Museo del Ambar, or Amber Museum.
The historic museum is located in an old Victorian house in the middle of the city. Once we entered the main building and paid our 25 pesos a piece, an English-speaking guide led us through the museum exhibits.
^^”A”mber “G”allery^^
And it was all very Jurassic Park esc. ;))
Little did we know, the Dominican Republic is somewhat unique in that amber can actually be found here. And not only that, there are as many as 10 different colors of amber to be found here in the DR, including the very rare blue amber. The quality of the Dominican amber is very well known around the world, but especially the pieces originating from the Puerto Plata area, which is considered to be some of the most valued, due to its transparency.
After a little rundown from our tour guide, we spent about 20 minutes checking out all the exhibits of amber rocks covering various little critters and nature. Pretty neat to see!
^^Both^^ tours were ultra cheap and definitely worth checking out. Jer and I spent the rest of our day in Puerta Plata chowing on some local Dominican food, doing a quick stop at Fort San Felipe, wrapping up the day with a massive grocery shop at La Sirena (the DR’s version of Walmart), and hauling our La Sirena loot back to the boat via dinghy (which is never fun).
>>Thanks for visiting LAHOWIND sailing blog! We’d love for you to get to know us and follow our story as we attempt to navigate a whole new world of sailing, as we cruise the Caribbean. …Learn more about us and our sailing + cruising adventures.
Posted in Dominican Republic, Sailing Blog, TravelTags: Amber Museum, Brugal, Caribbean, Cruising, Day Trip, Dominican Republic, La Sirena, LahoWind, Luperon, Museo del Ambar, Puerta Plata, Rum Factory, Sailing Blog, Sight Seeing, Tour, Travel, Young Couple
(Luperón, Dominican Republic)
Our experiences traveling (even in just small doses so far) have really been quite eye-opening. To say the least.
It turns out that a passion for travel and a love of animals can be somewhat of a recipe for heartache.
As soon as we stepped foot into the Dominican, we were overcome by an intense population of street dogs running loose in the city. They are drinking from the dirty gutters, many covered in fleas and mange, and almost all desperately seeking their next meal. The scope of the stray animal problem in parts of the developing world, like the Dominican Republic, is unimaginable by American standards. In countries often overcome by extreme poverty, people cannot always care for their pets as well as they would like. Overpopulation is rampant and the facilities to spay and neuter dogs are sparse at best. Governments struggle to pave roads or offer basic services to their citizens, much less have the resources to promote or fund spay and neuter programs.
It’s tough to witness first hand. Really tough.
Especially when you are such a huge animal lover like me and all of these sweet babies are the friendliest and most gentle souls you could imagine. If I could scoop up every street dog we’ve encountered and offer them a safe haven, I would. My sister seems to think we will definitely have at least one additional dog aboard s/v LAHO when we return. Lol. We shall see. If it were up to me, we’d literally have a boat load of animals packed up and headed back to the U.S. in search of loving forever homes.
Hell, just the other day I dumped a bag of Oliver’s treats in the street as we walked past the saddest looking dog I’ve ever seen in person. He was too scared and hungry to come close, so I literally scrambled for my ziploc of dog treats and quickly discarded the entire contents of the baggie while hurriedly walking the other direction as to not scare him even more. I was happy to turn and see him inhaling the treats I left, all the while knowing that my futile effort isn’t any sort of real solution.
But instead of pitying ^^these^^ dogs or ones just like them in your local community, why not help them? In any way you can. Adopt. Foster. Sponsor. Volunteer. Donate. Educate. Anything.
You get the idea.
Since we unfortunately can’t pack up all the street dogs in the DR (or any of the other spots we’ve visited) and sail them back home with us, we can at least try to help in other small ways. Last week, I volunteered to do some branding work for a fledgling dog rescue group in Luperón (>>here’s a first draft of the logo I designed, revisions are still in the works<<). They currently have 40+ dogs at a farm located on the outskirts of town and are rescuing more and more each day. A vet from Santo Domingo (the big city) comes to town twice a month to treat the ill or wounded dogs, and the group is feverishly working on finding ‘real’ homes for these animals so they can rescue even more.
Groups like ^^this^^ are a step in the right direction. And for that, I am thankful.
Remember…adopt. Don’t shop. There are so many wonderful animals in need of forever homes. :)))
>>Thanks for visiting LAHOWIND sailing blog! We’d love for you to get to know us and follow our story as we attempt to navigate a whole new world of sailing, as we cruise the Caribbean. …Learn more about us and our sailing + cruising adventures.
Posted in Dominican Republic, Sailing Blog, TravelTags: Animal Adoption, Caribbean, Cruising, Dominican Republic, LahoWind, Luperon, Rescue, Sailing Blog, Street Dogs
Just last week when we were still in the DR, we ventured outside of our little Luperón comfort zone and made the 1-hour trek to Puerta Plata for a day packed with lots of touristy sight-seeing goodness. I mean, we can’t spend three weeks in the DR and not do a handful of super touristy things.
Puerta Plata is basically the nearest ‘big city’ to Luperon. It’s the second most popular port of entry for people coming to the Dominican Republic, but most tourists go straight to all inclusive resorts.
We hired Super Nino (as he’s lovingly referred to in the harbor) to drive us to Puerta Plata and spend the day toting us around from one spot to the next. Nino is AWESOME!!! He lives in the small town just outside of Luperon, speaks great English, is super friendly, and knows exactly where to go in Puerta Plata (which we of course do not). We had considered renting a car ourselves for the day, but it was well worth the extra $14 (in our opinion) to have a personal driver for the entire day (car rentals go for about 1200 pesos — Nino’s services were 1800).
After an hours drive through the beautiful Dominican countryside, we made our first stop of the day at Mount Isabel de Torres. Towering above the city, Mount Isabel de Torres is a site to see with panoramic views of the city below from its flat-topped peak. We paid 340 pesos (a piece) entry fee and took the 2,700-foot cable car ride to the top of the mountain where we got to see the famous statue of Christ similar to the iconic attraction in Río de Janeiro, and had stellar views of the city below. Let’s not lie, I was a wee bit nervous hopping in a 30+ year old cable car that is literally hanging by one cable.
The views on the ride up were breathtaking! You could easily see the entire city. Unfortunately, those views only lasted a short while as clouds quickly rolled in once we were atop the mountain. But that’s okay. We were still able to take scope out the beautiful Christ statue and take lots of photos! :))
The place was pretty dead when we arrived (a good thing in my opinion) and we didn’t have to wait at all getting up or back down the mountain. I can imagine it gets kinda crowded on busy days and you literally have to wait in a terminal for your turn on the cable car (there is only one car going up and one car going down at any given time — I think they probably fit about 20 bodies inside at a time).
>>Thanks for visiting LAHOWIND sailing blog! We’d love for you to get to know us and follow our story as we attempt to navigate a whole new world of sailing, as we cruise the Caribbean. …Learn more about us and our sailing + cruising adventures.
Posted in Dominican Republic, Sailing Blog, TravelTags: Cable Car, Caribbean, Cruising, Dominican Republic, Jesus Christ Statue, LahoWind, Luperon, Mount Isabel de Torres, Puerta Plata, Sailing Blog, Sight Seeing
Hi-ho hi-ho, off to Puerto Rico we go!!!
We’re dropping the ‘D’ in exchange for a ‘P’. So long DR…here we come PR!
We should be picking up our despacho later today so we can “officially” leave Luperon this evening amidst the night lees and head east towards Puerto Rico. It will take us a few days just to make it to the west side of PR (probably Boqueron) and then still a few more after that to get all the way to Salinas (just east of Ponce), on the south coast of Puerto Rico (or at least that’s what we are planning).
See ya on the flip side! :)))
^^I had to pull a screenshot of more than just DR and PR so I can be excited that after duddy hurricane season is over we will be on our way to some awesome little islands in the Caribbean!^^
Posted in Puerto Rico, Sailing Blog, TravelTags: Caribbean, Cruising, Dominican Republic, LahoWind, Luperon, Mona Passage, Puerto Rico, Sailing Blog, Salinas
For those of you who have never changed a diesel engine oil filter, look no further! Today, we will walk you through the six simple pictorial steps located on the back of the Baldwin filter. For those of you experienced in the oil filter changing department, please disregard.
- Wipe off air below hair comb.
- Add one drop of oil between filter and hair comb.
- Using a mitten, turn filter onto hair comb.
- Add one.
- Do not use rain.
- Do not use cheese or toast either.
Simple, right? ;)) So glad they provided the very helpful illustrations. Lol.
…It only took us two days to change the filter. Well two days to *remove* the old one and about 5 minutes to swap in the new guy. Lol.
>>Thanks for visiting LAHOWIND sailing blog! We’d love for you to get to know us and follow our story as we attempt to navigate a whole new world of sailing, as we cruise the Caribbean. …Learn more about us and our sailing + cruising adventures.
Posted in Boat Life, Boat Projects, Other, Sailing BlogTags: Boat Maintenance, Caribbean, Cruising, Diesel Engine, How to, LahoWind, Oil Change, Oil Filter, Perkins 4108, Sailboat, Sailing Blog
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Glad you made it to PR safe and sound.
Ever think that the reason the DR sells so much rum to sailors is because they are either facing or have just sailed the Mona Passage ~ just sayin’
Don’t feel bad about the bucket. We both get seasick when in the washing machine. That motion is horrid.
We both love sailing at night under a full moon. But Mark’s favorite time is when there is no moon. He will lay on his back and count the shooting stars. So much for him keeping watch, huh!
Mark and Cindy – s/v Cream Puff
http://www.creampuff.us
Thanks guys! We needed a few drinks after 3 days at sea. Lol. 🙂 -Kim