It’s day two of our cruise and our first port of call is Samana in the Dominican Republic. It’s a developing port meaning that it’s only been about two years that the cruise ships have been coming here.
We had breakfast in the Garden Cafe and then met up with the rest of the people that were taking the tour that I found on the internet called “Tour Samana With Terry”. What’s nice about Terry’s tours is that he has many choices depending on what you’re looking for. We decided to take tour #5, which is the low impact tour of Samana. You get a little bit of everything with the tour. Since there is no port in Samana, we had to take tender boats to shore. They actually use the ship’s lifeboats.
Once we got to the dock in Samana, we were greeted by our tour guides for today. There were close to thirty people on the tour so Terry sent two safari trucks for us. Elijah was the guide in our truck. He made the tour so enjoyable and was a wealth of information regarding Samana.
We left town and started to head to the beach. We had read on the internet that the tour takes a while because of the condition of the roads. We were surprised at the start of the tour because the road was paved. But once we got past the new water reservoir, the paved road just stopped. All of a sudden it was just a dirt road with lots of rocks. It was quite a bumpy ride. At one point we had to drive across a river, right through the water, because the bridge had washed away and was never replaced. The first thing I noticed is just how poor the country is. Outside of the town of Samana, the homes don’t have electricity or running water. Their tiny homes are made out of tin, and maybe some cinder blocks. Most homes had chickens and pigs just running around. Elijah explained that when you need food, you go to the market and get it fresh whether it is vegetables or meat. There are no grocery stores. He also said that families outside of town share with each other. For example, if a family makes a batch of jam, they share it with the other families nearby. There are very few cars, and everyone drives scooters. We saw one scooter with FIVE people on it! There are horses on the side of the road, waiting for their owner to come back from the mountains after gathering coconuts. We saw an 80 year old man on a horse, loaded down with coconuts.
After about a half an hour, we got to a beach. Unfortunately for us, it was not a nice day today (raining and cool) but it was still beautiful. The tour included a wonderful local lunch with chicken, fish, rice, cabbage salad, potatoes and fried plantain. Dessert was fresh pineapple and coconut. Best pineapple I have ever had, next to Hawaii. Lucky for us, one of the tour guides joined us for lunch. She was very friendly and told us many things about Samana and the Dominican Republic. Fishing, farming and tourism is how people earn a living.
We finished up lunch and got back on the trucks to go to another part of the island. One of the things that we wanted to do was to drop off supplies at a local school. Terry mentioned that they desperately need school supplies so many of us on the tour brought stuff from home. Karen and I brought pencils, crayons, markers, construction paper and tons of stickers. We read on the internet that many of the kids make softballs out of tape. We brought them a basketball, football, volleyball, softballs, tennis balls and frisbee. The school we visited only had three classrooms and it was a public school. The teachers actually brought all of the kids together in one classroom so that we could visit with them. We found out that it’s only been in the last couple of years that it’s been mandated that kids attend school. The kids were absolutely adorable, and very thankful for all of the gifts.
The last part of the tour was a cigar factory, coral church and small gift shop. I hit the cigar factory while Karen did some shopping. While driving back into the town of Samana, I couldn’t help but think about how lucky I am to be living in Canada.
We said goodbye to Samana and headed back to the ship. We had dinner in the Summer Palace Main Restaurant and tonight we both had the exact same thing … ceasar salad and mahi mahi. After dinner, we went to see Lynn Trefzger in the Stardust Theatre. Lynn is a ventriloquist and she was so freakin’ hilarious. I literally laughed til I cried. I don’t want to give her act away but if you ever have a chance to see her, you should.
We got back to the room and it had been turned down. That means the room stewards shut the curtains, turn down the beds and drop off the “Freestyle Daily”. It let’s you know what’s happening the next day. I think we’re going to head out to watch the sing along version of “Grease” tonight. The movie is going to be playing on the deck under the stars. When we wake up tomorrow, we’ll be in St Thomas, in the US Virgin Islands.
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