The La Romana port in the Dominican Republic is not a very picturesque port. This first picture shows the dock where we unloaded. The amazing thing here was that the captain backed this huge ship up to this dock! Just left of the dock was a very nice and large house. This house had a green, sand traps an;d short fairway in the back yard. The Dominican Republic has a large sugar cane refinery. This house belonged to one of the higher ups with that company. You can see the refinery in the background.
The little cutie was one of many iguanas on the site. From Cueva De Las Maravillas, we relied on our taxi driver, Tony King, to show us more of the area since we had not been to the Dominican Republic before.
There were two things that we noticed right away. One was baseball! Baseball is the national sport. There were fields all over the place. We arrived early and on our way to Cueva De Las Maravillas, we saw probably six baseball fields all full of kids. Their fields were not like the nicely groomed fields in our area. They were dirt with rocks all over, but it didn't seem to bother the kids. The other thing we noticed was all of the motorcycles and mopeds. One guy was carrying an eight foot ladder on his moped as he traveled down the road! We stopped at a local shop for some souvenirs. They were very pushy and we didn't end up getting anything there.
One place that our driver really wanted to show us was Casa De Campo. This is a really, really ritzy development. People from around the word have places here. It is a separate community that is nothing like the "locals" living conditions. The places in this community were multi-million dollar places. They were truly amazing. Some of them stretched for what looked like blocks. There was every design you could imagine. There were ones that had the distinct look of a Prince from India. Others looked like a castle from Italy.
The large house on the cliff is a rich Russian's, and yes, that is just a single family dwelling. It is not an apartment complex or condos. There are world famous golf courses in this community. It is truly a dichotomy. The locals struggle to make ends meet and there is some wealth right there beside them. We were told that the average house in this community employed twelve people to maintain the property. So, the locals do benefit from these places.
One of our stops was a local favorite beach. We hung out there just a short time before heading back to the ship.
We did not have a set excursion, but we thought we would try and get a taxi to Cueva De La Maravillas, which is a beautiful cave labyrinth. This site is privately owned so there are no excursions that include this site. There is a $10 charge per person. We found a taxi that would take us out there and give us a little tour after that. Visitors are not permitted to take pictures in the caves, but there are some good shots at this link: Cave Pictures. This was a place where an ancient native tribe lived. There were drawings on the walls in the caves. The natives represented in the painting behind us were completely wiped out by disease after the Europeans arrived.
The little cutie was one of many iguanas on the site. From Cueva De Las Maravillas, we relied on our taxi driver, Tony King, to show us more of the area since we had not been to the Dominican Republic before.There were two things that we noticed right away. One was baseball! Baseball is the national sport. There were fields all over the place. We arrived early and on our way to Cueva De Las Maravillas, we saw probably six baseball fields all full of kids. Their fields were not like the nicely groomed fields in our area. They were dirt with rocks all over, but it didn't seem to bother the kids. The other thing we noticed was all of the motorcycles and mopeds. One guy was carrying an eight foot ladder on his moped as he traveled down the road! We stopped at a local shop for some souvenirs. They were very pushy and we didn't end up getting anything there.
One place that our driver really wanted to show us was Casa De Campo. This is a really, really ritzy development. People from around the word have places here. It is a separate community that is nothing like the "locals" living conditions. The places in this community were multi-million dollar places. They were truly amazing. Some of them stretched for what looked like blocks. There was every design you could imagine. There were ones that had the distinct look of a Prince from India. Others looked like a castle from Italy.
The large house on the cliff is a rich Russian's, and yes, that is just a single family dwelling. It is not an apartment complex or condos. There are world famous golf courses in this community. It is truly a dichotomy. The locals struggle to make ends meet and there is some wealth right there beside them. We were told that the average house in this community employed twelve people to maintain the property. So, the locals do benefit from these places.One of our stops was a local favorite beach. We hung out there just a short time before heading back to the ship.
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