Our First Wedding Anniversary in the DR

Steve and I celebrated our 19th anniversary on 7/11. We had a really nice day. Al and Glenda invited us to go out to breakfast in Cabarete on the beach, followed by a leisurely walk in the sand –watching the kiteboarders and others enjoying the beach and picking up seashells.

It still amazes me how they carry things on their heads here. Check out this woman with the bin of fruit she is selling on the beach.

When we got home, we checked emails then decided it was time for a siesta! After we got up, we tidied up the dog’s haircuts – using dog trimmers this time (vs. scissors). Sierra actually stood still for her trim this time. I think she realizes now that having less hair makes her much more comfortable with the heat!

We finished our day with a nice dinner at a restaurant called Scotch ‘n Sirloin – the same place we ate the night we made the offer on our house here. Neither of us would have imagined 19 years ago that we’d be living on an island in the Caribbean! Heck, I’m not sure either of us knew the DR existed at that time! It was a mucho bueno y tranquillo dia!!

We’ve mentioned the road conditions in previous blogs – and here’s a funny example of how they (sometimes) mark a hazard. It's a tree branch with plastic grocery bags hanging off it. This picture was taken on the main street going through Sosua! This obviously draws a driver’s attention. Unfortunately, they may not miss the other large hole that is on the other side of the lane!! A few days after we took this picture, the marker disappeared and the hole had been filled – we’re not sure with what, but after a couple of rain storms, it’s back to being a pretty severe hazard. I told Steve that I think they really didn’t want the street to be good there – it was really a form of traffic calming – Dominican style. Same effect but cheaper than speed bumps!

We were supposed to get our generator Monday, but Jerry hadn’t been able to get it serviced…so maybe mañana? Tuesday came and went as did Wednesday & Thursday…no generator. Hmmm….

Eye update – it’s doing quite well. I wore my contacts all day on Wednesday. No problems!! YAY!!!! Hopefully that’s the last of the eye problems!


On Thursday, we had to make a trip to Santiago (2 hours), then on to Santo Domingo (2 more hours). Our applications for temporary residency had been approved so we had to go down to get our cedulas (Dominican ID) and our residency cards. The attorney asked us to be at her office in Santiago by 8:30 – which meant leaving our house no later than 6:30. It was raining when we left, but fortunately we didn’t run into any issues along the way and we got to her office with time to spare. We saw lots of motos along the way… sporting traditional Dominican raingear – trashbags!










The attorney & her sister Clara, who would accompany us to SD, didn’t get there until after 8:30…then the taxi was late. We were hoping this wasn’t an omen for how the rest of our day would unfold!

There was another couple waiting when we arrived. We wondered if they would be going to SD as well…and they were. They had 4 bags with them (the size of grocery sacks) and they themselves were not small people. I had visions of a typical Dominican taxi – usually a Corolla or Camry – and the 5 of us stuffed in there, plus the driver…for little multi-hour cruise across the island. Thankfully the taxi turned out to be a Toyota minivan so we had plenty of room for the ride.

The other concern we had was not knowing what the other couple was having to do while there. If you recall, our first trip to SD (on our 2nd day on the island) entailed a blood test, a UA test, and a chest x-ray as well as a lot of time sitting and waiting for our turn for each. Our attorney, Dolly, had told us that this trip, for us, would be much quicker so we were hoping that was the same case for the other couple. Our neighbors, Tony & Linda, had gone to renew their residencies a few weeks ago and ended up having to wait for an extra 2+ hours for the other person with them! That put them back in Santiago after 6:30 p.m. which meant they had to drive home to Sosua in the dark for most of the trip – not a pleasant thing to do especially after a long day in SD anyway. Fortunately, the DR gods were again smiling on us and other than having to return to the cedula office for the other couple, which took an extra 30 minutes, we were back in Santiago by 4 p.m.

We did decide that one of these days we’re going to drive part of the way to SD ourselves and stop at some of the little shops and stands along the way. We’ll also take pictures to put in the blog. A good portion of the drive is very pretty, but it’s tough to take pictures from the back seat of a minivan with tinted windows!

Oh – and the rain. It had rained on and off all day Wednesday at home and we were hoping that it wouldn’t be bad for our trip. And we were pretty lucky for most of the day. It did rain pretty hard for a time while we were in SD. As is true here, it just emphasizes the poor conditions of the roads. For those of you familiar with the Denver area, think of I25 at Alameda during a bad rainstorm. Same concept here – with motos added into the equation!

We were barely creeping down one of the streets in SD in the taxi van, following two motos who were working their way slowly through the standing water. One moto hit a pothole that couldn’t be seen because of the standing water and although it bounced him around pretty good, he was able to keep on going. Well, the second guy wasn’t so lucky. He hit the hole and fell - RIGHT in front of our van! Fortunately we were going so slow that the driver was able to stop before he hit/ran over the guy. The moto driver jumped back up, gathered his stuff (and his ego), and hopped right back on his moto and took off again. You definitely need to be resilient to live here!

We made it home safely – just in time for dinner. Since both of us were tired, we decided to stop at our favorite roadside chicken place. I’ve only been there a couple of times before, but the guy who runs it remembered me. He saw me walking toward his stand and he came out from behind it to shake my hand and ask me how I was. He’s a very nice man and boy, does he roast a yummy chicken! We got a ½ a chicken and some yucca (pronounced yooka) which is very similar in texture to a potato. They have some sort of sauce that they put on both. We don’t know what’s in it, but it is good!

It’s pretty funny – to cut the chicken, he uses hand clippers that you or I would generally associate using for gardening – but they work pretty darn good to cut up a chicken! And the chicken isn’t cut into any pieces that you or I would readily recognize. No asking for the breast or the thigh…nope, you get a hunk of chicken – just look for the dark or white meat. The cost for the whole thing: 125 pesos – less than $4 US. Not bad for dinner for 2 – and we didn’t have to cook!!

Speaking of cooking, check out the flour tortillas Steve and I made Friday night. This batch worked much better than the last batch we made (thinner) and they are SO much better than anything we can get here. We're going to see if they freeze ok and if so, we’ll make a couple dozen. Here’s a picture of the "open faced" shredded beef burrito I had for dinner - using one of those tortillas and some of the good, local produce we get here – YUMMY!!







Saturday morning was the first of many days that we haven’t had rain – or needed to be somewhere/do something. But we did need to stay close to home since Jerry, the guy we were buying the generator from, told us he was going to bring it by around 11-12. So we took advantage and enjoyed some time in the pool, had some breakfast, and did some cleaning around the house. Jerry actually showed up a little early and we now have our generator – yay!! Now we just need to get Michael back over here to make the connection to the house and we’ll be in great shape should we run into an issue again in the future where the power goes out for an extended period of time. We’re hope not to have use it much – but it sure is nice knowing we won’t be facing the same challenges as the last time!!

We stopped and visited with Al and Glenda for a few minutes as we were headed into town for groceries. Glenda had been doing some gardening (she does a lot of that) and had some plants that she’d cut back that she offered us. She swears you can literally just “stick them in the ground” and they will grow. Since we were planning to go to a vivera (plant nursery) in the next couple of weeks to buy some plants, we figured we might as well give this a shot. What’s the worst that could happen?

So after we came back from Sosua, Steve dropped me off at their house to pick up the plants. I ended up with a bucket full. She cut some long stalks off of some flowering trees they have – then cut those into three sections. Again, she swears that we can plop them in the ground and they will grow. We’ll plant them Sunday and see how it goes. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

We ate a late lunch (3 p.m.) and were entertaining the idea of a siesta when our cell phone rang. It was Pam and Dennis. They were in the neighborhood and wanted to know if we wanted some mangos they had picked from their tree. Of course I couldn’t turn those down! They stayed and visited for about 45 minutes – so by then it was too late for a siesta. Oh well….maybe mañana?

After our roadside meal on Thursday, Steve and I decided that we needed to find and try some yucca recipes. I did some searching on the web and found several, as well as directions on how to cut/prepare the yucca. What they don’t tell you in the online directions is that first you have to get all of the dirt that is caked on them off – which is not an easy task since the dirt here is very clay-like. So we filled a 5 gallon bucket with water and put them in to soak for a while. That worked quite well and after hosing them off, we were ready to start prepping them. I was also glad that they aren’t too expensive – I would have been perturbed if we’d have paid a bunch for all of that mud!!

I always wonder what possessed someone to try some things for the first time. Yucca would be one of those things. They are ugly as can be when you get them and frankly, even after they are peeled, they’re not the most appetizing-looking things. But they are a mainstay here – and from what I could see in my online searching, in many countries.

The recipe we tried was Yucca Chicken. In addition to those two ingredients, it had a sauce that included beer, chicken broth, onion (although we left that out since Steve doesn’t like onions), and Old Bay spice. When it cooks, the sauce thickens from the starch in the yucca. We added our own kick to it with a little cayenne pepper sauce. I think I’d add carrots to it next time…it needed a little something else, but all in all, it wasn’t too bad!


Sunday was a painting day. Steve worked on the inside of the casita while I did the outside. We made good progress – but stopped when we ran out of paint (yes, we have more but decided not to open new cans at that point).

We also needed to plant our cuttings from Glenda – or as Steve refers to them – our sticks. Yes, I’ll be the first to admit that I am skeptical that this will work. I’m putting pictures here to document the planting. And just FYI – that thing on the upper right corner of the “stick” picture is a piece of rebar – not a stick that we planted!! We’ll keep you posted on how it goes.





After checking our backup batteries’ water levels and cleaning the connections, we started picking up tools and headed in for showers. Good thing – it started raining not long after that and has been raining on and off ever since. It cooled everything down quite nicely. In fact, we used the cool as an opportunity to bake some pita chips and peanut butter bars!

It’s been a relatively quiet week here – which we decided really isn’t a bad thing! Hope you all had a good week as well. Take care and we’ll be back with more adventures soon!