Punta Cana

So we're back from our 4 day/3 night trip to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. We stayed at the Iberostar Punta Cana.

Our trip started with a 4am alarm to get ready and get to Newark Airport in time for our 6:40am departure. Damn that sucked. Poor David didn't sleep at ALL that night. So as you'd guess he was a joy! Luckily he slept a little on each of the 2 legs of the flight. I became oddly obsessed with Interpol's first album and listened to it repeatedly on the flights. Damn that's a good album. And I didn't go to see those tasty little morsels at Hammerstein WHY???? But I digress...

We arrived at noon and BAM! the heat hit us over the head like a baseball bat. I knew it was going to be hot but come on! The temp was in the mid 80's but with the intense humidity the heat index made it feel like 115 degrees. Sweaty wet heat. I love it!

We arrived at the resort and were greeted with tons of "HOLA's". We quickly learned that this was commonplace and welcomed throughout our stay. Anyhoo, we checked in, got a really nice room, and waited for them to bring up our bags so I could get my swimsuit on and hit the beach.

The beach was beautiful. Picture perfect. Water warm, clean and crystal clear turquoise. So relaxing. But then OUCH, I stepped on some large piece of metal or something on the ground. I mean large, like several feet long. Luckily that was the only large piece of who-knows-what I encountered. But still-shouldn't that like, not be there?

The food. Well the food-sucked. I mean really. The first meal we had was a hamburger. But it more resembled the 'mystery meat' burgers they served in Junior High. But with enough ketchup, mustard, mayo and cornichons (little pickles, for some reason they were EVERYWHERE) it was the next best thing to a Johnny Rockets. Kind of.

For the next 2 nights we ate crappy meals. Breakfast was good. Lunch ok. Dinner bad. First night was the Carribean restaurant. Appetizers included smoked salmon wrapped pineapple (WTF???) and cornichons. I ordered the snapper on a mustard sauce (which I quickly learned was served with EVERYTHING) and David had the Grouper. We both were served and we looked at each others plates and said "this is the same exact fish!" Fish was fried in some greasy, butter like, lard mixture (again, something we quickly learned EVERYTHING was cooked in). Very strange. Had a bite or two. Done. Dessert was served. Gross. Done. Bedtime.

We had an equal experience with the seafood restaurant the next night. Appetizer was smoked salmon (WTF???) with a mustard sauce (read:squeezable yellow mustard), followed by a asparagus soup reduction with foie gras aroma. Aroma? WTF?? If I want foie gras I want foie gras, not some aroma. The lobster was nasty and again cooked in the buttery lard mixture. Dessert. Gross. Bedtime.

Luckily the last night we found the steakhouse which was great. If we had stuck with that place for the whole time it would've been great.

I did get sick. The big D, chills, body aches, lethargy. But luckily my Dr gave me antibiotics so by morningtime I was fine.

The coolest part of the trip was a snorkeling trip we did. 45 minutes of snorkeling followed by 30 minutes of swimming with sharks (blue sharks, docile) and stingrays. It was awesome. The sharks were 7 feet long and would swim right under you. I followed them around everywhere. So beautiful and scary. Same for the stingrays. Amazing experience.

In all we had a wonderful relaxing vacation. There's nothing like waking up in the morning and your biggest decision is Beach or Pool? Pina Colada or Coco Loco?


Parrots used for photos-the guys would walk around and say "COME ON-DON'T BE SCHICKEN! TODAY WITH DE PARROT, TOMORROW WITH DE SHARK." We heard this joke everday.


The resort


Our room


Beach 'Palapas'





Beautiful turquoise water


Me with my Fanta


The pen where they kept the sharks/stingrays/non-tipping tourists


Can you feel the love?


Stopping for a dip before heading back on the boat, notice the floating drinks being passed around.


Our pool




Me, sunburned and sad waiting for the bus back to the airport