Dominican Republic Entry No. 1

Getting From Here to There

We are back from our trip to the DR and it was AMAZING! It was such a great week in so many ways. There are tons of things that I want to talk about....things that I found so cool or interesting, or things that I just don't want to forget. I decided that I am going to do several entries from our trip about different aspects, rather than one gigantic entry. Today's entry is entitled "getting from here to there", a post about the transportation- which probably doesn't seem like something worth it's own post- but, I'm telling you, it is!

For those of you who don't know, Kendall served his mission in the DR. As a result of sharing his experiences, I felt quite adequately prepared for the things that we'd be seeing and doing. He had told me a bit about the driving there, but I was not prepared for the real thing!

When we first arrived in the country, we took a taxi to our hotel. I got in the backseat of a fairly old and beat up car and, having been warned of the driving, started to put on my seatbelt. I found one side, but no matter how long or deep I dug into the crack of that seat, I couldn't find the other side of the seatbelt. While we were there, I found usable seatbelts only twice. As we drove to our hotel, I'm sure my eyes were like quarters as we rode with the dotted line going smack dab down the middle of our car, in and out of lanes, narrowly missing other cars, ignored several stop signs, and weaved around the pedestrians that just walked out into the street whenever and wherever or sat on the cement divders right at the side of the lane . I remembered, as I sat there, an article I read before we left. It was some kind of report on the DR and, when talking about transportation, it said something to the effect that 'traffic laws were mere suggestions'. There couldn't be a better way to put it. I'm not sure Dominicans know what a blinker is. I never saw one used. They did use other methods to get across the same message...mostly honking, though we had a couple of drivers that just flashed their lights in warning as they sped through an intersection (ignoring the stop sign) or cut in front of other cars.

We used taxis the days that we were in the capitol. When we went to Puerto Plata, they had a few other methods of transportation that were much cheaper (about 35 cents for both of us) and we opted for those. The first, and kind we used the most, is called a "ruta car". This is a car or van that runs the bus route. They come by every few minutes and you just signal and they pull over and you hop in. Most of these vehicles would not even come close to passing an emissions or safefty inspection in the States. The first ruta we got into was a 10 passenger van. It had 3 rows of seats, but the middle row and been taken out and turned to the side- therefore, it was not hooked into the van in anyway, just sitting there. Also, it didn't have a sliding door. Here is a picture...

The best thing about these ruta cars is that they get as many people as possible into one vehicle! This was another thing that Kendall warned me about, but I was still amazed! At one point we had 26 people in a 10 passenger van. And the weirdest part was that the Dominicans were totally cool with this. If a van with 25 people pulled up for me to get in, I would politely pass and wait for the next one to come by. But, oh no, the Dominicans just hop in and sit on someone's lap, on a floor, or just stand right at the door, half way out of the vehicle. The drivers do try to accomodate seating for as many people as possible. I was shocked when all the seats were full in this van and they flipped out another seat that was folded down. In the picture, you can see this seat is the one almost outside of the car.

We also used the "motoconchos" one time just a short distance. Because of my pregnancy, we decided not to use these, but they are everywhere. They are just little motorbikes that will drive you wherever for really cheap - just hold on and pray!

I was also amazed by how chill everyone was about the driving conditions. As crazy as the roads were, we never had a driver that seemed at all angry. They weren't tense or stressed, as I'm sure I would be. This is just the way things are for them. Crazy!