Where It All Began

[emo_snal]

( What came before   It's a beautiful sunny morning in the Dominican Republic. The woman sitting across from us at the outdoor table hands me a pen and with a broad smile tells me "I just need you to sign right here." I look over at Cristina, but she looks at me with a blank expression, her large brown eyes expressing a zenful lack of guidance,

Comments

[wantedonvoyage]

The sinkhole/cave situation sounds pretty amazing. We saw something like this on Malta but didn't take the boat ride.

The Christianity of South America is more complicated than I once thought. Evangelicals, Pentecostals and Mormons also get in there. On Hispaniola, my own (Episcopal/Anglican) church is a surprisingly large player. In fact Haiti is our largest diocese by population.

I can concur on the insidious nature of the Egyptian handout. My favorite is the guy who steals all the toilet paper out of museum bathrooms and then tries to sell it back to you a square at a time.

Those "vacation club" things are such a scam. We have friends who fell for it, and they are basically paying to participate in the same loyalty point scheme that we get for free with the same hotel chain.

[emo_snal]

Hmm no kidding!

I didn't notice any missionaries this time but last year when I was in Nicaragua the place was lousy with them. I always pictured all the missionaries going to Africa but I suppose it's a lot more expensive to get to Africa and potentially more scary for the timid.

In unrelated news I'm still ruminating on changing the title of this entry I'm not sure I'm quite happy with the current one.

[wantedonvoyage]

BornAgainCo-Worker goes to the DR on his mission trips exclusively. I believe the resurgence of hard-line Muslim influence in west Africa, particularly Nigeria, might make missionary work a little more daunting.

As for a title, I will suggest a line from Julie (Andrews) Edwards' The Last of the Really Great Wangdoodles, "You're being taken for a ride!"

[emo_snal]

I feel like there's a phrase on the tip of my brain-tongue that encompasses something about the establishment of a new colony in a way that makes sense both as a reference to Columbus founding Santo Domingo and also Cristina and I as a newly established great beginning. Hmmm

[iddewes]

You two look adorable together! I am kind of surprised that things still seem to be quite sketchy in DR though as it is quite a big tourist destination - I have known people who got married there too, and that was just typical Brits, not adventurous sorts.

[emo_snal]

Well most of the sketch in this entry is the fault of the hotel I guess, but it's weird because like I said it wasn't some sketchy seeming hotel, it was a well reviewed popular seeming place. But their tour booking guy instead of having brochures like a professional (and frankly it would have seemed more normal to meet him in an office or at least at a table instead of him standing in an out door hallway) had a bunch of sort of pieces of posterboard with pictures stuck onto them, like god damn fifth grade projects or something. And I would have expected him to have a planned Santo Domingo itinerary and to link us up with a tour guide there instead of just letting us stumble around till one swooped us up. Weirdly lacking in professional quality.

[wantedonvoyage]

As far as I know most people, at least most Americans, who visit the DR stay in fenced-in resort compounds and never leave them. emo_snal and my friend who dated a Dominican man are the only people I know other than missionaries that actually engaged the locals.

[emo_snal]

Lol haha oh could explain why they weren't prepared for me to go wandering around Santo Domingo lol. I'm sure my travel habits differ significantly from your average american ;)

[wpadmirer]

The sinkholes with the caves sound very cool.

[emo_snal]

They were super cool! A world class site!

[lifeinroseland]

*VenezuEla

[emo_snal]

Haha oh oops I better learn to get that right :-[]

[lifeinroseland]

Exactly.

[pondhopper]

Time shares....or whatever they're called in hotel lingo
*shudders*
I am having a hard time with the fact that they had no real organized sight-seeing. But you know how to handle stuff like that with your world traveler experience.
And didn't they point out their part of Columbus' tomb? I say their part because we have part of him here in Sevilla, DNA proven because we also have the documented tomb of his son. They say they have the rest of his remains in Santo Domingo but are not open to a DNA cross-check in case they really don't have half of his bones.

You two do just fine communicating and I can assure you it only gets better.
:)

[emo_snal]

oh yeah we saw it there's this giant "lighthouse," but it looks more like.. well a giant tomb. His remains are supposed to be there. and it appeared open, there were tourists all around it. But it was after the aquarium and we were getting tired of sightseeing (: