Road Trip and 3rd of July Celebration

Hola Amigos…things are starting to slow down here and although there still is lots for us to explore here everyday life seems to take up the bulk of our days…gee just like on land…go figure! We finally figured out how to get money from the local bank so now we don’t have to travel 25 miles to the ATM in Puerto Plata to replenish out funds. That was a relief! The best thing though is that we are not really spending much because everything is so affordable. We see why this would be a good place to retire. Lots of cruisers make it to Luperon and fall in love with the place and decide they to stay. There is even a community at the top of one of the hills, known as “Gringo Hill.” (It’s got to be the affordability, because other than being inexpensive in my opinion, this place is not my idea of where I would want to live permanently) Don’t get me wrong it is nice here but it lacks some niceties and cleanliness that I would not want to live without.

Plantains straight from the tree

While beach and resort pictures depict a luxury lifestyle here, that is not the case. These are real people living here. They don’t live with the amenities we have and many don’t even have electricity. Luperon is a totally different world. This area is very much third world – When visiting third world countries, the simple things we take for granted seem to pop out at you…water, electricity and washing laundry. Laundry is handled by 2 ladies in town. The washing machines are not always operable and are mostly used as tubs. They wring out every piece of laundry and then rinse them in buckets. From here, the laundry is hung on any standing object they can find. On a busy day, laundry will run for blocks hanging on fence posts up and down the streets.

All lined up in front of Putula’s and ready for our road trip

We have been washing our own laundry on the boat (using a bucket too) but we don’t want our laundry hanging next to the dirty streets in town. Instead we can dry it on lines all over the boat in clean fresh sea air. Although this is time consuming we at least know where and how our clothes have been washed and dried.

Road trip…pretty hills

About every other week Kat and Johnny from Patula’s plan a bike trip for all of us gringos. Latest trip we took was to a beautiful beach about 20-25 miles from here called Punta Rusia Beach… Wow…it was breath taking! The water was so blue and in the distance you could see the mountains, this made such a beautiful sight.

Punta Rusia Beach

When we arrived we drove down the main path with all of the vendors on one side and the beach on the other. There were tons of local stands selling everything you can imagine to eat. Our noses were on overload with the smell of food in the air.

Food stands/vendors on the beach

Beach food vendors…can you smell the fish cooking???

Brian and Manny, Punta Rusia Beach

We got to swim in the almost crystal clear water with a nice sandy bottom it was great! We’ve got a beach close to our anchorage that we go to but you can’t go out very far because the reefs are close and the bottom is rocky, so it was really nice to go to a “normal” beach where we could really swim and enjoy ourselves. We had a great day and this was a great trip. Thanks again Kat and Johnny!

Eating local oysters at the beach…yum!

is that Noah’s Ark??? We saw this neat house as we drove through the countryside.

Next fun for us was a July 3^rd celebration in honor of US Independence Day and Canada Day. One of the local hangouts JR’s had the celebration. There were hotdogs, hamburgers, wings and all of the fixings to go with them. We had a blast as I’m sure that you can see from the pictures.

Getting ready to cross the river…don’t get me wet Brian!

Here we go again across another….

We played lots of games and I learned that I need to practice using a hula-hoop before entering a hula contest! We had lots of fun and as the day went on things got crazy!

Egg race

The cruisers and locals here really know how to have fun.

I did good until I let go of the hoop 🙂

Tracy showing off the wrinkled eggplants for the next contest…

Brian showing off his eggplant…oh no not again!

And the eggplants are a swinging….go, go get the can!

Well, that’s all that we have for now…Brian is finishing up some laundry and since it’s Saturday we are heading to our local beach. We’re going to take a dip and look for sea glass on the shore. I know that’s it’s a busy season for all of our friends back home, hang in there, make the big bucks and remember to take time to enjoy life when you can.

Chilling at JR’s

Take care, we sure miss you all!

Jennifer and Brian