Punta Cana, Dominican Republic (Sep 26th-Oct 1st)

[Local Rookie]

My wife and I visited Punta Cana, Dominican Republic September 26th to October 1st. First of, I want to warn everyone its very humid at the D.R. this time of the year but you can get over that really quickly with some nice cold mixed drinks! Fishing Report at the bottom.

We stayed at the all-inclusive resort Occidental Grand Flamenco which was a very nice; the food was amazing, hospitality was excellent, service was top notch! Complimentary breakfast in bed, champagne and fresh fruits upon arrival, complimentary massages, romantic dinners, bottled water, etc… pretty much the works! Anyway, the resort has a lot of global tourism mostly from Europe and South America – you get a lot of Europeans walking around the beach and in the resort topless. The girls at the shows all wear thongs so it’s a 21-45 age group.

Here is a picture of the resort we stayed at looking at our balcony. We are building 13 which is the closes building to the Bavaro Beach. White sands, the water was crystal clear:


Wednesday, we decided to take a safari trip to the sugar cane plantation, to the jungles and rivers and into a citrus plantation/secluding beach in the northside of Punta Cana.

We shared a 4x4 jeep with the only two other speaking couplesin this trip. They were from Holland. Everyone else spoke Spanish of like 50 jeeps 4 people per jeep.


While on our trip they took us stop by several places, including a cock fighting exhibition (using plastic gloves rather than knives). They owners of these birds says they are really good and condition them like athletes by a healthy diet and daily running.


Drive along you can see that people have meat markets. Locals actually prefer buying meat here than the grocery stores becuase they are fresher. The tour guide had a saying "if the flies are not around it means it is not fresh, if a fly dont even want it, why would they."


Here is a picture of one of the many rivers we crossed. They told me not to go fishing there or touch the water as you can get very sick, so didn't try. I actually had my fishing rod and reel for the trip. (American Airlines didn't give me any problem bringing in reels, hooks, bait and rods onboard.)


After about 3 hours driving, we arrived to our destination. Here is the citrus plantation by the Ocean. This is were we went horse back riding, and had fresh coconuts. Very nice place!


This is were we tasted traditional Dominician food. A lot of rice and meat. They also love their rum. Here is another picture of the Citrus Ranch:


Our second day we head south to the clear blue and calm Caribbean waters to an island called Saona which was protected by the Dominican government. There's no buildings on anything and wild monkeys and parrots roamed the island. Here is a picture of the island aboard the catamaran. The picture doesn't do the island or the water justice, simply amazing!


Here is the picture of my wife and I. Along the trip we saw a lot of flying fish. The waters was very shallow even when we miles away from the Islands. We actually stop by one pool hundreds of yards away from shore and it was only waste high.


Friday, we went fishing for marlins on a private charter. There's no docks, they take you on a speed boat to the charter. Here is a picture of a boat similar to the one we were on:


We pretty much trolled squid, mackerels, etc, etc, etc for hours but didn't get a bite. One of the large squid we use for trolling got ripped to shred and is probably why we didn't get bit on the trip. Here are some of the gears we were using Penn International 80 II etc, etc...Custom Rods - pretty nice but they had some nicer days:


I wish I could cast out and stuff. There was one time how ever when the captain thought I had something. He actually, grab my rod, set the hook, and gave me the rod and tell me to reel, reel, reeel but it was just a plastic bag. Oh well! During this trip there was two other Americans. One was a bass pro from Indiana (forgot his name) and another guy from Ohio. Hopefully they will join the site- they were pretty cool. Basically, we all got skunked - not bites, nada.


Here is a picture of our resort from our the charter boat. They are many free activities you can do, including kayaking, snorkeling, scuba diving gear, wind surfing, etc...


Well, that's pretty much our trip. A lot of other stuff happened like our overnight delay at Miami, etc, but that is a different story.

If you plan on visiting the islands do not drink their water or have mixed drinks with ice outside your resort. Take the jungle tour it was very nice! If you do the catamaran ride, take it with a tour guide name Alesandro - he knew 5 1/2 languages fluently and is very knowledgable of the island. I mean English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and is working on Tagalog.

If you have any other questions, let me know - i'll give you the skinny! Don't forget to bring back with you some mamajuana (not marijuana ), right Jon?

[sharkbait7]

nice report and great pics, glad you had a good time.

[cst]

sounds like fun. thanks for the report and pics.

[Wahoo!]

Originally Posted by Local Rookie

If you have any other questions, let me know - i'll give you the skinny! Don't forget to bring back with you some mamajuana (not marijuana ), right Jon?

Thanks for the report and pics. That's too bad you guys didn't hook up any fish while you were out there. The flying fish must have been cool to see! That was nice of Yvonne to go out fishing with you! It looks like she may be changing her ways and is ready to take up fishing!

Oh, and stay away from the mamajuana! Harold and I almost lost our dinner all over his kitchen floor when we took a shot of run w/ mamajuana

[Local Rookie]

Yeah, the trip was pretty fun. I wanted to do other stuff like go fly fishing at the mangroves and check out some cave paintings but just didn't have enough time.

Mamajuana was quiet the experience I do not want to repeat that's for sure but glad I did it.

[DementedFish]

It must be wierd saying "My wife and I" at first. Anyway, I'm glad you had fun!

[cst]

what is that?

[Local Rookie]

I am not too sure but it consist of a certain tree bark, twigs, leaves, etc... that is found in the Dominican Republic. They put these in a bottle and soak with red wine to get that strong taste out of the ingridients of mamajuana. You'll wait for a couple of days then drain out the red wine completely. From there you add your favorite rum and a table spoon of honey and let it sit for 24 hours. After that you are ready to take a shot of mamajuana . The locals calls it a cure for many things but I guess it is most known for as a "liquid viagra".

Just to warn you, if you do bring some mamajuana over to the US that you make sure it contains some sort of liquid whether it is red wine or rum becuase they will not let you bring it if its not.

[PlatinumHooks]

Harold, just saw this report. Very, very nice. Congrats!