La Zona Colonial

This morning being a Saturday morning, we slept in a little and then had pancakes and Tang for breakfast in preparation for our first non-shopping, non-working venture into Santo Domingo. When we were finally ready we got in the car and headed east. You can't just head east. The street in front of our building is one-way west only. There are a lot of one way streets in this city. One-way seems only to apply to a handful of people including foreigners. It apparently does not apply to motorcycles, taxis, or people who are driving backwards or just want to go part way down the street. But that's another story.

First we decided we should stop at a store to get some sun block. You never know on an outing how long you might be out in the sun. So, we stopped at the gas station right next to Burger King. I'll explain. In a normal country you would probably just go to the store if that's where you were going. This is the Dominican Republic. When we got to the store we found the entrance and the surrounding street blocked by cars going in every conceivable (horizontal) direction. Rather than add to that mess, we decided simply to move along, so we drove around the store and found a Shell gas station next door, which just happened to more or less share some parking space with a Burger King.

At the gas station, you're not supposed to pump the gas yourself. They have people for that. Of course, they expect a tip. And they're a little slow. Nevertheless, we filled up the tank in our little white Honda Civic, which took about 7.6 gallons or something like that. Gas is about $5.50 per gallon, so filling the tank is alarming. I suppose this is how it feels to fill an SUV, except when I drive away I'm still just a little white Honda and not TRUCKZILLA.

Since we were right next to Burger King, we pulled around into the one available parking spot and went for a couple of Whoppers and fries. We also got a couple of drinks. Sometimes when everything else seems wrong, a whopper and fries just make things better. This was not quite one of those times. Actually the burger and fries were great. They needed salt, but otherwise they were really good. No, the problem was the flies. These are Dominican flies. They just sort of behave differently. They are less inhibited. Or perhaps they are drunk. I'm not sure. In any case, we kept waving our arms to chase away the flies. One of them was particularly interested in Sherrie's orange drink and just fell in and started swimming around. I've never actually seen one do that before. It wasn't an elegant dive or anything, he was just sitting on the edge of the cup and just sort of belly-flopped in. Kind of like a dog, actually. As a testimonial to the depths to which we have already fallen in a mere three weeks, Sherrie just pulled him out and decided it was not a problem. This is the same woman who will not double dip chips in salsa with her husband. Amazing.

After lunch, since we were still parked just past the store we had originally intended to visit, we walked back and got our $10.00 bottle of sun screen. Remember, everything here costs more.

It was finally time to quit stalling and go to the Zona Colonial. Bear in mind that this was our first tourist outing away from the bug apartment, and everything is still just a little creepy. The Zona Colonial would be roughly the equivalent of Old San Juan in Puerto Rico. However, my first impression is that if Old San Juan were compared to, say, a Marriott Hotel, the Zona Colonial would be a Motel 6 in the bad part of town. Really, it probably wasn't all that bad, but our first visit left us with no desire to return. To be perfectly fair, since I grew up in Puerto Rico and spent a lot of time getting comfortable with Old San Juan, this may not be a fair comparison.

Probably the most interesting thing we saw was the old church - the oldest in the western hemisphere. Or at least the oldest Catholic church. It sits back from a park and a statue of Columbus. In the park there are people playing dominoes and sitting on the benches watching other people. We didn't see many touristy looking people. 




 

I'm not sure what's in the baby cart. I apparently was looking at something else when Sherrie took this picture. There were a fair number of people wandering around. There must have been a wedding nearby, because we saw a girl in a wedding dress and a guy in a suit having pictures taken at this little plaza. There was a little sort of sidewalk cafe with three guys out front playing a kind of drum, an accordion, and some sort of scratchy noise maker thing. Moderately charming, I suppose.

Perhaps on a different day and in a different mood this might seem like a nicer place. This area around the church is a little different from the rest of the walking street where there are people trying to sell lots of odd looking paintings and various other odds and ends that might appeal to tourists. Several beggars and street vendors approached us. One guy admired my clean tennis shoes. I am not a stranger to this sort of thing, having been in similar places in many parts of the world, but for some reason this seemed creepier than most. Not sure why.

The walking street is called El Conde. At the end of the street is a fortress wall and then a street and then the river that empties into the Caribbean. The mouth of the river hosts a port for some big ships that you can see in the background here. Again, it looks a little like the forts in Old San Juan, but with a decidedly different feel.

It was a bit warm and muggy today. It rained a bit while we were wandering around and felt pretty steamy when the sun came back out. 

After our visit to the Zona Colonial we went out to do a bit more shopping before heading home. Saturday, it seems, is not the day for us to go to PriceSmart. It is apparently the day everybody else goes there. Nevertheless, we got what we needed and headed back home to wind down from our big adventure.

People drive pretty crazy here, but for the most part I've seen the same stunts pulled in Elk Ridge and in Provo. Still, every once in a while they'll do something that surprises me. As we were driving down one street today, two lanes in each direction, the left lane of my side seemed sort of emptyish, so a car in the left lane of the oncoming traffic decided to use that lane. Having once set the precedent, it apparently became legal and suddenly a whole bunch of people just filled that lane. Pretty interesting.