Wednesday - Puerto Plata "Half-Day"

On Wednesday, we went on the "Puerto Plata Half-Day" excusion.  We had to get up early for this one, but bus arrived at 7:30AM.  Our tour guide for the day, his name was Willis, and he was excellent.  He had been doing this kind of work for 15 years.  He loved his country, and he gave us a lot of information, about things currently in the Dominican, the history, etc.  I'll have to see how much I remember! :)

The first stop was the Brugal rum bottling facility.  Rum is the second largest industry in the Dominican Republic.  I cannot remember how many bottles they fill each day in this facility, but it was a lot.  Thirty percent is exported to other countries directly.  Likely a goodly portion of the remainder is sold to tourists...or so our guide was claiming! :)

Rum is made from pressed sugar cane.  This is the original sugar press, or a replica of it.  This was used until about 500 years ago.

This was used after than, until about 130 years ago.  I'm not sure what they use now.  We were at the bottling facility; the distillery was elsewhere in the Dominican, and the rum is trucked to Puerta Plata for aging and bottling.

It was really neat to watch the bottling process; I could watch these kinds of machines for hours!  I didn't - I didn't want the bus to leave without me!

First, the bottles are filled.  Actually, I guess first the bottles are put on the conveyor, but I didn't see that section.

Then, a cap was put on each bottle.

Next, a Brugal label was afixed to each bottle.

Quality control :)

The bottles were grouped together for boxing,

and dropped into a box.  Often a few would not fall into the slots properly, so another Quality Control person would fix them up.

The boxes were sealed, stacked on skids, and taken away.

After watching the proceedings in the plant, we went to the store front, where we could sample some rum (vile stuff!) in very small plastic shot cups, and it was also available for purchase, if desired.

After the rum bottling plant, we went up a tram to a mountain top.  This is the only tramway in the Dominican, it was opened in the 1960's or 1970's.  The buildings at the top of the mountain were orginally built in the 1960's by a dictator who then ruled the country.   The Dominican Republic is now a democracy, as was largely evident by the election signs everywhere.  These signs always seemed to be on poles (hydro poles), and always featured a picture of the candidate.

Before we arrived at the base of the mountain, we drove through one of the rich neighbourhoods of Puerta Plata.  Pictures weren't really possible from the bus, but the homes were very nice -- Certainly on par with typical North American lifestyle.  The houses were similar to what we saw in California on our honeymoon, but different than here in Canada due to the colder climate.

As our bus was driving through this neighbourhood, Willis pointed out a Toyota Tundra pickup truck, and said the driver was one of the executives at the Brugal rum facility. This gentleman lived in this area, and this vehicle was apparently one of three that he owned. This pickup apparently was one of his low-end toys...

Willis also told us that while we buy pointsettias at Christmas time, they grow year round like trees in the Dominican.  I didn't see any, but they did have this one inside at the base of the tramcar.

While waiting for our turn to go up the mountain, we were deafened by the "music" from these men.  The music they were playing was apparently traditional music from the Dominican Republic, and very few groups existed like them anymore.  The instruments were fairly unique too.  The man on the left, the instrument he was using was essentially a hollow cylindar, the outside was textured, and he rubbed a fork-like device up and down.  The man sitting on the box, that was another instrument.  On the front there were a couple "tabs" that he would pull to make them vibrate and sound would resonate from within, as it was mostly hollow too.  My overall impression was that it was loud!

In the next picture, we are on the tramcar, and just starting our ascent.  It was cloudy at the top, mostly.  Every once in a while the clouds would break up, and we could see down, but they would quickly fill in again.

This next picture is attempts to show some of the surrounding mountains.

Once at the top, we had about 45 minutes to wander around.  There were some gift shops, a restaurant, and clouds to view.  Oh, and cats.  We saw at least two cats that seemed to live at the top of the mountain!

Impatiens...when is the last time you saw impatiens in January?  It was hard to remember that it was January the entire week that we were there!

Another lizard...this one we actually saw change colour from green to brown.

On our way down the tram again...here's a baseball diamond.  The Dominican is known for baseball players.  George Bell and Tony Fernandez are both natives of that country.

Once we were back on the bottom, we headed of to a jewelry store that sells Larimar.  This is the official gem of the Dominican Republic.  It comes in various shades of turquoise, the darker it is, the more valuale.  These pieces will be considered somewhat less valuable because they are set in silver.  Gold is used for the more valuable gems.  (These were still under lock and key though...not a $10 necklace!)

On the way to the jewelry store, we drove down some narrow streets, and past a market.  Fascinating to see!

Look how narrow this street is!  We had plenty of time to get pictures here, even from the bus as we were in a traffic jam!  A traffic jam caused by too many cars (and our huge bus) trying to go down too narrow a street.  Several vehicles had to back up to let us pass!

Another stray dog...we really did see them all over - in the city, in the country.  They all sort of looked the same too.  Different colourings, but similar size and face shape.

Our next stop was an old colonial fort from the 1500's.  Puerto Plata had been inhabited at that time (the Dominican was found by Christopher Columbus), but in the early 1600's, all the residents were ordered to leave, as there were too many pirate attacks.  The vast majority of the city was burned down, and this fort was all that remained.  It was about 100 years later the people moved back, and Puerto Plata was re-founded.

The ocean view from the fort...

Inside the main building of this fort, there was a main entryway, and then a room to each side.  The doorways to these side rooms were very low...for a reason.  The idea that the enemy would have to bend over to get through, and thus his head would be the first part of his body to enter the room...and a soldier could be standing there, ready to behead the enemy. 

After the fort, we went to an amber museum.  Purportedly from now extinct pine trees some number of millions of years ago...Rob and I are surmising that the flood was somehow involved in the creation of amber, but we haven't done any research into it.

After the Amber Museum, we went to someone's home (a political leader or artist, perhaps), for a drink, and the chance to see a home.  It was close to 2:00pm by then, so we were plenty thirsty, but as this was only the "half-day" tour, lunch wasn't included.  Then we were brought back to our resorts, where we enjoyed a late lunch.  We had plans to go kayaking that afternoon, but were told it was too windy or too wavy, and weren't allowed to go.  We tried to go kayaking several times, but each time it was too windy, too wavy, and they were not letting people out on the boats.  So, we enjoyed the sun and palm trees, and a steak dinner that night!

One last picture, something we found incredible and amusing:

Oh, a couple more things I remembered. The city of Puerto Plata decided awhile ago to not provide busses for public transit, as the streets were too narrow.  So, in part to compensate for that, there are "moped-taxis".  The drivers on these would have an official yellow vest, and could be hired to take you from point A to point B.

Mopeds and motorcycles were very common there, and we once saw 4 people on a single bike! We heard that 5 have been observed on one moped!