Taking a Break

The beach in Punta Cana
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After roughing it for 3 months we decided we needed a few days to relax and chose to go to the Dominican Republic, a beautiful island in the Caribbean. We booked a 5 day all inclusive package from Quito, Ecuador and were originally told that the resort we would be staying in was 4 stars and located 200 meters from the beach. However when we picked our tickets up from the travel agency much to our excitement they told us that we had been upgraded to the beach front resort.

Once inside the resort we were amazed at the size of the place. It had about 800 rooms along with a whole multitude of restaurants, bars, pools and spas etc. Our room came complete with a king size bed, huge plasma tv, air-conditioning and a free mini bar. This place was in complete contrast to the backpacker style hostels we had been staying in.

We could easily have spent another week here but unfortunately we didn´t win the lotto!!

Shannyn on the beach
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We found the all inclusive system quite a strange and unfamiliar concept. All drinks, even international cocktails, were included and at first each time we went to the bar or for a meal our automatic reaction was to reach for our money to pay. We would then suddenly remember of course that we didn´t need to.

We stayed at Punta Cana which is located on the Dominican´s east coast and is known for having the most amazing beaches in the Caribbean. The beach lived up to our expectations and came complete with pure white sand and warm turquoise coloured water. We spent our days relaxing on the deck chairs and swimming in the sea and the ridiculously huge lagoon style swimming pools which even had bars in the middle of them.

Palm tree on the beach
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In the evenings we took advantage of the 'free' alcohol and huge tv screens (complete with sky) and caught up on all the tv shows that we´d missed over the past few months. We also payed close attention to and monitored the progression of Hurricane Ike. Haiti which adjoins and is located on the same island as the Dominican was hit extremely bad by this hurricane and over 30 people died. Also in nearby Cuba a million people were evacuated. We were very lucky during our time in the Caribbean as the weather was perfect and we only experienced two brief showers.

The pool side bar
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The Dominican is one of our favourite places we have visited and it has added greatly to the diversity of our year long travels. The only complaint that we would possibly make about the place was that the quality of food was not the best. They had a huge variety but it all seemed to be bulk made and not very tasty. Oh well we can't have everything. We could easily have spent another week here but unfortunately we didn´t win the lotto (well not yet)!!