Las Terrenas Beach

Likely you are flying in from Santo Domingo, Santiago or Puerto Plato, from any of those it will probably be easiest to take Caribe Tours to get you to Samana. None of these go directly to Las Terrenas, so from there you will need to catch a public car or Taxi.

This is where the fun comes in! Depending on how busy they are, there is a lot of room for negotiation. On our first trip to Las Terrenas we planned on taking a public car from Samana to Las Terrenas. It turns out that the majority of the public cars are pickups and you sit in the back. This is about a 20-25 minute drive and it rains frequently. Unless you are really into budget traveling this may not be the best option. However, because that is what we told the taxi drivers that asked us if we wanted a ride, they kept lowering the price to talk us out of it.

In the end we went with Taxi Luna ((809) 667-0344 or (809)355-8752), the driver didn’t speak English, but we speak enough Spanish so that it didn’t matter. Likewise, as long as you have the name and address of the Hotel you want to reach in Las Terrenas, you don’t really need to be able to speak to them much, they will find your hotel. We got the price down to 1200 pesos or about $33 USD. This price was pretty good, because when we got to Las Terrenas we found a taxi location that stated the price to get back to Samana and the price was about twice that or 2200 pesos. (more…)

While the Dominican Republic may seem a little behind in many aspects (water and power quickly come to mind), communication is not one of them. The DR sports an up-to-date 3g network for it’s phone and computer data. And although many people struggle to make enough for their daily needs one thing I’ve found that they don’t skimp on is their phones.

While you do see a lot of cheap cell phones, Blackberries, Iphones and other high end texting phones abound in this country. Probably one reason is the ease they do text messaging. Most Dominicans use a prepaid phones although there are monthly phone plans available. Sending a sms text message costs about 2-3 pesos here, which is a lot cheaper than using up your minutes on a voice call, so texting is extremely popular here.

If you looking for a gift for a Dominican friend or family member, a cell phone designed for texting is a great gift. These phone make texting easier in one of two methods either a touch screen that allows you to touch the letter you want added or a phone with a small alpha keyboard that has keys for each individual letter. While standard numeric keypad phones work fine, they are a lot more work to send a message. (more…)

Isolated cholera case originating in Haiti is successfully diagnosed and treated in DR. Punta Cana, Santo Domingo, Santiago, Puerto Plata, La Romana, Samaná welcome visitors.

SANTO DOMINGO, Nov. 18, 2010 — The Dominican Republic (DR) Ministry of Tourism reassures visitors that the isolated case of cholera contracted in Haiti by a citizen visiting his family in that country has been diagnosed and successfully treated at a hospital in the Dominican Republic (DR). Due to careful DR monitoring and prevention systems, the 32-year-old Haitian construction worker who returned to the DR last Friday with symptoms of the intestinal illness, was quickly hospitalized and is in stable condition. (more…)

Antony Santos is coming to Fantino December 10^th 2010. Who is Antony Santos and where in the world is Fantino.

Well let’s start off with who is Antony Santos. He is one most famous Bachateros in the history of the Genre. His career started off in the early 90’s with the now famous Bachatero Luis Vargas. He is widely viewed as responsible for changing Bachata from the once poor people’s only music to the present day popular music that is listened too around the world.

This is rather important seeing Bachata is not only a genre of music, but also a popular dance style. If you have been to the Dominican Republic you have definitely see the influence Bachata has had in everyday life. (more…)

If you are planning to stay in the Dominican Republic for a while you will likely want to get your own internet service. While you will find internet cafes in almost every little town in the country, you will likely find the cafe to be small, crowded, noisy and everyone sharing an about 1-2 meg download speed. Probably fine if you are planning to pick up your mail, but not real good if you need to spend much time for work, Skype or even internet research.

Like in the States, you have two main options, wired or wireless (mobile data plan). I’ve not seen a cable service here offering internet, so likely if you plan on getting a wired service than it will be DSL. This is normally cheaper, and faster than wireless internet and also have the advantage of not having a download cap or limit. However this is only available if you live in the middle of one of the larger towns. If you have opted to stay out on the outskirts of town where it is quieter, you may not have this option.

The option I choose is a wireless data plan. This runs off the same cell towers as the cell phones do, so coverage is pretty good throughout the country. While there are a few wireless internet providers in the country, I choose Claro Mobile due to their greater coverage. (more…)

If you only want to stay in the Dominican Republic for several months to a year, it’s possible you don’t want to buy everything new. Likewise when it’s time to go, you probably would like to sell your furniture, stove, fridge, inversor (invertir) and other larger items. There are several large online classifieds in the DR where you can buy and sell.

Most notably, yes craigslist does have a site for the Dominican Republic; you use the Santo Domingo Craigslist (Santo Domingo Craigslist). And yes, it is in English, although many of the ads will be in Spanish.

Some of the other sites you might want to try are: (more…)

The Carambola or star fruit as it is known in the states is a sour fruit that personally I like quite a bit. I found that if you take a Carambola fruit and put either salt or season salt on it, the flavor is enhanced and it tastes even better. It can be found at one place that I know of but there are more that you can find I’m sure. Surprisingly enough this is found close by to the gold mine near Cotui, an hour and a half or so from our local Fantino area. I found that the best way to eat a caranbola is to salt one of the five edges and take a big bite out of the salted area, then re-salt it and again take a big bite out of it. As you are eating this, I would say that there is more acidity than a lemon or lime. Pretty sour! (more…)

If you’re planning a trip to the Dominican Republic and are checking the news, it is pretty certain you are seeing quite a bit about the cholera problem in Haiti. Reasonably, you might be concerned with how this should affect your vacation plans, maybe even wondering if it might be best to cancel them.

First what is Cholera? Cholera is an intestinal infection that brings on a watery diarrhea, stomach pains and often vomiting. Not a pleasant way to spend your vacation.

How is it spread? For the most part by drinking infected water or eating infected food. It’s stated that “Cholera is rarely spread directly from person to person” (source Wikipedia Cholera).
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Another reminder for those of you wanting to use your phone and internet plans from another country while visiting the Dominican Republic.

Yes, they will work BUT…….. If you don’t have an international plan, your company is likely to hit you with some ridiculous roaming fee! While some sort of fee is reasonable, they have to negotiate with other carriers to use their equipment in order to make your call, companies seem to like to use this as a license to steal. That seemingly harmless warning of “Roaming Charges may apply” gives them the right to charge any amount they would like.

Personally I count Verizon’s over $17,000 (yes that is USD) for 90 minutes of internet time as a bit excessive. Somehow I would think that a little more then a small note saying you are in a roaming area would be warranted with something that costs $188.00 per minute, (more…)

Tostonis are the Dominican equivalent to French fries. That is not to say you can’t find French fries here. I know there are some of you who would never dream of coming to country where you can’t get French fries. You can rest assured that you can find French fries here.

But, more commonly you will find tostonis come with the plate of the day instead of French fries. That may sound strange seeing  tostonis are made from a relative of the banana, the plantain, but they are actually pretty good. They are not quite the same as a French fry, more like a combination of a French fry and a potato chip.

Tostonis are actually pretty simple to make, the biggest thing you need to worry about is the source material. Being that the plantain is a close relative of the banana, you need to be careful as to how you choose your plantain. (more…)