Goodbye, Paradise

Our 6th and final day in Punta Cana... (see day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, and day 5)

We were leaving for the airport at 10:00 AM, so didn't really have enough time to do anything.  We decided to walk down to the beach to have one last look at that turquoise water.

On our way back to the villa, we spotted a banana tree with a bunch of bananas.

The rest of the day was consumed with travel. 

The insane germophobe in me came out on the flight from the DR to Miami.  I started getting really anxious and nauseous.  I was so happy to get off that plane.

Customs in Miami was no joke.  I saw the drug dog sniff out about 3 different people. 

After customs, when we were going back through the TSA checkpoint, the mamajuana I bought in the Punta Cana airport was almost confiscated, but I ended up being able to keep it.

We arrived in Houston around 11:00 PM and then drove back to Lake Charles.  By the time I picked up Lola, arrived home, and showered, it was after 4:00 AM. 

It took me 3 days to recover. 

All in all, it was an AMAZING trip.  My favorite part: surfing.  My least favorite part: the food.  It wasn't disguisting, just thoroughly disappointing.

Since we got back, I have been planning my next trips.  It's funny how going on a trip makes you want to travel more often.





Do you usually feel like you need a vacation to recover from vacation?

Jellyfish, Sting Rays, and Sharks. Oh My!

Day 5 of vacation. (see day 1, day 2, day 3, and day 4)

We decided to do the standard snorkel/booze cruise combo.

We met at the dock and the dancers were there to get the party started.

We boarded the boat.  The water was gorgeous!  It was fun to see all the resorts from the water side.

We sailed to a massive holding tank, where we interacted with de-barbed sting rays and swam with nurse sharks.  I didn't enjoy it at all.  The sting rays grossed me out (although they were super soft, and I wouldn't mind a handbag made of that buttery soft skin...sorry PETA!) and the sharks were sad.  They would just gang up in one corner.

We then sailed a little further out and free style snorkeled.  It was okay, but definitely not the best snorkeling I've ever done.  It was crowded and I kept running into strangers.

I was back to the boat earlier than most because I was ready for a cocktail.  They served rum & cokes and Brahma beer.  It was a Brazilian brew and I liked it more than Presidente.  It was a little darker and had a much less generic flavor than Presidente.  I actually am going to try to track down some Brahma in the states.

Let the dance party begin...

We took shots of Mamajuana.  It is a local drink made by soaking a special blend of roots and bark in rum and honey. It was de-lic-ious!  The roots gave the rum an almost tobacco flavor.  The combo of the honey and the earthy, tobacco-y flavor reminded me of a hot toddy.

Things got really crazy after the shots.  There are pictures, but I would be risking my life by posting them.

When we arrived back at port, all the other guests shuffled off the boat, but we didn't want to leave!  So we hung back and had a private dance party for a little while.  Then the bar tender poured us some Brahma to go.  It felt just like home sweet Louisiana home...gotta love drinks to go.

After shopping and pics on a beautiful old boat,

we stumbled walked back to our beach chairs and napped.

Dinner was at Jellyfish, a restaurant a little ways up the beach.  After our adventure on night 2, we decided a cab was a good idea.

This restaurant was amazing!  We were the only ones in the whole place.  It was right on the beach.  The whole restaurant opened up to the beachfront, but it was raining, so they had the shades down.

My cocktail of choice was the Jellyfish.  It was very banana-y and very sweet.  Not something I would order again.

My sister ordered the pina colada and it was divine.  The creamiest pina colada I've ever tasted!

Hot pockets and calamari for appetizers.  The hot pockets tasted exactly like hot pockets from the freezer section, although they obviously are not freezer hot pockets.  The calamari was good and I forgot the picture. 

My entree was langostines with a side of yucca gratin.

Isn't the presentation stunning?!?!  If a lobster, a shrimp, and a crab had a baby, it would be a langostine.  It looks like a mini lobster, but the texture is the mix of flakey lump crab meat and shrimp.  Sounds weird, but it was so good.  And being a child of southwest Louisiana, I am very particular about seafood. The sauce was a champagne and cream.  The meat of the langostine itself was slightly sweet, and this sauce complimented it well.

The yucca gratin tasted just like my mom's scalloped potatoes, but the texture very starchy and unlike anything else I've ever had.  I loved it.  I was stuffed like a thanksgiving turkey, but continued to eat this starchy, fluffy, cheesey deliciousness.

It was a great last night in Punta Cana!

Have you ever eaten langostines?  What about yucca?

Cookoo for Coconuts!

Day 4 of Vacation.... (see Day 1, Day 2, & Day 3 here)

Slept late because we were out late.  Then walked to the French bakery for brunch and to pick up a birthday cake for my sister, since she was officially 30 today!

We didn't want to purchase a big cake, because we knew it wouldn't get eaten, so we bought a few little mini treats to share with everyone.

A tiramisu.  The coffee/expresso flavor was weak and the texture was blah.

A chocolate ganache-y type cake.  Very smooth, but the chocolate was mellow.  It would have been better with a darker chocolate with some punch.

A custardy wafer thing.  It was my favorite.  The custard was separated with crispy wafers.  It was topped with a super sugary layer of what I will guess was white chocolate, but all I could taste was sugar.

And a strawberry treat.  This was my least favorite.  It tasted like artificial strawberry and had some wierd gel layer of film on it.



All in all, the best thing about the bakery was the croissant on which my breakfast sandwich was made.

After gorging on cakes, we went back to the beach.

After sunning all day, we decided to have a mellow night at the villa drinking cocktails and playing board games.

But first, I tackled cracking my coconut I found on the first night of our trip. 

I was a little confused by the appearance.  It looked nothing like coconuts seen in grocery stores.

Since we only had ikea steak knives and a small paring knive, I had to get creative.  I used a cork screw and my brute strength to break into this hairy beast.

My lovely surgical assistant, Linsey.

After many, many minutes of surgery, I got to the nut of the coco....  I was so proud!  I felt like I had birthed this little guy.

I almost gave up at this point.  This thing was rock hard. 

I juiced the coconut by drilling into its "fontanels" with the cork screw.  My plan was to make a delicious cocktail, but the juice tasted like the armpits of a 350 lb man who just finished a marathon in Miami in May.

That was it.  I was done.  So I passed the torch to Carrie, who went cavewomen on the coconut and busted it open by banging on it with  rock.

It was the perfect size to make me a coconut bra!



The coconut meat was so white and looked delicious.  Wrong.  It was DIS.GUST.ING.

Therefore, I of course made everyone try it and tried to capture pictures of their reactions.



We busted the not so ripe coconut by banging the whole thing on the cement steps of the villa.

My coconut theory is that we are bad coconut pickers.  One was overly ripe and the other was too green.

 If you are ever stuck on a island, I might be a good person to be stranded with, since I have mad coconut cracking skills.

After showering off all the sticky coconut juice and sand from the day, I fixed a drink and we played cranium.  Sadly, my team lost. 

Have you ever eaten fresh coconut? 

Another Day in Paradise

Day 3 of vacation (see Day 1 and Day 2 here)

I am an early bird.  I was awake before anyone else, so decided to head to the gym.

Proof that I attempted exercise while on vacation.

It wasn't open.  So I went back to the condo and ate chorizo and egg sandwiches prepared by my sister and fresh pineapple.

I am a pro at cutting up pineapple!

Then we headed to the beach.  It was hard for me to lay out on my stomach because my ribs were so sore from surfing!

I wore my blue and white swimsuit because it was game day!

We walked up the beach and shopped a little.  I wanted to buy my mom a Larimar necklace (larimar is a semi-precious stone only mined in the Dominican Republic) but the vendor wouldn't tell me a price until I showed him everything I wanted to buy.  Once I picked my purchases, he took me into a back room (scary!) and told me it would be over $300.  Those of you who know me know I can haggle, but they were ridiculous.  I walked out pissed off!  They acted like because I am American, I can afford to pay any price. 

We'd had enough sun, so we decided to grab dinner at a bar on the beach, called Bamboo.

Sarah, Linsey, and I split some appetizers.  Bruschetta, the appetizer platter, and empanadas. 

The bruschetta consisted of 3 slices of french bread - 1 with some chopped tomatoes (I assume it was supposed to be bruschetta), 1 with pesto, and 1 with nacho cheese.  Like ballpark, fake orange nacho cheese from Sam's in a jumbo can.  I love this "cheese" with all my heart, so I didn't mind, but it is what you expect at a concession stand, not a restaurant.

The empanadas had spinach and cheese.  They were okay, but bland and blah.

The appetizer platter consisted of pit in olives (delish! I love olives), some salted meat slices (I fed them to the little guy below), and something else that I can't remember but I think I ate it.

He was happy to eat my mystery meat!

Before leaving the states, we heard about this club in a cave. There was a bracelet you could buy that gave you access to the club, unlimited drinks, and transportation to and from the club.

The problem was you have to buy this bracelet through a tour rep, and since we weren't staying in a resort, we didn't have a tour rep.  

A random shop owner walked by and introduced himself while we were eating dinner (this is very common because everyone wants to sell you something). He asked if he could do anything for us, and I told our club dilemma.  He went and made some calls, came back with another gentlemen who allegedly worked for the club, and we were in business.

When we got back to the condo, some girls were concerned about the saftey of going to this club with these strangers.  They were skeptical that these men had anything to do with the club and they were going to take us somewhere and do God knows what to us. 

After an hour long very in depth serious conversation about it, weighing the pros and cons, we decided to go.  We decided 6 girls to 1 cab driver is a good ratio.  We also mapped the route to the club, so we would immediately know if we were being taken elsewhere.

Best.decision.ever!

The club didn't open until 11:30, so we napped, then got up, got dressed and took tequila shots!

To Sarah's last hours in her 20's

We went to catch the taxi and the shop owner was there to see us off.  Thank god, because the taxi driver didn't show up.  So the shop owner took care of it.  He found us another taxi, rode with us to club, and made sure we got our bracelets.  And to think we doubted him!

This was by far the coolest club I have ever seen!  Better than Vegas!  The outside looked like a castle, mote included, and the inside was a cave, bats included. 

Being the infectious disease nerd that I am, I was of course concerned about rabies exposure from the bats, but they were only in the entry cave. 

                                    

Since we didn't get there until close to midnight, we couldn't waste time getting to the bar in prep of midnight birthday shots.  

To 30!

Vin Diesel?

fire breathers!

freaky stilt walker alien, bug man

cage dancers

fire dancers!

lighted dance floor

cab ride home.  Happy because we had so much fun and so many Presidente!

It was the most fun experience I have ever had in a club!  Bourbon Street runs a close second, but this was different and I've done Bourbon a thousand times.

Where is the most fun club/bar you have ever been?