Located along the North Coast’s route 5, only 20 minutes from the Puerto Plata International airport, Cabarete Beach is the perfect place for a laid back, and inexpensive, vacation. Restaurants line the beach, shops run along the main street, there is kite surfing, and several inexpensive hotels.

Restaurants
There are many restaurants to choose from along the beach. They generally have indoor, and outdoor, seating, and several are very good. Here are a few favorites:
If you’ve gotten tired of the traditional beans and rice dishes of the region, and just want a good beer and burger, Jose O’Shay’s Irish Pub is the place for you. There is also the option of pizza, cottage pie, steaks, and a few other tasty dishes. The dishes run from $10-20 dollars U.S.

My personal favorite place to eat is Casanova because it is inexpensive (happy hour runs from 4pm-7pm and gives you everything half off), and the ambiance is lovely. The most popular things on the menu are the pizzas and pasta dishes. During happy hour, a meal with a couple of beers will cost around $13 dollars.

On the main road, across from Ocean Dream Plaza is Bayerischer Hof. This restaurant offers savory pork fillets with mushroom and onion sauce, with the option of sautéed or mashed potatoes, or noodles. There is also a good Hungarian stew, Schnitzel, steaks, and other dishes. The prices run from $11-20 dollars.
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The Botanical Gardens located in Santo Domingo are likely one of the “Must Sees” if you are in the area during your visit. The price to get into the park varies depending if you are a local or a foreigner. Dominicans get in for $50 pesos (about $1.45 USD) anyone else pays ($5.00 USD). If you come in a large group you can haggle for a lower price. My family was with a large group of Dominicans and we all got in for $25 pesos.

The park is huge, so to get much out of it you should plan on spending most of the day and walking a lot. How much you walk will be determined by how many other people are there. In our case the park was mostly empty so only one of the three trains was running. They took us around the park, only stopping at one of the individual gardens, the Japanese Garden. The Japanese garden was pretty big and they only gave us 10 minutes to look around before the train took off again.

When there are not many people you take the chance of there not being another train for a long while so if you don’t get on the same one you may be stuck there for an hour or so, or have to walk back. It turns out that walking back would have only been about a quarter mile or so which would have been worthwhile. We really needed more time in this section.
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When most people think of the Dominican Republic, they think of a tropical island with a 1,000 miles of white sand beaches. Many of which are picture perfect with picturesque palm trees hanging over the beach, beautiful crystal clear water. You know the type of thing you see in the post cards.

While this is what makes up much of the Dominican Republic many people don’t think of what Dominicans have done within the USA. There are approximately 1.2 million Dominican residents in the US.

They are primarily on the East Coast. You will find a large population in New York, New Jersey, Florida and other eastern states. While you don’t find to many Dominicans among the general population on the west coast, it is interesting to see how many people with Dominican heritage make up Hollywood.

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Latin Award winning, Puerto Rican, Reggaeton recording artist Daddy Yankee will be performing at the Chavon April 3rd at 8pm. Ramón “Raymond” Luis Ayala Rodríguez or Daddy Yankee got into the underground rap movement in Puerto Rico while it was still in it’s early stages. Later this style of rap took on the name “Reggaeton”.

Starting with his first album to go international in 2002 Daddy Yankee has received numerous awards and nominations Daddy Yankees music has been well received in the United States, Latin America, Europe and Japan.

Tickets to his DR show will be available at Uepa Tickets, Hotel Casa De Campo and Tiendas Corripio. La Romana. General Tickets go for $1500 and $2000 (about $50 US Dollars) or $3500 (about $100 US Dollars)

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Singer, songwriter Ed Kowalczyk of the Band “Live” will be in Santo Domingo March 17th as he continues his Latin America tour. He will be at the Teatro La Fiesta, Hotel Jaragua at George Washington Ave. 367, Apto. Postal 769-2 Santo Domingo. The show starts at 8:30.

Kowalczyk is in the midst of a two year break with the band “Live”. You can sample his acoustic style of music at his website at http://edkowalczyk.com.

Following his show in Santo Domingo he will be at Leuven Belgin, Cologne Germany and finally at Hellendoorn Holland. In his previous tour Kowalczyk was playing solo, Starting with the Dominican Republic show he will have a full band including drums, bass, rhythm guitar and lead guitar.
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