Sorry once again for the lack of updates, I don't know why, but this blog is turing out like me reading a book. I always start and almost always fall behind with it. The past two weeks have been amazing, I have done it all, from four wheelers in the countryside of the Dominican Republic to riding my bike today for four hours straight along the beaches of Puerto Rico.
I am enjoying work more these days since there is usually less of it. I am so fortunate that I left the University of North Dakota when I did. If I had delayed my decision by a month of two it would have made a huge difference in my schedule here. I would probably be still on reserve instead of holding 18 day off schedules and decent overnight locations.
Since I am already to the point of being bored of typing, I will talk about the major event since the last update on this blog...the trip to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Keyra was going to be there with her family for the long weekend, so I had an open invitation to come over and do some things. Employees of airlines have access to a website called Perx.com that allows us to get great deals in hotels all over the world. I went there and got a room in the all-inclusive "Coral Hamaca, by Hilton" for $59 a night. I think I ate that much money of food by the time breakfast was over.
I was really amazed in the Dominican Republic, there is absolutely no middle class. People there are either very rich and most are very very poor. I was stopped numerous times by poor people asking me to buy whatever they had to offer since they had nothing. They would go for any price that was offered. Keyra and I went behind a guy in a boat on a banana thing for only $10. He was just patrolling the shoreline looking for people who would take a ride. Everything purchased there is on credit too, they trust that you will pay and just give you whatever you purchase.
The most fun thing that I was able to do was with Keyra. We decided to live dangerously and go on a four wheeling guided tour through the wilderness to the northeast of Santo Domingo. The tour included a taxi ride for about 45 minutes to the start point and then 4 hours of non-stop four wheeling. The group was 2 guides and 5 tourists. One guide was on a fourtrack and the other was on a dirtbike. We saw things that were amazing to me. Naked children by the side of the road waving high, to immense fields of sugar cane with no buildings in sight. The paths/roads that we were on were usually very rough and the going was slow sometimes. And even one time the whole group had to come to a stop when the only gringo in the group broke his four wheeler. I somehow drove it too hard and broke the connection between the steering and the wheels. After awhile it was decided that I would take the leaders fourtrack and he would ride on the dirtbike while one guy stayed behind to try and repair the fourtrack. I had no idea that all the other fourtracks had been "toned down" in horsepower so when i went full throttle it was great! All the power made me feel great! It only took a little while until they took it away from me and gave it to Keyra which made me mad! The guy said in spanish that "he will kill himself if he keeps it". It was really a great experience.
Here are a few more pictures from the past few months as I continue once again to post the pictures that I have. There are lots more coming soon. Tomorrow I am off to Hewanorra, St. Lucia for an overnight. I will be home in SJU on Tuesday night and then an overnight in St. Croix on Wednesday night. On Friday I will be overnighting in St. Maarten. Next month I have a good schedule of being off from Friday afternoons to Wednesday afternoons. It is a good schedule called "three on, four off".
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* I plan to finish my review of Caribbean islands soon, look for an update below, it will not a new posting.
