So Much For Blogging On The Go...

Yeah, so I didn't really do the best at keeping in touch there did I?  Sorry everyone, I know you would have loved some updates on how things were going, but I wasn't willing to blow the little bit of spending money that I'd brought on internet access.  Interestingly at one point I was able to get online by finding a North American style outlet in the lobby and getting on their wireless network.  The connection was so slow that I wasn't really able to do anything with it though, and then I ended up not being able to get internet access through that network ever again.  Who knows?

Well, we're back now anyway!  Actually, we got in yesterday afternoon, but after spending nearly 2 hours waiting for my luggage because the airport was having conveyor belt issues AGAIN, I wasn't really in a blogging mood.  I made a few journal entries on my laptop offline during the trip, but even there I wasn't feeling so hot for most of this week and really wasn't able to summon much enthusiasm for writing.  I'll repost my two "Offline Logs" here for you guys now:


Offline Log - January 26th, 2010 - 5:15 p.m. local time

I'm writing this in WordPad.  HELP ME IT BURNS!!!  Sorry, being disconnected is having some fairly adverse effects on my mind.  I have become entirely too reliant on the internet and find myself feeling fairly distressed when so removed from my loved ones, and a majority of my hobbies.  Some may call this a sickness, I choose to think of myself as being ultra-modern.  Thank you.

As previously evidenced I actually could get online if I wanted to, but it's a bit pricey and I take forever to type anything because of the strange keyboard (again!)  Today I've found a way to plug in my computer, and I can even get WiFi... of a sorts.  You know that your internet connection is bad when GMail loads a special screen that essentially says "Sorry dude, this isn't happening."  I'm making the assumption that Blogger isn't going to like me any better.  I may attempt later in the week to log on for one shot and upload all of these Offline Logs if I've amassed any great number of them.  I've got to say, even though I'm disconnected it feels good to be getting my thoughts down.

Let me try to bring everyone up to speed.  I honestly can't remember where I left off but if I remember correctly it was Sunday and so we had our luggage and all was well in that regard.  That evening after my blogging we were just hanging out by the bar and ended up chatting with a couple Canadian guys, Steve and Trevor.  That made for a pretty entertaining evening of purusing the various resort bars, but in my eagerness to immerse myself in the tropical vacation vibe I began drinking margeritas, daquiries, and all manner of other horribly sweet things, as well as eating more than my fair share of fresh fruit, and actually ended up feeling rather nasty the next day.  I've since riened in my enthusiasm for sugary crap and am beginning to feel better.

Monday was spent in a fairly similar fashion to Sunday, except that we didn't get to do any snorkelling since the wave action picked up into something quite fierce.  We bounced around between the pool, the beach, and our room, making a stop over in the gym to mitigate the damage we're doing in the restaurants.  All in all it was pretty laid back.

Today we had our first excursion.  We had to get up pretty early, which was a pain because the departure time for the trip ended up being so close to the opening of the breakfast buffet that we didn't have time to get there.  Fortunately we'd been warned in advance and had stashed some sandwiches from the previous day's lunch buffet.  Not a great breakfast, but it was sufficient.  I think the entire excursion would have been a bit better if our resort was on the other side of Puerto Plata.  As it was we were picked up first, followed by guests from about a half dozen other hotels around town.  It was easily an hour before we really got underway, and then it was about a 45 minute drive up into the mountains to get to the Zip Lining spot.  At least the views were spectacular for that part of the drive.  The zip lining itself was a blast!  I had a lot of fun and would gladly do that again!  The whole outfit was very professional and all the equipment appeared to be in good repair.  I never really felt that I was in any danger.  The only injury of the day was caused by a girl putting her hand (which was to remain firmly grasping her harness) in front of the pulley mechanism that was guiding her down the line.  Ouch!  Despite the awesomeness of the excursion though, I can't really recommend it to anyone at the Riu resorts in Puerto Plata.  What ends up being close to 4 hours of driving there and back just cannot be justified by a really fun half an hour.  Well, maybe it can, but I didn't have THAT much fun.

I'm going to wrap up for now.  We're meeting Steve and Trevor at one of the alla carte restaurants for dinner at 6:30.  I'll try to write again tomorrow.

Offline Log - January 28th, 2010 - 2:15 p.m. local time

Okay, so I clearly failed to write anything yesterday, but it was kind of a busy day.  We went on a full-day excursion to Paradise Island, and it didn't leave me with a lot of writing time... or energy.  There was about an hour bus ride to the port where we got on some small motorboats.  From there it was about a 45 minute ride out to the island, which is really just a large spit of sand in the middle of the ocean surrounded by reefs.  It's a really picturesque spot, and a great place to spend some time lounging around and snorkeling.  We spent about 2.5 hours there, which was really the perfect amount of time.  We were able to snorkel, have a light snack, play in the sand a bit, snorkel again, and then head out before the lack of washroom facilities became an issue.

From there we took a different route back, heading straight for shore and following the narrow paths between the reefs and mangroves along the shoreline.  Our fearless (or insane) boat captains had the motorboats going full bore and it was a fairly pulse-pounding ride back, tons of fun.  We ended up on a different beach from where we started and they had a lunch buffet setup for us.  We hung around on the beach there for awhile before jumping back on the busses and heading for a small shop where they showed us how they make cigars.  After that brief detour we headed back to the resort.

It was a pretty fun day all around, although I think if I were planning things I would have changed the order around to hit the cigar shop first, then lunch, then the long route to the island.  The mangroves, lunch and the cigar making were a bit uncomfortable when covered in salt from the snorkeling.  Still, it was a fun time.

Today has been a different story.  The mild discomfort that I was attributing to too many sugary drinks has been getting worse.  It's pretty clear by today that Graydyn and I are both quite ill.  Trying not to let it stop us... but it is.  Fortunately our doctor provided us with a three-day regimine of anitbiotics for just such an event.  We both started that this morning, and I'm hoping that after tonight's round of medication that it will start to kick in and I'll be able to enjoy tomorrow, since it's our last day here.  For now I'm going to go have a nap and maybe head down to the pool later in the afternoon if I'm feeling better.

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And we're back to the live writing!

As for Friday, well we didn't really end up doing much.  Our hope was that we'd be able to get in a final snorkeling run off our beach, but the North wind that was a nearly constant fixture of the week had the waves in a fury and they were recommending against going in the water.  I fear no meager waves, but they would have stirred things up so badly that the visibility would have sucked anyway.

Sadly, in the end it turned out the the best day for snorkeling at our beach would have been the Saturday that we arrived... and our bathing suits and snorkel gear was in our luggage that we didn't get till Sunday morning.  *sigh*

Well, I think that's enough writing to digest for now, so I'll leave off with that.  Pictures to follow either tomorrow or the more traditional Tuesday.  I took some cool videos while zip lining too, and I'll post those at some point too.

A Rocky Start

I LIVE!!!!

That's really saying something too, by the way.  Yikkes, this trip got off to a bit of a bumpy start my friends.  We got to Pearson airport at around 3:45 Saturday morning, figuring that we were giving ourselves plenty of time for a 6:20 flight.  The line-up at the Skyservice check-in counter was UNREAL!  By the time we got to the check-in counter it was 5:00 and we noticed that the conveyor belt behind them that transports luggage to the waiting planes was inoperative.  The luggage was just being stacked haphazardly in front of the counter.  I thought to myself "Exquisite, I'm going to arrive in the Dominican Republic without any luggage."  We got our bags checked and proceded through a fairly quick and straight-forward security point and got to our gate with 40 minutes to spare... cutting it pretty close by airport standards.  We boarded the plane at around 6:00 in fairly standard fashion.  At 6:20 when we were expecting to take off we were informed, unsurprisingly, that there would be a take-off delay due to problems with the airport's baggage loading system.  We were there on the plane sitting at the gate for an hour and a half waiting for them to load our baggage, until eventually the pilot came on and said that we'd got most of the baggage and would have to leave.

The flight was actually pretty quick due and good strong tail wind and we got to Puerto Plata in good time, only an hour behind schedule due to our wait.  We waited at the baggage claim hoping desperately to see our luggage... we didn't.  We had to put in a claim for our luggage so that when it eventually arrived it would be sent to our hotel.  It made for a pretty rough day yesterday since we had no change of clothes, no bathing suit, nothing.  Fortunately we filled the day with exploring the rather massive resort grounds, and called it an early night.

Good luck this morning though, as both of our bags arrived.  It was spectacular being able to have a shower and change into some clean clothes.  It felt like that first day after a long camping trip.  Clean at last!

Now armed with our bathing suits and snorkeling gear we headed straight for the beach.  We had a pretty good tour around straight out from the beach, but we weren't able to get far.  It got shallow in a hurry, and with the bottom covered in an appealing mix of coral and urchins we didn't dare try to get through the breakwater.  It's unfortunate as I've got new fins and really wanted to try them out in some semi-deep water.  I think tomorrow we'll try a different approach and see if we can get into the deeper water on the far side of the reef.

My next experiment came in the form of an attempt at blogging.  Oh the things I do to keep you people entertained.  Apparently there's some WiFi to be had in the lobby of this lovely place, so I took my laptop out to see if I could get connected.  Unfortunately the plugs they use here, despite being North American 110V, appear to be some kind of adapted European plug.  They look like a cross between our plug and the ones I was encountering in Iceland.  The big difference?  No ground plug.  And so, as in Iceland I find myself unable to plug my laptop in.  The only difference is that now I have no adapted since I wasn't expecting to need it in a 110V country.  When will I ever learn?  I'd like to point out that if I was smart I'd have thrown my laptop out the window 3 months ago and bought one of these cool new Netbooks with the 10 hour battery life and I'd be fine.  Grrrrrr...

So, I'm on a rental computer right now in this little "computer lab" they've got setup on the resort.  This, of course, mean I won't be uploading any pictures from my camera.  The $8 USD per hour price tag seems a bit high to me as well, so don't expect too many of these blog posts.

Tomorrow we're just kicking around the resort again.  We may try to grab some of the kayaks around here and get out past the breakwater to get into deeper water for snorkeling.  The next day we're going out in the morning on a zip-line tour.  On Wednesday we're going out to the appealingly-named Paradise Island on a snorkeling tour.  We've made no plans beyond that, trying to leave a little bit of flexibility in our week.

I will entreat to post again at least once more this week, though I wouldn't expect too much beyond that.  So far the weather has been about 28 degrees and sunny, quite contrary to the constant rain that was predicted.  Wish me luck on a continuation of this trend.

My time is running out, so I will be on my way.  I hope all is well with you, my loyal fans.  I'll see you all in a week.

As The Departure Date Approaches

Well, this one has kind of crept up on me.  I found the exact same thing when I went to Jamaica last January, it was very close to the departure date before my vacation plans really started to sink in.  I think it has to do with the fact that there's (relatively) very little planning that goes into one of these beach vacations.  I went on Sunquest's website, I picked a place that looked good, I paid them.  Obviously some research has gone into what activities will be available to me while I'm there, but even that research has been done with a significant lack of motivation given that I could happily spend my days snorkeling and sipping on rum-based cocktails.  It's funny when I contract this to Japan and Iceland.  This close to either of those vacations I was completely incapable of focusing on anything else.  The concept of work was a veritable write-off.  This time it's barely in my mind, except that it occurred to me this morning when I stepped out into the cold, dreary day we're having here that I wouldn't be putting up with this kind of weather next week.

I must interject at this point, that none of the above should be taken as a complaint.  The whole point of heading to a beach resort is to relax, and so it would defeat the purpose of said relaxation if all I did in the lead-up to it was get all wound up.  I just find it an interesting juxtaposition of the two types of vacation that I'm likely to take.

I'll take a moment to address some of last week's comments.  First and foremost, thanks as always to everyone who takes the time to comment, it's great to know you're all interested in what I'm writing.  I think I may have been somewhat unclear last week regarding my request for assistance.  You've all come up with some brilliant suggestions for future articles, and I appreciate that, but what I was after was your experiences with the two topics I glazed over last week: Travelling Without A Plan, and Keeping In Touch While Abroad. I just felt like they were interesting topics, but that I could make a better story if I could draw on some of your experiences as well as my own limited experiences.

Something Jay brought up last week was the recent earthquake in Haiti.  Obviously this raises some concerns regarding travel to the Dominican Republic.  Interestingly I've been unable to find any indication that Haiti's Eastern neighbours have been impacted in any way by this quake.  Even the Canadian Government's travel advisory site for the Dominican Republic only mentions that travel to Haiti should be avoided if at all possible. It's incredible that they should have been spared the kind of devastation that has impacted Haiti, but I'm thankful all the same.

Well, this is the last scheduled post before I leave, so now we enter the time when this blog becomes a little more ad hoc.  You can probably expect a couple short posts over the remainder of this week as the trip takes greater prominence in my mind.  I believe that I'll have at least "some" internet access while I'm away, the extent of that is still unknown to me, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm able to get a few posts out next week too.  So, stay tuned for further updates, and thanks for reading!

A Shout Out For Some Help

Happy Tuesday everyone!

This has been a challenging week for me in terms of coming up with something to write about.  Fresh of the holidays my brain is a little slow, I've just got to get those creative juices flowing.  My Aunt Jeanette requested a couple of good destination-based topics for later posts, but I'm going to need to do a lot more research if I'm going to write intelligently about a destination that I've never visited.  I guess I'll just have to visit Scandinavia and Greece before my Aunt does so that I can provide some informed commentary.  Don't you all just love how my mind works?

A topic that I've been wanting to cover for a little while now is Communications Abroad.  By that I don't mean communicating in other languages (a separate challenge unto itself) but rather how we all keep in touch while we're away.  I've largely relied on this blog, as well as limited use of e-mails and phone to let people know I'm still alive.  It's been effective, but I know that there are many more options available, especially to the tech-savvy traveler; for example my Aunt and Grandma had some success with Skype while on the go.

Something that Corey brought up just yesterday was the concept of low-planning travel.  Just winging it in terms of accommodations, or even destination.  We certainly did our fair share of that in Japan, but I generally operate on a more focus and pre-planned schedule.

What I'm getting at here is that I've got a couple topics which really interest me, but that I can only speak about in a very limited scope.  So I'm hoping that for the next few weeks while I'm doing my research on other topics (and spending a week in the Dominican, hopefully blogging from there) that maybe we can make this a collaborative effort.  I'm quite certain that everyone who reads this blog regularly has at least one of my e-mail addresses, so please send me your thoughts and experiences on the two topics above and we'll see what we come up with as a group.  Thanks in advance for the help, and we'll see how this little experiment of mine plays out over the next few weeks.

Of All The Places...

I'm sure that there is probably some concern amongst those of you following the news recently of a Canadian man who was shot in the Dominican Republic.  For those of you not on top of this story, here's a brief run down courtesy of CBC News:

"A Quebec City man killed while on vacation in the Dominican Republic was the victim of a robbery plot involving a security guard, local police said Monday.

Jean Gagné, 41, was vacationing with a friend in a private villa in the town of Sosua, east of Puerto Plata, when he was shot on New Year’s Eve.

Gagné’s friend, Alexandre Tremblay, told the French-language television network TVA that they were attacked in the middle of the night by two men.

Tremblay said he was bound, tied to his bed and robbed. Then, he said, he heard gunshots in the next room.

Gagné had been shot in the heart, while a private security guard was shot in the leg."

Scary, I know.  My heart goes out to the family of the deceased.

I'm sure that this is worrying to a few of you, but I want you to know that we are not going to be in the level of danger that these two unfortunate men were in.  What happened is tragic, but as in many tragedies there is are lessons that we can all learn here.  Our own Foreign Affairs Ministry warns us to take precautions when travelling to the Dominican Republic, and I think that one of the strongest precautions you can take is also one of the easiest: stay in a large resort.  I can certainly see the appeal of a private villa, but such places can leave you isolated and make a more appealing target for criminals.  A massive resort is going to have higher security, and be far too high-profile a target.

Another point in the news report that jumps out at me is the list of people who were arrested following the altercation.  It includes two Haitian women who were with the men at the time and are believed to have been involved in the plot, possibly leaving the door open to allow the gunmen easy access.  When travelling to a high-crime area you've always got to have safety in mind, and bringing the locals back to your villa just isn't safe.

I don't mean to come off as critical of the two men who were unfortunate enough to find themselves in this terrible situation, but I just hope that in hindsight we can learn lessons from what happened and all be safer in future because of it.  Sleep soundly my friends and family, and know that I will be mitigating my risks while away.