Day 4:
Thursday morning we woke up to thunderstorms. After our busy day before, we really didn't mind having an excuse to stay inside and take it easy. It was the most relaxing day of the trip. The main thing I remember from day 4 is getting the most incredible massages. Nick and I got a couple's massage out on the balcony where we could hear the rain, but it was still perfectly warm. It really was incredible. This was the first professional massage Nick or I had ever gotten and we both can't wait to get another one.
For dinner that night, they had lobster and pork on the menu, but I went with parmesan chicken instead. Nick will never let me live that down. His lobster, which he kindly shared with me, was seasoned tastefully and cooked to perfection. It was the first time I had eaten lobster, and I was very impressed. I still can't believe I went with parmesan chicken instead of lobster!
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Luna de Miel - Day 3
Day 3:
Wednesday was our main excursion day. We nearly missed our first excursion- my fault of course, I took my sweet time getting ready so the jeep left without us. When we did eventually catch up with the group, we took a bumpy safari ride on some dirt roads, which reminded me of the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. The safari took us to a little dock where we boarded a glass-bottom boat. It was more like a flimsy plastic-bottom boat.
The boat driver took us to an area dense with fish. A Dominican boy riding in the boat jumped into the water, holding his breath for probably 2 full minutes, while he fed the fish under the "glass". Nick and I threw on our snorkel gear here also and swam around with the fish and Dominican boy for unos minutos.
The next stop was a nice little beach where the salesmen targeted tourists. This was the first time Nick and I had been confronted by a pushy salesman on the trip. We weren't very interested in his wares, but this man pushed and pushed for us to buy one of his statues. We finally agreed on a price we thought was reasonable because it was 5 dollars less than his original offer. By the end of the week, we got much better at bargaining and saying no. Nick was able to buy the same type of statue at the end of the trip for a sixth of the price!
After a lovely lunch at our resort, we joined back up with the crew on the safari and headed up to this waterfall.
I love this picture! Nick is quite the photographer, isn't he?
Have you ever been to the Mayan restaurant and watched the divers perform their tricks off the waterfall? Well, this waterfall is higher, shallower, more slippery, overall more dangerous, and ten year olds were jumping off of it and then climbing back up like spider monkeys! They made the Mayan divers look like amateurs. Watch for the kid who does a back flip.
After watching the fearless cliff jumpers, we traveled to Lake Dudu (pronounced DooDoo) which reminds me of Star Wars for some reason. Here we ziplined and did some cliff jumping of our own. I want to add that even though there are no pictures of me ziplining, I did it, and I got a nice red, sore stomach from belly flopping.
Check out Nick's hair in this picture!
Our last stop was another beach where we tried these delicious pineapple drinks. They are pretty much just sloshed up pineapple with coconut milk, and they're so good.
Wednesday was our main excursion day. We nearly missed our first excursion- my fault of course, I took my sweet time getting ready so the jeep left without us. When we did eventually catch up with the group, we took a bumpy safari ride on some dirt roads, which reminded me of the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. The safari took us to a little dock where we boarded a glass-bottom boat. It was more like a flimsy plastic-bottom boat.
The boat driver took us to an area dense with fish. A Dominican boy riding in the boat jumped into the water, holding his breath for probably 2 full minutes, while he fed the fish under the "glass". Nick and I threw on our snorkel gear here also and swam around with the fish and Dominican boy for unos minutos.
The next stop was a nice little beach where the salesmen targeted tourists. This was the first time Nick and I had been confronted by a pushy salesman on the trip. We weren't very interested in his wares, but this man pushed and pushed for us to buy one of his statues. We finally agreed on a price we thought was reasonable because it was 5 dollars less than his original offer. By the end of the week, we got much better at bargaining and saying no. Nick was able to buy the same type of statue at the end of the trip for a sixth of the price!
After a lovely lunch at our resort, we joined back up with the crew on the safari and headed up to this waterfall.
I love this picture! Nick is quite the photographer, isn't he?
Have you ever been to the Mayan restaurant and watched the divers perform their tricks off the waterfall? Well, this waterfall is higher, shallower, more slippery, overall more dangerous, and ten year olds were jumping off of it and then climbing back up like spider monkeys! They made the Mayan divers look like amateurs. Watch for the kid who does a back flip.
After watching the fearless cliff jumpers, we traveled to Lake Dudu (pronounced DooDoo) which reminds me of Star Wars for some reason. Here we ziplined and did some cliff jumping of our own. I want to add that even though there are no pictures of me ziplining, I did it, and I got a nice red, sore stomach from belly flopping.
Our last stop was another beach where we tried these delicious pineapple drinks. They are pretty much just sloshed up pineapple with coconut milk, and they're so good.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Luna de Miel - Day 2
Day 2:
Tuesday was our exploration day. The day started out with a traditional American breakfast which we shared with our peacock friend. He especially liked the pancakes.
In total, they had 3 or 4 peacocks at this resort. We're pretty sure they were there as an alarm system. They would squawk every time someone arrived at the place and if you've been around peacocks much, you'll know how loud they squawk.
We checked out the private beach after breakfast. Usually it was just us there, or maybe one other couple.
Isn't it beautiful?
Snorkeling was our first adventure. The waves crashed quite hard on the beach so it was hard to get out in the ocean, but once we were out, it was pretty calm. I'll be honest, the snorkeling here was nothing compared to the Virgin Islands. It was fun to be out in the water, but we pretty much only saw Dory fish and Nick spotted a puffer fish once. In the Virgin Islands, the first time I put my head under water, I was looking into the eyes and pointy teeth of a barracuda. My second day there I touched a sea turtle. Kelsi even spotted a nurse shark at one point. There were always dozens of brightly colored fish, sea stars, puffer fish, lobster, squid, sting rays, jellyfish, etc. This is what I was expecting the DR to be like, but it wasn't like that at all. There were probably better locations for snorkeling in the DR, but our little beach had pretty sparse ocean life.
After giving up on the snorkeling, we spotted a kayak the resort had sitting out. We dragged it out onto the beach (which was not as easy as it sounds), and after forging through the crashing waves, we got it out on the open water. Sea kayaking is one of the best upper body workouts I know of, and also one of the most fun. I love it. We explored quite a bit in our yellow ocean kayak and made our way to a secret, secluded beach that we found. The waves here were even stronger though, and when we had almost made it to the beach, a monster wave came and flipped us over. I got pulled under and I felt the kayak and Nick get thrown over me (and hit my head). We frantically half-crawled onto the beach, barely saving my snorkel gear, while accidentally leaving Nick's to be pulled out to sea. We searched for it for a while, but in those waves, I just kept getting knocked over and pulled under so Nick made me come in.
After laying out on our secret beach and a long kayak ride home, we become known throughout the resort as the kayaking couple. I don't know why that even stood out.
That evening, we took our dinky Corolla to Cabrera, a small town nearby. It was cool to get a little taste of what life is like for the people there. Unfortunately, the pizza we had there was probably the grossest pizza I have ever had.
We felt like the biggest idiots when we were getting in our car to leave...We unlocked the door and our car alarm went off for probably a full 3 minutes. It felt like everyone was looking at us and thinking, stupid tourists. We finally figured out (only after setting the alarm off several more times), that you have to push a little green button to disarm the car before you unlock it. Thank you for telling us that little detail, Savings Car Rental.
Tuesday was our exploration day. The day started out with a traditional American breakfast which we shared with our peacock friend. He especially liked the pancakes.
In total, they had 3 or 4 peacocks at this resort. We're pretty sure they were there as an alarm system. They would squawk every time someone arrived at the place and if you've been around peacocks much, you'll know how loud they squawk.
We checked out the private beach after breakfast. Usually it was just us there, or maybe one other couple.
Isn't it beautiful?
Snorkeling was our first adventure. The waves crashed quite hard on the beach so it was hard to get out in the ocean, but once we were out, it was pretty calm. I'll be honest, the snorkeling here was nothing compared to the Virgin Islands. It was fun to be out in the water, but we pretty much only saw Dory fish and Nick spotted a puffer fish once. In the Virgin Islands, the first time I put my head under water, I was looking into the eyes and pointy teeth of a barracuda. My second day there I touched a sea turtle. Kelsi even spotted a nurse shark at one point. There were always dozens of brightly colored fish, sea stars, puffer fish, lobster, squid, sting rays, jellyfish, etc. This is what I was expecting the DR to be like, but it wasn't like that at all. There were probably better locations for snorkeling in the DR, but our little beach had pretty sparse ocean life.
After giving up on the snorkeling, we spotted a kayak the resort had sitting out. We dragged it out onto the beach (which was not as easy as it sounds), and after forging through the crashing waves, we got it out on the open water. Sea kayaking is one of the best upper body workouts I know of, and also one of the most fun. I love it. We explored quite a bit in our yellow ocean kayak and made our way to a secret, secluded beach that we found. The waves here were even stronger though, and when we had almost made it to the beach, a monster wave came and flipped us over. I got pulled under and I felt the kayak and Nick get thrown over me (and hit my head). We frantically half-crawled onto the beach, barely saving my snorkel gear, while accidentally leaving Nick's to be pulled out to sea. We searched for it for a while, but in those waves, I just kept getting knocked over and pulled under so Nick made me come in.
After laying out on our secret beach and a long kayak ride home, we become known throughout the resort as the kayaking couple. I don't know why that even stood out.
That evening, we took our dinky Corolla to Cabrera, a small town nearby. It was cool to get a little taste of what life is like for the people there. Unfortunately, the pizza we had there was probably the grossest pizza I have ever had.
We felt like the biggest idiots when we were getting in our car to leave...We unlocked the door and our car alarm went off for probably a full 3 minutes. It felt like everyone was looking at us and thinking, stupid tourists. We finally figured out (only after setting the alarm off several more times), that you have to push a little green button to disarm the car before you unlock it. Thank you for telling us that little detail, Savings Car Rental.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Luna de Miel - Day 1
Day 1:
Nick and I left for the airport Sunday, the day after our wedding. We took our first flight from SLC to LAX that evening. We were exhausted by the time we arrived in LA.
After flying through the night, we arrived in Miami on Monday morning. Instead of sitting in the airport for our 5 hour layover, we decided to get out and see the city. We took an incredibly overpriced taxi to an awesome breakfast restaurant near the beach. The food was delicious, even though the picture doesn't do it justice. The pancakes were made with granola and almonds!
After enjoying our Miami breakfast, we took our third and final plane to the Dominican Republic. Moments after stepping off the plane, a man named Junior took our bags for us (which I did tip him for, but I didn't calculate the conversion right, so I only gave him 50 pesos :( equivalent to about $1.50.). Junior helped us find an awesome rental car deal. We were originally getting estimates for around $500 for the week, but he found us one for $250! That little Corolla was pretty old and dingy and the transmission sounded like it was going to fall apart at any moment, but it worked for the whole week.
Driving the streets (or street, since there really was only one in the whole Northern section of the country) of the Dominican Republic was terrifying at first. There really is only one road, which is too small. People just pass whenever they want and there are motorcyclists everywhere. I had to be completely focused in order to avoid hitting a motorcycle or getting hit by someone passing coming the other direction.
After only getting a little bit lost and trying to ask directions in broken Spanish, we arrived at the Balaji Palace, a beautiful all-inclusive resort right on the beach. Oh, and it's guarded 24/7 by a man with a shotgun (the Dominican Liam Neeson). We really didn't know what to expect when we pulled in. We were a little afraid it was going to be a dump where they harvest organs or unsuspecting tourists, but luckily it wasn't. This is what it looked like:
No, Nick isn't worshiping the flower idol on the bed.
Our first dinner was incredible. I thought it was so funny that Nick ordered pesto pasta for dinner when there was fresh buttery fish on the menu! We eat pesto pasta at least once a week... But it was yummy, so I'll give him that. Not as good as the fish though. Also, there was fresh fruit for dessert for every meal!
End of Day 1 on our Luna de Miel (translation: Moon of Honey)
Nick and I left for the airport Sunday, the day after our wedding. We took our first flight from SLC to LAX that evening. We were exhausted by the time we arrived in LA.
After flying through the night, we arrived in Miami on Monday morning. Instead of sitting in the airport for our 5 hour layover, we decided to get out and see the city. We took an incredibly overpriced taxi to an awesome breakfast restaurant near the beach. The food was delicious, even though the picture doesn't do it justice. The pancakes were made with granola and almonds!
After enjoying our Miami breakfast, we took our third and final plane to the Dominican Republic. Moments after stepping off the plane, a man named Junior took our bags for us (which I did tip him for, but I didn't calculate the conversion right, so I only gave him 50 pesos :( equivalent to about $1.50.). Junior helped us find an awesome rental car deal. We were originally getting estimates for around $500 for the week, but he found us one for $250! That little Corolla was pretty old and dingy and the transmission sounded like it was going to fall apart at any moment, but it worked for the whole week.
Driving the streets (or street, since there really was only one in the whole Northern section of the country) of the Dominican Republic was terrifying at first. There really is only one road, which is too small. People just pass whenever they want and there are motorcyclists everywhere. I had to be completely focused in order to avoid hitting a motorcycle or getting hit by someone passing coming the other direction.
After only getting a little bit lost and trying to ask directions in broken Spanish, we arrived at the Balaji Palace, a beautiful all-inclusive resort right on the beach. Oh, and it's guarded 24/7 by a man with a shotgun (the Dominican Liam Neeson). We really didn't know what to expect when we pulled in. We were a little afraid it was going to be a dump where they harvest organs or unsuspecting tourists, but luckily it wasn't. This is what it looked like:
Our first dinner was incredible. I thought it was so funny that Nick ordered pesto pasta for dinner when there was fresh buttery fish on the menu! We eat pesto pasta at least once a week... But it was yummy, so I'll give him that. Not as good as the fish though. Also, there was fresh fruit for dessert for every meal!
End of Day 1 on our Luna de Miel (translation: Moon of Honey)
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