Punta Cana: 1st Day

January 31, 2018: 

Mom and Dad flew up to watch our boys for the week, while Josh and I embarked on our first international trip together.  Josh's friend Matt was celebrating his 40th Birthday and had planned to go to the Dominican Republic with his girlfriend, Crystal, and their daughter, Penelope to celebrate.  He had asked if Josh and I could join them, but Josh played it off as though he couldn't get time off of work and didn't have the money.  And then he bought tickets, we got passports (Josh's very 1st) and we secretly planned with Crystal to surprise Matt!  We were connecting in Atlanta and would be on the same flight into Punta Cana, so Josh and I waited to be the last people to board and then had the flight attendant announce a gift for Matthew!

Crystal recorded the big surprise!  He had absolutely no idea!  I can't believe we pulled it off!

 View from our flight out of Atlanta to Punta Cana.  Watching the sun set from the air is amazing!

We arrived after 9pm in Punta and the rental car company was close, so they told us no cars until tomorrow.  We ended up having to take a taxi from the airport to our AirBnB, for $40.  The taxi driver said he knew where we needed him to take us, but ended up getting confused and tried to take us somewhere else first.  Eventually, Josh got him back on track and we made it to our AirBnB.  Along the way, we saw hoards of people standing outside a gas station and the driver said that they were all watching the baseball game.  Apparently baseball is very popular among Dominican Republicans.  After that, we noticed them watching in groups all along the drive, in the barber shop, in the bars, every where there was a screen.  By the time we got to our place, it was pretty late and we spent about 30 minutes trying to talk to the security guard to find a place to eat.  In the end, the language barrier proved to be too much and we ended up going back to the room to settle for airplane snacks.  

Inside our apartment, we had some residents: a lizard and a big crazy looking spider.  It looked like the body of a brown recluse, but it's legged were more angled to the sides and it walked sideways along the wall like a crab.  We quickly evicted the spider!

 February 1, 2017: Josh and I woke up and got ready for the day, then we walked out into town.  We stopped at a tiny Mini Market and exchanged some cash for pesos and grabbed some snacks.  Then we walked along the street checking out the shops and looking for a local rental car.  When they all wanted to charge us $45 a day, we decided it would be cheapest to catch a cab back to the airport, where they would only charge us $22.  We did eat some tasty Dominican fajitas in town before catching a taxi.

Plantains at the market.

 We spent another $35 on the taxi back to the airport and finally got our rental car.  Then we drove over to the Hard Rock Hotel, where Matt, Crystal and P were staying to pick them up and go explore Downtown Punta Cana.  

When we went to drop them off at the Hotel, we ran into a guy who said he'd give us a free 2 day pass to hang out at the hotel if we went on a tour in the morning.