Shopping in Santa Domingo

Dear All,
Well we are safely back in PR and Mom and I have a rental car. Yay. I have been travelling by gua gua and small buses for a month now so I am tickled to be driving a car again! Mom was in Puerto Rico in the early 1960s. She did her Peace Corps training here in the mountains. We are trying to track down one of her very good friends that she served with in Ecuador who is from here in Puerto Rico.

While we were in Santa Domingo we stayed with Jan and Felipe again. they have wonderful kids, Dally (pronounced Dajee) and Louis Felipe and two dogs. Chiquita and Trouble. We spent two days trying to buy our return ferrt ticket for Mom. It cost me $189.00 for two ways with a chair seat and it cost Mom $140 for a one way ticket. It was so hard to find out WHERE to buy the ticket. The office at the port doesnt sell them on two different days that I went there. Entering DR was an absolute nightmare with about 20 checkpoints. Returning to PR was much much easier. Amazing!

Mom and I bought 3 seat covers used in gua guas or for car seats. Used tough plastic burlap type of bags (similar material used for a tarp) and then fabric is woven through it in patterns or solid colors, like a shag rug basically. Very cool and $4.50 right next to the road heading from Bonao to Santa Domingo. We (I) bought cigars, Brugal rum, guava dulce (sweets) and jam, coffee chocolate, guabanana juice mix, oregano, and some larimar (blue stone only mined in Dominican Republic). Quite a shopping extravaganza and now my pack is loaded. I was so hoping to get my fingernails painted again all fancy on my way out but that didnt happen. I did however find the fingernail polish with a long thin brush so I could paint designs on them myself. We will see how that goes. I will start practicing now so I can paint the girls fingernails in Tess's adventure rec class.

Take care and ............7 days left on my vacation. I am ready for HOME, SNOW, and to see EVERYONE! xx, Georgie